Saturday, December 26, 2009

We Thought We Won

We've come so fucking far,

we've

come so fucking far,

And now we give up for
cheap breakfast,
Costco deals, box sets like you can't EVEN believe
Because we've come so far and we think that
THIS, it is,
We've conquered it,

Western Materialism is our science,
our perfect craft.
Our comfort is a finger snap.
Our comfort is easy.

We've given up and
we don't know.

Nuclear, brownskinned, hungry, thirsty,
ambitious, underdog

change is coming.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Wronger

Those 'live by the day' fuckers, I bet they've never seen a real tomato, the kind that we used to grow before the green in the sky.
Something's happening again, but it doesn't matter anymore, something's always happening,
so it just is.
They're living by the day and planning in their sleep, their cubicles like empty stomachs but knowing they'll return,
how many have forgotten the color of a smile,
how many have forgotten time,
fuck it, the old man was right and we're not able to govern ourselves.

I don't remember the moon and I can't see plum any longer,
as I go forward my memory goes wronger.

Becoming...

Needs to do something drastic. Considering arson. Just need for something to happen.
Set a few of you on fire. Laugh. Those of you who don't provide everything I want, when I want it. Not able to read my mind. I'm becoming more important in my life all the time... my needs are getting hungrier. Like insatiable headline news.

I'm aware of how wrong I am becoming. And I'm aware of how quietly it's happened.
No one's noticed anything...

Saturday, November 21, 2009

There Isn't Enough Praise, Sex or Money in The World For Me

The only score is sitting it out,
in dreamless sleep.

Monday, November 16, 2009

You're just an Idea to them

The name is so much more important than the man,
the flesh forgotten for the word that carried meaning
from the paper to the crowd the crowd the bleating
masses breathing need for anything to believe in.

The name is so much more important than the man.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

It is...

With the killer hands, the lips all red,
your favorite eyes all rounded out and
almond shaped,
to take the light from my old place
to take the days and days,
and take the time that we had left,
to take the place of seven sisters holding on
to the child of your deepest heart,
your heart

To save, with the killer hands,
to save a life and kiss the reddest lips,
that's the wish that you whispered in my ear,
but no, it's better than that,
because you die in the morning,
suddenly, it's the most beautiful thing
I've ever seen,
suddenly...

It just is...

Friday, November 13, 2009

Sense of Direction

If I'm walking toward the back of a moving bus, what speed am I traveling and in which direction?
And if I'm walking toward the back of a moving bus, driving on the surface of this planet hurtling around the sun, what speed am I traveling, and again, in which direction?
And if I'm walking toward the back of a moving bus, crossing the surface of this planet hurtling around the sun, the sun a speck in this galaxy careening through the universe, what speed am I traveling, and again, in which direction?

I guess I want to know,
Where am I going and how am I getting there?

Moment

Indeed the love that I have has touched a place in your hand,
in your palm, a crease that tells a story of the future eating
away at the past,
and the now is an intangible moment,
a beautiful
fucking
blur.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Wrong

A calm like a life
a home like a hat
a cell in the mouth
a ticket to last

A pocket like dreams
a joining of wind
a second hand kiss
a moment of skin

A letter in red
a blanket for lies
a favor for trust
this impossible height

Wake me up
Wake me up

A friendship erased
a guilt, my guilt
not yet faced

Monday, October 26, 2009

Hungry

Most definitely racking up caloric deficit,
Overdrawing on my body's credit,
No time, no god damn time to catch up,
My appetite fled with the season,
Fled with the season
Fled with the season

Sunday, October 18, 2009

But when can I?

The things I'm made of now, like
a draw towards the aesthetic, a
tugging for something real yet vague and
undefined,
it has my name written on it, it was
in my dna, my blood
22 years now it's been waiting but I
haven't manifested its
ism.

I haven't done it, I haven't
been
it.

I have to wait.
I can't die yet.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Nearly Constantly Misguided or A Flawed Perspective

Halting the ark,
when you fuse my sadness with lips,
touch hands with fingertips
and pray that mother don't succumb

Halting the ark, the arched back
upon my mattress sends shivers through my spine
and I, I, fuck with dispassion and furious strength
all at once

Halting the ark because I'm drunk and I need to vomit,
the world spins against itself, orbitally clockwise
while the liquor spins counter-
this truth is cruel

Woman
Friend
Where are you tonight?
Why have these four years been so wrong?
Because I am not pathetic I've been strong.

But strength misguided faults everything.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

For Myself

As if the Ocean chewed the stone to make the cliff,
and battered everything and everything,
we came to the water's edge
to find our own truth within the romantic.

It turns out that they told no lies,
and all I know is
they told no lies.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

1:27

I like a heavy scotch glass
rum, coke
the absent stillness marrying frantic silence
and wrapped in a blanket of foam liquor insulation

Real emotions actually rise for once
but bloom too early, never reach the surface
fade

I'm indescribably grey again

2010 Version 2.1

I have to tell you something.

I'm sorry.
Because I was masturbating while you were pouring your heart out to me last night
on MSN.

I'm sorry,
that this computer screen in front of me is a fogged window that I control,
that I use to keep you at a distance.

I'm sorry, that you only see what I want you to.
Profile: polished.
Stats: carefully biased.
Likes: tailored to help me
fit in.

This mask is powered by Google.
This multi coloured cloak was designed on Facebook.
My soul is a One and a mother-FUCK load of Zeros
stored on a server somewhere in California.

I'm [not] sorry.


Friday, October 2, 2009

10:40

When I couldn't stop the water from falling from my hands
and I couldn't keep the carpet dry
I had no place to sleep, I had no place to sleep

The cigarettes burned themselves to peaceful endings
my lungs were thankful but my lips pleaded
My goldfish watched


Friday, September 18, 2009

Tired, Mad, Sobering

Television, oh God, stop!
Really, it's obnoxious.

Who was on the phone? Uh, just, later.
Where's the time gone? I had so much to do,
and then I had a few drinks.

Lazy fuck, or distracted- GOD!
I can't take the noise.

Toronto, fuck you.
Cement, queers, ugly
fucking
shoes,
go to hell.
This angry spill is...
angry!

Or should I be more articulate?

Something like,

if lips could touch the soul,
I'd kiss my sad rage into your heart,
breathe sorry for me into your mouth
and take

if lips could touch the soul,
I'd paint chapstick all over and
kiss/fix your cracked and swollen spirit
only to doubt you

And still, after all that,
the television is being an asshole.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Twisted Gut

"At my desk again, sick to my stomach with the self loathing of realizing I'm not achieving my full potential.

My peers don't inspire me, I react to their success with waves of nihilistic self-doubt; despair.
I need to share with someone wise the neuroses that hold me back.
I need a mentor who won't attempt to console me pathetically, who won't patronize me.

