blessing/curse

in the simple
peace in my heart
I agree
there is nothing
but my own fear
holding me back
from loving those
around me
and I am tired
and stressed out
and I am coming
to realize
that the revolution
that I desire
is that of my own mind
and therefore
the world that surrounds me
all of my senses
overwhelmed
with love
cannot be contained
I will die
someday
a thousand years from now
tomorrow
somewhere in between
but the peace
in my heart
will live forever
it cannot be stopped
not by an army
not by a weapon
not by a medicine
not by words
or thoughts
or pain
or fear
or death
or life
or love
or lies
my power
is my own
I was blessed
to hold this within me
the power to change
the course of events of the world
on a small and large scale
my curse is that
I cannot control
the way that love flows
from my fingertips
or lips
my curse is
the endless expenditure
of hope
which will eventually
leave me empty
a vessel
to live inside
and guide us all
home

mirror mine

I've lost my ability to slow down
my conscious heart races
my breath chases wind
but I can't catch up
can't fess up to the things I've done
rivers I've moved to flow
away from the sun
against the pull of the ocean

we mine mirror from the floors of oceans
but see only our ancestry
we look to tress for stories
but they just remind us to breathe

I have failed to mention
that music is only tension being released
and when it's out I am left with a momentary nothing
an emptiness I'll seek out for centuries

curiousity

life is worth living
even though it rains sometimes
and I am not afraid to die
but I still hope it’s not my time
to go

we forge ahead
look towards momentary pleasures
instead of being satisfied
by all that is in front of us

we light candles and begin books
because curiosity keeps us
deep beneath a buried secret
digging for gold
waiting for god

we glorify our pain
even though it rains sometimes
so that no one can see our hearts
we make up our minds
so that no one can tear them apart

simple things

simple things
I want nothing more
you come waltzing through
my bedroom door
like an ancient resident
of the space in my heart
that you occupy
demanding nothing
and so I oblige

I put my fingers
on your pulse points
looking for the skeleton key
I was told
would be hidden
in the sea
of your eyes
I am baptized and forgiven
I am no longer a prisoner
of the living curse
where music hurts
but silence can't survive
and now I know the world
will keep on spinning
after we die

simple things
grab you by the collar
in the middle of the night
in the bathroom while you're dreaming
before you turn on the light
and they are so beautiful
it reminds you why you sleep with your eyes closed

I wear a skeleton key around my neck
waiting for you to show me your lock

I listen to your heartbeat
while you are sleeping
it rhymes like a beautiful song

cranes

my heart aches
when the giant cranes
follow the curves of the road
instead of the rivers
which once guided them home

I am afraid we are making an impact
that we will be unable to
change
reverse
erase

there is a strange creature in this forest
she climbs the dying pine tree's
she hides behind the mystery
or at least what is left of it
a phantom walking barefoot

I have seen her
dancing across the surface of the lake
as if her burden had no earthly weight

Snakes

woke up with a snake
slipping his shiver finger
in little licks down my spinal
cord, a tense spirit being
woken - rose to tip and tail

sweet bell broken
cold water slow to open my pores
envelope sore feet
dress me in a sweet tone of evening
drench my in a soulful scent of being
mold me in the shape you have become accustomed too

then let me change

sold today my shoulders were to snakes

Tea

Sip
my
tea
slowly
breathe
in
the
steam
keep
my
eyes
closed
sleep
with
them
open
meet
me
somewhere
between
our
dreaming
souls
where
our
eyes
can
be
as
black
and
deep
as
burning
coals

The movie

I guess we should just be warm
even if this is that kind of oily coffee you hate
when the music isn't loud enough
and we drift in and out of each others words

spilled across the tree tops
sunlight is blocked by the canopy
so I cannot see if it is early or late
I cannot get up
from this unfamiliar bed
and slip last nights socks
on the wrong feet
for the long walk
back to harmony

today; sunny with a light breeze
seventy percent chance of a beautiful uncertainty

(is that how you put it?
I remember the airport ride
but weren't we silent?
why was the music so pretty? - we don’t like
pretty music.)

today I should just be moving on again
my feet are itchy trigger fingers.

I see us in Boston; but it's a dream of a movie set
everyone is an extra, every coffee shop is cardboard

we are searching hand in hand in snow trying to keep warm
everything is being struck around us,

I call your name into an alley but there is no echo
your hand still warms the skin between my fingers
but you are nowhere.

(like sound, warmth is a just a vibration,
people of sound we are
by definition
but weren't we silent?)

