I am a ghost.

Once lush and full,

I am now lost-empty-

floating through

the rooms of my memories

past.

 

I am no one,  I

am here, invisible,

filled and fueled only

on images of a finer day

which once held me

tightly in its arms.

To each room,

 

I am but scenery,

or rather, a

soft breath disturbing

crisp, sweet, putrid

air, in each pressing moment.

The frigid night air burned

as it poured

through the crevices of my

protection.

Exhilaration, I thought.

It was propelling, all of

it, on the cusp.

The dimmed, lamped concrete corners

awaited my next stumble.

Moments spent
in front of a
mirror not mine in a
bathroom within a
bedroom not mine,
convulsing,
twisting endlessly
into who I am, or,
who I contain inside,
writhing ‘neath my
shell soft and sweet and
I can not let her out for
fear of shock, but
do you know her Power?
Do you know she’s there?
If and by chance you were
to see her
radiance unfold,
only then would you know-
understand- the grave errors of
your will to deny
such a Beast in lady’s
clothing, waiting to
Take you at the first
chance.

Silence filled every crater,

as you crept over Sarajevo Roses.

In the comfort of the night,

you left for life.

All covered in tatters

your soul flew for freedom.

All shrouded in swaddling clothes

you fled with your life.

Bullet casings and thousands of miles,

stood before you and safety.

A journey Mother Mary knew

and now you make your pilgrimage.

No star to give you guiding light,

a road into nothing,

a road into the unknown.

A leap of faith, made in faith.

Only God knew,

what pain you suffered.

Only gods knows,

though omniscience is failing.

A journey of tears,

left a trail in your wake,

but safety crept in,

with the morning fog.

And in the holy morning,

you arrived.

With mountains behind you

and infinity before you.

You brought your gifts,

with your holy child.

And in a bank line,

clouded in smoke.

You were murdered,

told your lives were worth nothing.

And as you trembled,

so did heaven.

And as you wept,

so did the holy city.

But as you died,

those gates did open.

 

there are always things to worry about
there is never good reason to worry
and yet here i am quivering in my shoes
attempting to control my blood sugar
so my brain chemistry maintains itself
drinking my last beer for days
before my mind allows my body to shut down
panic, fear, more quivering.
there are always things to worry about
there is never good reason to worry
“behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened
that it cannot save
or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;”
i ask
i fear
i am not heard
there are always things to worry about
there is never good reason to worry

I’ve never been one for mornings

but with you I rise with the sun.

I crawl from the depths of my

heavy wollen blankets

up the trunks of trees that feel

like your soft skin

up to the emerald canopy

so that I can look out

through your green eyes

at the landscape of our

bodies, creating mountains

and rolling hills, between us,

the shallow valley that disappears

as you, still asleep, pull me closer

to your dreamstate.

And as forests grow together,

so that once a boundary is no more,

we slip together back toward darkness

to walk along the forest floor

“I took a sword one time
and I thrust it in to a heart
The heart stopped beating
The blood ran freely
The sword did nothing
and in a matter of seconds
was ready to thrust again

“and sometimes I feel like
you are that sword
and I wonder how you manage
and I wonder how you are allowed
and I tend to keep my distance
as far as hearts go,
I am fond of mine”

Next to me on the ground
Lay, singular amongst the leaves
Half a cigarette stump
Crushed four minutes in

We may have also
Had three minutes left
Your bright lipstick also
Stained me red

dreams are not real life

dreams are in my mind

dreams are not the future

dreams get left behind

 

when I close my eyes at night

and I see you falling slowly

when I slip into the darkness

and you turn your anger towards me

 

I can’t save you there

I can’t make you smile

I can’t bring you back

I can’t close the miles

 

but the darkness does not last

and when the sun breaks through

those nightmare chains are broken

and your ghostly hold is too

I have been dead for seven days.

I have stolen away to greener pastures.

My family has eulogized me.

My friends have all disowned me.

There’s a box in a barn up on 10th street.

There’s a book of numbers inside.

I never made those calls.

I could have been a better man.

I should have said the right things.

Now I’m buried and gone.

Now I’m as good as I’ll ever be.

