the sieve and the sand

Going back some places
you remember why you never
planned on coming to some places
anymore, but now you’re there,
and all the people you remember
being people once upon a time
aren’t really those people any more
and haven’t been that way in ages.
Though time has always had a funny
way of making ages seem like
just a T.V. Special on a late night
in another town, when all the lights
had been turned down, and even
all your friends that had been
partying and throwing down are
piled in another room, and
sleeping.

its time to clean out our trash
baggage we love for
others carry the weight

its time for renewal of some
spiritually refined sort
water to wash and renew

these pews are getting dusty
(a generous description of the
one remaining in the pulpit)

destroyed by fire. tried by starvation
parents eating their own children
hoping hunched backs of malnourishment
somehow beat death

its time to clean out our trash
wearing your old shoes isn’t bringing
back the glory days you never had

you never had

There’s a street way on the East side
with a blue house on the corner
where all the people ‘in the know’
direct their closest friends to go
for things the normal place in town
does not often carry

The man that sits all day just in
the den, with a small TV on
takes visitors at gunpoint
(though they don’t know they’re
at gunpoint) while he hears
just what they need, and
with the furthest thing from speed
I’m sure he calls the guy that
takes care of most everying

No one much complains about
the rather large nominal fee, as
when service is rendered, there’s
no customer left unhappy:
the dirtiest of work is done
the laundry taken out, it seems
and no one needs to know a thing,
so shut the door tight
on your way out.

the greats they had
books and
therefore had to guess
and second guess themselves
lacking the luxury of
publishing every little
(later terrifyingly deserving
of regret)
naked thought in all
its
never looked in the mirror
to examine its beard
glory

It’s not the cold makes you shiver,
shaking up your very soul
but the whole world always seems
to be sleeping when you need
a bit of warming up. and though
you haven’t tried it yet, you know
the blanket on the couch
is just not gonna cut it.

want to feel
murakami’s writing?
step into this foggy evening.

There’s sterility
it makes the world so falsified
and no one gets to see
the hard parts or the dead parts
and everyone’s a afraid
to run out in the mud a bit
as everyone is made
to think it’s best to head inside and sit

but when I hear the scream
of a guitar on a real live show
and have to move the tuner
on my shitty little radio
And untuned voices singing out
the realness of their very soul
I’m thankful that sterility
has not claimed all my rock and roll

Of many things I have thought while thinking of nothing
Of peoples and places seen many times, few, or never
And never to be seen in a world not my own
To exist only in the confines of my limitless mind’s eye
To traverse country, and across continent, visiting kings and caliphs
Of these I know and find a location for them among the many others
That know not where to begin or where to end, or if either have ever
But more likely will never have conclusions to begin with
These circles of notions and plays on reflections
Outnumbering galaxies of stars and beaches of bleached sand
At moments, to vanish but only for an empirical time
And once their disappearing act has concluded
There is no mourning as I am capable of waiting until they recur
But should they tarry or abscond, here burst generations anew
With expectancy to outmaneuver and surpass in every way
Though not from a distant ship flung as a helpless babe
Nor extend myself past the boundary of abilities
For risk in exceeding the limitations of my undertakings
I have but to do as I see well and without any constraint
From none but that which binds me and bears my name
If when I should reach sought shores may there be no restraints
Opening my mouth in jubilant rejoicing as I please
Opening my arms to embrace, opening my eyes to behold
Yet should I clench my jaw in grimace let it be so
For without this there could be no conquest to direct
Without this there would be no loyal armies to lead
Without this there would be no triumphant homecoming
But it exists and lives on with blessing and adoration
Blazing pathways to sights unimaginable and equally realized
For now it is with resounding voice I assemble to say
Confidently among myself only this: drive on
Through shadows and solemn streetlights, drive on.
When after all has come to pass, the end will be known
More than in any other moment known it will be apprehended
All these, together on the precipice of everything attained
Will still straddle the white dashes, too many to count
Beholding that somewhere, someone is hurt or dead or dying
But with purpose they pioneer, weaving to roads unseen
While destinations and unfulfilled visions wait to be grasped
Where they will flourish at long last by everlasting fanfare
Before their return voyage, back to lands once remembered

