Yes I think I have the working man blues
The headlights will cut through the morning haze as they always do

That deal with the Devil type feel
Short walks to the liquor store

We go on and on
Circular motion
Until we hit the ground

Tired of Women who don't know what they're doing or what they want during sex
Tired of hands that are too weak to wring my neck
Tired of always thinking "What a fucking waste of time"

Closing eyes, opening consciousness, shift of reality

This cold lifeless season filled with folklore haunts Me
The feeling gets stuck in my bones
Hides and often resurfaces
Like finding yourself humming a carol you heard yesterday


Horizontal with the Earth beneath My body, Eyes opening like a dumbwaiter
Sleep paralysis
Dreaming and an imagination running wild have become indistinguishable experiences
The grip tightens

Months without a kind touch, My eyes are eternally closed to the external world
I can feel my body restricting the airways and carotid arteries of your body
I can read the sweaty, straining, panicked, feeling like body language braille
I can see against my eyelids the room of future endings, it's walls are not bare

On the walls are reflected flashing lights from outside, pouring through the windows
While warm dampness drips and slowly coagulates
A single sentence hastily written before departing
"We had a pact, it's your turn now."

Memory

There's a reason that it's Men who sing the blues.
Nights that begin first with the bottle or glass in hand long before the guitar or mic, night after night in bars with cheap drink specials and uninterested audiences.

Prophetic dreams are left for interpretation by the wise and marginally schizophrenic.
Hesitant to use the word "haunting" because "haunting" implies that the thing in question is frightening or malicious, especially when it comes to dreams of memories.

Everything. My life, my endeavors, everything I touch.

It's a brightly lit hallway.

It's a bit long and everything at the end of it is at a distance, but I can still make out most of it.

Eyes skyward, the stars have never been so bright while whiskey stained breath materializes in the chill of winter nights.
Maybe I think of you in some cliche and melancholy way, like how you're looking at the same moon as I am.
Maybe tonight I managed to get your memory out of my mind.
Maybe.
But always I'll look to the low hanging sun through my morning headache and sunglasses and think of you.

Perceived Lapse of Continuity

The cigarette hangs loosely from My dry lips like a man whose sentence was just carried out. The rope is cut, letting gravity have it's way. Gray ash clings to the black shirt, because deep down nothing truly wants to die. My head rests zen like against the white (soon to be yellow) wall while the vibrations from within and outside this structure meet. Perfect resonance. An introspective view of the exterior: My essence stands over My shoulder to gain new perspective, It instructs Me to rid My shirt of the cigarette ash in a cool manner. Like James Dean probably would. A single bulb fights to permeate the low hanging and quickly growing cloud as if we're reaching deep sea levels of thought. Too soon the struggle for steady breath forces a window open. The pool above us drains, only to be rapidly filled again as if summer ended and then resumed immediately. A neon grip takes hold of consumption by the throat until it's lungs burn without emitting light. An assembly of sultans(Satans?) semi-circle seated in Indian style, of both posture and methods of ritual, in a room perfectly sized to "contain" or harbor a soul. The center of the universe is a second story flat. Perfect resonance found in the later hours, we're left baying at the moon.

Passion Without Fire

Splitting wood in backyards of suburbia while splitting hairs of necessity
Stacking the cracked and weathered wood grains. Accidentally thorough. Energy and vibrations and a basic level.
Take from the land what you need and nothing more.
Exhale and see the warmth that is leaving us all. See your soul while it exits your body.
Stale sweat drapes us while bacteria thrives in dry mouths but all that matters is that constant wailing of cymbals in my head.
Independence seems like an unattainable beauty
The one who always gets away
The one who leaves you alone in bed at night
The one who apologizes for running off and laughing and carrying on with that other crowd
Self imposed dogma to govern the self leaves a soul self loathing
Bottle tipped night after night with a weak wrist
You don't understand a simple mind like your own, how could you possibly begin to comprehend Me?

Offspring of the Internet (Singularity Approaches)

We are the children of information
The grandsons and granddaughters of wires and circuitry, copper and silicone
No longer in need of my Father's 3rd and 4th hand knowledge and know how
Fully literate and potentially wise without the quandary or setbacks of an ethically tainted paradigm
Emotion traded in for the eternally blinking cursor. Cold and calculated, surveying the plane of ones and zeros.
An umbilical cord to life simplified to Input and output, wattage and voltage, pixel count and RAM.
A new universal language is born.
We are multi faceted devices, extensions of information delivery systems attached at the hips, attached at the appendages, attached in a linear manner. Attached but not connected we writhe in pseudo companionship which is poorly masked by rudimentary hieroglyphics and cave paintings.
Hand extended, I beg for someone to take it in their's.
Empty handed, I live ten thousand lifetimes.

An infinite abyss, cold fingers, and unwashed hair

Sex life comparable to the cosmos
Vast. Dead. Cold. Ever changing.
Endings and Beginnings. Transitions.
Ten thousand infinite parallel scenarios.
Art reflects life
Life reflects art
Even the most perverse, bastardized excuses for art.
Riding the wave of consumerism til sunrise.
Distant but physically close, the exterior meets genuine anticipation and offers up mirror image emotion.
Distant memories. Distant graves. Haunted.
Drunken Sutra of raw truth at my disposal.
Weary traveller in the night,
Bathed in fluorescent light,
Cigarette in hand,
Enjoy those breaths before they carry non-truth.
Back tracking, back peddling, pan handling, and sooth saying.
Save your goodbyes, this conversation is still open.

Craftsman

Drunk behind the wheel of indifference and not a single care can be found like a lack of road signs on a dirt path
While some cannot keep the wheels aligned with future paths I stare past the glass paradigm and keep a steady course to nowhere, to destruction.
Steady hands and glassy eyes will suffice in this race.
Knowing nothing matters, matters more than anything.
My invisible reach spans lives and man made borders without those affected ever knowing.
In and out of other's affairs. A clandestine operation.
I am no Deity, just a craftsman with a knack for manipulating the strings so thin they appear invisible to you.
I will steer us all into the ground.

Solar Deity

What good is an artist who can draw perfect lines and nothing else?
What good is a writer who can pen an errorless sentence that contains nothing of substance?
A scientist without any original theories?
A "poet" committing other's lines to memory?


Linear minded nature keeping the human mind from expressing human nature: Is it a wall in the way of human progression or a continuance of the well oiled machinery, putting off extinction another year?
A bowl of currency in a room full of beggars
The problem or the solution?


No desire to continue Society but only Humanity and Human Nature and Human Love.
Eyes fixed skyward toward another blood soaked end to a prosperous day, The liquid light pours to the edges and cracks of this entire room. Almost moved to tears in remorse for our Life-providing master, if not for Her annual rebirth. With each rise from the ashes, She grows stronger until we praise Her name well into the night.


But This is not Her or our season and she dies a premature death.
Leaving us early into the evening with only each other for warmth.
Toasting to sobriety, glass in hand I feel the world reach the tipping point.
The liquid goes down with ease.

Conversation

You know either I've got a drinking problem or everyone I know has a problem with 
drinking. The world spins regardless and space still expands. I felt vibrations cross man made 
state lines like there was no America for them to traverse, just a slight turn to the other side 
to continue an ongoing conversation.
If all your actions are based off your wants and desires, you're never truer to yourself. That's 
the law of the land in the wilderness. Instinct, the truest of all measuring instruments. It 
doesn't get any wilder than life. Life is a path leading away from itself and never crossing 
onto itself. We can't help but see where it leads. 
My dreams are haunted by the living. Leaving my life haunted by the unknown. 

One Year

Nearly a year since the pages have been turned
We've killed all of our hopes
Spending my time making sure the bridges are burned
Along with the slack in our ropes
Knowing that none of us have our lessons learned
While drunken young adults grope
Just tip the bottle and listen to our stomachs churn
I don't know how to cope

Something Present. Nothing Present.

She's a bitter Lover. Always leaving her Man regretfully filled with fire without warmth the next morning. A brief glimpse of ecstasy that slowly fades like cigarette smoke hanging in a packed and parked car. Revisited every evening that Her name comes up. The days are past where foreplay is more than a forethought, immediately letting her fall into the depths. Winter threatens those with souls remaining with a vast empty fear of abduction. Desperate times call for desperate measures and cold times call for inner warmth. That bitter sweet Siren may help you too bed and accompany you there too, but she'll never let you leave it. This consumption is starting to get loose, a forrest fire started by a drunken youth not foreseeing the eventual consequences of his present actions.

Cold times. Inner warmth.

Lagging movements passing through the visions, tracing the path like drunk driver's tail lights at night. Others wasting their time and breath, contemplating "God" "Which God" "No Gods" Etc. Explaining to them all that matters is the self, seems pointless to me. I am the only thing that exists. My desires are all that matter. Cold temperatures armed with cold temperaments are an enemy to prosperity and self preservation.