I need someone to tell me what to do."

Monday, September 14, 2009

Planets

You give me gifts
planets within
I have never been more grateful
to a woman, to a friend

for stars and planets collide after
millions of years of their dancing
love

and the space remembers everything

Irving jumpier

Irving Jumpier
strange man but always a friend
he left only his dark dark desk behind
and a broken pen
inkpot empty, miles deep
human mice were friends to keep

Irving Jumpier was a liar on paper but he spoke well

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Perspective In Wheat Fields

Our home stands delicate and loved
weathered boards, splintered faces
a skeleton
coal grey skin, trembling fingers
the horses here only shiver now

our home breathes dusty air
the smell of hay and cool soil

on the road is Dog
my friend
he's getting on in years

the fence that runs our meadow hunches low now
sore backed, ragged
the wind and rain have beaten it down

so long now

and all this swims in the snowglobe in my mind while I think
only seventy generations we've come
seventy lives of seventy years

the trembling farmhouse doesn't seem so old anymore

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Sleep Talk

Leave a man at the door leave hands in pockets
leave wishes and rose petal voodoo
leave smoke
leave more

Leave seven pm alone leave the ice cream cone torch bearer
golden lock, cherub cheek, ice-cream-cone-torch-bearer gift from god himself
leave the book and the thorn

Leave your heart of scorn
and leave your questions

Where I've been is nobody's mind
So leave mine

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Inventory

I have
Sore thumbs,
No money,
A bit of a buzz,
A little love,
Tired friends,
Sirens,
Restless hands,
Tired eyes,
An empty glass,
Crossed legs,
Quiet vinyl,
1:30 on the clock,
Tired friends,
Not much time,
An urgent need to urinate,
Rum munchies,
A little love,
Sirens,
A heavy stomach,
Hunger

I've got
So much
To learn

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

15,000

I know what I want but I hate how I'm getting there.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Frustration Ad Nauseum

I want to open up my head and let in the Universe
Let what Is flow into me without the blur of these primitive senses

Five senses, all jumbled and begging for attention and colliding
In this mind at this moment

The I wants to explode with the frustration
The Overwhelm
***

Imagine a glass jar filled with water floating in the ocean,
the only way for the atoms and molecules to share themselves
is to pass slowly, eternally slowly through the glass.

I'm dying to pop that lid off and be with the Ocean.

Funny, I think dying is what it takes.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Quiet

Cancer mouth
Speak freely of the face you saw
Schizophrenic diary, dual entry
Paint a picture in blood
Paint a picture in guts
The more morbid, the better the story
Be a dark one, paint a dark face
Put your hands into the hole
Put yourself into the grave

Sleep and be free
Cancer mouth

Sleep to me speak
Speak to me running blood
Run blood to the valley of my dreams
Dream me the answer
Answer my riddle
Riddle my night

Night, a cold place
The Earth a quiet time
Sleep to me speak
Speak to me of Earth

Killer

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Midnight 1 A:M 2 A:M 3 A:M Sing

How bout we open up
Logic and mind to three ideas
One, Love
Two, Peace
Three, Earth
Idiot, industry won't save your skin
Idiot, I won't be found within the city city beating heart
the city city beating life

Hey,
go outside and
see the sun, your mother sun
sing thank you
sing


Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Struggle

Swallow your pride, with a little salt water,
with the tide
Tell him anything, tell lies
Overboard there's a squid and an ancient sailor
Be the raft, be the life preserver
Overboard there's a squid and an ancient sailor
Please just be the calming of the water

These Days

I've got a Love so hungry, it's chewing holes in my chest
And I'm aimlessly leaping only to find myself choked
on a three day chain


Sunday, August 9, 2009

Jeremy The Tall

I am Jeremy The Villain, three eyed
peanut butter fingered eight years old
and caped in red

A stick, a stone, dirty handed and alone
on the street where I will grow up until I'm ninety two

I am the Red Racer, and a kite running genius,
the King of hide and never found

I invented anti-gravity the same day that I
wrote a novel about my adventures with trees,
trees that spoke that speak to me and bark the night to birds

I am Jeremy The Terror, mortal enemy of the closet monster,
the business suit tentacled psychopath, a man shrouded in cancerous black
I've seen his briefcase, seen the eyes that peer from keyholes deep deep deep
Keyholes meant to keep

I am Jeremy The Strong
I am Jeremy the Tall
I am Jeremy Whatever I Wanna Be

Friday, August 7, 2009

Liquor and Peanut Butter Granola

On a Friday night

A Song For 2035

The sun is in your eyes
and it comes as no surprise
when you're lying on your back in the field where you grew up
Thinking about clouds tattooed on palms so old
staring into all the holes where God might be
Exploring all the space around you
tearing up the place to find the
questions to the answers and you haven't got the cancer
but you know the burning know the burning
in your palms

The sun is in your eyes
while the river bed it dries
so you lie upon your back and sing the songs of dissolution

The sun is in your eyes
while the field openly cries
to God to God about the poison in its Earth
It can no more give birth to seed to root to bleed to human fruit
it cannot grow or gray or give
it cannot any longer live

The sun is in your eyes
as the Earth it slowly dies
as the madmen hypnotize each other
signing the God songs of war

And sadly,
I don't believe that art, love or lsd can save us.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

A Dark Song

Sixty years of a smile I imagined I had mastered
And all that time I smiled through disaster
Sixty hours isn't comin any faster
Well now I'm the slave,
and you're the master.


Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Watching

A man sits down at a desk, the chair legs whining across the old wooden floor
He lays down a single sheet of paper and a pen
For a while, he stares at the paper, and then his hands, and then again at the paper
He begins to write
His writing is long and sad, elegant in its melancholy,
The words spill on to the pages like tears, he writes

In the audience, no one talks, all eyes are on him,
In his boxer shorts, a t-shirt, an old button up

Fake sunlight pours through a fake window into his fake room
The stage is the only place alive in that moment, all eyes, all souls existing for his story

He finishes, he leaves the paper, he walks out the door

The audience is alone

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Halos and Hard-ons

Don't confuse wanting to fuck a woman
with believing in God

A Song For No More Heaven

I was lost
in the wilderness
in despair,
disrepair
with a hollow,
with a horror
with sand
in my pockets

And Jesus
he found me
he told me
heaven's gone

So I sat down
by a river
and I cast my
soul to see

There were mountains
there was water
endless water
open sea

There were mountains
there was water
endless water
all for me

And then Jesus
sat beside me
and I asked him
what he'd do

No more heaven
no more salvation
no more prayer for
eternity

And he told me
to stay here
by the river
with my soul at sea

With the mountains
with the water
endless water
open sea

With the mountains
with the water
endless water
all for me

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

I'm Not Crazy

I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you I could love you.