Someone told me today that there was
a good chance if I drove too much
more, my battery would explode. So
we hopped back in the van and
drove the couple miles to the
place that we decided we would
spend our cash on a good meal
instead of a
battery

and then there was this other van
which wasn’t quite as imminently
dangerous as ours, but harbored the
threat of losing all stopping power
at any time. “They haven’t gone out
yet, though,” she said about the
brakes, “so they shouldn’t go out
today.”

And while that’s a terrible sort of
logic, it’s just our way of seeing things,
and anyway,
anybody’s brakes could go out
any time, so what’s
the use in worrying?

He could sense her body shrugging through the dark—
Before she hid her clandestine sigh
By easing backwards, to lay on the September field

It’s not that simple,
She offered with reluctant entreaty

Their bodies formed a ‘V’ shape,
Shoeless feet, teased by the uncut grass
And faces close enough to perceive the other’s breath
Emanating invisible tickling tendrils onto their cheeks—
Her mouth remained interminably open
While she longed for the right words
To emerge in thoughtful and precise utterance
As the scent of cigarettes wafted from her hair

You know, she said, when at last
The silence had become terminal,
I thought it would be colder by now.
Her voice conceded to silence again
And portent understanding hummed
Lucid between their bodies

Broad-leafed branches haphazardly crisscrossed
A universe lit by the trifecta of Orion’s Belt—

He felt the disconnected movements of his tongue
And the surreal vibrations in his larynx,
It’ll get there.

Bald tires spinning
but only in a metaphorical sense
(My Fourbyfour don’t take no shit
from snow, ya see),
with life sort of
ranging out ahead, and everything
at least a mile out,
and no good way to leave
the driveway

But the boots I used to wear
were thrown away the other day
(another metaphor – Red Wings last
forever),
and these new boots just make me
feel like I can
walk across the planet, just to
get to where I want to go,
and worry about the stops
I need to make when
that order for new tires
comes through.

Now where’d I put my coat.

yesterday you could not speak
nor hold a spoon

today you learned to airplane
on my feet
you couldn’t get enough
i got tired

and then you learned to body slam

i’m so proud of my little girl.

Do you remember the day
that you and I
met God?

He was drunk, as I recall,
and the sun was barely
setting,
just behind the stand of
buildings
where the galleries
all hang their works of
art, and such.

He walked with a hobble,
and a cane
to fight the hobble
as he hobbled up
and squinted;
with a five in hand,
he shouted:

“I got a five dollar bill, and
I’m going in to that building
right there.
You’d better be playing
when I come back out.”

I asked him, just for
the sake of
politeness,
what he particularly
wanted to hear.

Do you remember the day
you and I
met God?

Because the
next thing he said
was,
is,
has been,
life:

“I dunno,
Play some jazz.
Fuck ‘em.”

its harder now
though you’ve not been gone so long
i know you wont return
and i miss your touch

i took your skin for granted
too seldom gazed into your eyes
held you as often as i could
still it proved to little

its harder now
i know you wont return
and i miss your you

and the smoking hot package in which you came

There’s a crumpled up poem
at the bottom of my briefcase -
or maybe there’s a crumpled
piece of paper at the bottom
of my briefcase with a poem
on it. Either way, within the
decidedly-less-than-delicate
folds of that piece of paper,
words that I, at one point,
thought would go well together
are stored, just beyond
the level of consciousness
reserved for more pressing things,
like reading and eating and
singing and playing and driving
and breathing and everything
except pulling that poem out
and letting it out so that others
can read it and see, with their
own two eyes and their own two
heart-and-souls, weather all those
words really go together after all.
(I hope it’s not too crumpled).

