Wilderness Remains

I glance down at the road, so warm soaking up the sunlight
and lay down on my side, and let it kiss my cheek
My compass falls from my coat pocket, and spins wildly around
it cannot find North, it does not know the way
So I am lost, and the wilderness remains

Now I drink from a stream in the side of the ditch
the water runs dirty, filled with germs and filth
My stomach churns uneasy, but my thirst lays slaked
while my head spins wildly
The wilderness revolves, the wilderness remains

Standing under an overpass in the cool of evening air
a stenchy wind ruffles my long tangled hair
My eyes are itchy and tear in the breeze
the city is a jungle, and I have fallen prey to the beasts it contains
The city will consume me, the wilderness remains

The long walk home

the animals cry and sob from the space between the headlights and
space
the streetlights flicker in my confused vision, but my hand is being held and i have no primal fear
only a slowly beating heart that tells me you are here
so i will keep walking and not think
of what waits for me off the beaten path
in the bushes and the shadows

a smell of incense floats through my brain
tinting my vision and perception
will you love me when you're dusting, spinning through the summer air?
will you love me even then?
will you not abandon me when you're molecules and elements
recharging the universe?

i believe my home is in the sky
i will be lifted high, past the jungle i am tangled in
i clench my fists and rock on my heels, 'i will not not die, i will not die'
my ghost is mine and mine alone, not for yours and theirs to own

i will find my way among the rocks and stones and move beyond their grabbing dragging down
between and past the maps that only show the shadows in this endless town

What I Did On Holiday

lately i've spent my time trying to listen to songs
that bring out that feeling
where you sway and sing, 'hallelujah'

and lately i've been running my dog in thunderstorms
and getting blown about
washed clean by the rain and the wind

recently i've been kneeling in the corner of my room
sick to my stomach
the weight of the world like an anchor in my belly
keeping me here

lately i've been missing you more than ever
more than ever before
or than i thought possible

P.S. I love you still but I'm sure you don't feel the same way, do you?

Dear darling it's been almost three weeks
and thirteen days since I did the dishes
The sun is hot streaming in through the window
and dust is thick in the air and on the floor
I promise you I'd keep a cleaner house
if I just knew you'd be coming home

But the air is dry and hot
and the flowers are wilting
The yard is slowly turning brown
there's no motivation inside my head
The paint is peeling off the wall
strategies for dealing with life are surpassed
By my custom-built idea of living with it

So now crying is like breathing and sleeping to me
i do it all the time, sometimes not knowing why
And drinking, too, I do that a lot
i guess my intellectual aristocrasticity has decayed since you left
But for some reason I don't really mind
my moral superiority was just a stance
Taken by a child, from picture-book examples
i don't know if they were true
But I've never thought they were lies

Vacation

let's break the sky into a million pieces and scatter them inside our heart attacked hearts pushing the boundries of space and horizon twisting the boundries of love and time and leaving us alone in a special place with each other and no one like the the stars all glistening and twinkling in the sky above us that's all ours and only ours, i bought it and kept it just for you my love.

let's run through walls and sink through the earth and walk back through time and find a place where no one knows our faces or our names we're perfectly anonymous naked on a ridge of dirt and plants and rocks and stones over a great city no one ever knew of in a land no ones ever heard of in a time that nobody remembers just together and never apart.

let's lie down in the summer on the cool grass in the hot sun in the quiet forest and forgive each other for not being in our arms every second of every day and fall in love over and over again like the waves in the sea or the air as you're talking to me.

Justify your answer.

It's time for the final doubt
For taking one last breath before we prove our hypotheses
That living can be happy even with another person
You said that twos and threes and fours and fives
Are the happiest people you'll meet
I think we might end up justified

Auto lights playing on the wall and the ceiling
It's the principle of the thing, leaving the window open a hair
I swear it's spring, even if there's snow on the ground
Flopping your arm around me, in your jammies just for now
Warmth is all you're looking for, if I was so innocent..