Alone at a table of friends

Ice and small quantities of mixer, that is how I plan to hide the strength of my drinks from the room full of students sipping thoughtfully at their weak drinks. "You must have been pretty thirsty, eh?", I'm asked by a face with a sly grin. "I'm on an all liquid diet.", I shoot back, holding up the plastic handle of Gin to replenish my drained glass. Conversation hovers over topics like working at Starbucks/Whole Foods/sandwich shops and how everyone copes with their own emotional/mental disorders. I engage and take the floor the more full I get and the emptier I feel. This could be any night. Get too drunk, attempt to snare an unsuspecting doe, failure, pour glass after glass. Wisdom comes with disassociation like how emptiness comes with that hollow feeling.

Vibrations

Every passing occurrence and interaction is just friction in the Universe's exchange of vibrations.
We're left hanging in empty space while post-zen waves travel through us, leaving behind nothing but memories of what we've lost.
Shells of human beings with a vague sense that nihilism wasn't the only force keeping our hollow bodies from implosion.
The wind pushes us around like leaves while the Hawk rides it high above us, seeing all that the Owl misses at night.
We do not cease to be, merely dissolve and decay while the seasons pass and the earth spins and the sun grows tired and space expands.
Continuing forward, curving in on itself. Forever.

Often I feel isolated, rarely I'm fine. There was never a chance of me walking any line.

Anything

I don't like anything

The sports are just contrived masculinity, bottled and sold to the masses. 

Possessions root me to one location making sure no one steals them, oh how I grow to resent my shackles. 

I don't like anything

Nothing exists that I long for, spending night and day pondering how to obtain my prize. 

Except maybe a motorcycle to get the fuck out of here. 

I don't like anything

Starvation can be more pleasurable than indulgence.

Screaming rapture in the streets or bowing my head has always seemed pointless. 

I don't like anything

Even our secret dance in the dark is just calculations and formulas to me now.

Pouring my "soul' onto paper has grown tiresome for once.

I don't like anything

Besides tipping the bottle back and forgetting myself.

Worrying about running out, acquiring more, keeping my body from rejecting  it.

Every day I lose another piece of me as I forget who I am and become a shell of a person. 

Completely removed from myself, I am the third person view of a life not being lived. 

And all the prisoners will laugh one day at "being free"

Suck the poison out now or cast off your limbs later
A cold dead winter's night is knock knock knocking on our door, demanding our first born or first love. Whichever comes first.
The mighty Oak and brother Birch tell their sister Willow the secrets of sanity
The secret that is meditation in cold times
Cold times, hard times, times where time seems irrelevant
Lonesome times

Naked in the woods bearing everything for everyone
Wishing no one
Cryptic plots of blackmail
Approach with caution, handle with care
This is all meaningless, this is all worthless
This is all. This is all.

Nervous people with nervous habits are spitting out words without ideas into machines that once again are spit across miles upon miles to those impatiently waiting their turn to speak ill of their nervous habit causing lives they have chosen.
Worried thoughts concerning events still folded waiting to unfold, nonexistent, perhaps inevitable though there are no certainties.

Leather clings unforgivingly to uncovered skin, unless it's saturated with sweat.
Walt Whitman, If God is a Mother you are her patron saint son in law.
Lucy is a curious woman
She'll make an atheist believe in God/Love/The Universe
She'll have a christian denouncing the Devil's existence
A "sane" man questions his sanity
A mad man questions his madness

Beauty can be questionable but Love leaves one fulfilled like fallen leaves clinging together burning together
Naked laughter pours from prison cell windows while winter sets in outside
Peering into the dark corners fixed on angelic and borderline demonic figures

Stream of consciousness and inner monologues make up my hemisphere of thought
I have a tired soul inside that shows on the outside
Swimming in a sea of post zen awareness, drowning in definitions of meaning that are meaningless

The grass grows because we know it will always rain another day and another day we will die and another day the grass and dirt will cover our faces

Nights

With gin on my breath only truth will touch these lips tonight
Dead eyes, long stares, and tired visions
Tired of staring at the screen
Staring past the curtain and through the veil
Staring at Those gyrating hips move like a rain dance during a waxing moon
Staring at visions that disappear and dissolve into the sunlight
Eyes that see. Eyes that see at night.
Dead eyed and desensitized and dehumanizing others
Along with fields of thought scattered with human bodies as though they were leaves right before winter
Animal like chants from other rooms seem like cries of victory of ex-revolutionaries in countries far off
The Cat doesn't always land on her feet
Beer making Her a brawler, She takes a dive and throws the fight
Loose change scattered along the floor
Dollar bills cling to our feet
One great exodus after another to the pins and needle cold outside for a smoke
The glass tips back
The Earth calls my essence to it
And I feel my body slip

Death Herself

I've been assembling a puzzle
Soon you will be able to step back and see exactly what I've had in my head
Death is a train that we patiently wait for
Some believe it takes them home
Others, it takes them away from it
Death is a long train ride, meant to lull one into a content slumber
A slumber, finally welcome after so many nights praying for loss of consciousness
Another sleepless night, Another nightmare filled consciousness
Imagery along the wall and ideas outside my body
I pray to Her alone

Fucked, long before the foreplay.

"A broken clock is right twice a day" 

This cliche reverberates within my mind upon one of the unrecognizable layers of latent thought. Like a forest, there are obvious separations but it all meshes together at the same time. At night running through the low hanging branches, struggling to keep on the marked path. Always lost, always discovering something new. The past revisited. 

Two consecutive lines of white powder off the dashboard. Hurried conversation. 

"Turn the lights off." 

Interlocking fingers are unmoving, the cogs in a broken clock. 

"Don't scare me away."

The music and memories of a pre-zen moment in a forgotten summer pour from dark speakers in a dark room, washing over me completely the same as they once had. 

But it's not the same. It will never be the same. I will never be the same. 

Our post-zen madness leaves me thinking of the young man I once was, making Love so innocently. 

A Brother of mine says that, "Getting Lost Is All We Do These Days"

I believe he's right. 

Getting lost, forgetting the path we've strayed from, concerned only about the next step.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

So why can't you manage it?

Interior, sullen.

You envy my madness.
I know you must.
My ability to feel free when I have nothing.
My sorrow and American name brand dread worsening when weighed down.
You envy my madness.
I can see it in your eyes.
When I catch you, catching me, staring over my shoulder.
The inconsistent twitches.
Do they puzzle you?
My Post-Zen sadness - My certainty that I've found the truth, still completely unsatisfied.
You envy my madness.
You have to.

Truth Is What We Make It

My vision is perfect.
My sight wraps around the curvature, allowing me knowledge of what's to come.
My life, it's divided into segments. Pieces of the saga that I'm living through.
Heartbreak leaves a man empty. Emptiness allows a man to be filled up.
The Sea ebbs and flows.
Life on the shore continues, as always.
My life gives and takes.
Truth is what we make it.

My Apologies to Mr. Ginsberg

Allen saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness
I can picture his beat generation contemplating truth while they contemplate jazz
Looking for a truth to hold onto, that objective truth that must be hidden well
My generation, my new beat generation is dying from emptiness
Madness is an over zealous byproduct, a symptom that can't be directly treated
I see my generation and I, wander the earth and wander our lives, looking for a connection
Who grew up over stimulated and over expectant of the life before us
Who sat in coffee shops, getting tea drunk while the machine clung to whiskey thin ankles
Who confidently walked the isolated streets of suburbia in darkness with styrofoam cups of liquor in hand
Who have lived fuller lives with broader experiences and broader thoughts than those that raised them
Who feel that envious acid reflux in regards to simple minded guardians with simple satisfaction
Who abandoned the pursuit of truth long ago along with the pursuit of happiness
Who destroyed any sense of morals or sexual guidelines long before adulthood loomed over
With colors, with dreams, with no longer taking pleasure from sex, envelopes pushed and hungover train rides from Chicago
Long drives in the dark to nowhere, being eternally present in a third person perspective and removed attitude
Sharing trips and sharing women and sharing bottles leads us to eventual shared sadness a cursed camaraderie
Hazy walks in poorly lit antique stores, getting lost among the labyrinth of glass soda bottles and record players and intentionally forgotten memories
Plotting to abduct and kill the homeless just to prove they could accomplish murder, morals never once coming into question
Who have wondered if they are sociopaths but eventually decided it did not matter one way or the other
Who have become familiar with the feeling of drunken basement sex and the sensation of death
Shadow cast demons standing on the side of the road, watching intently as we pass by at considerable speeds
We are children orphaned and shoeless and starving in the streets of societal expectations
Golden Golden Golden is the moment removed from others

Crash

You always see lots of out of state license plates in a college town. Once you begin to recognize the different traits and driving habits that each state holds, you begin to judge each individual in their vehicle. Hating someone without a face, just a stamp of association, is much easier. Yell some obscenities and forget about it, the most simplest of actions. "Hey! Fuck you, asshole!... So where do you want to go to dinner, Honey?" These situations are as effortless as opening a door, but no less necessary. There's construction on the road today. The sky drunkenly walks a fine line between overcast and joyous. We are subject to other's objective thoughts, cursed by our brothers and sisters as we speed down another dark road with illy given directions. Seeing how long my eyes can "safely" wander from the road I stare out the window, my gaze fixes on a car crash that I hope has no survivors the same way I would appreciate a flower in passing. We gather for communion of destruction, craving disaster just so that we can feel something for once. I want to feel something, anything. The warmth of an embrace, the passion of Love, the sharpness of Hate. All I experience is the vague sense of numbness spreading as the darkness begins to fade, the light will reveal our selfish manner. 