I want to make bread of my stomach (hungry one).
It has been 40 long years in the desert, and it hasn’t rained manna once.
I have been the sand, and you have been the wind; shaping me in to dunes.

Our puddle has become an ocean.
I want to make umbrellas of my arms.
Your arms are kites.
There is a rain cloud between us.

I want to make a train of my sidewalk.
I will ride it to my neighbor’s house.
If I can lay the track correctly, I will ride it to Brooklyn, and visit you.
If I cannot lay the track correctly, I will hitch hike, and visit you.
(I have strong thumbs.)

I want to paint my hands green.
Sometimes I lose track of them, and forget what they are doing.
Sometimes, I want to call you. Some days, my phone is a gun.

You promised me 50 kisses once.
Please write me a gift certificate, so I can find somewhere to spend them.

If I was a store, I would sell funny birthday cards, with monkeys on them.
I would be next to a train station, so that people could bring gifts from me to the people they were visiting.
I would give them all the friends and family discount.
I would have a guestbook at the register, but I would never call any of them.

If you were a store, I would make myself in to bread, and sit on your shelves.
Then, I could say, “Today, I was part of 7 families’ breakfasts.”
I would not make my hands in to bread though, because they are green.
And I would not my make mouth in to bread, in case I decide to call you.

Fuck ‘adolescence’
and holding standards without
taking measurements

Fuck snow-globes and play-lands
and long driveways

Fuck feeling like you’re dreaming
when you’re wide awake
and the alarm is too far to reach

Fuck cars that don’t stop
and drivers that don’t go
and long red lights

Fuck Solitary, gen-pop,
thug-life death-trap gangbangers
with nothing, and less worth proving

Fuck gas, fuck rain, fuck taxes,
fuck chasing the dog when he gets out,
and having to smack him when he gets back

Fuck the corporate world
Fuck your ‘adolescence’
and Fuck you

I once swallowed a bucket whole
In an attempt to gain a better understanding of what it is
To produce fresh water
Having subsequently spent 10 hours in a well
I emerged with damp socks
And an intimate relationship with both darkness
And mud

I still have not dug deep enough inside myself
As to hit a fresh spring
And I have yet to successfully summon rain from my fingertips

I look for new ways to give life

hear hear a year’s worth
of sentences
whispered to oneself among
the frenzied crowd
crawling at 8, 12, and 6
buzzing all around a
universe to their own
sentences, sentences,
that perspective’s glare
won’t penetrate

the naivity of this year to come

the rotting of the innocent fruit

and agony whispered all the same
cyclical breezes,
migratory patterns,
and what to the man flipping
through the paper on a park bench?
and what

to the bastards in the alley
or the beggars behind the
woodshed?

The station man said there were
dragons flying in with the northerlies,
for to terrorize like every other
imaginary monster, but
they’ll be swallowed too
when Quetzalcoatl comes

A losing streak an infinity long

we will eat our dead when
burning is no longer cost
effective

Even our saints will be caught
with flesh in their mouths

Even our

mothers will grease the wheels
while the age-addled trumpeters
volley their breath against the silence

war chariots march onto
the swamps, t’wards the dragons
with eyes watching backwards
waiting for someone to save them

these are the days of our lives

the callous cannibals crowing
for corpses with
the great imperial shield
on each chest
the signature verifying
the combined hopes and dreams of
wall street, main street, cork street

, no street in particular

We saw the pyramids fall
Saw the Empire catch fire
saw the machine work its gears
while its printing presses spewed

While its furnaces consumed

While its bonuses were paid in full

There was gold in the
hills thirty
years ago.

Now the hills
are out of bounds.

Now You and I And
God and Everyone are
starved for soul-food;
we languish in our hunger and
we settle for tenth best

Perhaps we will delete ourselves,
or be deleted, or be (continued)

Nothing will change until it changes.

But there are whole truths for this year
and last year
and the next:

-Love,
-Passion,
-Greed,
-Terror,
-That knee-jerk reaction you make
when you think you’re going to die,
-we’re not gone yet,
-you don’t know where we’re going,
-you should keep the good ones, and
-you shouldn’t let poets
lie to you

One by one the ants go marching on,

do they remember why they run?

 

Poor little buggers,

Dont have a soul