on this saturday evening
when winter has finally
arrived
i’m sitting in the cafe
reading a book
admiring falling snow and headlights through
the foggy storefront window

while behind me
a disheveled man
unshaven
sits on the couch talking
to himself

Sam. You can’t sit in here and talk to yourself.
You need to get out of here, says the barrista
to the man

but Sam continues
sitting there and talking
to himself

Sam. Beat it, says the Barrista,
with words thrown like punches over the espresso machine

Sam slowly stands
and amidst his perpetual babble
says something quiet and coherent:
I’ve nowhere to go,
then without missing a beat slides back into gibberish

he shuffles by my table and
out the door (which, when opened, jingles
and lets in ephemeral snatches of hissing tires)

through the storefront window
Sam’s lips continue moving, muttering
curses
incantations
or

prayers.

two weeks on an ice
cold floor make even
one night on a guest
bed seem like a full
year in heaven, that
is if heaven could
even feel this god
damned good.

16 and probly still innocent
by most accounts
upon showering i discovered a
track of land (if you will)
about 5 centimeters long
perhaps 3 wide
and crusty as can be

14 years (if we discount those
in diapers) of build up can
leave quite the impression
(i remember to this day after-all)

when soap first met your crusty
surface and you were wiped clean
you were as fingers after a 14 year
venture through the hot tub

and i don’t know who to blame for
failing to teach me my own anatomy
if the public school system or my
own creative-less imagination is responsible

for a memory i’d entrust to words
a decade later.

ice-cold wind and it’s ilk chills
- nay, freezes – the landscape
and every man, woman, child,
dog and windshield wiper in it,
slowing all things (except maybe
some excitable folks’ blood pressure)
a comparable fraction, though
everyone in the frozen landscape
can just barely feel it, even if they
can’t quite tell.

That’s the place we are these days,
shuffling around outside, not standing
still for fear of turning in to
whatever would be the closest thing
to stone, cast for our eternities
as statues on the sidewalk, only
freed once all the ice-cold wind
has blown itself away

counting every moment, every movement captured
shivering in starlight, all the sunlight chased away
until the heavy morning after, candles burning fast
as night-time finds it’s way, not to endless shining
evening, but back in to brightest day

Cities squandering their acres of development
as every soul and surveyor inquires to where
the money’s spent, and something calling, pointing
towards the landmark centering the dream; it’s
hardly heard as blueprints roll to cover up it’s scream

And listless! Like a tiny floating ship atop
the widest sea, the serpents swimming ’round
until the churning waters cause the crew to
flea, least they capsize and be swallowed by the
demon that does surely do it’s worst if just
to do the whole contingent in

Though sleep must surely come to even perfect
places such as these, with fires burning finally down
and breezes whispering through the trees decrying,
as much as any breeze may that Paradise is usually
not more than one day’s drive away

my hope for the future
burns outside my loins
slowly annoying another
part of my already aging
once invincible body reminding
me that where futures lie
therein lies failed dreams
and strived for things
i could merely ever hope

obtainment is for the weak
strivement is for the strong
these words are for you

Defeat me, oh Lord,
Tear down my parapets,
And break apart my iron gates.
Splinter my balustrades,
And scale my stone walls.
Storm my battlements,
And crush my fortifications
With your battering ram.
Release me of imprisonment
And recapture this city.
Siege me, oh Lord,
Sever the snares of my soul,
And purge me of myself.
Unshackle my chains,
Ransack my courtyards,
And pillage my keeps.
Set flame to my resistance,
And burn my idols to ash.
Rescue me, oh Lord,
From my spire of defiance.
Rebuild the aqueducts,
And construct the irrigation.
Declare your conquest,
And proclaim your triumph.
Assemble your mighty reign.
I have surrendered, oh Lord,
The crown belongs to you.

We’re living in the country where
the West had to be won before
the rest of us had somewhere nice
to drive to on vacations.
Two full days will get you to the
coast, or so I’ve heard – two more
days will probably get you back,
unless you’re waylaid by
a savage band of countrymen who
aren’t content to coughing up
pay-outs for your little clay chips
at the end of a long, drunken evening
of pulling levers and shooting dice.