on the morning you failed

January 31, 2009

i awoke to find
the toaster on
my bread all burned
my cereal stale and
my thoughts in a bind

to you i turned
i find i fail

Steely Dan humming on a stereo
somewhere, while we
lean back in our comfy chairs and
ponder, ever-cautiously

Three minds a-wander, way down field
without a place to run to while we
make a day less dreary while we
lean back, ever-ponderously

They said tonight was pouring rain
They said tomorrow, sunshine
I hear Wet on the windowpane
We hope the news was right this time

But no promises

tanka

January 30, 2009

cooling bath water
drastically diminishes
after you step out,
dripping onto the tiled floor,
reaching for a fresh towel.

foul out

January 30, 2009

Stick ‘em twixt a baffle
and a really loud P.A.

let their brains and banter foul out
the’ve never anything nice to say.

i heard myself say
and more surprisingly
i knew myself to mean
as i looked at the plasma,
gloriously clear,
seemingly larger than life,
and sickeningly priced,
just out of my reach
but close enough to tempt;
close enough to make me love America
and want to save her from herself.

lost again?

January 30, 2009

choosing between two
perfectly acceptable alternatives
leaning to the right but never
knowing which way right
will lead because i feel the need
to be committal without knowing
how to commit

and the ground, like my thoughts
slips slowly out from under my feet
as though i’m not walking down this
sidewalk but its moving under me

Other Issues

January 29, 2009

I’m just about
this close
to fight another
fight, but other
issues have arisen,
causing me to
stay at home
and lock the doors.

put on your sweat pants

January 28, 2009

when we wake up
eyes open wide because
we can tell merely by the stifled light
leaking through the curtains
and the miserable muffled staccato of
ice scraping drifting through
the walls
that it’s going to be
a great
fucking
snow
day

its vacation as

January 28, 2009

i forgo my normal hobbies of writing incessantly
living the life i imagine will probably make me
more humble than my prayers had intended
then i pound my feet into pedals basked in
glorious sunshine i forgot existed anywhere in this
barren polluted populated overrun populous
where i find my home, my love, my passion, my people
and when the sun hits the back of my neck this time
its as if to say ‘you belong here’ and the thoughts
of not going home creep into the back of my head
nagging at the horror of the 3 year program in which
i’ve just enrolled in the city of eternal gloom
finally realizing my retreat to writing and basking
in internet lame fame is due to a lack of the glorious
heavenly host as though through iV dripping me
vitamin D throughout my day hoping life isn’t
quite as meaningless as this city i love and these
people i love and this language i cant get enough of
but knowing where sunshine is, i might just as easily
fall in love with these tanned and leatherly [sic] people

today i wont gasp for air; for everything within me
knows its only a matter of time before these mountains are
not my vacation
but home

Open Mic Nite

January 28, 2009

Spent countless hours
of countless nights
polishing the words he’s
written down in
a battered pair of notebooks

Stepped sheepishly
to the stage and
took up, with great
caution, a
microphone.

Then carefully,
whispered the words he’d
coveted so long
so that anyone in the room,
who was listening,
could hear him.

Too bad no one was listening.

warmer times once existed

January 27, 2009

Sticky little red rocks,

Hana’s parting gifts to us

Hidden in our shoes.

mtp

January 27, 2009

in this barren wasteland,
wherein we selfishly
keep each other for ourselves
and the only constant
is the uneasy juxtaposition
of the worst of society,
i dig my feet into the
ground and keep my head
into the clouds.
the natives now perform
the hunt of the white
man, trailing dollar
bills like bait through
the streets. tiny bits
of data containing complaints
from the scholastic elite
on instructors, classes,
how they are totally lost
and confused swimming through
the mediocre course lessons
that hold two car garages
and mini vans above their
heads, and plans to consume
alcohol to throw their bodies
around with,
fly from metal tower to metal tower.
i am unlearned in the artistry of
the vapid.
similarly, the frozen tundra sits
in the distance
teaming up with the
sun’s hard unforgiving rays
to suck whatever life you
had in you into the dead
grass and plants where
young tribal humans used to
live and die. now a backdrop
for the disgusting play of the
American day.

let bygones be bygones

January 27, 2009

There is a beautiful land

small and poor

being alive there was such a miracle

staying alive pure magic.

Sorrow and hope were for free

A little blue bird grew up, flew away

Only in dreams does it wander back

to the broken hills.

Clouds of familiar faces comes a rollin’

soundlessly, endlessly in a black and white scenes

Don’t let them shake the bird of that tree

Even if the glory of dawn comes and goes

the fruit, unripe and sour, longs for more light

Hit it.

January 27, 2009

We’ve got a lot of work to do
so grab yourself a shovel
and we’ll dig
dig
dig
dig
and when we hit rock bottom

we’ll start carving out a staircase
and we’ll climb and climb and climb
until we’re right back where we
Started.

I hope we make it out in time.

this drum hit
at a steady rhythm makes
the walls shake and
the air vibrate
releasing a call
releasing a call
releasing a call

that waits for a response…