hell is a support group

locked down with knees

pressing against the

black underside

uneven & pockmarked by

things added

or things taken away

of a desk borrowed

from the classroom

down the hall,

your leg shakes

when you are nervous,

'sorry we didn't expect

to have such a

turnout tonight'

the loose screws from

the inclined desk

to the craining bar

that leads to the seat

the bar looks like

a swan's neck,

dirty and silver

tired under the

pressures of elbows

and teenager's textbooks

they squeak, the screws,

the desk, the bar, from

your jittering leg

across from you

not directly but

still across, a man

sits with a cigarette

in his hands. the

tip black and stunted,

the man had put it

out underneath his

chair. there is no

smoking, underneath

your chair or otherwise

but he still holds

the cigarette, thumbing

the filter and rolling

it back and forth

between his middle

and index finger

there are times

he reaches into the

jacket pocket he put

the lighter in and

pulls out a handkerchief,

he is older, maybe

in his fifties, but

there are also times

he reaches in and pulls

out nothing, what do

you do with your

hands, while you are

talking or listening,

uncomfortably to others'

stories that are too

similar to yours in

a general sort of

way. what had

set you apart outside

of this room, green

blackboard with Spanish

for tomorrow or

leftover from today's

lesson, makes you the

same here. the man

in the blue, union

t-shirt's son goes here

as does the woman

to your right's

daughter. you went to

a school far away

from here. Sue,

Shirl, Sally, the

woman to your

right, whose nametag

you cannot see

but her name,

you recall, starts

with an "s",

speaks of her problems

as they relate

through her daughter

and with her hands

smoothes her slacks

repeatedly. most

try to keep their

hands very still

the man across from

you, not directly

but still across,

lights his cigarette

again. "sorry i wasn't

thinking" he stabs

it under his desk.

the counselor, commentator,

moderator smiles with

a little too much

compassion and understanding

for such an insignificant

thing. the smoking

man pulls out a

fresh cigarette and

begins rolling it

between his fingers

again

ashes (song)

- yeah so i'm posting some songs i've written up here too. they are a bit different from my poetry. anyways, i've got music for this as well, but i'm still aways away from posting myself performing-

if ashes

can stay ashes

and dust

remain dust

i want to be

alive

if my thoughts

whispered

into

the night

they would scream

alive

if words

and wishes

could shape

our fates

i would sing

alive

if i could

lay here

with you

all day

i would dream

alive

if every

color

made me feel

this way

i would paint

alive

if patience

and virtue

burned a deep

blue flame

i would pray

alive

i've written all

your troubles

on a single

page

and burned it so you could be

alive

alive

i've stared here

for hours

and tried to remember

your face

hoping it would keep you

alive

alive

if ashes

can stay ashes

and dust

remain dust

i want to be

alive

alive

if ashes

can stay ashes

and dust

remain dust

i want to be

alive

untitled

-lordy mama mia, this is old, found it amongst some old short stories-

the moon looks like a nail clipping

perspective lost in darkness

car lights collide

separate themselves from who they were

a mistake

they are still separated from the rest

alone

abandoned

not a safe place to make decisions.

thoughts fueled by something

stronger than reason

it seems

everything

is stronger than reason

that is the reason I am upset

excuse the pun

I know I won’t.

Is reason a healthy state of mind

what the hell is a healthy state of mind

or a mind for that matter

is it matter

does it matter

mind is even more slippery than health

but not as slippery as happiness

and there is no proof that happiness is health

or health is happiness

or that either can exist in a vacuum

there was a time I lived in a vacuum

I wrote a lot of confessional poetry

a lot of crappy confessional poetry

a lot of poetry like this.

untitled

there are fields
which have trapped me
unfairly
and joys which
have stolen
the dyes from shirts
and drawn the second to last
breath from my
peace
i walk with legs
built on songs
sung underwater
by lost sailors encrusted
in stone
the same fury
that punches its way
out of a drunks skull
and turns a child
into
something frightening and
sometimes horrible
is in my lack of motion
it's in me sitting here
emptying a room
drawing conclusions

enemy of mine (song)