"I'm not crazy," he said, furiously scratching his pen across the page. "I'm not crazy, and they can fuck themselves if they try to make me believe it for an instant."
"Relax James, you're going to burst something." Steven was usually right about these things, but his determination to offer unhelpful advice was bordering on sinister. James straightened up from his hunched position over the desk. He glanced once more at his testament to passion and then took the papers and placed them alone in an empty drawer.

Meanwhile, we're all born with mothers, but some of us have lost them.


Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Kodachrome Loveletter

Last Sunday, in the orchard by your favorite pear tree
you said, "Stop, the light is good here,"
and you took your camera, and fiddled the knob
and dialed the fiddles and you adjusted something,
just right

And you said, "Now hold still, I love you."
Snap

Now I know it's a beautiful summer, and I think that you love me,
but winters come and love isn't always an Evergreen

What I'm trying to tell you is this,
that a picture's worth a thousand words and you just caught
a thousand of my best

Like honesty, kindness, gentle, forever...

But I've got more words than all your Kodachrome could capture

Like marry me...

I want you to keep more than just my film,
Keep me

Monday, July 13, 2009

Exhale

Who, new-tongue
say it ain't so
Cast indecisive trifles from tip toed moments
and embrace the inner weird

Tell me I'm beautiful for who I am but
love me any-me, for who I strive to become
or what I say I will become or even
the me I dream about

Because I paint you those dreams and you taste them,
licking all my canvases, searching for the salt sweat
mingling with sweet promise, the pleasure and satisfaction
of Me realized then materialized then actualized then third eye'd,
and in turn I taste my own why's and what's and smell the cleaner air
I breathe easy for a while

Later,
Beautiful Sunday, 8 a.m window light requiem,
songbird orgasm, yellow, pale blue,
one moment of truth and then fresh coffee,
and snapping back to reality, and bills, and drudge-fuckery,
being a grown up, within a child's cage within an adult's body,
in the boy-world of men, yes, beautiful Sunday 8 a.m window light requiem....

Wrench

She enters our conversations with pistols drawn,
drawing angry faces in the clouds with a scowl like ashes,
and laying her hands upon the glass jar that contains my love,
she squeezes and black bile and tears flow from cut fingers and broken glass


Gravity

When I was a boy, I could throw a baseball farther than anyone on the street,
and when I was a boy, I could ride faster on my red bike than any kid on our block,
and when I was a boy, seed spitting was my kingdom and the neighborhood kids, they were my people.

When I was a boy, I took fireflies at night and threw them so high in the sky, whole constellations were born.
When I was a boy, I was a God....of hide and seek.

But now, I've got more debt than any Dad on the street,
and no Jim, John or Steve in my neighborhood could top my blood pressure.
I haven't met anyone yet with bigger hemeroids,
and it seems like the only line my kids are at the front of is for their first welfare check.

Things were lookin so bright for me,
but then I remembered, "What goes up must come down."

Shit, see, when I was a boy, I could still defy gravity...

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Soul

When you eat your soul with a
helping of gracious smiles,
candid I love you's, and
stale soda crackers

When you eat your soul with honesty,
and with charm

When you eat your soul with the one you wanna be with,
and you're both sitting in the back seat of your first car,
it's raining the fattest drops, the ones that'll drown the ocean,
and taking off your clothes is the last thing on your mind,
when you're there, in that moment, eating your own soul

You get a quarter and you find a payphone, and rain or no rain,
you call me up
Cause' I wanna know what satisfaction tastes like.


Thursday, July 9, 2009

Shoelaces

The shoelaces that join our feet are longer than the summer days of our childhood,
when I would wear that ragged costume of Peter Pan and you'd be Wonderwoman.
When we'd fight the phantom crime of imagination, and never grow up doing it.
When kissing came long after Crayola, skinned knees and multiplication,
after spelling bees, climbing trees and the longest games of hide and seek I can remember,
the ones that go and go until we all come out to find you, "It",
asleep in a field, with a butterfly in one hand and the moon tattooed on your dreams.

Those shoelaces are long, longer than four years of college in another province, in another world,
the shoelaces that join our feet are longer than the names I gave to you.
Longer than the riddles your grandfather knew, longer than ten minutes of silence at eight years old.

The shoelaces that joined our feet have worn, frayed, faded.
Now I want to replace them with a wedding ring.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Dream Within Waking

I have lived this life, even though it is not mine,
I have loved friends and family, ghosts now

As I awake, back from where I started,
I feel the ache of longing for that borrowed time
My heart breaks for the illusion lost,
I would give anything to be back inside the dream.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

While

While we immerse ourselves in the echoes of animals
while we pray at an altar of plastic goods
while we dance blind in pools of crude
while we gnaw at the Terran jugular

while we sleep the day and wake the night
2009 discontent
2009 anxiety
2009 impatience
2009 uncertainty

while this
while this
while this I hope

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Bed

I'm sitting here,
at this childhood wooden desk
my usual hangout, and I'm thinking

I want to spell the poetry of Man
but I've got to go to bed.
I want to scream the secrets of my skin
but I've got the go to bed.
I want to dish on the dreams I've been having,
I want to fish around in a puddle of words,
I want to take Truth, Gonad and Amnesty
and turn those three words into the
Nobel fucking prize for literature,
but I've got to go to bed.

I wanna talk man,
but I've got to go to bed.
I wanna whisper strange incantations that I composed just to sound cool,
but I've got to go to bed.
I want to stay here all night helping the Universe realize itself
through conversation with the sky and my offwhite keyboard:
"Hey bro, I'm you, you're me, everything's gonna be okay."
But instead, I've got to go to bed.

So I close up this laptop, I take off my socks
and brush my teeth wishing teeth didn't need brushing,
and I climb in bed with a pen in my hand and a notebook under the pillow.

And when I wake up, that notebook is full of human souls
born scribbled in a stranger's hand.

See, whether I'm awake or asleep, I don't have to worry,
because my process doesn't stop.
You can't kill my creativity,
you can't beak my pencil.

So I'm going to bed.

An enquiring mind is not something to mind

God Bless Google

Monday, June 29, 2009

The Book Of Humans

Seven shelves of lies bound in leather and skin
Billions of lives all recorded within
So many hearts, they're all fostering sin
And who is the judge when we are all kin ?

Dreamcatcher

I don't need a dreamcatcher
I put a notebook in my pillow,
and in the morning the pages
are filled with the poetry of sleep
scrawled in a strangers hand;

The Book Of Humans
Padme Khan

2000 Faces of Love and Hate
Duality & Choice
"If I asked you which you believed in the most, Love or Hate, what expression would I capture within this portrait?"