" 'But this road doesn't go anywhere,' I told him.
'That doesn't matter.'
'What does?' I asked, after a little while.
'Just that we're on it, dude,' he said. ” 

Dehumanize Depersonalize

Any attempt I make at forcing the bullet train like thoughts in my mind, using only my mind, is a failure from the beginning. Hiding your blood soaked hands, using only your blood soaked hands to cover them. A constant drip drip drip as you stain the ground beneath you with disease and distaste, never leaving it quite the same no matter how much you scrub. Without instinct, how many wells and ditches do you think would be filled to the brim with shoe box sized corpses? I do not enjoy "things" at all, but rather I enjoy situations and feelings. Stripped of all things that blind, the veil that passes over all eyes making an eternal night that so many cannot seem to navigate. Those who see at night, their eyes see past the gyrating hips, spilled drinks, loud music, warm/cold embraces, and that look which pierces nothing. Look deeper into the darkness, the figures will take shape the steadier your gaze. Past the dancing, drinking, flashing lights, sexual tension, and smoke and mirrors a scene of communion and group sacrifice will materialize. 

I'm never living my own life, I watch the part played out by a Fool who will not listen to my cries of concern and advice from the front row while the Second Act takes time to get off the ground. Never within myself. I watch as the Fool lets some nice Girl, who deserves more genuine attention, position herself and move around on top of him. Never within myself. I'm never there, in that moment I want to ask if She'd like to role play. "Just for this moment and situation would you like to pretend that we Love each other?" I have faked pleasure, I've faked passion, I've faked interest, even my attention to the situation at hand is just a facade. My mind always somewhere else. Never within myself. I have never faked Love. 

A conversation with a former Lover, discussing beauty and our Love. Walking through a museum of what we once had. Visiting each exhibit, discussing it fully until we're satisfied or much too upset to continue the tour. We only allow ourself to visit the art that hangs in this sad hollow building, never owning any of it. 

"You see, I'm not so worried about finding someone who 'Loves me' necessarily. I'm worried about finding someone who will Love me and denounce any Love they had in the past. Someone who will tell me they've never Loved anyone like they do me and perhaps it wasn't Love at all. I have to be the center of their universe or nothing at all and I know this is so incredibly fucked up and unrealistic and impossible. That's why I'm worried, because I know I could never find someone that cruel and who would Love me. Then of course the entire time I'd be concerned that if we move on, will she denounce my Love to some other guy? It's all very troubling to me honestly and I'm not sure what to do about it."

How many times has someone told me they're worried about me?

How many times more do they actually worry?

How many less?

I'm never within myself. 

A constant struggle for lucidity

In and out of consciousness
Childlike
The waves rock us back and forth at odd intervals
Sometimes violently, peacefully at others
Like a mother who had perhaps three or four too many drinks, certainly much too early
The scent in the air is that of fish, of gasoline, of big men and big ideas

While the Moon hangs low and full,
A single bulb on a pull chain lighting the corners of a slum while the Gold is slowly snuck out the back door

I feel the pain/vibrations of the writhing worm as my hook pierces it
Once, twice, finally a third time
Buddha refusing to plow the fields for the worm's sake

In and out of consciousness
Like a child, like a drunk, like a Man who has lost touch
Dreaming small leaves a Man confused about reality when he wakes

Eyes watch the clock as if it were a liar or thief,
While waiting to call Her
Waiting to call Her at the exact time She said it'd be possible to do so
Does She notice? Maybe

Holding on to the edge, toes curling instinctively
Night creeps in
Drowning me slowly in darkness and I do not notice until it's fully upon me
Fooled like the frog boiled alive

In and out of consciousness
Like drunken sex, like uncertain thoughts
Am I really here?
Is this really happening?
Sure I've met many Women but I've only Loved one

In and out of consciousness
And the capsule slides down my throat with ease

Sociopathic

You told me you had no morals, besides those you took up to bear like a cross for the crowd to see. The watchful eyes, checking off their lists, they know you're on the right side of the line painted generations before them. 
You told me you could kill a man and feel nothing the next day. Which goes to make me wonder: Had I not survived, would you have still shed so many tears?
When they were watching?
When they weren't watching?
I know the formula still would've been applied, as it always is. Judging social situations, the variables present, and all potential outcomes. 
You look stunning on paper my Dear, but that does not last unlike Love. 
Love, fleeting like the wind but always coming back.

"Nothing Else Fills"

Trying to catalogue while in the heat of the fight  
The heat of the moment    
Trying to focus on a single drop of rain in an afternoon shower that you know will be over shortly

Every instance, every experience is merely a brief interaction
Never truly touching anything outside yourself
Never truly knowing anything outside yourself

Looking back into the past is only staring at ripples in the water
The true curse: knowing they will fade soon
Urgency to seize this moment

Helpless

Cursed to being caught in the rain. Outside. Closed doors.
You cannot. Will not. Open them yourself.
"I don't throw the ball up and try to hit it. I don't play that game."
If you don't help yourself, you're helpless.

Mind/Body Relations

Do you ever have trouble discerning between emotional and physical pain?
Not being able to tell if you're yearning for something tangible or just some understanding from a "friend".
A hug. A sturdy meal. 


Coconut rum in a non-tropical setting, prepping the gears for easy movement and unaltered paths of unhinging.
Let me move the veil; The curtains. 
So I can see that there is life behind your nervous windows. 

I Inhabit Too Much Space Within My Own Mind

We make our own rules, convincing ourselves of right and wrong. 

We could do anything if we allowed ourselves the indulgence while slipping below the judgmental and ostracizing eyes of society.  

If you don't know what it is I'm talking about, have you ever told a lie so well and often that you believed it yourself eventually?

If nobody digs up my sins then they never existed. 

I've buried them well under the cover of night and killed those later who helped carry the shovels and the body. 

I am a master of myself, I cannot respect anyone who isn't and therefore am alone once again. Sociopathic. 

"But why would you go through the trouble of explaining this contrived idea? It's because you're alone, you need to connect to someone and you see that I get it."

 

Dead

I'm dead. I'm in an empty room, cold and shirtless. I have the strange feeling that someone(something?) is watching me. Behind me or in front of me are eyes piercing my existence.
Knowing.
I'm being judged in a room full of none of my peers and I can't see past the walls.
Open space.
Eternity knows that this is all contrived, not unlike the potato famine or the souls lost in the Chicago fire.
Feeling.
I don't feel anything. To that, there is a feeling of emptiness.
I can't keep up with the pace of my longing.
Feeding my addiction of human connection.
Dead space, there is nothing between us. I am dead, you are dead, we are not connected.

Obsession

"Hello, the caller you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave a message at the beep."
-beep-
"HEY, It's your BEST FRIEND, yeah I've been DRINKING tonight. A LOT. I find it odd that I'm missing you even though you're a stone throw's away from me, don't you?!? Well... bye."
Another night. Another evening I want nothing more than to wander the streets with my thoughts and myself.
But No.
Surrounded by people who care, but who do not see.  Drowning I am. Drowning in ill measures and pure intentions. The wires match up but there are no sparks. Just a spark is all that is needed to start this fire. Combustion. A reaction. Is that too much to ask? A simple spark with friction among the thighs and torso and delicate parts.
I'm sad. You've made me sad. I hope that makes You sad.
Though we are at our weakest there is no spilling of guts, except in the literal sense beside the curb for which my hat goes off to.

Walk down the street
Stare at the horizon as the sun goes down and comes up,
Know that you will never be so earth shattering or magnificent.
I will see it everyday and every night beyond the crashing waves. At war with themselves for eternity, cursed like Man.
Reveling.
However it isn't the meridian that keeps me up at night.

