I watched
for a train
every night
on Mosel
near the river
for years

in rain
in darkness
in snow
I waited
every night

one night
it was cold
I saw
no train
so I left

I saw
no train
on Mosel
after years
watching
dead
track

the cat birds have moved on without me
of course
now replaced by the house finch

i’d hoped to be here waiting
alive still, with the oak tree
whatever shape we were both in

but i sense the inevitable
snapping back of the rubber band of time
closer, now

can i make peace with them going on
without me?
if for no other reason than
to make myself feel better

as is all that man, and cat birds, and house finches,
and all we can all ever do

riding the back of some big thing
smiling
scared
excited
crying

the underbelly of the crushing
machine is a beautiful red
from the blood of its enemies
as the miasmic soup of reasons
that people stand in the way
are mixed together with the cacophony
of screams just like their bones and
blood and reasons are mixed together
creating the beautiful red

oh brother, brother
aurora borealis
ouroboros

look at what you’ve done

now florida is dissolving into
the atlantic ocean

why don’t you take a long look
at my father’s mirror?

and look upon your sinful heart
whose desires were so strong

that we simply had to divide up
the middle east into irreconcilable parts

and we had to fill your blood with
sugar and plastic

because we are just so giving
to our brothers and sisters

who are fatty little piggies who
eat eat eat and get fat

look at what you’ve done

if you shut the fuck up
i’ll make an offer you
can’t afford

lest you work for the rest of your days

i will make a machine that will
filter your blood
because i am so kind, and wise

and if you give me, say
half of your things
i will levy the ocean-side
and save the resorts and
sea-side villas

i will do this in spite of your
fat filled piggy heart
who dreams of fairy tales
and sugary piggy pies
sleeping standing up
in piles of shit
before the hammer gun
shatters your spinal cord

that is what i have done

time cannot travel
backwards

and that deserves
repeating

the sins of the Father
are naught but Holy Ghosts

but the plastic in your blood
is real

and your tired bones
don’t get better
at being tired

wrap your legs
for surety

lash down the mainsail
tight

but forge on
and fearlessly!

for God is out
on these shifting seas

Impatient
but still waiting

time cannot
travel backwards

and that deserves
repeating

its been five in the morning
for many nights now
struggling to find the darkness
in the vibrating glow of you
but all the lamps are unplugged
and the window is cracked
and you could always just leave

yet you haunt the black corners
just beyond closed eyes
and then the foundation shakes
the queen bed lurching
as the hot and the red comes up
through the fissures in the floor

so now I am descending
pulled by reaching tendrils
down from the Great Below
and I see your smile in the dim
and I feel your sparkling eyes
and you cold always just leave
but you didn’t
did you

I thought about the time
you and I got whiskey drunk
and drove to North point Beach
in Van Buren
at 11:00 p.m.
because you didn’t believe me

the cell phone flash
walked us through the secret path
and our drunken feet
climbed the back of the dune
and we watched Lake Micihgan
in a fever pitch
capitulate in the cold
for hours

I wasn’t thinking about death
perched that Christmas morning
with you
overlooking the north side
from an ancient gravestone
atop the second tallest hill

The cold seeped through me
from the marble slab we sat on
slowly honing back the dull
from the alcohol
as the clouds flew by
though there was no wind
to speak of

every now and then
we could see the moon
while we talked about history
all the frieinds
we don’t call anymore
the houses we lived in
there, and there

the trees like fossils
accenting muddied grass
as far as we could see
in the cool poluted city light
we talked about old parties
the drunk and the wet
and the foolish

and I wasn’t thinking about death
in that cemetery
on that Christmas morning
even after all the signs

the cat birds will no longer find perch on
south greylock soon
because the oak tree there is
starting to die
and the grey squirrels almost
fall off the thin branches
when the cat birds land

I am an astronaut
made of
a million or
so bugs

and i look down upon
cosmic rain washing the city

although, not god
I see my own reflection
on the oceans

walking in space
each step, another miracle
“I am not god”
I say to myself

just an astronaut
walking through
space, although

of all things I wield the most terrible power

to your children the beach is magical
but they are only excited by the novelty
of fresh neurons firing

that is for you to know
and them to find out

and their bodies are not much more
than a carbon copy
of yours

and the beach really looks like shit
i mean, it looks just like a
soggy
and impoverished
wet plane
where trash and debris wash up

but we love the beach, daddy!

like how a lion loves the warm and
gushing blood of a gazelle
as it’s limbs go cold and
its life fades away

they don’t tell you what to do
when the high wears off
and you are left feeding on slop
day in and day out

in a big cage
suspended in air
and seemingly
suspended in time
and lined with springs
for to absorb the shock
from any momentum
you may have had or will have

they weren’t your friends
but enemies before
and enemies hereafter
and that’s why they didn’t tell you
is what you finally realize

don’t let it be too late

tonight we rise up
i dont love the reasons
i dont love the means
but i can no longer stand by and wait
non-violence is ignored
my neighbors kill, and i refuse
but i cant fault them

weve been killed, displaced, in the name of their god-given right

it may just have to be
like this

—

it’s like hawaii. they have no right to it. but theyre there….
we have no right to this
but conquering isnt new

though it may be passé

they may not like it and i can both understand why,
and fight back. you kidnapped my family, my neighbors, you meant harm for harms sake

loss is loss. i get it. but

not like this.

