Mostly, it’s been
somewhere else, with
largely dis-proportioned, backwards
reasoning that gets between the
bits that seemed important just
a moment (or two) ago.

Meanwhile, Certainty
only lasts as long
as one can remain certain that their
certainty is certainly
well-placed, while
continuing to remember that
only fools are certain.

Everyone knows, though,
exactly what it’s all about, and
and everyone, though certain,
certainly has their doubts,
even in the foggiest of
particularly foggy situations.

There’s a great deal of fog
somewhere else.
Apparently.

I knew it, I blew it,
but perhaps all is not lost, judging
from the lines on the bit that
doesn’t exist, (the lines are there,
just the bit is missing).

Triage is the next step,
weighing options, measuring
wounds, taking vitals and
writing everything on a big clippy-clip
board to be mulled over by the men
in my head with stained white
coats and thick-rimmed glasses.

What to do, if anything.

Herein lies the remains of my
latest bout of uninspiration,
muscles sore and mind on fire
learning things about things I
never new I had to learn before
and it is glorious. Or rather, not
so glorious, as immensely, immensely
satisfying.
Herein lies the crusted bits
from around the outside
of a fully-beating heart

My
Fingers
Ache
wanting nothing more than
dancing over valves
along a saxophone.
But if I were at home alone,
The ache would
blow away,
Most likely in the
key of Bb Minor.

The universe has rules.
None of which are written down in stone,
or anything like it.
Nor are they written in sand,
or something similar.
They exist to
reward
destroy
avenge
annoy
or generally set things on a
path that will (theoretically) create
Karmic (?) balance.

We have not seen this happen.
We have not the science to prove
that these things exist
(reward)
(destruction)
(vengeance)
(annoyance)
in a Karmic (?) sense, but our
eyes and ears and other imprecise
methods of measurement and record-keeping
show that at least one action,
Karmically (?),
is universally true:

Whatever it is you’re looking for,
you will find when you aren’t looking for it.

There’s a dog in the back yard
a barncat in the front, and
the only thing to get between is
rusted, broken chain-link fence
that runs along the property
line, circling the little bit we
keep all to ourselves, so that
our dog can stay in back
and all the barncats can run
unmolested just beyond the
rusted fences, hackles high
and baring teeth at all the
other dogs out on the street.

There are still dirt driveways
in our fair city,
and when it rains these
driveways turn to mud.

Just beyond the parts where
drunk twenty-somethings
climb in to their girlfriend’s cars
to drive past twenty-five shops
that they’ve never seen, only
heard of, there are Dead Tracks.

Foundry coke liters the lines,
the detritus of the pinnacles of
modern achievement
fifty years ago. Meanwhile,
all-but abandoned, mostly-
forgotten two-story buildings
set a frame for unused, overgrown
infrastructure to cut through.

I felt like an Aberration,
ghosting through the unused
parts and counting railroad ties.
Kicking the coke and rubbing
my chilled hands together.
Setting a pace over uneven ground.
Breathing deep the decay of
seemingly ancient modernization.

There are still dirt driveways
in our fair city,
and when it rains these
driveways turn to mud.
I shudder to think
what happens to
the rest of it.

A restaraunt
on Michigan.
people eat there
now and then.
Heard it’s good,
but never been.
Driven by but
not stopped in

Handsome shop
from what’s been seen.
Giant windows,
quite serene.
Menu prices,
though, obscene,
and not enough
to split between.

Fast food joint
on Portage road.
Pizza’s cheap,
the wings, so-so.
Not the best,
though not most low,
So grab a slice.
We gotta go.

Something is not right
about the state of affairs

Something must be done.

Hire a new hitman to
kill the old hitman
and let’s be done with
the whole charade.

I’ve seen far too many Bond films
to die like this.