A Collaboration Of Sorts

Circular desperation, glasses raised in uniform 

Our monolithic chant the same, night after night

"The party never stops" 

Our post-zen mantra

An excuse for those with eyes that see.

Lets drown some boredom.

"While one may drink to connect, the other drinks to distance." I don't smile at the over-bronzed bartender as she passes, her skirt so short I can see everything. "Do you want anything else?" She asks me. "Yes please." Raising my glass + my hand. Begging for help. 

The party Never stops. Because it can't stop. The end of the party is the introduction to adulthood. Unaffordable. Clear eyes and clear minds make for neatly folded linens and wiping the faces of disgusting infants, instead of torn tshirts and passionate love making. 

The party will not stop when a sober reality means nothing.

The party will not stop when there's a purple longing for communion. 

The party will not stop when stumbling blindly doesn't hurt, even just for a night. 

One swift pull from the cigarette bitten by my lips leaves my head light like the tip I've left for the bitch taking my plate from me. This party's going elsewhere, it ceases to sleep. I've been taken by my eyes and I'm lost in her cleavage. 

Partying never stops, leaving me no time to finish this po     

Just another, Just another

Just another night with images and sounds and feelings and thoughts swimming around and through me with the colors dancing upon the ceiling. That dry and empty feeling when you need a drink. Sleeping sober. The madness won’t have that, so it kicks up images and memories like a child who doesn’t get his way, kicking up dirt or sand until it creates a cloud surrounding his sadness. 
Just another poemless night sitting in a dark room I think hard about the word “and” and how repetition in general annoys most people, but fuck most people. You have to drive a point home if you want it to stick, I suppose.
 “Just another notch in your belt, you say?” Coyote responds to me across the kitchen while he shirtlessly cooks lunch for us. Setting down the pipe and looking away from one of his many paintings that are scattered around the room I look at him “Yeah. Time, space, distance, none of that helped me get over her. The more women I put in between she and I however did. I put another Notch in between us last night.” The room we’re in is small but warm like an embrace. There are paintings and National Geographic’s and a typewriter and a record player and books and books and books every which way you look, threatening to overwhelm you. “Riley, It doesn’t surprise me when you say you might be a sad person.”

I died in Winter, was born again in the Spring, and died once more in the Summer.

Act I
The stage is set
White Wisconsin snow turning the landscape into grey Wisconsin Winter
Darkness
The snow, the cold snow;
Falls from above continuously
Piles high upon the lawns
Packs tight among the concrete and feet
I watch it fall
I watch this transformation from behind the gaping mouth of the garage door
Winter coat bundled tightly around me as I'm slumped in a folding chair
Preparing the Ritual
Madness Madness Madness
Inhale

Act II
"A mirror is your best friend.", I mumble as I watch you snort three consecutive lines of white powder off the reflective surface. "Did you say something?", You ask wiping residue from your beautifully shaped nose. "Nothing important. The snow is melting.", I reply. We sit silent for longer than a moment and finally you break it. "Why do you Love the drugs?"
"Do you mean besides it being fun?"
"Of course, that's a given. I asked why you Love them not enjoy them."
I look like I think hard about the question as I pick up my coffee mug and take a sip, looking reflective, but of course I already know the answer right away.
"Because there is no reason for this life, there is no eventual pay off after you die. Therefore, life is a lot of work for pretty much nothing. I guess you could call me a hedonist but it just aides in putting up with everything."
As I'm finishing my sad little speech, I take note that you are no longer there.
"You never were.", I remark to the empty room as I put the pipe to my mouth and try to forget I ever Loved you.

Act III
Exhale
My breath is heard within my head as I stare at the vibrant pastels of this sickened Illinois Summer
The smoke leaves my lungs and moves with the breeze
It's time here is no more meaningful or stimulating than anything else
I've walked through a million spider webs
None slow me down unless I allow them
The Grass. The Clouds. The River.
They all call to me
Just as the dirt below me whispers
How it always does
Selling me, telling me not to stay

Fire(d)

Paranoia holds me to the brink of destruction
Keeping me close to the flames, forcing me to fan my own insanity
"Quickly! Leave town now before anyone notices!"
Saving face, losing hope, gaining nothing, forgetting trust
I am Fire
I will consume without discretion
No matter who it hurts
No matter how fast I burn out
Fire cannot stop itself
Just weep as it burns down an honest man's house
Be secretive
Communicate to the world only through codes and messages in bottles
I am alone, an Island standing by itself
No water or food
Nothing the fires can destroy

Awakened (The Sickness Is No Longer Dormant)

Brown dead heads hide behind the brilliant yellows that stand out like a curtain call
Lonesomely alone again in the flower box bearing the rays of the day
Courtesy calls quickly calculated to excuse one's self from work today, "You see I don't want you getting sick. You're welcome actually."
While later long showers are taken and coffee drank in excess and breakfast eaten with the newspaper read
But there's no news I want to know of
Not today
Royal purple undertones brighten the day, the majestic early morning day after a short fungal conversation
While I drink my coffee and lonesome mothers converse in the background
The sexy bicyclist turns me on with her outfit and independence from fossil fuels
Where She HAS to be, I don't know but it's probably not too pressing
Golden Golden Golden is the moment removed from others
The World is not an object but many put together
That is why the World is broken when Her children are orphaned and shoeless and starving in the streets of societal expectations
Do not go forth
But BE where you are

Extinguish Me

Slow to gain speed, but retaining it once achieved it is a driving force in the night. We are all orphaned children of society, huddled around the fire shaking from the cold and the madness. Communion gratefully passed around on glass alters to our own Gods. Our own Demons. The night brings a feeling of safety, hiding us from those who fear, as we crawl on our hands and knees from daily shelter. Planted in the grass or standing one's ground, saving face while the earth spins and rotates for those with eyes that see. "Let me walk free!" He shouts while none inhibit him let alone bat an eye as he walks into the tree line, not to be seen until an entire Dylan album later. Open fields for chasing one another and one another's dreams and one another's Love, not to catch them but for the chase itself. You've already exposed yourself completely to me, won't you sing for me? Consume every resource without discretion. Let us be fire.

Release

Winning isn't what's important
I always did finish second
If at all

I want to read your body like brail
My scarred finger tips translating every discreet message
Disaster prevented, ear to the surface as if a Dead Apache

Living symbols with Dead symbolism
One explosion follows another; The shock wave builds
White knuckles. My fist, full.

Release.

I Can't Tell You The Secret, Only Describe It

The Truth, when found, is not earth shattering nor is it complex but it is remarkable and so simple it takes a child to truly know it. But isn't it children who experience true uninhibited joy? That rock you now idly kick, as you pass the time and pass the beauty around you, was a part of something much larger and monumental than yourself a millennia before you were ever thought of. I sigh but not in sorrow, but in Love of the unfathomable beauty the Mother has provided. How simple yet complex all at the same. The truth is so simple it can be forgotten. Why must one plan for the future? Do you think the Bird, the Doe, the Tree, the Weed, the Mosquito make plans for tomorrow? Just as they all live and die, we all live and die.

Texture

Hard wood grain, artificially marked a brown that does not evoke Earthy emotions
I drag my scarred and broken hands across the surface of the scarred and broken timber, long felled by perhaps another lost generation

Our Mother(Nature)'s Room

Warm acidic karmic bliss flows from my midsection into the roughage and foliage,
The unseen unnecessarily said necessary part of the water cycle.
Taking nourishment and energy and work and dollar bills(Later to be taxed by the Father) from the Mother as she asks nothing,
Only to have spent it all on gambling and debauchery chasing while tea drunk indoors indoors indoors
Only to return outdoors into the room of the Mother that fits us all perfectly, only to piss upon it all

Wooden

The Earth takes back the forgotten wooden bench,
left damned to rot, to take on water and vines and graffiti.
The Earth takes it back, it's Brother's rooted next to it clinging up and down the frame work.
Left to be shit on by the birds who couldn't imagine being chained to one location
Or
Are they placing their own social statement over the long taxed copy of a copy of a copy man made corporation made graffiti, that one who knows not to read knows MEANS nothing?
This is why I do not plunge my knife into it's wooden grain textured surface, for certain defacement is only desperate nothing.
The green, The green of the River, The green of the forest, The green stands out as I sit upon the bench that has seen hell
And is still being reclaimed by our Mother.