I am leaving here
I can see it now
laughing with my head tilted back
bonfire in my throat
cold city winds want to know

can teardrops melt the snow?

(where is everyone?
where is the wind?
where are we?

-we were silent
and silence
scares me)

finally the credits roll
we are warm. we are steady.

we talk about how strange
it was to be strangers once
now that we are not.

but words are just vibrations
and what comes after love?

Provincetown 01-12-06

Park on a side street
Try to put coins in the parking meter, but it’s broken.
Provincetown AA meeting
Approaching one week sober.

Reading too much Bukowski.
Oh how he thought the world
Was full of too many words
Filling the libraries with aluminum tears.

A man of refined tastes
Women, Chopin, whiskey, horses-
I wonder if I will write better sober
Than I did drunk

Bukowski would have scowled
(But don’t worry, I won’t edit this)
I just hope I don’t disappoint
My mind is just another broken parking meter

Counting impossible time.

Glass House

after the thirty seven dark molasses stairs
breaking beneath my feet
dropping down into the deep abyss
where all noises are silent
I felt my foot touch ground
a cool basement concrete
rooting up through my heel
with the solid force of the earth
calming my nerves
like soldering frayed
electrical wires

a shallow blue pool
crystal water barely moving
seagulls flying through the room
guiding me to
dip my foot in
slip my root downwind until
I found myself
on a cliff overlooking endless ocean

the ground was the color of clay
covering your feet as you walked up from behind me
and sat down

and then I put my arm around you
the way a sister should be held
and you smiled with an understanding
rarely ever found in meditative dreams

and here in this forest
I have found a family and peace
off the highway down the bumpy dirt road
barefoot on the white sand walkways
between the trees on planks of wood
over the bridge to the glass house
where I can sit and let sunlight seep
deep into the belly of the beast
while the mind of a free spirit
is washing over me with weeping wind
as I am laughing through the tears of letting go

standing at the edge of the cliff
throwing memories that haunt me
like dust into the wind

I tell you I love you
give you a hug and a kiss and say goodbye
back to the pool in the basement
back to the staircase
up thirty-seven steps
one last glance

close the door

Lost

"Everything that can be lost will be lost"-Carlos Castaneda

If you lose something
it is meant to be lost,
it just resides somewhere
else for the moment.

Do not go looking for it,
that is as futile as watching
a pot you’re trying to boil.

These are only things;
to think you must

possess them,
it to be possessed by them.

Let them go,
in time they will
grow to miss you
and return,

and if they don't,
live with their loss
as a memory
and learn.

2006 Review 05-31-06

Something is happening that I am not sure I can put into words,
But here is my most honest attempt. Everyone started this year off in the shit.
Somehow something was going on in the universe, and life was just fucking hard.
A few intense personal discoveries were made, but no action was taken.
No one could see their mind changing on paper, or anywhere in their immediate world.
March had a week somewhere in there, where everyone was numb.
We just needed to take our fingers out of the boiling soup and sleep for a minute.

We awoke eventually.
But not before life started sending robot orangutans wielding soft fruit towards us.
We resisted arrest, we kept on pushing through dreaming of a tomorrow that could
Only live or exist in our little heads.
Something was happening though; a long tunnel was beginning to open
One we didn’t even realize we were in.
Suddenly there was a train.
We were blindsided by the beauty of chaotic sounds surrounding us.
Then, all of the sudden, everything was silent.
The sound had been turned off of life for a moment.
And in that moment, everyone realized that to connect more fully with their world,
They needed to pull back, isolate for a moment and reflect on why we are here on this earth.
Now I’m not saying everything makes sense somehow our of nothingness,
But slowly, we are beginning to branch our little fingers back towards each other,
Casually as if pointing out a passing car.
Soon our hands will extend as if capturing the trails of shooting stars
And we will be, all of us, making love to each other in some sick state of mutual harmony.
And we will call it music
And we will call it out loud to each other as a greeting and a goodbye.
And we will all wonder where the sunlight came from,
As we are freckle blasted heavenward without the slightest sense of movement.
In stillness we can engage in a dance which only the wind can understand.

My forecast:
Play in a river with someone you don’t know all that well,
Do something for a stranger or a friend which no one will ever know.
Gather your thoughts, but do not hoard them, for they will go rotten.
Make love loudly on the hottest day of this summer.
Laugh at the amazing coincidences that have created this world which we are blessed to live in.