Busy streets, messy with possibilities
And a plate of scrambled eggs, greasy with affection
That cracked the shells and mixed up the yolk and white
I think we might find out that we were justified
For falling in love with flaws and old photographs
Flannel shirts and lank wet hair

It Lifts You Up With No Effort At All

let's not be trite and cheap and tawdry
let's not have glamour with lights that flash
how about we grow and strengthen
and show our earnestness and life

and move and breath with violent symphonies
expanding pushing changing pressure
becoming more like trees and stars
things not living like you & i are
things more greater than our animal strife
the blood and sweat is wasted currently
the rhythm and the beat of everything moving
universe lifting lifted lifter

wet and damp and cold the rain comes
stinging my face and numbing my hands
wind explode and revive reawaken
bring me back to life and shaking
cold but steady legged, bright eyed and waking

like a-

a poem written like a song like a thing with sound and a rhythm and a melody like a something that came pouring out your soul and you couldn't help it just came and you vomited and you were sick like a party like a something last night can't remember what you did but you did it it's there in your memory like a stick in the mud that you drew pictures with and the rain came and washed it all away but you remember and take it and pour it into your hand and flows out your pen and you're crying but it hurts oh it hurts but you're creating and you're making and this is better than you've ever felt before better than closing a deal or the first night first time first whatever but it hurts but you're better now worth more as a person just like you've wanted always trying to put something between you the empty void you know lies at your core like a shallow pond with new sudden depth and meaning and matter and it just flows and finally you realize that it's over but you can't not do it again so you get some sleep get some rest eat a little then you do it again and again and again and again till you've beaten yourself up and we're done here now there's nothing else to do.

For Margaret M.

i fell in love
and my heart stopped beating
and my breath stopped breathing
and i fell in love

i leaned over and kissed you
and my mind exploded
and my hands decided they should shake
but i leaned over and kissed you

then i tasted someone else's mouth for the first time
and i started smiling
and my heart started growing
and i tasted your mouth for the first time

i woke up in a sweat trying not to cry at the thought of losing you
and grabbed at the blankets
and rubbed at my eyes
after waking up from a dream where i lost you

i started to find out what living was like
after i kissed you
after i realized i love you, and you loved me too
and i'm starting to find out what living is like

dre@m

it's kind of like dreaming
this whole life thing

you live like you're happy, and then
you wake up

you cry like you're sad, and then
you're startled awake

and the thing about dreams is
they don't really come true

but if you're lucky it'll happen to you
you'll think and you'll ponder; you might even obsess

get into therapy, find a priest and get blessed
and one day you'll find

that this life thing's like dreaming
you just have to dream like you're alive

Thrownings

scat t er d s i g n a l s
s pra y in g s p r e a d ing a c r o ss
t h e s k y
l i k e a u t u mn l ea v e s

l i ke ou r l o v e

The Water Cycle

I was on vacation
and the sky fell in
and the locals screamed
and I took a picture

I was in bed
and my stomach got butterflies
just like you were about to walk in the door
but then I remembered you don't walk through doors
around here any more

I was in a church
and I thought it was a funeral
so I was praying for an anonymous soul
'til I looked up
and saw it was a wedding

and then I realized that the living never die
and tears are just water, and rain from our eyes
to soak through the earth
and propagate, and evaporate
and float up in the sky

City

She said "Give me a dollar or hundred for gas
And I'll get out of this town
I have sunglasses and a japanese car
I'll drive so long you can't call it far, because the word's too small"
I responded that the world's too small to get away from here
I've tried before, and when you leave the city you just drive and drive
Until you come to another place that looks just like this one
With drugged up girls who are oh so smooth
Whispering me plans about how they want to move
So far away

When the shivers run down your spine, you'll pretend that they're not there
When you're playing a game with this high stakes, you won't tremble a hair
And the grease and the slick and the sewage in the city
It's the blood of the town
With the soda cans and garbage
Used up needles and half eaten food
If we can clean the blood, maybe there'll be peace in the city
If I can scrub your blood off the walls, that will be peace in the city

And there are too many secrets out in the open for my poor tired mind to take
And too many things I don't want to know and too many things I have
I feel like my soul is locked in some sub-sub-basement
Far below where elevators fall and escalators crawl
Give me a thousand dollars and a japanese car and I'll escape from this place
I'll wipe the grime and the dirt from my face

Driving time

driving;who knows where
cooly invading, the scent of pine
:it's like an olfactory bath: you say
i say that's my line, i say weird stuff like that =
we laugh

and look at the stars

'traditionally the man drives' 'who cares about tradition?'
and i'm okay with that
you shiver and i pull the blanket back on your lap

and
who

cansaywhere

we'll

end
up



not i, perhaps
not i

Hang My Head Low

and I will walk past the beaches where the lonely seagulls cry
and greet the fishermen with a wave and a twitch of the eye
and I will hang my head low, and I will swing my head high
I will sing a bold strong marching tune, I will laugh until I cry

I will wander through through a town that is drenched straight to the bone
I will step into the tin-roofed shack that I call my home
I will start a fire in the stove, and write you a short poem
I will write you a long letter telling you much I love you
Then I'll pull back on my jacket, and start again to roam