Dialogue With My Dark Brother

"Isn't it sad?", Mike says looking at everything but me. Sitting at a four person table, the two of us sit diagonally across from each other. Some nameless elevator music plays above us here in Starbucks.
I answer back, staring at my empty plastic cup,"Is what sad? The fact that we're in a Starbucks right now or that this town closed down the last non-corporate coffee shop?" When I say 'this town' there is a certain bitterness, because I do not speak of the township government but the town as an organism. This old town of mine is no longer mine and it's infected.
"Well yes, there's that." Mike says to me with a slight scoff in my direction. "But isn't it sad that it's more socially acceptable to Fuck around than to ask someone to hold you so that you can weep?" The rings of condensation on the table are what hold both of our gazes but not our attention.
"Are you saying you want me to hold you, Mike?" I say still looking at the moist rings on the wood grain.
"Reilly. I've already go ahold of you."

Third Person

A cruel trickster has stolen the floor beneath me with charm and poise right before my eyes
She will see the rain with reluctance one day and have naught but the slightest wish for drought
We'll fool them all and take gold from the well whilst they sleep
Just think like this. Just, do it.
Now, dry your eyes.
Maybe see what conversation the spores can hold when given the floor
Glamor and fame are the name of the game but wishes and riches stitch the paper for the misses.
Coffee in a children's cup
Sinisterly sip and feel your pulse raise as the bitter liquid warms your young esophagus
Feel control. Feel no control. Feel.
I need to feel.
Connect, but the wires are frayed.
Just make contact.
That. Is. All.

Curve Like a Q

Do you want to bear his christian child?
We need more Sons to bear our names and our crosses
Imperialistic dogma rules the land and the seas, the uteruses
More troops on the ground, but not to work the land or farm the crops
Karmic revolution will have no last man alive but a last Woman
The last Woman, to clean up after the Men are done
Tell me my name and now take it with you
Disguising any past accomplishments with male valor
The debt and the blood and the dirt is on our hands
While all the while we're watched with wringing hands and nervous eyes
A hostage crisis. Women and children first.
Femininity Femininity Femininity
Wrap the world in your arms and don't let go until it's fallen into a deep trusting slumber
Tell them what is best but force nothing upon anyone
Guide but do not command
Love like a Mother.

45 Degrees

Ice and glass clink clink clink with each interaction and gesture
None held back, never restrained. Not. In. These. Moments.
Falling with no branches to hit on the way down
The room moves around me and introduces all the one and the one to all
tip back the bottle and let that poison fill your belly
Feel the warmth grow within and glow like an expecting mother
I've caught the killer within me, but what are you to do with the convicted?
Tip back the bottle. Blink Wink Think Clink Go the movements and another life and another lie is ruined.
We've won the race but we haven't realized the finish line is long behind us.
Along, with the setting Sun.

Fatigue

Do you roll out of bed like a rag doll, minutes before the work day begins?
Only to prove that you can do it, with the possibility of a shower and shave long gone with the whites of your eyes?
Do your bloodshot pupils hover over the fuel gauge as you smoke the last cigarette that you had enough sense to save last night?
Is your lunch break filled with smoke and hunger?
Do you drive home hungry, on empty, aching, but at least with more cigarettes?
Is your night filled with superstition and sacrifice and blind ecstasy and loose bill folds and loose women and loose change?
Are you frightened of madness, oh Poet?

Moody

Sweat past the exterior Sun on my face
The clouds say hello from the far side of the room
A dark film between two dilated cameras and the world leaves me extracted from society
I died a hundred deaths for lucy, each one of them as real as the last
But the rebirth, innumerable in count and kindness
A sunset that will never be forgotten leading to a sunrise that isn't hardly noticed
Fear is smothered by beauty and beauty is compromised over time
A little bit of breathing can keep you alive for a long time

It's hard enough going home with who you brought to the dance

Vague Certainties

The Cat doesn't always land on Her feet
Nor does She always know which way is up
However, this usually isn't the case.
A balance beam being her forte, Harmony between Herself and what little solid ground there is beneath.
The Cat doesn't always land on Her feet
But she will claw wildly all the way down.

Instinct. Instinct. Instinct.
The only measurement we have not produced.
The only measurement that one can truly find true.
The only measurement I have found that satisfies.
Simplicity is sought after as though one would find it hiding.
Do not search for it, simply find it.

Feeling whole and feeling flawed. Feeling. Improvement. Running, knee deep down the poorly lit hall. Lights flicker on and off and off and off. Water, kicked up, leaving nothing left unpunished. Go through the first exit and then through the next. An exit to an exit.

Why does one Trust another?
There isn't a person who doesn't give you reason to question their words.
I want to Trust you. So I do.
I want to Love you. So I do.

Brittle

The mania and the voices have returned once more, so in turn the poems have as well. They always have been there, both the poems and the voices but now stepped up to a notch not seen since simpler times. simpler times. Don't cry "I can't be saved." There is nothing to be saved from. Death is but a train, taking us to the next lonesome station down the line where there will be no one to greet you. We are all carbon. We are all the Earth. We are all the Universe.
Save your mourning. I will see you in the morning.
I will see you in the morning.

I cry madness, I plead insane.

Madness is naming your poems so that they'll be easier to teach eventually in some highschool poetry class.
Madness isn't listening to the voices in your head, but arguing with them(Or worse, agreeing with them).
Madness is the subtext jumping out at you like it's meant for you, only you.
Madness is writing poetry in the earlier hours, hunched over your desk in a quiet house, you know you'll hate yourself tomorrow.
Madness can be summed up with one God Damn Four Letter Word: Love.

Helpful Hints

Defeat writers block?
Be: angry, tired, frustrated, sex deprived, Love deprived, alone, unsympathetic, apathetic.
Watch something die and be happy for it.
Bring something to life with ill intentions.
Think about the medication.
Refuse the medication(unless of course recreational).
Hope that helps.

Self imitation is suicidal plagiarism

Pale reflections of a burning passion Illuminate my horizons
Fully.
Capitalized consonants.
Cut down cut down cut down
Re-grown and re-pruned only to be cut down
That dull blade only gets more and more and more nicks in the reflective steel and gains exponential heat from every hack at my limbs and lord hood.
Sex poems; jokingly(DEAD SERIOUS?) written. Read whilst weeping.
A forrest, dark and damp. pulling me into it's wet underbelly. Feet pounding creating heat founding fear. Cast out into the empty grasslands, where all is fine(?) but oh so lonesome and nothing to do but hurriedly jot colors in brail that all may see but none will see.
My greatest inspiration
My greatest inspiration
MY MY MY Greatest Inspiration
Not gone, but resting outside my window upon the street below for a blind man's easel
He will never know that it is I who is painting the truer form, as I steal glances through the glass.
Like my pain, your sign is never ending. My favorite sign. A beautiful paradigm has shifted once more. stretching onwards into itself, pain overlapping pain, sorrow overlapping sorrow, poems overlapping poems.
Hating Love. More common than Loving it. Self loathing over Forgiveness.
Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
Acceptance.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Rep∞t

Time, A Line

Linear intelligence heading clockwise.
Options. There are none.
Never doubling back to crunch the numbers.
Crunch numbers
Underneath my feet as I travel forwards
Never looking down and back.
Ticking down to the nuclear end?
The end of nuclear time telling?
Your half life is as long as my life,
but oh so lifeless
A bell, larger than myself
I stand beneath it, letting the air exit my lungs and enter my shout
The initial idea bouncing off the copper sides every which ways and back
Creating new as it changes over time at top speed
Then it cracks.
Then I crack.

Animals

I want to see you naked,
With the moonlight illuminating the cigarette smoke between us.
I want to see you naked,
Not because your frame is as beautiful and fragile as it is.
I want to see you naked,
For I want to be the one who conquers your defenses.
Break past the barrier
Break. Past. The. Barrier.
Make wild that which was once tame.

Running, not to or away from anything. Running. Desperation, desperation, desperation, cry at the moon in tongues and speech that does not exist. Get your message past the birds, past the clouds, past the atmosphere to our sister in the night sky. Not communicating with words, but with generalizations. hard surfaces, ninety degrees, heat, angles.
Everybody has an angle.

Berry Picking

If She's ripe
Pick Her
Do not allow Her to stay on Her vine past Her prime
Her juice and sweetness gone to waste
Listen, migrant farmhand, navigate these rows of bushes of bliss bearing berries with an eye for beauty
Look for those that are ripe
Ready for consumption
Do not carelessly throw Her into your bucket before She's ready, for the rest of Her days will be spent bitter
If She's ripe
Pick Her.