Tea for Dinner, Blood for Breakfast
Two Suns at Noon
Pearl Spektor Pays Respects

This is the poetry of sleep

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Kill Me I Love You

She said,

"Come and join us please
on the corner selling pamphlets for fifty cents apiece
and please and thank you's,
and smile like you know the human heart like a book that's been read a thousand times"

I thought,

Kill me I love you
Kill me I love you
That's the mantra of the human heart
That's the language of my unconscious

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Fuck You Modern Days

We've been hanging in the poets room
that languid place with the stale air
and the stuffy atmosphere of trying-too-hard

Our plaid has grown threadbare, our calluses boring
the coffee is old, the generally accepted confusion
isn't confusing anymore,
because we've all figured out the pattern
where there wasn't supposed to be one

And we're trying hard not to see it,
but our anti-uniforms aren't so anti
and the young ones look just like us
and we seem to be mocking ourselves in them more and more

What's old is new is old before it's new again
Maybe we should go naked

It seems time for a shift but to those who know,
the change in scenery is just an illusion
because the patterns repeat, ad naseum
ad nauseum
ad nauseum
ad nauseum
ad nauseum

We need the atom bomb.

I said that before.

Two

So that when my creativity passes the bottleneck of laziness,
it spurts in such a chaotic mess that
I become paralyzed and dumb

With this frustration comes that sure understanding
that we all need the atom bomb,
we all need to die now.

We all need a purge.

One

There's too much to say all at once,
even if I'm bound to this typewriter
or this pen, even if I'm chained to this desk,
there's too much to say all at once
and I no longer function
productively.
So I pour another drink and consume
the world through my eyes and ears,
immobilized.


I Never Finish

In between the lines you read to me
I hear the beating of your heart say
"Take me to the forest, take me to the forest"
As you read I fall asleep, my eyelids heavy,
my fingers warm and numb

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Today - ∞

Today I found a dead snake under the porch. It was so dry and for a while I wondered if thirst could transcend that unfathomable barrier of mortality. So I buried it and poured a bucket of water over the fresh soil. I felt merciful or compassionate in some poetic sense, but later I decided that all I'd really left behind was a wet dead animal, buried in the ground.

*

Today I sent a letter to my grandmother. I'm twenty-one years old, she's eighty-something; I'd never done this before. The letter simply said, "Grandma, please don't die too soon. I have too many questions."

She died that afternoon.

A week later, I received a letter saying, "Sorry to disappoint you, but that's life."

*

Today I read a book I thought I'd never read before. I was wrong though. I've been reading that Bible for years.

*

Today I saw the sun and the moon share the sky, and then I saw the Big Bomb fall from it.
A wall of black one hundred feet high and dark as a mouth raced outwards from the centre.
That black mouth ate everything on its way to me. I smiled.

*

Wholesale

Human hearts, wholesale
Hollywood cleared the shelf
And now they'll sell them back to us
Eight dollar tickets at a time
But when you get yours
you'll notice that things aren't the same
The thing they called Romance
just makes you a creep


Monday, June 22, 2009

My Consuming Question

Where are the brilliant women?

Ilustrator

Illustrator,
lying on your bed, it's probably damp and stale down there,
and you're scratching away at something,
and I'm thinking to myself,
What's your story?
Who are you?
And in your head, one thousand feet above the city
scratching away at something still,
my pencil's snapped but yours remain unbroken
so I'll live a little longer
in your eyes as you lie calmly in your bed.

That Room

The room with the wing chair and the skin lamp,
the velvet curtain covering an obscene canvas
that room with the smell of embalming and stale forgiveness,
that room, your hideaway

You're in that room,
with a pearl handled letter opener in your hand,
and no letters
You're in the room with a sound like subterranean clockwork
Your room, your haven

The room with the whispering library, beautiful souls trapped in pages
Your room with the rose carpet stain, the perfect likeness
Your room with the raven, the cat
You need sunlight and the wind that will forget your past
And I need you with me at last

You've been in that room with
your third eye closed, and
I've been waiting too long

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Delirious

Purple heart, virgin hands
Machine oil celebration
Chakra of Choice
Base of Honesty
Temple
Pillar
Slaughter lamb
Delight in walls, in paper
and safety too
but Home, with mother's cancer
and her knowing eyes

We don't need trains for tracks
we've got many feet
and strong young backs


Nostra Algia

When we were children
we had names for the summer, like
swimming, watermelon, running

O.I.S.S

Look, when they said
Overboard is sinking ship
We prayed for the dead
Overboard is sinking ship
Fight the angel tooth and claw
Overboard is sinking ship
Must obey the mortal law
Overboard is sinking ship

*Some of these words are [somewhat] borrowed from Amanda Higgins

Sad Flicker

She sat on the bus, all in blue,
something second hand with
worn platform sandals on her feet,
headphones in tangled hair,
talking to the window, and
Laughing occasionally in timid Mandarin,
twitching from time to time,
like the sad flicker
of an ancient lightbulb refusing to die

On the subway I sat where I could watch,
but I only got the back of her as if
she had no face to show
She sat, chin glued to the window's edge,
eyes wide, dreaming the waking life,
that of long time drug use
Then she left, that station
seeming as good as any other
But with the fraying of that woman,
you could hear the weird tweaker requiem



Saturday, June 20, 2009

Love/Hate, Binary Like Your Painting

It's a hard hard thing for me to hate
harder than carrying water in my hands
It's a hard thing for me
to let myself tumble with that voice that says
"Hate her, hate her"
But I listen to my stomach's weight
I know that heavy hate

But at times I am an empty room
where curses fly off walls
Echoes in the hollow of my chest

And my mouth is a cave
I am lost in it

I hate you/I love you

Thursday, June 18, 2009

I Think I Exist To Be Heard

I miss you telling me I'm good
I need that validation

Wash

As loud as a whisper
our hands tell the stories of our hearts
Stories of silicon disillusion
and two dimensional days
Fly away while you can
escaping this century
Hide, hide, hide away
from the heavy gut
Hide away from lazy
Hide from time
Hide from consequence
Hide from thine

As loud as a whisper
our tongues spell the song of extinction
As loud as a whisper
As sharp as a knife

Silent Heart

My heart is a sound
and it goes

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Disclaimer

There are three things you should know about my story:

1. I can't ever decide where to begin. If I could, I would write an entire book of disclaimers, endless forwards, an interminable stream of author's notes, each more sudden, more urgent than the last. The only reader who finds this more aggravating than you, is me.

2. My book is about that one, singular purpose of my thinking existence - that which consumes me. Women; a memoir of gratification, and spiraling, frantic introspection. These stories of addiction and weakness, and moral instability are often pathetic upon examination - I feel pathetic writing it too. Which leads me to my 3rd point:

3. I often find myself suddenly realizing that, while everything matters, nothing matters. I find it quite difficult to complain about anything at great length, or explore the pathology of my lifestyle with any serious effort, when that which was before considered to be pathological, is suddenly regarded as harmless, unimportant, or benign.