- this is a song i wrote with curt clendenin. i mostly knocked out the verses and he knocked out the chorus. -

when did it happen when you became an enemy of mine?

was it all the times i forgot to call or visit or write?

was it when we went to dinner and i let you pay?

was it when i first tried to kiss you and you were afraid?

         i lost my hold upon your throat

         that makes you say the sweet things

         i did not know my love would choke

         and my missed treats were drowning

was it my propensity, my tendency to walk away,

before you finish exactly what you wanted to say?

was it the check for our rent that i bounced,

or the taste of liquor in my wanting mouth,

my love?

        i lost my grip around your throat

        i pray will say the sweet things

        i did not know that i would choke

        as if my words were drowning

       i meant to treat you gold

       when did we become cold

       my love?

when did it happen when you became an enemy of mine?

maybe it was the time when i asked you where you were and you lied?

maybe it was the way you'd change when we were with your friends.

maybe its all the bullshit i'll never deal with again

why love?

       i meant to treat you gold

       when did you become cold

       why love?

untitled

from a balcony

tipped by lower back pain

and rusted mesh covered

in paint

eyes drop

through branches

before resting

scarred

on the ground

glares fall

on lovers talking

louder than i can write

lids close

on a lot

with cars parked between ribs

and the chalk staining

my hands

smiles cast

and left smeared on asphalt

or lost in grass

before i reel them in

with the line cut

your eyes

steal refection and funnel

it away to be lost

within you

blind my mouth and

my hands with

deeper hues than

a painter's dream

or a lover's last words

are my favorite

season trapped somewhere

between a friday in fall

and a spring night warm

enough to leave our jackets

behind

stall me

before i remember

my defenses

before i remember

to dismantle yours

argue with midnight

for the chance to

steal the sky's light

and fill the air

with their totality

are what i first

remembered about

you

and why i have trouble

remembering anything

else

untitled

see the words that
arch before you
spelled not in letters
but in movements and glances
i now understand truth
differently than before
without abstractions
without theory
it no longer strives
for timelessness
but reserves its place
in each moment
sometimes days in adavance

It's Common

I've spilled before like coffee, cold, in ceramic. Only to dry in the cocentric rings of an unused saucer. It happens as easily  when I am picked up, as when I am set down. Now I find myself ready to leave the cup. I want to jostle myself into a lap, onto the floor. To jump from the lip and let myself be felt. I want you to break the handle, hide the saucer, and smuggle me into your flask, to be consumed at your leisure.

untitled

Where does fault nest
nights
lying on wire
found in
a blue dumpster
dying from rust
and rainwater
the blood
from collapsing blue
and strands
pulled loose from
discarded
wool sweaters
of a grandmother dead
2 years
forgotten 4
Wingspan as large
as you'll make it
or help me
pull
feathers coming loose in
my hands
inked and oiled
they taste like bleeding gums

wade.

a night spent trying to understand how she can fit 27 possibilities into a smile as wide as a postcard. that i forgot to write. and she forgot to send. so we can save it until next December. when it will happen again. days before she travels to a bridge to hear the echo of her boots. on wood. on water. on rock. that grows next to pansies that are the color of a hobo’s knuckles. violent and blue. bone splashes of pressurized white. she will sing to them with her fingers. and give me delicate memories to write about. there but not then we will vow to never break the sky and to never again argue with gravity. and i’ll confess my ideas are not always as large as my ideologies. we’ll agree that touch is always best in the morning as we circle the freckles on each other’s arms in the midday. then she’ll leave. grass in her hair though she never once lied down. dreams rolling down her neck. and sewing themselves into the ground. sensation dripping from her hair though she never stepped into the water.

tonight the evening nurtures

Tonight the evening nurtures more light than it does conversation

and awkwardly mingles with the air that smells like drip dried hair

while the motorcade of our fragile thoughts

looks to us for recognition

A winter’s fence of stooped trees dressed like peasants

lock arms and clench unintended fists for support

Both of our faces slack and tense

like a mentalist who wrongly declared

matchbook instead of watch

or love instead of friendship

rest area.