philadelphia is an extra long and erratic drum
solo in a jazz set
with a stressed out show promoter in the corner
because it’s 45 minutes passed closing time
and everyone is angry

the band is angry, which is what the extra long
improvised solo is about
and the bar owner is angry because people are
still coming in
and the crowd is angry, looking for that catharsis
from the drum solo
and the bar tender is angry because he is still
serving drinks
and they are all looking for catharsis
catharsis as the drummer goes on

and eventually the owner of the bar
shows up and says
“everyone go home, everyone
fucking leave”
so the band winds down and the people
file out of the crowded space one by one
and the band is there even later, packing
up gear as the hanger’s on try and
talk about the set with the players

and the drummer eventually gets home
to his angry wife, who says
“Jim, it’s 4am, you can’t keep doing this
you’re going to lose your job!”
and she’s right, because he has to work tomorrow
and it’s going to be a long shift because he will
be so tired

and the drummer’s shift the next day is
really bad and the whole time he’s thinking
“i can’t play in that band anymore”
and when his boss remarks on his tired
demeanor he knows it won’t be long
until it becomes too much for him anymore
and after counting up the tips and calculating
for the drive and inflation and the time he decides
he’s not going to do it anymore

so the drummer leaves the band and
the jazz band can’t sustain it so they break up
and the drummer’s boss at work eventually says
“wow your work has really improved”
and so he decides he won’t have time for
the drums anymore

so the drummer sets out to sell the drum kit
and the pawn shop offers him a price that he
can’t stomach, so he goes online to list the
drum set
and gets asshole after asshole offering him
next to nothing for this vintage set
although it is well kept
and the deal he finally accepts
he wouldn’t tell any of his musician friends
even less-so the guy who sold him the kit
which was practically a favor
from another musician
and overall just a sad way to end the storied
history of the drummer’s jazz kit

both his wife and boss are pleased
with his performance after he sells the kit
and leaves the band
and the drummer feels good too

he is getting paid more and everyone
is happy except, well, we can’t call him the drummer anymore
so he’s just Jim now
and Jim goes along feeling well except for
a weird twitch in his right eye sometimes
and that some nights he can’t sleep because he is
worrying away about everything

so one day Jim goes to a doctor and the
doctor diagnosis him with high blood pressure
and depressive symptoms due to stress
and he prescribes some pills that make Jim feel
leveled out but not quite there
and they make the twitch worse, actually
but he doesn’t tell the doctor that part
and one night when he is up fretting
he hears a strange noise coming from the
basement

so he goes to check it out
and it gets louder and louder as he gets down the
stairs and like an insane acid trip he
is suddenly transported back to the bar
and there is a guy just wailing away
during an extra long and erratic drum solo
in a jazz set
and he thinks
“oh, this is so cathartic”
catharsis
he stays for the set and as the people start
to leave, he walks up to the stage and
strikes up a conversation with the drummer
as the drummer is packing up his gear

Jim says to the drummer
“hey man, great set”
and the drummer says
“cool, man, thanks for coming out”
and it’s kind of awkward
so Jim wanders away feeling dejected

tears creep up on him slowly
which can sometimes be the worst kind
so he starts to really let it all out
and before long he is loudly sobbing
like rolling waves of vomit out of his face
and Jim does not go back to his apartment
or his job
and they don’t really come looking for him
so he just sleeps downtown now

that’s what philadelphia is like

you’ve only a vague idea of
which way we should go
and
you don’t know what it will be like
when we get there
and
i don’t think i’ll be any different
even if we do

the birds will be chirping
regardless

what does a scared little boy
know anyway?
but what he is afraid of
and when to run?

so weak that but time
and silence are all that
are required to slow your
heartbeat down to none

i never tuned the guitar i play
for your ghost the decaying tune
keeps track of the time i’ve saved
your memory and one day i won’t
recognize the song anymore
and that day i will put it back
in the case like a coffin

i say i talk to myself
but i am really talking to you
out loud it’s just another
habit i need to break
as i am breaking faster than them
i think i will stop trying

but i beg the fools not to cry
for me but to think for once about
the dead canary at the mouth of their
caves and stop making excuses and
dooming me and you and them and
us all to the same fate as me and you

like a gift from your family
not well received
but understood as a nice gesture
and now ugly and out of tune
in the closet
to be cleaned out
at the end of it all

i am joking with life
but it does not joke back
very often

when i die
i will finally know
the punchline