Is this book simply an ill constructed sob story, designed to validate my neurotic exploration of self pity to be passed off as epic tragedy worthy of reading?

Monday, June 15, 2009

One Hundred

We're having visions you know,
something of the future, a taste of the present
Black holes shout from our arms,
the lips of modern disappointment begin to pout
We've forgotten how to cope, we were promised the Sun
The roses in my eyes have bloomed madly 
and seen love mingled with hate
Last night I dreamed I was swimming in a sea of 
cellular phones and God was made of plastic
I dreamed that a pair of hands would crush
the last white bird
A mob would come
One hundred years from now, we will say
Oil came, oil went
One hundred years from now we'll sleep under
new stars, new skin
Things will be very different,
One hundred years from now.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Trois

I fell in love with those triangle eyes,
those light triangles underneath,
that three sided heart,
the three lines in your palm.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Summer

Tell me to tell the trees,
to tell the secrets of the bees,
the honey waits for air and kisses,
wings and promises,
the grass it listens
to the sky and to the sun,
I've found my love, 
I've found my love.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Drowsy Divine

Who's been looking for clues of intelligence 
 out in the distant dead light,
We wash ourselves in the song of curiosity 
and ask "Mother, where are my brothers and sisters?"
Why do I paint these things? Why do I dream of three eyes 
and a handful of soil? Why do I hear the prayer that hums?

If this planet spins through the sky outside the sky, 
then I'm a traveller sitting still.  
And I lament my stillness until now, when a voice
told me that I've been hurtling through the sky outside the sky, 
that I've been spinning with God Mother, moving and never moving.

I'm tired and sometimes sick but the gravity of this cosmic love is always. 
I wanted to be always, until now.

When I realized that I was,
that I am.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

My Reason To Wake Up Through All The Bombs

My soul is a message,
my heart is a map, 
my mind is a canvas, 
my hands are the light.

My fingers the compass,
my blood is the voice,
my temples a magnet,
my eyes are a door.

I am, who is the Universe.

Monday, May 18, 2009

2:05 a.m

Yep, I've been talking to Life again.

When I'm Sad, I Sit And Write, or Is There A Recipe For Smiles?



Is there a recipe for smiles?

How about really good sleeps with dreams that I remember
or Navel Oranges
How about tea in the morning, wrapped in a blanket next to someone you love
Sunshine that doesn't burn, a breeze that doesn't chill
A pen-pal
A teacher who knows you
Brave, "ain't afraid of the dark" hand-holding
And clean sheets

Nervous kissing
Long haired love
The language of the soul

Always
Infant smiles, infant hands
Long long long hugs
Longer friendships.
Friends.
Friends.

Skinny/Love

so happy/sad
so bittersweet
tears on upturned lips
ghost of a girl I don't know how to meet

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Laughing With

When you wrote that
you wrote my soul and
you were my heart

When I read that
I loved you and
you didn't know it

You still don't
but you keep writing
and I'll keep loving

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Mom

Grey cardigan on the lamp post
White fan on the desk
Teal blue typewriter on top of the dresser
Blankets in the chest

Laundry in the corner
Dust all over the shelf
Dishes collect on the headboard
I'd clean but I've got no help

I miss my momma
I don't wanna grow up
I miss my mother
I don't wanna grow old
I miss my momma
Responsibility's not for me
I miss my mother
Mom, please don't die

Monday, May 11, 2009

Stomach

My stomach weighs heavy
weighs heavy it
feels like stone in
stone
a ball of tenseness
staring stone
It's heavy

Sunday, May 10, 2009

A Thought?

Contemporary expression 
is looking like a journey into
Meaninglessness and the
no strings attached exploration
of aesthetic dimension.

"If it feels good do it," has become,
"If you can feel it, do it."

Pure, Meaninglessness, 
set to the rhythm and the 
pulse of established beats
and known frameworks.
Unintelligible aesthetics. 

Hipster Scum.
I smile politely.

A Night

Righteous brigand
Vexing gait
Holy octet
Rainbow plait
Wizard fret
Golden bow
Eyes of white
Seeds to sow
Mystic mirror
Mountain pass
Septic whispers
Tongues in brass
Careful prayer
Morning arrow
Thirsty oil
Temple three
Ochre moon song
Dusty chant
Forest sorrow
Pious cant
Driftwood chalice
Crown of light
Revelations
Welcome Night

Saturday, May 9, 2009

"Cathy" ?

You called me last night
My phone was off, which it never is
Call display doesn't work when the power's down
Strange and bad luck, alas
Your message was nice, but no callback number
Shit
Shit
Shit

Call me back, leave your number, Facebook me

Such is life

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Sidekick

The Android threw it all away
to play show tunes with a Relic...

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Lily White Jiggling Terror

I remember it well because she came down naked from the open porch onto the gravel driveway. It was somewhere around 1:30, pitch dark. As I said, she was naked, endless rolls of fat dancing and jiggling, but somehow, she'd thought to put on her slippers. Pink, the slip on kind with the open ankle. They were sort of fuzzy but worn down - they looked sad.
She waddled through the snow and to the shed door. She fumbled with keys in the lock, and finally managed to open it. She entered.
A scream tore through the silence. She came out the door again, backstepping quickly. Then she fell, tumbling back on her huge bottom. Her cry was pathetic and gut-wrenching. 
A shadow emerged from the shed, huge and- 


And then I left. That's all I remember. 

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Check

I have a pencil and a toothbrush,
a coat hook, a feather

I have everything I need for an alchemist's dream
I have what I need for this night

I have a book and a black pearl,
I have the Christ moth, a crucific
I have a capful of Jack,
A brand from the coals
A coat hook, a feather,
A pencil and a toothbrush

I have everything I need for a Wizard's dream

Therapy?

A therapist? 
Isn't that just a prostitute for the mind?

The Question On My Mind Is:

Who am I to you?

She's Sick # Two (2)/ Perfect

Dead eyed in the blackout they made you
They conspired to kill you
You used to come to bed with
Fevered eyes 
And tell me about Christ
And the Tree
 
But now you swallow huge yellow seagulls
Loud angry pills
They bring louder silence
Silent sadness
No more singing, or smoking
At the piano on a Sunday morning

You're just a shell now
I loved you more, before the medication

She's Sick/She's Perfect In That Moment

I love you more 
When you stop your medication
I love you more

I see you more clearly
I hear you better
When you stop your medication
I love you more

When you hold your hands just so
You wring your wrists
And curl your toes
And fidget
You're my pretty kitchen sunlight 
Girl

And I love you more when you stop those pills
I love you more when you're God or Theresa
I love you more when you're Pearl

I see you more clearly
I hear you better
When you stop your medication
And shimmer glow

So don't go back to bottles of those
Little killers
Up and down killers
Don't go back to those

I love you more 
When you stop your medication
I love you more

********


A Field Below

Two crescent shapes climb the night
Two stars follow
Our hands join in a field below
We mirror the sky

I've been ready for love
In a field below 

Two crescent shapes ascend your back
Stars follow
The Indigo in your skin
Mirrors the sky

I'm so ready for love
In a field below

DisRhythm

The sky is a bruise 
Dear Theresa I am home
My mother made the tea
And I will drink alone
Now she tells a story
Of weeping spiderwebs
Her breeze is just a whisper
Her hair is spun silver
I am just a ribcage 
A skull
And sorrow
Trapped in a bottle
Waiting

Friday, April 24, 2009

You're Chemistry

The chemists in my mouth tell me that they miss you.



