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?