Rows of apricot trees become lines of electrical towers, that look like six armed kachinas. And I do my best to stay awake. My bladder teased by an empty bottle and 49 miles until the next rest area. It’s on this stretch of highway that the horizon becomes dilated and I remember, what it is I’ve been without.

Rows of my dreams have been left unattended, spilling into my decision with wild growth, and I consider opening an arboretum. Embarrassed by scars I should have never been proud of, and late nights spent with silence, Indian ink, and a pin.

Rows of cookie cutter houses become urban castles connected by a cat’s cradle of telephone lines, and I do my best to stay awake. It’s at this moment of the sunset, when headlights become justified, that I get a call from you, on the way to visiting you, falling asleep at the wheel once, twice, twelve times, only to hear you’re waiting up reading Tom Robbins.

she is alliteration

She is hypodermic

She is that song, that painting, that word, that streetlight, that touch, that phrase, that gun metal glance, that childhood memory, that ATM transaction, that one single word of praise you received today, that knock-knock joke, that tiny restaurant you pass everyday on your way to work, but not on the way back because traffic is awful around there, around that time… that is to say… she is… that soft hand on your neck, that lingering juniper scent, that tell all book about the presently forgotten, formerly wholesome celebrity, that voice, that movie you will never admit you liked, that torch, that light, that word, that painting, that song… that you cannot get out of your head… that you smell, taste, and hear in empty rooms and empty thoughts…

She is anything but tepid

She is now

refuse to be

I’ll help you find the balm

to soothe your

sunburned skin

from the time you spent

staring at the waves

I’ll help you find the perfect

parka to

cover you

when your standing alone

outside in the rain

I’ll help you find the good advice

you so

desperately need

and you’ll carry it

in a locket on a chain

            But I could never be

            anyone of these

            I refuse to be

            I refuse to be

I’ll help you find the words

that come easy to me

but hard for you

that let others know

exactly what you mean

I’ll help you find the list

you made when

you were ten

that predicted that

you’d be married by nineteen

I’ll help you find the name

you swear to

from your bed

in the morning

and before you go to sleep

            But I could never be

            anyone of these

            I refuse to be

            I refuse to be

   Your assumptions are

   the reason the concrete cracks

   the reason the graphite snaps

   and you’ll spend the rest of your night

   speaking static to your phone

   lying to a dial tone

   because it’s the only one that will hear

   that you’re waiting for flames

   to burn you to the ground

   to bury what you saw

   to leave you ash

   which you will spread upon your face

   and take another name

   and never be the same

I’ll help you find the one

to share

with you

his broken heart

and ignore the pain

                                                 

            But it will have to be        

            anyone but me               

            But it shouldn’t be

            anyone but me

Ghosts of the Future

--- yeah don't judge... this is oooold. i don't even recall from when------

            Long ago, when the land was still wild, before train tracks were ever laid into the ground, animals would, through some fatalistic premonition, avoid the areas where the trains would one day pound. The horses and deer could hear the rattle of the trains and the screeching stops, before the steam engine was ever conceived. They could hear the ghosts of the future.

            Soon they began to hear the obnoxious yelps of car horns traveling on and battling the wind, but these sounds were everywhere, and there was no escaping them. It was the big iron monsters, the locomotives, with their terrible momentum and hypnotic song that frightened them the most.

            Do you know why it is so many people are depressed these days? Why we have so many physical and spiritual suicides? It’s because we too can see the ghosts of the future. We are all so dangerously myopic, but in the corner of our mind, we can’t help but see. The ghosts confronting us aren’t nearly as sweetly deafening as the armor clad juggernauts that lingered in the past. Our ghosts carry the smell of singed life and flowering death. Our ghosts show us the vast difference between fright and unmolested horror.