Raw, Tired, Written

How raw am I?
Open like a mouth,
open like the palm,
open like the Christ cave,
open on the floor. 

Read all the words,
and read them backwards, 
cry, fall down, laugh
write your letters, tell your 
friends you miss them.

How raw am I?
Only as much as I am tired.
My food expires,
I wake too late. 
Our apartment collects
dust and empty dishes, 
I sleep on the floor.

Six Shooter Love

Lone cowboy, standing like a cactus moon
Six shooter love, put a bullet in my hand,
A horseshoe in my heart
For good luck, for every injun
Put sand in my boot
A feather in my pocket. 


Thursday, April 16, 2009

Low Low Low

I Hate Love Stories but I do not hate Love; it's so much deeper. 
Sink through the waves with me and I'll tell you the story.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Promised Potential, Painfully Unrealized

"When they find a way to link my brain to a paintbrush, a pencil, a black Bic, a typewriter, Six (6) types of video and still camera, musical instruments, sound and video production software, and the entire line of Adobe products, I will make the Universe implode. Until then, things will get lost in translation......"
-Patrick

Monday, April 6, 2009

The Inability To Express

"If only I could draw,"
 or "If I could only sing."
"If I could build something beautiful."

Because that is the nature of my desire;
there's a long soreness in my heart.
I see works of art and I hear the songs 
of geniuses and I know that I could do it too.
The pictures are in my head. The songs are written
somewhere.

"If only I could draw",
 or "if I could only sing".

Greedy, Enthralled

My hands are strong,
the night is red,
I taste water in this room.

My hands are strong, but they tremble
with the crackle and the glow of electricity.
There's more than water here.

I smell sandalwood burning, and paint,
and I smell your sweat mingled with Karma.

Something from the stereo pulses with
Eastern sex and secrets from the deepest space.
Something from the speakers under the bed 
invites me to stay and watch.

I want to witness the Process.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

When You've Got Nothing

It's sad that I am jealous to the point of tears, 
with an aching gut, jealous of the love that
two heroin addicts share.
The love that they endure,
as they float and fall,
hook and fight,
see the blackest holes.

It's my heart in a brick of coal.
It's emotional rock bottom.

It's so sad that I'm jealous...

Monday, March 30, 2009

The Wild

The Great White North sings, a song for all the trees
and all the crystal rivers, for the breath of the Earth itself,
for balance. 

I want to get Lost in it.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Go To Bed

233 am am
   233 jagging diagonally
to the left and hovering 
above the carpet

I took too much
   I took
Air into my lungs I'm
fit to burst

am am 236
3 minutes pass in antistillness
I have stomach 
and truth

I lack discipline at 237
I'm a wreck

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

The Saddest Things Are Beautiful

I fall asleep,
I drift away,
I am caught in soundmotionbliss
eternal mother's embrace -
I'll always be a child.

We don't grow up, we grow out. 

you

I don't think a day goes by that I don't wish you'd call me.
I want you back into my life.
Everything is very different now. I know I've lost my place, 
but I love you [still]/I hate you.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Goodnight

And every night, before bed
he took a fresh piece of paper
from the notepad, and he wrote,
"Goodnight, I love you all."
He signed and dated.
He did this because he knew 
that someday,
he would die in his sleep.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Nightmare About A Bomb

How the world ended, it went a little something like
"My fellow Americans," and then the television
cut out; China came calling with Burger Boy
and Big Oil.

China came calling as we sat down for supper.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Chronic

So sick of feeling sick

Thursday, March 5, 2009

How The World Ended

And we hugged the hubcaps that
hung from the windows,
And we took six foot neckties to bed.

***

This is your atomic bad dream,
these are mushroom clouds for real
The horizon is black at a thousand feet per second
The radio screams the end.

Sleep now
Sleep

The movement was too much
The cries too loud
The hunger too fierce
The eyes too blind
The minds too trapped 

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Too Soon....

I'll collect tears from the microphone and
kick your shoes through the dream,
I'll kiss the breeze on my tongue, taste the air,
feeling a little less than fine
but totally complete with the piano backbone...

I'm damned, so damned with your sad sad eyes on me
and I'm damned; I'll try I'll try with fortune in my pocket,
So catch my heart, my hands... don't gamble me away,
Don't go away

I'll pray and pray and read my bible 'till it's tired 
and then I'll write and drink,
I'll smoke and think and
I'll howl with the wind at the moon
and at the friends who leave too soon...

I'll howl at my icy chest....

I'll howl....



A Book For You


I'll write a book between the blankets for you,
2 a.m between the blankets for you 
and I sit, I squirm beneath the blankets for you,
write my soul beneath the blankets for you.....


***


I'll write a book between the blankets, oh
A book between the blankets for you and
I'll write a book between the blankets
Let's just live between the blankets
And the mattress, Angel

Lay Myself At Your Feet For The Moon

With a full moon in the sky,
I've stopped, drunk with liquor and
drunk in the moment,
IN the moment, I've stopped
And I've pointed and said
LOOK! Look at the Moon and
Look at the sky and LOOK at the truth
and now I'm here writing the truth and
Telling you, Woman, I am 
all that I can be
For you.

Long, Longer, I Miss You Friend

And the things that I have loved,
you have loved too
And everything that's left,
We played charades and we
danced and played, silly on the floor
And when I fell, I fell hard
on hardwood but you kept laughing
Because the Universe is still turning
You told me you wouldn't stop,
you wouldn't give up while
the Universe was still turning
or growing or ex-
panding; you didn't know the words to describe it.
But the things that we have loved stay the same
and even though I can't remember
all that star sign shit, 
it doesn't matter because you do, and
we embrace our differences and we
stay friends, and we stay close
and I keep you in the back of my mind
all of the time, all day, 
each month and every hour
and I hope you do too when you're painting
abstracts, shapes that maybe remind you of me.
"Oh yes, this square is his hunger in a box, yes!"

.... Oh yes it is.
And how I miss you each and every day....

I Promise You It Exists

What about 
Happy suicide?

