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  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.

there is never anywhere you
can go without there being
things on your face,
they put them there to remind
you of tax day.
truth is, we live in a
glass bubble and are all
slaves to the things they
put on our faces.
little
pieces of
paper
with ones
or tens
or twenties
on them.
and if you ever stop thinking
about them once you’ll be crazy
or homeless.
or goddamn both.

The facts of life is
a TV show and, can be
summarized as thus:

Everything important
in life
(probably)
has it’s own TV show,
or at least a special-
event miniseries

itsa been a bit
since’n we dun
hangyid out
yidiot
tiggerjerbs

Connection points are often stressed
when maintenance is cast in to the bit
where items not maintained are cast,
and then the irony sets in.

Stress causes tension, which can
sometimes create music, but more
often than not it’s easier to cut ties
than to pluck strings, so we go for
the former, rather simpler way about
things

When strings running over long
distances, true or perceived, snap
is when you find out how hard it is
to get those lines to run again

i want to romance you
from the freezer to my hand
to taste you after i pop
open your lid
wrap my lips around
your tip
take you in

i want to feel you
slowly work your way
through my blood
to my brain

and let you romance me
before i reach for your friend

Sometimes I forget what words like
‘propensity’ mean, yet scarcely do I
find a need to find a definition for a
word I use so rarely that I sometimes
fail to understand its meaning.

Although, I often find your own
propensity to using words you hardly
have a handle on quite aggravating,
particularly when often times, I find
you missing quite a couple little ones.

these are you tears
i’ve kept them in my
jar of a memory
to pour out on your ashes
as you pass from this
world to the next
the imagery is unclear
and thats how i want
to remember you

knife and pistol at the ready
homeward bound and moving steady
all in all the surest path
was got by fate alone

seven tried to turn me back
seven now dead on the track
well I may not know where I’ve been
but now I’m going home

after the day a million nocturnal Things
begin to run around in my head

all of the Things and their parents
make such a loud and awful racket

although I am told the Things are
me and I am them and we are all
together,
I have a hard time thinking when
the Things are running their mucks

the Things fight and argue a million
little Thing things,
leaving me all around my room
on different corners of the globe and
so-on

and
when you hear things come out of
my mouth sometimes the Things
slip out and I can’t explain how
it is just
not
me

the birds are sleeping somewhere
around in bushes and hedges along
the sidewalks of michigan,
and today was the first day that the
snow snuck it’s way down in the
rain…
tomorrow is the day that we all sit
and pray and say thanks to the real
big Thing upstairs and for all of the
little to medium-sized Things we have
permanently made in our 3d world
or in our heads, or for the people
that we think we know or that think
they know themselves. and every day
is another that the Things in my head
will spend erasing my memory.

for wife and children
for home and warmth (or something close to it)
for hope
for futures
for friends
for american freaking awesome football
for donuts
for beer
for the hope of better beer someday
for You
for today
for bikes
for health
for comfort
for parental units
for the interwebs
for peace
for quiet
for joy
for the written word
for Your word

Stepping firmly in a long black coat
and a wide-brimmed hat when it’s raining,
refusing to bow his head to any man,
woman, or precipitation, even
if the wind picks up just enough
that his hat is caught up and flies
unobstructed through fresh, wet air
down the city streets.

He’s looking ’round at everything
and everyone that’s looking back at
him (and that is everyone, as no
one dares to try and look away),
taking in the truth of life
and every other little, relatively
unimportant detail.

and the Illustrious Mr. Wilson knows
exactly what is weighing on the mind
of every soul in every crowd he finds,
people swarming over little pieces of
blacktop and garden and existential
bullshit wondering why they’re really
swarming and how long they’ll all swarm for.

Seeing all things reconsidered, Mr. Wilson
wanders through the rain and swarm
and wind, ignoring flying hats and
all the heavy things on peoples minds
and smiling, always smiling, knowing
all the while, he’ll find his way to
sunshine