The grass bends down beneath my feet accordingly, only to rise,
rise again
The waves break on pebbles, sand, only to crash again on
distant shores
Pulled back through quiet memories, the soft smoked smell of
mesquite & juniper
Lying in the heart of a gray metal shell, laid length-wise, molded into
a mad-mans image
Falling through old, tired, lives, with such innocence, clean &
unburdened by life
Accumulating this tiredness, begrudgingly ground down, absently
tossed aside
Never asking why, like beasts led to slaughter, not of flesh & bone,
put principle & ideal
Dreams of silver, fading into tarnished piles of rust, distorted image,
mocking faded beauty
Quiet nights spent in the shade of moonlight, watching the stars go
down with you
Dreaming of sunshine as the dew collects on our sleeping
faces
Awakened by the fleeting song of cardinals, staring into lattice-work
clouds

I stubbornly waste time that could have been better spent
daydreaming
I quietly waste lines, fill them with ugly thoughts, should have
laid down the pen
Exhaling the last drag, sudden lightness, inevitably followed by
relentless heaviness
Eyes wide shut
I attempt to slow myself down, but my legs won’t allow it, my
hands plainly refuse it
Though my mind screams for it, fueled by caffeine & nicotine,
crashing & burning occasionally
Always resurrected by your memory, our memory
Faded & worn around the edges like boxes of old photographs,
collecting dust

Living life with everything you own stuffed into bags, two of them, dragging yourself
along
Living for that hour on the phone, once a day where you can really breathe
again
By blind luck or some odd chance I stand barefoot on this cold, tile, floor,
tonight
Coughing out the last drag of a cigarette, waiting for the last load to finish spin
cycle
Crammed into rooms of what were once strangers, now brothers, more so than
blood
Brothers through mutual suffering, who have stood by you in the rain & sun, we slept
with our boots on
I fill the page with thoughts, but crumple them into ugliness, only to try again, my
definition of insanity
Awash in unnoticed silence, bombarded by ignored white noise, that is truly
inescapable
To experience that silence one must sleep, dreamless, but does one even register
that blissful absence?
Or do we simply drift in & out of these days, unconscious of our own consciousness,
simply breathing?
Someone once said “we are all alone together”, truly we are simply alone,
nothing more
When you step back from it, life becomes almost comical, a grand production,
on a world scale
We are so trapped in our plastic & concrete lives; we have forgotten the feeling of
dirt between our toes, in our hair, under your perfect, pink, fingernails
To stand naked in the creek & watch the sun burn through lazy piles of
clouds
We try to remember those things, but it is tarnished, like cheap silverware, stained
like her cheap china plates
We toil & we sweat & we sign our lives away to walk into a coffin, all that’s left a
pile of bones & pictures on the fridge
To fit a mold, to achieve some sterile, dictionary definition of happiness, a tie & suit
smile & a pack of smokes a day
Drinking to forget the sound of the alarm clock, the feeling of that dull razor dragging
across your face
And this page is worthless, like the words “****” scratched out In the bathroom stall,
faded black lines
And these words are pointless, if I hung it somewhere it would be torn down, if I read it aloud
I’d be laughed at
But I sit here & lie to myself again, push another line out of this careless
ballpoint
The buzzer clicks on & I throw the socks in the dryer, they’ve shed their dirt, but mine
is harder to wash away

A streetlamp, spilling artificial brightness, illuminating my
exhaled cancer
Humming quietly, flickering off, on, distracting the moths
lazy tumble
Since April I’ve stared at this same scene, this field of
grit &  asphalt
Brimming with the glossy colored shells of vehicles, now silent
& dull with grime
Sickly yellow light cascading over them, automated, dead,
light
I remember the ocean, so very different to be out in it then
standing on the shore
Watching the swells through a maze of gray pipes, a window
into blue nothing
With a rifle in my hand, the very same I’ve held for many months
now
Sitting under the shade of boulders & netting, watching the
shadows rearrange themselves
Clothing stiff & stinking from my sweat, the dirt worked into my
skin
Wrapped in a poncho liner, boots left on, praying to stop thinking,
merciful sleep
Most nights I can find it with ease, but others, like tonight, it evades
me
At the edge of unconsciousness I am suddenly confronted by some voice
behind my eyes
Teasing me with memories I’m not sure are memories anymore, so much
as scenes from another’s life
Something long gone, like a smoking **** flicked away, or that first breath
on a September morning
Staring into a blue sky, Cardinals singing in the branches

Smashing light bulbs in the dark to see
shattered sparks
Growing flowers to pull off all the petals
individually
Saved in the pages of unread novels, piles of
words
By some madman who had something to say, still has
something to say
Collect yourself for the next day, take a deep breath &
sleep
Because it will likely be worse than today, if not,
rejoice
Because you beat the odds, gamed the game
for once
I quietly thumb through faded photographs, trying
to remember that day
One of them, any of them, something to try for
again
Because I cannot dream anymore, I forgot
how
Somewhere along the line, it all drained
away
Crushed every morning at five thirty by screaming
alarm clocks
Damning me, sending me to hell, glaring red
numbers
Sweating out the anger, childishly smashing my
knuckles to pieces
I am temporary as the clouds spinning 'round the
mountains
One of these days, I'll climb them & try my luck at
flying

The dirt is collecting in the creases of empty
pages
Obscuring the words, my own, not worth
reading
Spat onto yellow notebook paper, ugly
handwriting
Burnt alive in her shell, devoted & destroyed by
her faith
Lovingly left to the
dogs
Carelessly spent like every paycheck you've ever
earned
Wasted on the cheapness of mass produced
poison
Half gone before we began, gone before
we knew better
Our transience mistaken for permanence, out of
ignorance
My belated "I love you" to late to matter
much
Just words by the time they're spoken, empty as
her promises
The sun still shines & the grass still dries, but the
silence has abandoned us
Predicting that quietness, absorbing sterile
noise
Put down the pen, crumple the page, writing about it never
changed a thing

Collapsing by the blue wall where the flies come to die
Where the sun is just hot enough to give you a headache
Flicking embers off, reducing themselves to ashes
Half a cigarette and I’m off
Drag myself up with tired, cracking hands
Push myself on with a bad ankle, old eyes
So many footprints in this dirt, lost its identity
Just a placeholder for a thousand impressions
Grass pushes itself up between the door frame
Green threads in her little blue room
Listening for the wind chimes in their silence
Listening for your footsteps, barefoot in the
bamboo