For Sky 05-31-06

While we are all at a point of reflection
and while the dog is howling for recognition
(or for the moon - but no one is sure)
I pee in my backyard on the fresh grass
which I remind myself, is just a weed
(because I need to feel human)

Planting seeds on the beach
down PVC pipes stuck in the sand
the whole shore looked like
a breathing graveyard of waves
The phone call. The race home.
The way your children entered the world.
The way in which we are all growing
apart, and every day the world feels more connected.
And by connected I mean smaller.

That night we played poker
in the backroom of the bookstore
you won all the money - even though
the only thing you ever had was a
wise grin across your face and ace high -
Maybe. If that. You deceptively beautiful bastard.
I guess we’ll never know.

But I know we will meet again
across a table on a train
you’ll be having a drink
and me, I think I’ll just be sitting there
wanting your drink.
Wanting to be you.

A train to no place important
where business is as usual.

A train that has no track
traveling west of some sunset.

We were both such beautiful children.
My friend, what the hell has happened?

starvation

A million faces milling around
Tiny overpriced apartments
Pacing the periwinkle carpet
Taking out the garbage
Paying the bills

Go to work at the office
Get your coffee from a kid in college
In twenty years you’ll be retired
And he’ll be you.

The television shows you watch,
The things you buy,
The music you listen to:
They do not own or define you.

The route you take to work
Sober in the bar, drunk at church
Paper or plastic, the color of your skin:
These things do not define you at all.

The money you make
The pills you take
The books you read

We all bleed the same color
We all need the same things

Air, Water, Food,
Shelter, Mother, Father,
Friend, Lover, God.

God starves me of substance
Every time I think I need something else
Reminds me that survival comes first.
I am a gatherer of self foremost.
Fostering the heart within
Then family, friends, community, country,
Planet, solar system, universe, beyond.
I am an organism of survival foremost.

(The flower garden does not grow
On sun and water alone)

Empty Castles

I dreamt I inherited a firewood box full of birds’ nests.
These were of the finest quality, each a sort of bird heaven.

So without much thought I got my fathers silver ladder
from the garage and began placing them in the trees
throughout the backyard behind the house where I grew up;
in nice sunny spots balanced on firm boughs.

The early spring scent of colors being born in Connecticut,
the sharp anticipation of apples and grass.
For what do you get when you cut wind in half
but at least another edge?

Next, I am on the back deck
smoking and watching the robins and blue jays
picking up dead twigs once hidden by snow.
Swimming through the post winter air,
unsure of where to go and build a home.

I watch them stop and look at the luxurious empty nests.
They seem dissatisfied; perhaps just disinterested.
I am amazed to watch each choose a spot
far away from the nests and begin their long and
tedious progression of picking up dry twigs and
stacking them on a high sprig of branch.

To be given so easily what they need
eliminates the process, and eventually the necessity.

They sing just like spring birds should,
ignoring the shadows of their neighbors empty castles.

Church

We work in the church
In silence
In the delicate archery
Of sunlight beams
Streaming through the
Stained glass windows.

We sit in the empty pew
Closest too the alter,
We speak of god
In secret whispers,
We listen for the organs echo
But no one plays this morning’s chorus.
No one knows the key of distance
Between our souls and heaven,
Nor why we locked out hearts
In this old church to begin with.

We fill the eternal candles
With lighter fluid from the drug store
On the corner behind the small school
Where the children often swing
Laughing at nothing,
Burning eyes like torches,
Curling fingers towards us.

If god could play the organ
It would sound like this.

Right of way

Deep in the city where everyone has the right of way,
I sleep with my demon who summons the rain.
I meet with my angel in her secret chamber.

Safe from the lightning, (a crooked icicle
bending away from a slice of cold sun)
I feel my body melting, helpless and solemn.

Awake in the darkness, sweat is dripping down my forehead,
dreams that haunted me are now forcing their way out,
and somewhere in the lucid fluid of my bodies inertia

there is a true pulse in sonic wavelengths sweeping
up the pieces of my history. Which I have shattered with
my own hands, which I have left to be judged by god only,

my memories are nothing but gathered dust on venetian blinds
each day I alter each way my synapses fire in the range of
my brain, which is tired of being in control,

but my heart refuses to stop.
My mind refuses to let go.

Healing Machines

“Our bodies are, if nothing else, healing machines” –Cassidy Bowman

Our bodies are, if nothing else
on death row
waiting for the gas.

In Texas, praying for a piece of pink paper,
or a pardon
from a lover,
or a friend
who wants to
watch us go,
a mother or father to politely blow their nose.

Nightly we accept our plastic wrapped,
pistol-whipped complacency
brush quietly past strangers
(our hushed eyes avoiding the dangerous truth)
that we are afraid to take the simple steps into the
dark womb of human communication.