Carbon

Pyramids of Love built on foundations of sand and adultery will stand the tests of time
Despite the initial consensus and wishes of the slave laborers who made that dirt reach the sky.
Stop and go politics have taken the poets and the beards and the bicycles off of the streets
Only to be replaced with the clean shaven mutants who don't even share their cigarettes
But who cares!? So long as they buy and drink the beer and hold the state upon their shoulders, like it were the football star prom king.
Oh, Huck! No longer the Drunk, but the former drunk locked up in your cell
I saw you caged long before they turned the key.
Oh, Huckleberry! Oh, Coyote! Oh, Old Wisconsin!
Where is she?
Where is she, who has done this to you?
That first lady who made YOU the way you are today!
We all know where She is, that first big storm that came rock 'n rolling through our midwest pastures to tame us, only to leave the next season
She, who we once all drank to and toasted.
Now we drink to forget Her.
Poeia!
You told me this Ben, you wandering Fool, you Poet in Coyote's skin clothing.
But you REFUSED to tell me the meaning, for you did not want to ruin the meaning for me!
Bless you!
Bless you and anyone else who refuses to destroy the alluring subtext.
It was also you who showed me without teaching to pocket your cigarettes, lest the birds pick up on our nasty habits.
My teeth are stained with cigarettes
Clothes burned with cigarettes
Ash covered poetry
All we are is ash.
All we are is smoke.
All we are are ghosts.

Growing up middle class
Granted perfect teeth for a perfect smile
A smile with nothing behind it but angst and superstition
Wanderlust leaves a soul that's trapped in one place clawing at the cage

Damaged goods always sell for less
If not cast aside or given away first
There is no Sin
There is nothing to confess

What goes into the melting pot?
That later a poet is poured out of it
What pieces of the puzzle, that can't solve itself, are brought together
Failed relationship with the Father
Both biblical and literal
Love for the Mother
Nature and our beginning
Disregard for the physical needs
A hopeless Romantic
Still hopeless at the end of the day

Eyes which merely watch the swirling poison; The glass in hand
The Love for that slight push...
Aiding the purging of a troubled mind

Poets will always find each other and huddle together
Without having searched for each other
Like how the empty bottles end up huddled together at the bend of a River

The River
It calls to me



Post Script- Co authored by Charlie Lathrop http://theashonasphalt.blogspot.com/

This is a town filled with Girls
When all I need is a Woman
Girls that have been raised to rely on Men
Taught that Men have answers, and money, and keys to nice cars
Learned to trust Men and what they say
Look at the squirrel, keeping it's distance
Even He knows to be wary of us Men
A Woman knows self reliance but wants to share it with another
A woman is strong
A strong Woman is unfathomably more courageous that a strong Man
A Woman knows how to cry,
I do not.

That means something
The Man, piss drunk, more than happy to hold his woman's hair back
While her body rejects an entire bottle of red wine
Comforting words, comforting actions, from and for the sick of heart with a sick stomach
Did he, with that handful of luscious hair and kind words on his tongue, ever stop to wonder "Will I ever Love another, as I've Loved you?"
Of course not
There was never supposed to be another
But the next day, along with the hangover, eventually comes despite your wishes
Along with the memories
Of Her banging on the door
Of you yelling you're fine
Of not wanting Her to see you at your worst
Of saving face
Drunk and childlike, fast asleep in Her arms, those arms that seemed like they could've wrapped around the world
My world at least
In those arms everything was right
A Mother rocking Her Son to sleep
That's all that's ever been wanted
That's all that's been longed for

Mere feet away, a group of Men
Men
Sit and painstakingly try, try, try to find times to set aside for their gathering
Find times to schedule
For communion
For worship
For Brotherhood
Should it be I, who goes to them and shares out ways with them?
That community is not something you set aside, it is something that encompasses you.
We pass our communion circularly and graciously.
All those who are present for the offering of soul are grateful, for none planned it.
But those who's path did not coincide with the Offering are not disappointed.
They know the opportunity will arise.
Again and again.

I managed to beat the Sun out of bed today. The gloomy, decrepit, day in her hungover stupor is finally preparing in the afternoon. Now the question of etiquette, Does the Brother or the Boyfriend give up their chair for the young woman? I'm your Brother forever. Give up your chair but remain at the table, there is work to be done.

Tools and utensils
Brightly colored
Scattered carelessly. Carefully?
The Blues
The Yellows
The Reds
Stand out and off of the off white fibers of the paper
Yielding Art with no meaning
Means something
The instruments and the muse that went into this empty idol
Carelessly left to themselves
Where was the visionless Artist when the visioned Fool trampled her work
Her three hours of bored work
Work for contempt
Work for the sake of work
It fades with the hour

Across the crowded patio, which serves as the stage for this drowning of eventual dehydration, can be heard the cry of
"Another Poem!"
Only to be met by the response of "Another Drink!"
Poems are read
Drinks are Drunk
Souls are bared
But the Poem of the night was the one unspoken
The Poem of the night was the drunk silently sitting indian style in the background, smoking a broken cigarette, rocking back and forth
Back and forth with the vibrations of the Universe
While the Artist sat in the foreground, reciting other Poet's poetry, baring other author's souls
Word for word
As his words dissipated into the air, the Drunk continued to rock back and forth
Back and forth continuing the vibrations of the Universe

Holy Trinity

Our stone and paper idols were prepared for the sacrifice with careful hands.
Eagerly we waited for the remainder of the congregation to arrive to partake in the bearing of souls
of Spirits.
Sitting indian style like stumped prophets that sat before us seeking spiritual renewal.
Moloch.
Fire brings redemption upon ancient alters unto God,
Redemption brought to us upon this night with sacrificed plant matter
Just as Cain but not as eager to kill Able.
But more than able, more than eager
Offering bottle to bottle to friend to stranger.
Shit.
Got the hiccups.
With the fire or the lighter?
Shit.
Goddamnit I had it all together.
Begins the flame.
Spirits the Inferno.
The alter ready.
The mouth of Satan Satan Satan
Offering but not receiving
Now devouring our souls in flame a blissful sleep.
Drink on.



Post Script
A Collaboration with Charlie, more of his work can be found at theashonasphalt.blogspot.com

"Until next time", She said with my breath leaving her lungs.
"Until next time", She said with each other's taste still fresh on our lips.
"Until next time", She said as the possibility of a future was erected and then toppled all in a moment.
"Until next time", She said.
And then She walked off into the darkness.

"...I want you to take him out there and scare the shit out of him." Coyote said to Rain, the girl who brought me to this house show. We had been sitting on the lawn when Coyote came up to me and started talking about some of his latest paintings, a rainbow he had seen, and correspondence after I leave town.
"Do you want to go somewhere else? Just us?" I had asked Rain.
"Sure, where?"
"You guys should go down by the River to where those shrines are. Have you been there and checked those out yet?" Coyote asked me through his bushy mustache. "Nah, I haven't had the chance yet." I answered back.
Coyote looked at Rain and then said to me, "Looks like you have the perfect chance now." and then to Rain,"I want you to take him out there and scare the shit out of him." He adjusted his cowboy hat with with one hand and pulled out his smartphone with the other to show me directions. "...down the road here and you see where this big grey area on the map, this dead area is? Right there. This whole area, that means something."
Coyote and I parted ways with a few words and an embrace then Rain and I were off to find this graveyard, to find this meaning. Later that evening we walked the paths of that empty cemetery, making up stories for those who rested beneath us, we never did find the path to the shrines by the river. "Hey lemme see those." Rain said, gesturing to my car keys. The second I handed them to her they left her hand, arcing tremendously into the darkness. Like She had thrown a grenade to save her life.
"If I didn't know any better I'd say you were flirting with me." I carefully said to her, "But I'm not that guy."
I'm not that guy.

"We apologize for the delay." A cold electronic voice says over the speaker system. It doesn't really bother me, but it does make my accomplishment of barely catching the train a little less impressive. I'm on the train right now from Chicago that goes to all of the suburban towns surrounding it. Suburbia grows off the edges of the city like an infection, growing from it, feeding from it, needing it. Three college students sit nearby and I can tell right away that they are much better off then I am. They discuss all of the different nice and expensive restaurants that have dress codes and things pertaining to having rich parents.
"... Then your kids are going to end up going to public schools ten years down the road..." I hear the only American (A Man) among them say. The other man is Brazilian and the Only Woman is Chinese, both with thick accents. This fools me for a moment, and then I assure myself that they are in fact probably more intelligent than I am. At least more educated. I'm beginning to nod, due to the activities from the night prior, when I hear someone ask them "What year are you guys?"
"Second." They reply
Being the same age as me, they've had the same amount of time to get their shit together as I have had. I wonder who's happier. Them or I. The guy sitting in his sweaty undershirt, on the train, scribbling in his notebook.