            We live in a nuclear age and we will die in a nuclear age. The ghosts of the future crackle with radiation and terror. We all see our end. We all fear it. Unbeknownst to us it is the root of so much unhappiness, though we direct this fear into other more obvious outlets. Most do not run from this imminent threat. They flock to it in a passive attempt at mass suicide. Why do you think cities are born? We taste imposing destruction (something so abominable and beautiful as total annihilation resonates thousands of years before it actually happens) and we hone in on it.

            The cities will not have a monopoly on the suffering. They are merely for those utterly devoted to the end, not for those who only celebrate the coming end once a year with fireworks. Watching the explosions and letting the white flashes burn into their retinas, like the images burned into their mind, like the flash that will simply burn.

rhyming dictionary

i hate

the rhyming dictionary

sitting on the shelf

behind me

stillborn idea

stillborn idea

cradled in my hands

dead eyes vacant

looking past or before me

what could you have become?

Not Very Good With Distances

            Sharing hours of sleepless dreams with an answering machine, somewhere between one hundred miles and one thousand miles away, as your voice stutters with metronome perfection and you pull the sheet away from a long Thursday. You speak of apostasy and hope, and of your friend John, and of things which are more or less important to only us. Before you talk about the phone call you received from your mother you whisper an ambrosia sigh. And I know it would be a mistake for me to pick up the phone tonight.

            I sit at my family’s table, rubbing my hands together to wear away the cold. Wetting my raw winter lips and watching the snow melt from my boots and puddle, brown on the floor.

            You say good bye to the empty air that I sit in. The sharper sting of silence calls me back and I push play again. I’m in love with your words and the way you mispronounce Camus for only my benefit. I’m in love with your words and the arable thoughts they convey. I’m in love with your words because they are all I have from at least 300 miles away. So I push play.

            Sharing hours of sleepless dreams with an answering machine, somewhere between one hundred miles and one thousand miles away, as your voice stutters with metronome perfection and you pull the sheet away from a long Thursday. You speak of apostasy and hope, and of your friend John, and of things which are more or less important to only us.

There Are Trees

There are trees who

envy fire for its anger

There are men who live in

a world of words that

rhyme only with

abandonment.

Until they search the sky

hollowed by hopes

hallowed by heavy hearts.

And find

that all tongues taste like

miracle if twisted

the right way.

And all tongues are

twisted and overworked

until we die

or until

we live

with simple truths

and the lazier larger ones

To A Girl Whose Hands Have Lied

I know little about her

but that she is beautiful and kind

and has eyes that offer surrender

or shelter

to others’ fears and problems

within their placating,

delivering depths

I know little about her

but the way her smile rights me

and that I search for it

even after she has left the room

I know little about her

but that I hope my speculation is untrue

that she who empowers others

and inspires self confidence in

the lost or weary

has a tenuous hold on her own

I know little about her

but the open enigma she is

and the addictiveness of

her wonder

and that her hands have lied

next year

let snow pass

through

dry sky

ask was

he

there

death

night

nature

light

the blossoming

winter

he said

he said

through a beard he had purchased

                or grown

“that’s a mezz-ah-kneen”

    the girl smiled

    before her mother pulled her away

i remember

i remember

a beach

two beaches

a foam like soap

cleaning my mind

and making me sneeze

antiseptic.

shards of words that cut like tigers’ teeth half buried in the sand. truths that should have known not to speak, out of turn. and you say good bye with pink sun kissed cheeks cheering up your frown. setting my love letters that read like essays before me on the ground. we both wanted to be caught in a dog eared romance novel. printed on paper thinner than my faith in trust. anything but the scrawled journal entry we sleep in now. something less anxious and wordy than the both of us. the day we spent wondering what had happened to courtesy. i held the door for you and stepped back out, so you could hold it for me. past confessions that now return awkwardly to my side. tunneling through the waves to join me and the tide. along with memories of your neck that tasted like potpourri. and how you always preferred the salt in the sea to the chlorine of me.