Our bodies, long stretched when laid out,
internal organs playing the loud pulse of our spinning thoughts
caught grinding gears in the cement mixers of our minds,
chattering our rotting teeth like loaded dice,
between which we mutter under the lonely breath of alcohol
“When,
if ever,
will it rain?”

(And so,
we wait.)

Clenched fists eventually calm under liquid rhythms
clammy palms reach to touch innocent skin
twisting handshakes into tunnel vision pyramids.

We find ourselves in black rooms staring at blank screens
begging for a connection we refuse to embrace;

wound in, (lies)
bound by, (time)
mummified but still alive,
praying to be saved.

Blueberry Patch

I’m leaving my mind for your sweet streets
running red lights to shallow depths
my body a clock tower expressing shadows in the
cloud breaks bleak daylight

I want to call your swift name
in my soft voice.

in sentinel languages
our words are media viruses of the mind
spreading slow jam ancient blueberry riddles
backwards through time between our mouths

cracked liberty bells for eyes
stone columns for limbs
smacking together at the hips cackling laughs
where pendulums in the back of our throat swing
twisting time away into little bits of paper
inside a snow globe being shaken
like a snake slithering out of it’s skin
we find new beginnings
at the end of blueberry patch roads
and make bramble love
our eyes full of halos
in the bushes of your
tangled hair
I let my bent fingers run free
like ten naked meadow children dancing
weaving common sense and circumstance
into afghans of courage and love.

I don’t really mind today that I don’t understand.
you take me places I have never been.

Cities

Sick how we change this magnificent world
so it is prettier to look at;
(this font and tone, intentional)
clear cut shear shrub
make way for the city.
When we drove into town yesterday
Mt. Rainier was peaking out from behind
the east side and you said we were in the city now.

But I have been to Johannesburg
seen Boston, Austin, and Egypt’s cryptic tears
and this is no city, though we cross a bridge to get here.

And now the normalcy of listening to you
scramble around in my bed like a hard boiled salmon
is becoming the vague sensation of home.
And I think I like it
(but I’m not sure how) to
get used to (loving
or living) with anyone
but myself.

Well, (how deep the sound
of a wave’s falsetto) another
day (rippled by a tiny
pebble) is coming,

and with it, the blind intention of utopia.

Dead or alive alternative take

Do you even think about me anymore?
Because even in my dreams I can’t ignore you.
Not that I want to,
No, I still want you,
Dead or alive.

Do you obey traffic signs
in the middle of the night
in the midst of a country
when no one is driving?
Do you still dream about
the first nights we spent
in your bed?

I haven’t slept much since then.

oxygen

When you arrive:
(Bringing breaths of life
Into my tattered lungs)

Realize:
(Your presence is my oxygen)

Broken Lantern

Loving you
is sickly vague of detail.
page after page
I flip, reading the
ancient script
of an empty book.

You are not the canvas
and I do not paint.
Great soul mates
never are alike
you might say,
but together
we are here at last,
in the mural
eyes focused
in permanence
on the same empty
space of a room
looking back at us,
and no one
but the children
in the café
knows we’re lovers.

In a nauseous way
like one might feel
nostalgic towards
the planet earth,
after days or nights
lost at or in
space or sea
kissing the dirt
through invisible bars;
the imprisoning
freedoms of gravity.

The archeological disappointment
of perhaps having found
everything that was
meant to be hidden
leaves me digging
through my dreams,
searching for a word
without a language
or a language
without words.

And like a
broken lantern
flickering on
at the bottom
of the ocean,
I wake up
grasping your hand
like a glass of water
spilled across the desert,
which sounds
like a shy cat
playing a broken piano

Lunacy

I am about to go off a ski jump made of
hard plastic on roller skates in an attempted

back flip over the moon.
We forget to hit the anti-gravity switch and

I land on the desolate ground looking
up at the building from fifty yards away.

I try to explain to the operators that one over
infinity equals zero, and proves we do not exist;

proves that numbers are as useless as words,
and the moon is not the only lover I have kept a secret.

You invade my mind with blind meaning
I cannot find beyond midnight behind morning (I was tripping over

last nights bottles searching for a non-existent
glass of water when you iron horsed my heart)

my pulse a jagged fractal of imagined
chain reactions to your touch

which I have only felt in the much awaited dreams
I cannot force on myself as I sleep.

And when seeing your reflection each time
I look into the moons eyes is not enough;

I touch the wooden box inside my heart where you are pent up.
Are you waiting for me to set you free or am I waiting for you to let me?