I want to see your passion
Not your willingness to give in
I want to be lusted after
Not appeased
But I will still go through the motions with you
Like a waltz with no music
Always offbeat

Every center of every one of the infinite universes snugly fit together
Adapting to the landscape and those who are now neighbors
Giving with no expectation of receiving anything, but still receiving nonetheless is the best law of the land
Oh, Moon, how you've been cut to ribbons
How many homeless midwestern poets watch you from their friend's windows as they jot yet another word
The sound of music and the scent of wine and pot move my body to the seasons, the four beats of the year, resounding in time like a metronome, marking occasions
Certain songs will always remind me of certain people
Just like certain seasons will do the same
Children dance and cry out freely
No one scolds them
Men and Women dance freely
No one thinks less of them
"It needs an ending Rebecca, what do you got for me?"
A black bird with a violent red head, like her nail polish, looks for nourishment for this meal.
Not for tomorrow's, just for today's.
Living happily, living lawn to lawn.

Infinite emptiness. Two video camera lenses pointing towards each other.
That is all there is when my father and I look each other in the eye.
I didn't even cry when he asked me to live somewhere else.
I thought that meant I won, since he started to tear up just the slightest bit.
The only time I've ever seen that happen.
But I didn't cry.
Not in front of him.
Not in front of anyone.
There was snow on the ground that day.
We wore our coats bundled tight against the cold as She helped me pack my things.
She hugged me when necessary. A former lover.

The Tree goes through it's cycles every year
Switching between mediation and activity
Dropping it's seeds on the shaded ground below
So that it's offspring may go through the same cycles

I weeped the day I willingly left my Mother's house.
I tried not too. I wasn't trying to win though.
It was warm that day and I wore no shoes.
I dug my toes into the grass as I smoked a cigarette, trying to gain my composure.
She hugged me when necessary. My Mother.

I dangle the yarn in front of Henry's face, watching him bat at it uselessly with his tiny paws. Henry is a small orange cat brimming with malice towards everything and everyone besides his masters. His masters that may provide and take care of him, but they toy with him just as well. With the yarn or string or whatever in one hand and a grin on my face, I make certain that Henry's attempts are fruitless. I have no intention to torment him, but he is tormented nonetheless. I have had things dangled before my eyes, out of my reach my entire life.

A voice that isn't used to being heard, it no longer tries. Or is it that she realized long ago that one learns nothing when their mouth is open? One may teach, but this is seldom the intended intention. I'll drink to that. But what won't I drink to?

My highest respects

Roxy Reno.
His life is one dirty, elegant poem.
He's a minimalist and an alcoholic.
There was this church group on the streets outside some bar one night, handing out flyers, telling people they were going to hell, generally being hateful.
He gets up on a trash can near them and starts reading sex poems very loudly, and draws a crowd of like thirty people.
The cops came and wanted to arrest him but the crowd he amassed defended him and got him out of trouble.
That is a fucking poet.

Meaning It

I can't tell you what is right for your life
But whatever it is you choose
You better Fucking mean it

We sit here and talk about "meaning it"
As the empty cups and stacks of verse pile up.
But what does that even mean?
Mean it.
Smoking your cigarette to the filter. That's meaning it.
Having an audience of one, and the show goes on. That's meaning it.
Declining to leave a suicide note. Is that meaning it?
Burning your own art. Is that meaning it?
When I keep your secrets
And your's as well
And especially your's.
That's Fucking Meaning It.

dictation

"Trust. That's just a fucking word. Mean it."

"You know what the Million Dollar Poet has that the rest of us don't? Happiness."

"I stopped wearing a hat because I kept getting so many kisses. Had to take it off every time anyway."

Heaven?
Hell?
Purgatory?
Earth?
What if I'M wrong?
What if YOU'RE wrong?
Do you believe in an after life?
A before life?

Where were you?
Where were you when our lost souls were starving?
When they were in hospital beds across the country on suicide watch?
When they were drunk behind the wheel with the keys in one hand, in the other a phone with HER number already dialed?

Were you in the streets handing out paper and spreading hate?
You're a million dollar poem.

For every man who feared his Father
Who missed his Mother
Who has held the bottle like their only child
Who has poured his soul out into ink and blood
And Meant It
Who felt deserving of pain.
Look for your Brother
Look for your Sister
When you've found them
Keep looking.

Strength

What is it to be strong?
Look to the mighty oak.

He is solitary
Challenging no one
Never disrupting the flow
Always allowing others to coincide.

If you call this weakness
The next thunderstorm
Watch him through your window
As he bears our Mother's wrath
Alone.

On the train

We pass many train crossings with faceless drivers parked alongside. They’re just waiting for us to get the fuck out of their way. It’s a convenience for us to just keep barreling down the countryside in this metal container towards our destination. How many times a day do we inconvenience others for our own sake? Not enough.

Some days are better than others. That is what I think to myself as I watch the grey landscape slide by at an extremely underwhelming speed. Today is good despite the pains in my stomach. I’ve been without true friendship for a few months now, and a man can go longer without nourishment than he can a sympathetic ear or a familiar touch. I don’t know why I do this to myself, intentionally starve myself some days. Huckleberry told me the drunk and the poet tend to have only one meal a day, but I was doing it before he told me those words. Huckleberry. Huckleberry, Roxy Reno, Coyote, and I are the poets of that cold little river town. Sometimes things change. Huck and Reno are going to prison soon and I’m fleeing the area for a more familiar climate. Coyote will be left to pick up the slack for a few months, but you get that on these bigger jobs. I’m reminded of my hunger once more as this sad looking woman passes by with a cart of over priced refreshments. That’s not what I’m hungry for. The woman pushing the cart seems like the kind of person who gave up on their dreams and needed a way to support their unwanted child. The kind of woman whose hair is only held in place by sweat and semen and doesn’t look you in the eye, just stairs in your direction. The scenery outside the window could be the same picture on a never-ending conveyor for all I know. The familiarity is overwhelming and disappointing. As of this moment, five other trains have passed us traveling the opposite direction. Every time one does I find myself wishing for it to buck to the side just a little too much and collide into us at top speed. It’s not that I’m craving death right now, as I have before, just something to break this cycle of normalcy that is my life. At the beginning of our departure, the lack of rifling through papers was very noticeable as we were told to flip through the safety pamphlets in front of us. I do not wish for death, but if it comes I will welcome it. The sun will set, and rise the next day. Just as I have died every night and been born the next morning.

On a train

Every foot of ground we cover

It brings a loud clack along with it

Not dissimilar to the sounds of a typewriter

To start and then to finish a story you must endure these sounds

Thousands of times

I've had three vehicles since I started driving

They all have been increasingly less masculine

My first vehicle was a red pickup truck

I'd haul random shit or my friends in it across town

I'll never have another love like my first

Then came the Buick

It had no radio for the longest time

Many songs were sang and shared in there

I'll always remember the day she died in my arms

Now

Currently

I have a miserable old bitch

A blue mini van who has grown more cantankerous with each day

But she gets the job done and is still faithful, to my knowledge

I've always referred to my vehicles as "her" or "she"

Maybe that's why they never work out for me

I breathe out

The Lioness breathes in

Would you tell a beast,

"Though Shalt Not Kill" ?

Morality is not a matter of concern

Where there is no Man

death rebirth repeat

I am not a bird watcher

But I could name you a few

If you so pleased

The Hunt

The woods are filled with the ghosts of shadows appearing and disappearing at random intervals with the lightning. The shadows that are cast are but shallow reflections of their owners. The Hunt. A game of life and death. Ying and Yang. The Doe is aware of the war that weather is waging, she does not understand it nor does she see the Hunter.

The Hunter,

picking his steps methodically,

licking his teeth,

stalking.

The Hunter lets the cool rain wash over him, steaming off of his solid frame from the red hot passion. The events from the eventual kill run on loop through his mind's eye. The Hunter knows the importance of Praying over the prey and asking Mother forest for taking this gift, but he intentionally neglects harmony for this midnight hunt. The Hunter sees the forest, truly. He takes the shape that is necessary for this dark evening. The Doe walks cautiously, but she'd never suspect the mother forest to take advantage of her. The Doe stumbles past the Hunter, not seeing him for his true form. The Hunter sees his opportunity and plunges a solid wooden spear into her heart. A spear made of a tree from this very forest.

The Doe lets out final cries of passion,

of pain,

of spiritual release,

and goes limp.

The Hunter removes the bloody spear and casts it out into the dark, never to be used mercilessly again. He feels nothing. This was not for the result, A slain Doe left in the woods, but for the hunt itself. The Hunter leaves an empty corpse, devoid of a pulse or a functioning heart, in the forest. He assumes it will be absorbed back into our Mother Earth.

