poetry

The anatomy of a cold dark night in Honey Brook, Pennsylvania is more or less the same as one in St. Louis or Chicago or Newport (I would imagine. Having never been to Newport I couldn’t say certainly). It’s cold, It’s dark, and being alone could be the best or worst thing in the whole wide world.

poetry

I laundered thoughts
so they were untraceable
in case I am accosted
in the darkness tonight,
out there

No one must know that
I’m so up-beat and
devil-may-care when
this depression’s about

Why, they’d lock me up,
or shoot me dead, or
at the very worst,
detest me.

How dare I make
the best of things
when there’s such a chill
and the wind is
wailing so?

How dare I

for the places i fear boldly going

poetry

where there is no air to breathe
or folks with whom i can commiserate
in a tongue i call my own.

a place where the food brings me joy
but makes me dizzy, threatens fainting

a place where the lack of sun and it’s healing warmth remind me that i’m to look to a city that is not seen, which is not here, that is to come.

a place where i go foolishly by any man’s standard, but where i don’t measure by the standard of men. a place which fills me with utter fear but i haven’t any choice if i hope to speak of greater things to my sons. and hope they’ll remember.

Uncertainty is never certain

poetry

Your whispers mingled with the cold night
and were lost to all but the Devil,
I’m sure,
and I held tight as a precaution
second
and as a comfort
first

and your whispers sounded once more
with my life pressed against your own.
But they were lost once more
except that the Devil that night
was me,
but only in the details.

i wrote this briefly in an airport during boarding because that’s how much i value your eyeballs

poetry

which is to say very little
these days but only because
priorities have gotten the best of me
and frankly i have an all virginia
tobacco I’ve been looking forward to
for a few days which i also anticipate
taking precedence over you again tomorrow.

but until then, you’ll be missed and loved and held briefly in my mind in a caring way you’ll probably hold on to for much too long as though being led on, or misled on as the case may more accurately be.

until then….

Bon Scott, Tell it to me straight

poetry

Even with all the culture and
refinement and every moment
of this modern age of punk-soul
experimental-hip-hop jam-noise
every experience a special and
new one every eye looking just
behind the Billboards or raiding
basements or record bins there’s
still Rock and Roll and it’s all
it ever was and it’s all it ever
should be and frankly sometimes
I just feel like it’s all I’ll
ever need

heroes are great, they save the day and disappear behind the setting sun laughing a fantastic laugh

poetry

something inside is a-stirring and churning
it hits against my cranial box
leaving tiny dots of despair
when i look your way, they shake like salts
so when you cry i don’t cry
i float on cheap red wines miles away
and the moon rise and rise
but i do not rise with it
i jive in feverish moods
in the urban noises i keep on jumping through hoops

so when you cry i don’t cry
i go into a cave deep down below
my hands scribble your name on the walls
to weigh in the math of your existence
and make sense of it
perhaps it’s the childhood years in the eighties
spent staring at pavements wondering
why it couldn’t be lava instead

back then the “future” was such a big word
and when i breathed, i breathed in life itself
i shone with stars and played with invisible friends
i thank aliens for David Bowie and
joyously gazed at candle light
and when you cried, i cried with you
when you ran, i ran with you
I imitated your every word and gesture
sometimes i thought i was you
and when the moon rose, I flew towards you or perhaps
the world twirled twirled around me
drunk with the night air and without a care, i went to sleep
but one morning i woke up to a different you
when you walked, i couldn’t walk with you
it was pitch dark i lost the sight of you- i learned about fear
when you talked, i couldn’t hear you
it was so silent, i counted your heartbeats- i learned about boredom
when you jumped, i broke few bones
it was painful – i learned about gravity and death
So when you cry i don’t cry
and when i feel, i don’t feel at all

Ohio is always so far away

poetry

Every snare hit snaps
a clue or fact
like bullets on an overhead
and this is what reality is

So sometimes you collect
or ask as much
and allotments aren’t enough
but I never fought a war,
maybe I can’t say

Me? I’m a lucky man,
I got all my parts;
factory original and all

war’s a rough business,
makes it hard to think
sometimes

Makes it hard to breathe

and sometimes nobody wants
to fight much more, and
sometimes somebody wants to live
and this is what reality is

and sometimes they fight to death
and sometimes they win.

