poetry

pride

poetry

i can’t help but wonder
when i see your smile and
feel your self-worth oozing
through your fabrics
and hear you on the pulpit
biting the heads off the
daisies with such dreadful
and precise repitition:

if this were gaza,
would you be dead?

and if it were

and you were alive

would you drive that

Ford Excursion?

would you import it
on your peasant’s wage
and walk around shaming
everyone for not
saving as you had?

would you be so loud
with a mouth full of sand
or blood?

Set the House on Fire

poetry

keep close to me
you and your mistress
american dream
soon you and your wet feet
will be hot as ifrit’s armpits

your lovemaking was like old books
burning the truth from your head
camping on the carpet of cowardice
a tent made from blankets
but your trailing yellow streak thinks
we’re outside
where

between the madness and the blind she is waiting
her breath is graveyards
she spits headstones and banal epitaphs
dead decades before the deceased
what are you sprinkling on cold biers for?

you hide it so well
you’re so dead inside

so set the house on fire
sweep up your dreams with dust pans
burn her picketed prison
as skuzzy as motel linens

Deep Down

poetry

This life is:

A collection of
Words
Misdirections
Puns and bad jokes
Open ended questions
and one way streets
Spreadsheets
Trailblazers
Square ones

East Sides
West Ends
and all the avenues
Jigsaws and equations
Between
the next traffic light
and equal sign =

Do you hear me?
He loves you.
He loves you!

What are you
going to do about it?

amos. tiger. come on God.

poetry

my sons are held hostage by spiritual forces
which have been hassling me for some time
but are really starting to piss me off.

it’s been two years and they’re still there
waiting to be James Bonded out, and i’m still
here in my pajamas checking email powerless
to change things because of international laws,
bureaucratic foolishness, and folks with
power-trips.

my boys are held hostage and i’m on my knees
with all the power of the Almighty listening
in to my requests but He’s not answering the
way i’d like Him to.

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.