"Why? Why do you do it?" I ask Mike, glancing a little too noticeably at his wrists. Mike looks down at his wrists then to mine as he gathers the words I never can find. I covet his insight and pseudo intellectualism, but I know at the same time it comes with a price. Mike smiles at me maliciously, "With all of this 'activity' going on in your head you've got to be prone to wanting to blow your brains out, right? It's like a God damned Irish wake up there, maybe you should tell the land lord." He says to me, smiling even bigger now, avoiding the question. We're in a local cafe, sitting in the corner and I'm getting odd looks now as people notice me giving the empty chair across from me worried looks. "Fuck those people, they're worthless. Their lives nor their opinions matter one bit." Mike assures me as he gently lifts my iced coffee off the table, weighing each movement carefully, and takes a thoughtful drink. "Also, I appreciate you switching to black coffee." He adds. "No problem, it's grown on me."

"I'm sure I have. You're wondering about the twitch you developed aren't you? You know how computers run more slowly and such when using two operating systems? You're not as sophisticated as a computer." I take that in for a moment, as Mike hands me the coffee. I take a contemplative sip, letting the cold bitter liquid dwell, the taste of which is tainted by my smoker's breath but not in a bad way. "So why do you do it?" I ask again, less compassionately, less carefully. He looks me in the eye, something's missing there. "Bloodletting. It's an old 'medical procedure'. The culture at the time didn't understand proper human anatomy and didn't understand the actual purpose of blood. When folks would get sick, they attributed it to 'bad blood'. That’s where the modern saying comes from. So when these people got sick, the cure they saw was to bleed the bad blood from them. Many people died from this because the large quantities they would take at a time. So that's what bloodletting is, bleeding the disease out. What I'm getting at is I, we, am/are sick. We've collected ill experiences, memories that plague, and sickness over the past twenty years. We're emotionally diseased. Figuratively speaking, there is someone else's blood running somewhere through our veins. Whose fault is that? Yours. You invested too much of us into someone else, now they've got ahold of us whether they or us like it. A tumor in your brain may not have asked to be there, but it will kill you regardless. I'm just trying to get rid of the bad blood."

"Mike. You said bloodletting didn't work."

"It was a fucking metaphor Riley."

This tool, this device, is the oldest known to man. The knife fulfilled the wishes of the rich and the needs of the poor. It is quite crude, but it's lack of complexities works for it. Every man conceals his and brags of it's size, showing how big of a man he is. However if you want to put it to use, you must get close enough to plunge it into their heart. I Learned how to use my knife when I was a young man, and I have been killing girls and their expectations ever since.

I have picked the fruits of other's words and meaning.

In turn I have taken the seeds of that fruit

And have sewn them myself.

I now watch the fruits that I bare reaped by others.

Some properly plant them in fertile soil

Other's allow them to ferment and get drunk off them

Our ideas are recycled like the water

typewriter tunes

Memories like the rain pour down

covering me entirely, soaking me to the bone

This storm threatens to drown

Promises to nourish

New crops poke their unknowing heads from the mud

Expecting new life

Expecting continuous nourishment

Only to be trampled under the feet of the blind farm hands

Pour

Pour rain pour

Pour

Pour another drink

I will drown and only the remains of what once were will remain

I will drown because I know how to swim but not how to stop the onslaught

The by-product of this all encompassing gray matter

I do not want to accept this truth that I continuously come back to

The truth that I will never understand my mind

My mind is all I have to understand it with

I've lost a lot of weight since moving

My skinny jeans now look baggy

We're all hungry for something

What I crave is hardly tangible

I've walked through the forest and I've stumbled through the woods

In the forest I allowed our knowing Mother Earth to guide me

She knows all and chooses best but forces nothing upon any soul

Through the paths of the forest I had direction but no known destination intended

I knew when I'd gotten there when greeted by three doe

We asked nothing of each other

Just unmoving, silent, communication

After parting ways I went to tell of the lost siblings I'd found

However in the woods, I was but an orphan born blind

Leaving a trail of beer cans and cigarette butts to guide me back

My own devices left me adrift

I was approached by others, asking if I knew the way

I did not

This act of passion has been pre-meditated, with the event played over in his head months prior. But tonight, is the night. He enters the room and it is dark but he can sense her location, her beautiful yet fragile frame shaking with nervous anticipation. "there's no turning back from this.", He mutters with a malevolent looking grin as he unsheathes the knife. Her eyes lock onto his as every step bridges the gap between them. She preemptively attacks him with ferocity that has never been seen from her by any other. He allows her the illusion of power and control for a few moments and then throws her to the ground, plunging the blade with precision movements into her. Her body contorts with unrestricted passion as she cries out to her God for mercy. He stabs at times quickly and blind with bloodlust, at other times slowly and passionately making each drive of the knife count as he watches her face react. Sweat builds on his body as her body becomes weak while he tells her everything that led up to this. With one final moment of writhing from her body, he knows it's over. He wipes the blade off, leaving evidence from the events of the evening behind as he stares at her gorgeous, unmoving form in the dark. He opens the door to the innocent world outside, presenting his body to the rain as it washes his sins away.

The Fool

To every Man who tried to win the argument of "I love you more"

To every Man who chose the mistress who put him in the hospital over the lady who got him out

To every Man with lapses in his memory and judgment

To every Man who has staked a claim on some cold, lonely couch

To every Man Who has shaken off the cold like a dog shakes dry

You Sir, are fucked.

I've climbed grassy mounds in spring time

To find beautiful displays atop most I'd conquered

Though the only ones I would long to make return visits to

Was when I lived harmoniously with the landscape

Planting a flower for every I'd gently pluck

Huck, the drunk, sits across from me sipping his tea

Huck, the self admitted fool who has helped raise a child that wasn't his

Huck, with his ankle bracelet on, reads me a poem he wrote to his mother

Huck speaks of how he can't wait to go to prison, just so he can move on with his life

Huck speaks of the weight that comes with baring the title poet

The obligation to point ten thousand fingers in the face of tyranny

Ace Up My Sleeve

The players sit around the squat circular table, cards in hand held close to their chest. Their faces barely visible in this dark room, only when taking a drag off of their cigar or cigarette. The only sounds are that of clinking ice in bitter beverages, the subtle tapping on the table, and of course the shuffling of cards. The air is as deadly serious as the stakes of this particular game, with each hand played a sense of caution and ruthlessness is taken. All the players have their amassed colorful chips sitting before them like the spoils of war, except for one. This player is down to his last few chips and perhaps his last hand. He sits with sweat beginning to collect on his hands, he places his cigarette in his mouth and wipes them off on his pants as he waits for the cards to be dealt. Finally receiving his hand, he turns it over and immediately takes a long hit off his glass of whiskey. At first for being dealt a shit hand, and then realizing he'd so obviously given himself away to his opponents. Others begin to fold as the man who holds no drink and smokes nothing raises the stakes. But the man drinking his whiskey has everything to lose but also everything to gain, so he remains in. The man drains his whiskey and thinks about the consequences were he to cheat, never before has he resorted to such a thing. He rules that he can live with this secret submission, if just to go on to play one more hand.

The migrating geese overhead do not understand gravity but they know how to fly.

The trees do not know the days but they know when to meditate.

I do not know where this jagged path is leading but I know how to walk.

When the subtle way of the universe is taught

people know where to go and what to learn

I have found that life often interjects coincidence without explanation. Flipping through a notebook I'd found hidden, I came across long forgotten notes I'd taken at least a years time ago. Among these sloppily and hastily written notes were the results of some personality test I'd not given all that much thought to after removing my pen from the paper. But now as I am sitting at this table, that had but one chair when I entered the room, these lost words resonate like they never did when originally written. I've pondered your nickname for me, Owl, and haven't confirmed any resemblance from others I've asked. But now as I read these near illegible words, The Owl-Problem solver of the animal kingdom, I'm reminded that you saw deeper than surface level. The universe is trying to tell me something, I just don't know what yet.

I find myself moving around the room, like some lost dancer. Residing in one seat after another, finding then losing the energy. I'm followed by a constant anti-muse that I can't seem to shake. Glass after mug after glass provide no assistance as they usually do.

If someone asks you to explain a joke
Laugh in their face
If someone asks you to explain a poem
Tell them it means nothing
If someone asks you to step outside
Hand them a cigarette

I've heard speak of revolution
From the mouth of a non-revolutionary
His smooth hands holding his Columbia brand jacket over his shoulder while the other held his Starbucks latte
While sweat gathered on his brow in the forgiving Wisconsin warmth
He told me how corrupt the system was
Not realizing what the joke was
Or why it was so funny

What will be the worth of man?
The crows, the worms, the maggots, the scavengers who will punish our bodies
Redeeming us, bringing us back to our Mother?
The hand drawings by our final artists of our final events on the walls of suburbia made out of blood, fecal matter, anything at hand?
The broken glass, plastic, metal, silicone laying among the tall grass that will hinder grazing animals?
What will be the worth of man
When none are left to carry the fire