Pisces II

I'll make you my blood to keep you close,
My sister, my greatest influence, 
When we're brother and sister,
We'll remain
Connected.

Monday, February 23, 2009

History

You never really knew me that well
i was always quiet
thinking of something better to say

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Survivor

Let's steel ourselves to the pain and heartache 

of the world around

And then, under blankets on sofas

we'll watch hospital dramas and cry

to prove to ourselves that we can 

still feel.



Makes a Ghost

He lifts a hammer to her head, a wielding weight
to kill, or snuff out loud ghosts
But it's not murder, it's only fantasy
a dream 

He continues his painting,
an incredible collection

Murder
Murder on the streets
Murder makes a ghost

Friday, February 20, 2009

Wade Davis

When we climbed the ghost trees
and fell on our heads
it was a good year for panic
Yes it was

How did we get off the ground then?
Yes, I remember; we fell on our heads
It was a good year for unknowns
Really

So when the crow falls in the winter months
when the old spirits leave Tree Mother for
the next place
when tear drops and rain fall from the same sky
the old growth forest on your tongue will fall silent.
Then, a bitter sleep.

The Most Important

Am I a Circle or a Square
or a Line
am I a Wave
am I a Cone
or a Cloud
or a Dream or a Network
am I Quantum
am I a Function Of Time

am I Dimension
am I Space

am I a Sound, or maybe
a Frequency
a Vibration

am I?

Monday, February 16, 2009

Spun

I'd lick the sleep from your eyes
and roll out of our bed
say hello to the dog
piss and make you breakfast
and then I'd work for you
and I'd labour oh how I'd work
for you

Asleep at the button again
I wrote all night the melody 
of my heart when it talks to 
my eyes
I'd wakewalk through the days
for you finding myself dream speaking
to the grass or spinning in the car
in the driveway in the same
old shirt as yesterday...

This is an intoxicating thing...
I hope you don't mind

Friday, February 13, 2009

There's A Time And Place For Daemons

Do I need to write another neurotic poem?
Do I need to type, fevered fast
To exorcise this stuckness?

I heard a story recently,
My dear friend Mr. Waits,
Driving down the freeway
Looked up, up in the air,
To that nothingness where potential resides
And he told his Genius to beat it for a while.

I need to turn off for just a few hours rest.
I'd like the pressure to stop.


Passion Barfs A Few Words

It is
Hard to believe
Long moments hardly gone
But still I can't retrieve 
The smells the air the electricity
Of our hands touching and
Our tongues spelling out words
For ghosts
Ghosts of shed inhibition and
The phantom shyness
The sky is the limit to
Where we'll go when
Blood mingles with skin, the
Drawing in of breath and misty
'I love you's
In in in
We pull and spiral
And I know that in a moment
I'll be totally lost
Inside of you.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Mandelbrot's Ouroboros

I'm not alone in the universe
not a lone set of eyes 
in the uni
verse
I'm not alone with my hands
but I create with God himself
or rather, I am the creation
creating within my line 
of influence.

...


That Feeling

Writing is flying
and I don't
want to fall.

His Genius Is A Housepet

Allah, the great voice speaks
the listener like a vessel receives
words, his genius, everything he needs
to light up the world.
He who undressed from the quiet
who dances into the sounds of creation
whose body is a battery
he with delicate hands takes of the world
and gives light to the hungry and the blind.

....More later

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Saturday, January 31, 2009

A Promise of Failings

I bring the slaughter to the lamb 
I delivered prayer to folded hands 
I carried paper to the tree
But I can't bring you back to me

I brought the candle to the flame
I guide the angry mob to blame
I show the ocean to the sea
But I can't bring you home to me

I brought the chapel to the bride
I shared the truth with all the lies
I taught the poor of poverty 
But I still can't bring you home
to me

Monday, January 26, 2009

Songs For Laughter

I know you are a woman grown
I've heard you on the telephone
but you're the one
who scarred my hands with laughter

I took your word, I didn't tell
the priest when I was scared of Hell
Instead I watched
the sun bleed for an hour

And now I sit with photographs
I listen and I don't talk back
they tell me of the sea
and of the sailors 
They tell me of the sea
and of the sailors

And now I sit with photographs
we took them on the mountain paths
they tell me of the sea
and of the sailors sailing endlessly
I want to know 
the ending of the story.

Oh finally the call would come
I would not fall I would not run
I'd remember how
you scarred my hands with laughter
Our children dreaming in the yard
of Pisces swimming in the stars
They're ours because
you scarred my hands with laughter


.... to be continued

Sunday, January 25, 2009

This Is Our Gratitude

Oh, welcome trees
welcome garden grown

Oh, how stillness seeps in
my arms asleep, at peace

Oh, look, the roof of stars it spins
while I root with the grass

Oh, God, HOW?
To be amazed

Oh, to be intoxicated
by the smell of Now
the taste of it
the feeling of Real Time on my palms
the sounds and sights of the Only Moment
Oh, to be


The Sentence

Boxed meaning
Neat, tidy, with a bow
and beautifully gift-wrapped
for you to enjoy
The language of thought
traveling at the speed of mind
and born of the heart;
The package is
a three word galaxy
the one that reads:
I love you

Huxley's Gilded Cages

A truth and perhaps a smile 
and then a cup of tea.

Pisces One

For the Italian girl wandering,
who can't stay long,
who flees when the trees come alive.

For the painter and the poet, 
and the dark haired hippy,
whose G's sometimes come out like K's.

Who knows things,
those secret things,
things that light up the shadowy nooks and crannies
of mind.
Who explains to me so well.

For She,
in infinite star-sign enchantment,
She in stillness, impossibly in motion
which is to say, the source of some beautiful slow vibration,
that One which stands out to dance against all other vibrations of this universe;
that One possessed by few.

For the Italian girl wandering,
Pisces One.


Hunger; For Joy

What stuckness! 
What longing!

Such an urge, from my gut
and from each part of my body
to write, to spill.

And where and how?
Why?

For art or self, 
or love or ego?

What veiled satisfaction is it
that I crave?

Again, I ask,
for love?

Is it love of art,
the art of self, 
or is it some tangled self love,
some ego-sexual act;
the ejaculation of words 
and imagined facets of I am this,
know me.

I project deepness when in truth
I am a seeker.

I am a small child.
I have such a hunger,
and such a ways to go.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Dean Kamen

"The world will not be saved by the internet."

Maybe I'll come back to this. Holy shit....