Never My Dilemma

It’s a shot of lime

the way you live

with yourself

after giving her

30 years of life

in a 10 year time

signals mixed

like the drinks you shared

There are 900 ways

for you to walk from this room

but you could only think of two

both of which you shared with me

before choosing the one

with all the yelling

slamming

fighting

Luckily there was very little we shared

that was not perishable or consumable

so a quick cleaning

whenever I get around to it

(it’s been months already)

will wipe any trace of you

away

My Involvement In This Is Marginal

Again it took me all day to do nothing

8 hours of unplanned preparation

to lead me to this moment

lying on the ground prostrate to the world

which sweats and panics around me

I begin to wish for a change

because anything more than a wish would frighten me

and anything less than change would bore me

so I lie bored and brave

I wish for a world where rules are written in couplets

and are mandatory for only those who wrote them

and even then they mean nothing

I remember a girl who’s voice was a soft as swan’s down

and promised to go tobogganing with me this winter

and promised to try my vegan eggnog

I wish for a world where court rooms are held in contempt

and kindness didn’t confuse me more than spite

and spite was not an ersatz emotion for confusion

I remember staring up at the moon flecked with age spots

and stars which were thousands of years old

and finding perspective, but not knowing to what

I wish for a world where elderly ideas pass on in their sleep

and new ideals are not as quiet as baby’s breath

and don’t fall asleep so quickly

I hear the suburban fauna of domesticated cats and dogs

and exhausted lives whir past me

and all I can smell is the tall grass

day's end

file another day away

in a cabinet filled with

post-it note memories

crammed and

cramped

like the mezzanine

my armchair likely resides on

while I thumb through murderous thoughts

about the past before me

and the mecca which lost its hallmark

at home in the heat

At home in the heat

that buckles my memories

and drives a rusted pick up

truck 10,000 miles past

its last recommended

tune up

she talks to the grass

a stick becomes a

toothless comb

or a wand

which she sweeps

over uniform green blades

forcing them to bend, swoon, or

learn calisthenics

(and right 2 - 3

and left 2 - 3)

She is sitting beneath

mossy limbs

that are bowed from

the sky's unnerving parental caress

her pigtails

hang as twisted

and torn

as her doll's clothes

they are rags

(both the pigtails and the clothes)

the kind you

would be unsurprised to find

hanging out of

an el camino’s

gas cap

maybe she isn't talking

maybe she's singing

or dancing in between both

we've killed the music makers and the dreamers of dreams

bull headed minds

wearing the skins of dead business men

head out to pasture with the other barking sheep

no longer fearing

the lion served with a restraining order

Story outline To Poem

After 6 hours of staring at a computer screen-

his eyes felt like a sailor’s hang over-

Driving home looks at colored post card of lobster boy

with crab red cheeks-

thinks the freak life is the way to go-

“Poor lobster boy he had such an easy life.”-

he often expounds on life of a freak-

Uses table saw in the garage to disfigure hands-

later revealed he was going to carve his hands to look like the lobster boy’s

but the moment he set the corner of his wrist onto the saw, it pulled his hands down and lopped them off-

they put his hands back on but now they are very stiff and unreal-

he wanted to be a freak not a Frankenstein-

now he can no longer key as a temp

It Was There I Met A Man

It was there i met a man

whose face was slashed like

corn stalks

and who spoke of American Football

in some European accent unfamiliar

to me

and the moonlight

that lay like linen

on the tops of

his lace less shoes

and the velcro change purse

he palmed and admired like

a pastry

i wanted to interrupt him

in the nervous, stuttering fashion

of a Woody Allen movie

and somehow excuse myself

but his fidgeting stare

closed in on me

with more passion

than a lover

and frightened my hands

deep into my jacket pockets

and my legs

into comical indecision

a treatise

Through narrowed slits of the white plastic blinds hanging over the office window, I see a bus pull to the end of my coldesack and stop. I have to look away often or at the very least blink repeatedly, because the horizontal slits confuse and bother my eyes.

Two of my neighbor’s children hop off the bus with backpacks strapped over each shoulder. I wonder what grade they’re in, or how old they are, because they look young, but by my reckoning they should be much older.