Each day I polish the tarnished silver key.
I make sure you’re awake and watching.

Cackling a laugh like a crackling fire in my chest,
whose flames and smoke make my heart beat and pump my breath.

The moon’s steam works the clock gears of my bloodstreams venom
screaming inside each lunatic is the lunacy that makes him

(human?)

Casino

I went to the casino
because it was the only place
I could wear my sunglasses indoors

clay chips like crickets chattering
Bells and whistles lights and air conditioning
absolute control
just as once I wish I had cold fingers
the rattle of bones is frantic
monuments to money built in deserts
an empty ocean sand swept
a vast swarms of lonely people like ants
who have lost so much they leave their last hopes to chance

Bells and whistles lights in their eyes
a flicker of addiction that will never stop
an empty ocean waiting to be filled.

Scarf

All my memories went missing
so I'm listening again
trying to collect vital childish information

Why doesn't everyone just come to me
arms open wide with shining eyes
that scream "I'm ready"

because some days I want to die
and some days I want to live
and other days I just want.

and those are the worst.

I have not suffered enough to say:
"I have suffered" but it's enough to say this:
I'm ready to have a reason

a reason to die
a reason to live
today it makes no difference

give me a banana
call it dinner and movie
call it a night and drive home

sleep with the lights on
call my doctor and tell him that there is a
malicious virus eating away at my heart

take two pills - the red and white ones -
wake up in the morning
but don't set the alarm

drive a different way to work tomorrow
maybe you'll show up early
maybe no one will notice you're invisible

and if they do, don't blame them
everyone opens their eyes one day
sometimes it's just to light a match

to cast shadows inside of their grave.
other days we call it by it's seasonal name
assured that we will remember details

time and place. ready the hovercraft
set course for any ocean that lacks waves.
sit back, relax, and enjoy the guilty

weightlessness of air. take notes and regurgitate.
pass with flying colors. fold the flag carefully
set in on the mantle above the fireplace.

teach your children to lie in many languages
tell them you don't believe in the internet.
make sure they know the difference between

things that exist and things that don't exist.
make them tell you stories and take notes in
the morning while cooking eggs and pancakes

pouring mugs of orange juice. tell them snow
is beautiful but let them wear a scarf.
remind them to forget what they learned

lying in the dark.

Swing 01-17-06

Underneath the dock
in midnight bath water
our skin is slippery
when we touch
which is
as often
as possible.

Water flows below the skin of September
the eye of mars, a voyeuristic pleasure,
for whom
I do not know.

But swing we do like children towards
the silhouettes of trees.
Intrinsically our hands hold as close
as molecules allow,

and then we push science somehow.
In the hope that Orion
will take off his belt

and find the corners of our bodies
like a good game of chess,
expressive porcelain horses running helpless in my chest.

Only seconds left before you slip
back into the human grips of airports and cars
children; but not ours, not us.
The swing in the dead wind is helpless

to centripetal force.

All is well

They say
time heals all wounds
but time leave scars like question marks across my body

oh yes,
I've read the news
the flood is killing thousands
and the fires coming soon

sorry love
I've seen all the nothing
I can bear
so I'm staring at the air between us these day

and god is windsurfing on waves of pollination
with a toothpick holding up his turquoise sails screaming:
"luxury and life and love and lips are all the same;
just ways to measure movements that are modern and mundane!"

but
all is well that ends well
and all is well that doesn't end well
as well

Pittsburg Greyhound Station, 7AM

The child born in the bus station cried out
something that sounded like rumor,
it was yesterday then but only
the chipping kiwi paint can remember.

We were discussing the flower farms
of dream, as I traded places with her;
the smoke automatic in its quick
cynical switch of direction.

She had been jealous of the Swedish women
in their perfect multi-lingual blonde bodies
swinging birds of paradise from their ear lobes.

Outside, the stained sky
rained the window sideways
sweet talking the Plexiglas into streaking.

In a vain attempt at capturing romanticism
in that night we played love under the made moon,
I follow our footsteps but only find dune
and the skeletons of broken rules
smoothed soft by remembering.

I find myself walking home by moonlight
with heavy pockets full of secrets kept
and the way you make the smallest perfect sense.

erupting lungs/unaware (in responce)

unaware of nothing
fully in bloom
watching time
slowly move
out of tune

For E.

come lay in the park with me
and close your eyes
violins and taxi wind

your imperfections are perfect
the house with the broken heat
is warm and welcoming when you are here
we brew coffee at midnight
play scrabble and light cigarettes with
the candle that keeps us alive