The best way
to prepare for
a busy day
(or so I’ve found)
is staying up far,
far too late
and reading up
on History
(and on guitars
specifically)
while two loads
of laundry
bang around
conspicuously
with washer and dryer
doing all the work of
two good housewives of
yesteryear,and
in half the time,
I might add (though
one would think it goes
without saying, but
then, not a lot of
people take the time
to realize that something
as mundane as an
electric washer
would get you either
burned at the stake
or drowned at the river
only a few hundred
years ago),
But I digress:
the buzzer buzzed:
I think I can finally sleep.

appearantly my
sleight-of-mouth has
got me in some trouble, as
some people near this
atmosphere can’t
stomach me and mine
(oh my)
so given oppor
tunities I’ve
made my rash decisions
and I’m getting on out
so make sure you clearly
label all your mail to me:
I just might change my
forwarding address

All of my childhood memories
are getting a
fresh set of paint and
a new surveillance system

But Mr. Hugo remembers
when all us dumb punk kids
only lived six blocks from
the middle school,
and any given hour of
any given night, you could
probably see somebody
you knew, or who knew you.

Even going so far as to
dragging out a glow-
in-the-dark football and
charging it in the headlights
of someone’s beat up high-
school car so we could play
five-hundred for about four
minutes out between a
backstop and an old pink wall.

Well, they painted the pink
wall purple, and they
tore down the tennis courts
(that nobody had any
use for anyway, but
Damn it they looked cool)

But the field my old dog
ran through is still just
as big as ever. And the
hill I used to sled down
is a hill that can sled still,
so I suppose, all things
considered, the fresh paint,
it’s not so bad. Now we just
have to put up with Big
Brother.

Feel free to enlighten me
while burning all the worry
from my forearms with a
metal stick and just a couple
heavy disks. I’ve
got all day to listen
while you ramble
over the sound of
me and all this pumping iron
not giving a good god damn.

Satisfaction,
beyond your
apprehension.

Like listening to The Beatles
at a party,
and asking everyone to
SHUT UP,
or walking just ahead of
the conversation, and
con-stant-ly
turning back to ask
“what was that?”
or humming loudly,
coughing up phlegm,
forgetting someone’s name
but
refusing to admit it:
The parts of life that
keep us equal parts
annoyed and satisfied,
depending on our side
of the offense, at
any given occurrence,
are beautiful,
in their own disgusting way.

Now quiet down and
Listen up,
‘cuz this is my favorite part.

And it must be so depressing
to lose because it’s everybody’s fault
While you could have fixed everything
with your silver tongue, if not for your
broken jaw

Scrawling ink across the pages
of someone else’s diary
re-writing certain histories
to make everything right again

The memorandum all but gone
replaced by interjections from
an outside source that, guaranteed,
knows better than the first-hand

Specifically, the details have been
all but ironed out,
but specifically, the bits that mattered
now no longer count.
Periodically it’s best to check
and read our own account
as periodically, details are often
all but ironed out.

Taking time to
look back in
time, and I
find the photographs
of the happiest
year of my life.

And I remember the
people who have moved,
and the others who have
moved on,
and my dog (who’s gone),
and the place I called a
home for
Ten Short Months.

It’s the only place
I really want to go
back to. It’s the
only home I want,
of the handful
that I knew.

Fuck new beginnings.

We are like
little worlds,
each a slight parody
of the next. Each
just near enough
to be the
same system,
with all of us
at least one
world apart.

I see you,
through the
(mostly imagined)
vacuum,
but it is hard to
reach so far.

I will try to land my
craft.
I can not survive
on your surface.

‘Well, contrary to
popular belief,
YOU CAN’T MAKE ME
do a damn thing.’

If that were a
T-shirt, I’d call
bullshit every time.

Because, who needs
reaffirmation of their
personal stoicism from a
T-shirt?

Now shut the fuck up
and go get me a soda.

We’ll let the fire burn itself out,
but that damn log is big enough
to last ’til sometime late tomorrow
afternoon, and that suits me just
fine.