They run up the slick driveway and run they’re hands over the gray car that’s slept in the rain the whole day. Pushing beads of water together quickly they fling it from the hood and enter their garage.

Since the rain stopped a couple hours ago, the sky has been uncertain whether it should lighten or retain its grayish hue. Right now the sky is yellowing, but within the minute it will turn again.

The few trees that stand alone and placed for aesthetic reasons between the curb and the sidewalk are all nodding off to my right, to the South. I can imagine their leaves wet, malleable and velvety, they are spring leaves, the kind a child tears apart along the perforated veins and then goes back to tearing up grass.

Every once in awhile the wind will whistle, and a wet bird will respond.

I grew up here, the porch outside the window, is where I used to bring blankets and set up a fort where I could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and let root beer Popsicles melt into a bowl.

This is all beautiful. Everything, even the mundane, is beautiful. And I'm uncertain why I couldn't remain here any longer.

a photograph

Tie your troubles to my car

as i leave your stolen town

for an all night copy shop

30 miles away

where color copies of a photo

of a girl drinking orange juice

and smiling at my eyes

are only 85 cents

1,000 Sentiments

You forgot to tell the story

of when you were younger

remember you were younger

And you tensed your arms and heels

like a stranger to the bus

and you reached behind

and you reached so high

and you reached for the sunday

that you imagined yourself a recluse

and learned to roll your “r”s

or maybe it was your tongue

so long ago

remember the times you found out

that a word meant something else

than you had thought

than you had meant

and you wanted to take

1,000 sentences back

but none more than the one

you spoke a moment ago

i’ve never read a book

about the grandfather of funk

on a train bound for the suburbs

of St. Louis

so i wonder if i should

begin to write one now

but i’m not sure i’d know how

or where to begin

or if he liked melted ice cream like my friend

or if the arch of his brand new gym shoes bothered him

as much as they seemed to

your eyes are in servitude to the night

never free from the smoky banter of dark clouds

that fill your room next to your charm proof window

reaching for my drink

i scrape my skin on your cardboard attempt at pathos

And suddenly

i’m having tea

with the queen of sophistry

how could you call yourself a goth

and not own a Joy Division CD.

remember when you found out

that love meant something else

than you had thought

than you had meant

and you wanted to take

1,000 sentiments back

but none more than the one

you spoke a moment ago

i’ll remember the story

when i am older

of course i’ll get older

it will be nostalgic as news reels

and maybe about us

and i’ll reach behind

and i’ll reach so high

and i’ll reach for someday

i’ll reach for someday

okay, so here's the rub

i'm writing this post. my first post. to sort of explain what the hell this is all about. and it will be at the bottom. so you won't see it. or if somehow you do indeed see it. you will have already read through everything else. and this may be to little to late. and yeah i'm only using periods right now. so what. i'm in a saramago kind of mood.
anyways i'm not sure i'll share this with anyone. or maybe i will with everyone. not really sure. if you know me and know i write. you probably know that i destroy. burn. most of what i write. cathartic. destructive. yeah.
so i haven't been writing much the past couple years. the fear of failure in something i actually took some pride in overcame me. i think it was shortly after i published some pieces. anyways. this year. 2011. one of my new years resolutions was to overcome my fear of writing. i have to accept that i won't be happy with 99% of what i write.
i'm no donald justice. no constant revisions to my poetry. i write it and it's done. maybe one or two tweeks a week later. if it survives that long.
next step is to begin writing short fiction again.
so here ya have it. i'm going to post some old and new poetry now. and as i go i'll post new pieces and anything else i dredge up.
my grandpa used to write. i have his old wooden wine box he kept his writing supplies and his words in. i store mine in it now. i've pulled it out and opened it for the first time in years. there are ideas, openings, closings, failures, some brilliance, letters, and things that i've shut away.
so today is a good day. i've been working on some new songs, a new poem about the upheaval in egypt, and the words are making sense again.