Heartbreak: TED

The beauty of it all is
the most saddening 
sensations, emotions, feelings
I can't evolve

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Into The Valley of Hands

I fell into the ether of doubt
but I found your sparkling eyes
smiles to warm, kisses to wake
a touch to take me further down 
into the valley of hands.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

America

America, because of you I have snakes and bullets in my wallet
broken teeth and bad dreams
a handful of blood

America, because of you I have pain in my eyes
a blistering tongue
sadness in every vein

America, because of you my wife is dead
she couldn't bear the guilt
she crumbled to dust

America, you stole everything from the soil
to grow the tree

An Angry Mouth Not Understood

The miracle worker, sometimes hated or feared is not understood 
because his magic brings silence to reason
I am paralyzed with question mark tattoos
a thirst for answers and patience
But I have no patience to be patient
I am only a clenched fist now
a winding cable, their grinding teeth
The masses hiss like the clustered eye
the thousand locust cloud
Something must come
The messiah feels it in his bones
a black confusion sound
a jet clap, a bag, a bottle, a broken staff
So the white wizard, the ashen witch
the spellsingers brood
The miracle worker, hated or feared
is never understood.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

101

What will a woman do for a man?
What will a woman do for love?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Passing Unseen

***

I came home to WWIII so I went to the attic and wrote




Tuesday, January 13, 2009

In Progress

I'll be with her
as the night starts to thin
and the milk dawn pulls
like sheets from your bed

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Vacation

So who are the beautiful people
and where is the island?

I've waited long, a long time
for sand, sun and a sorting out
of ghosts

I hoped the light, the breeze through everything
would send away the voices but instead
they intensified, fed
on the fuel of sand and sun,
water everywhere,
music and dancing nakedness, women,
paid attractions and I
drink something milky
from a coconut 
and I walk past my wife, 
past the liquor huts and the dancers,
I find my quiet hotel room
and I draw longs lines across my slender wrists
in the bathtub. 

Dead Yet

I've given 
almost everything I've got,
but I'm not dead yet
so just keep listening
I've played bones with 
the dark devil,
I've rattled 
with the cages of doubt,
I've touched the black under his eyelids
and I'm not dead yet

Thursday, January 8, 2009

One Bad Dream

One hundred letters, blood-water and paper umbrellas
One more tired story about a man and his gun
One hour of sober meditation followed by
One hollow lung


Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Patriots

Citizens of providence
those who dropped the ball 
the citizens of manifest destiny
God told me he hates them all

Promise (Unfinished)

I have keys to carry the sun
and promises to carry the sign
I have hands to carry the love
I promised to carry the line

Family

I often suspect 
that family just gets in the way
of getting better
Mothers are the worst
Fathers next
When love and conflict meet
no one gets what they need

Following

I spend some nights awake 
and wandering through your diary
like aisles in a store
I find rainbows of experience
small pieces of a big story
still frames of a girl I'd like to know
I think I could spend all night 
exploring your flea market mind
the lamps and old dressers
the dusty magazines and photographs
that you manifest

Smallness In Such A Big Place

In Montreal 
we stopped for a bite and
I said, Hey have you heard of Ben's?
to which she replied
Sorry hun, I think it's closed
So we wandered side streets instead
trying on scarves and arab jewellry
getting lost in tea shops
falling in love with our own
smallness 
in such a big place

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Finding A Way, The Tao Of War

Maybe it's the time he said 
The living are the dying dead,
And then he spoke a mighty prayer
For all those who have rooted.

I was there, I was naive
I wanted badly to believe
The answers, they would take to seed
But all the soil was broken.

This war is holy only in
The revelation of our sin
The muddied answers all begin
To point to disillusion.

To point to disillusion.

7:14

I sang in the kitchen
And I slept sideways 
In a single bed.

Nobody saw us steal 
The black sky.
Nobody saw us take
Hunger from the poor.

Now I read by moonlight
And my desk lamp
Smokes cigarettes with 
Literary greats.

And my ulcers
Are back.

I'm a little more than dead and
A little less than living,
So what am I?

For now,
I'm just
Awake.

I

I climbed the mountain on my back
I spent the dollars, heartless black
I kissed an angel on the rack
I slept inside an ancient sack

I prayed with Joseph on the hill
I took a girl not on the pill
I painted on the window sill
I'm sorry it was you they killed

I dreamed of empty stables gray
I dreamed the night and day away
I spoke with nothing good to say
I think that I will be okay

I said sweet mother please don't cry
For you won't be the last to die,
We'll join you soon up in the sky
And then I watched my mother die

I stole a piece of Mary's heart
I sold my rusting lies as art
I begged for mercy from the start
I tore down Libra from the chart

I fought with mystic vision quests
I sleep all day but never rest
I bled for Him I did my best
I tried so hard to build a nest

And now I'm done
And now I'm done
And now I'm done

Revolution: A Closed Curve

When a man places the poison cup
In his own wife's hands,
The beast of war has won
And all the babies will be born
Without mothers.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Welcome 2009

My home is full of appliances, 
Humming,
And buzzing.

Bukowski would talk of cockroach sounds 
And the noise a woman makes when you hit her
In your seedy motel room.

Frost would lament the 
End of the quiet places.

Thompson might go on a tangent,
Something about Nixon and the fascists
Coming to probe us with high frequency 
Columbian Hissing Snakes.

Ginsberg would just make sad dedications and
Neruda would ode something delicate.

Old Cohen would write something incredible.

New Cohen would write something incredible too,
And then tell you to "Zen the fuck out."

But me?
I say fuck Zen and fuck odes to fascist snakes!
Fuck dedications and fuck beating on women.

Fuck the quiet places.

I'm going to bathe in this noise,
And I'm going to soak the slow vibrating whine
Into my skin, and shiver 
Every last drop of seed on rigid tiptoes.

This is Me,
Embracing Future-Now, orgasm-2009.

Summer Ends

All you know are violins, gold poems of dust,
And starving on the seeds of saddened fruit.
And the stale sky kisses your eyes goodnight,
As you sleep in your grandfather's Sunday suit.

With vinyl spinning coldly and her hand laid on your chest,
You sing the Cold War requiem and seduce her.
And winter's held at bay by fingers tirelessly strumming,
Her eyes no longer longing as they once were.

And I have taken sick again,
The long night like a dear old friend,
The strumming ends and welcomes in the winter.


33 or Why I Wish I Wrote 'Suzanne'


Mr. Cohen,

How you guide me, 
Through night time struggle
And being lost in the sheets,
And how you speed me on,
To attempt after attempt,
Until I've cracked my head
On all four walls.

And I'm still trying 
And some nights it works.

Mr. Cohen, 
Some nights I'm pleased with the words.
And some nights, 
The words are pleased to be free,
But most nights
I just sit up and pretend to hear your words
And the cotton smoke crackling
Of vinyl rotating at Thirty Three R.P.M.




***

Will You?

I've seen the light in your eyes,
Deep sapphire starlight.
Will you help or hurt me?

And I've heard the laughter on your tongue,
And I've felt the hearthstone heat in your chest.
I've tasted your salt tears,
I know your secret scent.

Will you help or hurt me?