And I'll hang my head low, and I'll swing my arms high
I'll drink until I'm sober again, I'll dance until I die
I'll laugh until I'm angry, I'll smile 'til I cry
And love you in the morning, when the birds yell on the shore
And love you in the evening, and when you are no more

My Child

he is thirty feet tall with skin like black granite
blocky and huge, 40 tons heavier than i'll ever be
and he says why can you not see that you are mine
you are my child
i say that i am never, will never be his
can't you see i'm not your child?

he is carved out of stone that was quarried in my soul
and he says, why can you not tell that you are indeed mine
you are my child
i own you and hold you
and keep your head bowed down
you will love me like a father
and i cry

why must you try to lie? i am not your child
you are mine, but only of me
you are mine, my child
my burden and my gloom
you cannot use me, when i made you myself
i am you and you are i
when will you see that you, you are mine, you are my child

and he laughs, and i struggle
to accept and control what is real what is here
find the border line between the awful person i am
and the things that i fear
he says take these problems and turn them to wine
break yourself of addiction, surrender entirely
for you are mine
my child

and i know not what to say
but i am not his, he is all mine
he is mine
my child
my cursed, dark, 30 foot child
watching me with eyes of stone
holding me out of my own home

[Author's Comment; "I see my own flaws in their most vivid form as a great stone child that threatens me. The nature of certain addictions and flaws of personality is to grow to a point where they seem to be more powerful than your own personality. As in, you are a mere coating on the addiction, your personality and identity are a garnish. It is a struggle to turn your point of view from being a growth on the dark addiction, to being a real person with worth who has a growth, a tumor growing on you."]

The Stars Shine Like A Candlelight Bringing Me Home Beyond The Grid

I am a cheating lying bastard
and I feel I am happy with my life
I've made my peace with misery, we sleep together so many nights
I've fallen in love with happiness, she comes over all the others
I have done some awful things, that I hesitate to mention
I have learned to accept what has happened, I have learned to draw a line
The sky is overcast 100%
But I can see the stars
And you are a million miles away
But you've been with me all day
And together we'll sleep in separate beds
And together we'll rest our parted heads
The world will lie, but that's okay
Our truth is present in the silence that's inside of you
Inside of me, inside of you
I promise always to be true
In bright summer days
In cold winter nights so blue

"And I'm pretty sure we need this relaxation
A moment to live without this tension, not at our station
Not counting minutes, not knowing why"

she s l ee p s

she s l ee p s
sound l yy
in her so f t w a r m b e d
with my leg just-touching her's
i c a nn ot s t i r
i do n o t want 2 wakeher
i do not want to wake her

Slow Down, You Think Too Fast

last night I took a chair and sat out on the porch
and listened very carefully for the messages that the night shouts
they all told me "you aren't free"
I promised them I was, they whispered back, "you can't fool me"
I flashed on the yard light and shook my pale fist
who knew fresh air was so caustic to my ideas

and here is where my problem lies, my view's too wide, my gaze is too far
I can see the path right ahead of me, and around that corner, and over that hill
but the one I see ahead of me isn't the one I'll walk
now I see, now I can't see
and my verbosity falls on muteness, my hearing absorbs silence
the trail of my footprints making lines on inadequate

when can I dismiss the world mocking me in all its beauty and over-fatal majesty?
Gimmie a bottle so I can lose myself
Gimmie a place where my soul I can shelf
stupid awkward wording in that godforsaken line

the smell of the pain in my breath is sweeter than the sugar in all the lemon bars your grandma ever baked
happiness is transitory, depression is the pits
and f**k the world, f**k myself, beat this out, the sound of my living breath

The Author Would Like To Apologize For The Pun He Misguidedly Placed In Line #9

I got a voicemail late about 10 (ten) last night (day)
It was a girl who said her name was Ellen and she was the one to blame
that it had been all her fault and she promised never to react like that again
that I could come home, she wanted me back
and would never make me leave again

This confused my bachelor senses, at least for a minute or two
Until I realized her mistake, and gave a sad smile to whoever was looking in my kitchen window
(probably a bee or fly or insect or something, maybe a bird too)
Caller ID furnished a number, and I'd call 'er but I felt a little shy

she'd made a big, huge embarrassing mistake
and my mother's knowledge of etiquette that formed
a good deal of my inheritance had no words for this certain situation

So I took a walk through a moonlight park
and dissolved into the scenery, and walked on water
watched the pigeons proclaim their idiocy with every innocent movement
And sighed, probably at least 47 times