My soul is hoping,
but I never fought a war before.

so it goes

poetry

a message sent from chaos
arrived in my hand around
four in the afternoon on
the day after a sunday
a day before monday.
a time in existence
specifically for
letters sent from chaos.

sometime before five and after three.

sent from my family
with apologies.

abt snowy streetz

poetry

from my window the light reflected
off the pavement makes the streets
look covered in snow

but they are not covered in snow

and it could look like
alot of other things
too
but it would be none
of those things either

it’s october and it there
hasn’t been a drop of snow

and when my perspective shifts
my perception will change
and i will step out onto the
dry streets and remark
“why there isn’t any
snow out here
at all.”

oceans are unstoppable

poetry

I have half a mind to throttle you
and dash your soul against the sharp stones
at the base of the bluff
that overlooks a vast expanse of ice and sea

and even if you were only cold an instant
I would be happy

and even if you drowned just  a little bit
I would cry these tears of joy
that I’ve been saving all this time
for a special occasion

pizza is moving out

poetry

when you sent the message
that you were moving at first
i didn’t care and i thought
it might be a good thing for
you and for your life and stuff
but then i thought about the
times we had and feel really sorry
that i didn’t talk to you more
because you are pretty cool
i’d go to a show with you
and let you hold my phone
and have my back when things
go crazy
and that’s the kind of friend i want
and that’s the kind of friend
i should ask to stay
when they tell me they’re going
to move out.

Late nights in a small city neighborhood on the bottom floor of a commune

poetry

I am a creature under duress
from the atmosphere
and from the biting vermin
and prowling wolves
and so forth
and we all are

Sometimes when I lay down at night
I hurt with no definition of terms;
an un-named throb or forgotten bruise
or a rash from the bite of a sneaking tick

Sometimes I am afraid that my ears
will never stop ringing.
Sometimes I rub my temples too hard
because even though it hurts now
I’m sure it will help in the end

Most nights, though, I breathe our
atmosphere, and relish in the duress
of it all

miss it.

poetry

seems a while since i’ve graced
these halls and ran my finger
across what was once white and
free from graffiti. art.

seems forever since i paced around
surrounded by friends and enjoying
company in what now seems like visiting
your elementary school at night time
for a play or some other odd event
that was never meant to take up the halls
of an institution so big. so public.

but here i am.

Paw Wayne

poetry

There was more than once
that I tried to picture that guitar amplifier
with the thick carpet and reindstone studs
lined up so perfect. I never quite could.

Dad still has that old painted Gibson.
He brought it back from the dead.
It plays just like it should, but the pickup
still isn’t quite right. That’s okay, though.
The paintjob still looks wonderful.

Dad says that you visited that night,
and I understand that you couldn’t stay long.
We’ve all got places we’ve got to be,
and I think you understand that,
too.

Either way, I’ll play the next one for you.

the kid who saw the devil, his soul was plastic

poetry

the night is falling and
i hear the sound of his footsteps
outstretched and near breaking point
darkness seeps beneath my skin
nothing means anything
we’ll fall in a well in the end
so let’s go smoke city fumes
crawl behind pigeons on the pavement
stare at lights turning green yellow red
we’re twisted beneath delightful wrappers
so dig in and we will scratch against your tongue

misty eyed and woe-full,
we sleep-walk through the forest in your mind
never questioning the hungry ghosts on your back
my my we cherish money in your pocket and
holes in your soul
but in the end we’ll all fall in the well
so go easy as you drink the midnight sky
the clouds you wear on your feet will not last
sweep tears from angels’ cheeks while you still can

what seemed like a flight will turn into a fall
like a stone launching in the air
may come to know that it only flies when it’s thrown
nothing means much
when you’re on the ground

fool with telescope

poetry

more starfish than stardust, I’m
all limb and no magic,
bottom oceaned away from the moon.
even near the shore
I am more
sunken brig than fleet,
moored, now, and cleaning
off seamonkey cobwebs from
my stern,
with its eyebrows furrowed.
Encompassed, I face east
and play west on soft bells
just amber enough to hint
at stargazing, but
only secretly, and my
telescope is full of
fish anyways, so I
seasalt more brilliant
than those murky depths
and grasp at straw moons
that are already ablaze.
And here I am.
with all this water
but not a ship in sight
and so many miles away.

Doctor’s Note from someone who is absolutely not qualified to be calling himself a doctor

poetry

And then there are all those people
that come and go and kick and claw
for no real purpose but to agitate
and here you are with bruised shins
and scratched shoulders

You’ve been running a fever for
probably years, I would imagine,
but the people with the thermometers
are busy checking the boil on their
latest batches of poison
so you soldier on with that fire
burning out of your forehead*

(*fires, mind you, are not so bad
mostly; they warm the heart that
powers the spirit that drives the soul,
but it’s a bit like your carburetor
is putting the fuel in the wrong place,
and I’m sure you know all about that)

Despite it all, you do pretty well.
You cultivated your garden and you
made your spices and I wish that that
had been enough to make you better.
You perform movements now and again
and it moves you, too, even if no-
body is looking

You write. It is excellent.

As for me, I don’t have much for you
in the way of cure. I am no alchemist,
nor a nurse’s aid,
nor a real live Pharmacognosist.
I even put too much sugar in the tea
most times

I can wrap a bandage, though, and I
can get you cold water almost always.
I can even lay still, now and then,
just long enough for that throbbing
in your head to almost go away.

And I’ll do all of that,
just as much as you need me to.