Lunch Break Haiku

It's beautiful out.
I'm tired of the basement.
Ten minutes to go.

********************************************

I'm psychologically done for the week. Why are we all still here?










"Working all day for a mean little guy with a bad toupee and a soup-stained tie. He's got me running 'round the office like a gerbil on a wheel. He can tell me what to do, but he can't tell me what to feel..." Fountains Of Wayne Hey Julie

We Were Wrong

"I can't breathe"
she said to me
as I float beside her
in the debris.
The city warps.
I saw a corpse
waiting at the corner
heading towards the ports
with his thumb up in the air
and checking for cab fare
in his walloped wallet;
there's nothing there.

The waters rose.
We all froze.
We were wrong
and nobody knows.
We're stuck here
locked in flooded fear.
We were wrong
and there's nobody near.
We were wrong
that it wouldn't be long,
that the howling rain would cease.
My God, we were wrong.

***********************************************





"If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break. Everybody saying this is a day only the Lord could make..." Bob Dylan The Levee's Gonna Break

N.E. Corridor

I've been running late all day and, just to prove a point, the universe is sending trains out slightly ahead on schedule, so I've been sitting at the station for 25 minutes after watching my train pull away. My cousin'll have other birthdays; if I make it in time for the after dinner brandy I'll be satisfied. The early fall breeze fondles the hem of my sun dress. The sun is old and getting ready to tuck itself under the horizon.

The next train finally pulls up and I grab my purse, my gift bags, my dress bag, and the high heel shoes I can't bear to where just yet and I head for the door. Hands full and off balance on a moving train, the door to the next, slightly less packed car, simply refuse to open for me and I nearly concede to stand in between cars when you hit the button with the palm of your hand. You nod for me to go ahead. "Thank you," I squeak and you smile, kindly and in a low tone you answer, "You're welcome." It's your smile that made me notice your eyes and suddenly I'm feeling sheepish and a little embarrassed. Gingerly, you place your hand on the small of my back to help balance me through the doorway. I take a seat; you take one just in front of me and I can see you in the space between the seats settling yourself in. Every so often, I swear your eyes flutter backwards to me, but I'm sure it's only wishful thinking. After securing my belongings safely in the window seat beside me - organizing things a little better for the upcoming trek down 34th Street - I take a deep breath and glance out the window, but the central Jersey scenery cannot keep my attention for long.

Tapping your feet along to whatever sound reaches your eardrums from the tiny white bud in his ear, you licks the tips of your fingers and turns the page. It's a big book. Maybe Econ 101? Maybe Western Civ? Maybe just something...dare I say...for fun? I wish I knew. What are you reading? What are you listening to? Who are you? I'm falling in love with the back of your head. Won't you give me a little clue? A blinking BlackBerry steals your attention away from the black and white pages, but you soon returns your gaze back onto the text. A girlfriend? I'll tell myself it was your mother. The sailing train jerks our car slightly, sending our heads wobbling like Bobble Head dolls in unison, but the voyeur in me won't be dissuaded by the train's ungraceful motion.

A full head of dark hair stretches down your neck until it meets the collar of your shirt, just a black button-up work shirt with the sleeves rolled up half-way to the elbow. Can you feel my eyes on the back of your neck?

Do you know what I would do to you if you only said "Okay, let's go" with that bass voice of yours?

No, let's not go there. It's fruitless. I'm only saying we'd both get something we wanted.

The sun sank as the train pulled into the station and our ride together is nearing an end. With my purse and various goodie bags draped over one arm, my shoes stowed away in one of them, and my dress held up by my other hand, I carefully step into the isle. You stand, waiting for me to pass by you and you step out behind me, into the doorway, and out onto the platform. "Goodbye" I think to you. As I descend the staircase up into the station, there's a tug on my arm and a pair of lips at my ear.

"Okay," it breathes, "let's go."


*********************************************

You know it's fiction: the trains are on time or early.










"So let my hands stray past that boundaries of your back to get you breathing and get this started..." Brand New Logan To Government Center

Rainy Day Songs

Raining day songs
sing smiles in the darkness
and wrap you up tightly
in their melodic arms.
Those clouds,
they follow me
like precipitating shadows
(what a dreary honor to bestow),
but I set my turntable to 33
and watch the wax spin around
as the gloom is absorbed
in the dizziness,
in the scratch of your throat.
I stepped in a puddle today
and all I heard it say
is "I need a raincoat."


*****************************************************

This is a decoy.

Also, I just realized that The Jayhawks have a record called "Rainy Day Music." So, that's cool.








"This dizzy life of mine keeps hanging me up all the time. This dizzy life is just a hanging tree." Counting Crows Hanging Tree

The Real Thing

I don't want to say it anymore.
If that's important; I'm not sure.
I hit a nerve and found Truth:
a revelation quite uncouth.
Drug out from a fog,
like a cat by a dog,
kicking and screaming
tricking and scheming,
her haven invaded,
she was easily persuaded.
She told your story,
in all its glory.
Suspicions confirmed,
you squeal and squirm.
There's no use for discussions
or their pointless repercussions
because your face says it all
while your mouth only stalls.
In this light
I might
swallow a bottle.

I was the model.

I was the shepherd
before my vision blurred.

I was the real thing
and now I'm just the rain king.

**************************************************

I went all of July without a post; I was not gonna go all of August.

This is a little bit unfinished, I think, but I couldn't pull myself apart enough to get it any closer. It's about Truth and whose side she's really on. It's about what happens when you just choose to believe what you've been told or what you want to believe until Truth actually reveals herself (or is pulled out), sort of the self-decay you initiate, sort of the opposite of "ignorance is bliss." I think it's also about realizing that things aren't black and white and words twist and it's easy to manipulate and be manipulated even as a relatively sensible and smart person (so imagine how it is for us crazies). Even in the realm of what things literally ARE and ARE NOT, there's still a spectrum of ways of conveying it.

This was tough to write and I don't know if it's any good. I'm not usually an "a-a, b-b, c-c, d-d, etc." kind of "poet," but that's just how it started to shape up and I figured I'd run with it. I don't know if there's any impact.












"Don't try to bleed me; I've been here before and I deserve a little more. I belong in the service of the queen. I belong anywhere but in between. She's been dying and I've been drinking. And I am the Rain King." Counting Crows Rain King

"Pull me out from inside. I am ready. I am ready. I am ready. I am...fine. I am.... fine. I am fine. Counting Crows Colorblind

Freeze

I don't know what
it's supposed to mean,
but I feel you every time
I feel the breeze,
like there's a part of you
in the branches of the trees
or you're buzzing around
off the wings of bees.
It's not that simple.
No, it could never be.
So, the only thing I'm good at
is subtracting the threes.
The hum in my head
is such a tease
since my memory of your voice
is muffled and meek
and I feel like I lost you
with the greatest of ease
before I had the sense
not to let you leave.
Would it have mattered?
My begs, my pleas?
Couldn't you feel
my silent decrees?
Words are too late now,
so I'll just leave you with these:
you're in every moment
I wish I could freeze.

**********************************

I fell back into cheesy emo poetry. I'm weak. I'll try to be better next time.





"What do you mean?" Jackie Granja February 13, 2010 (lol)

"I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass..." Counting Crows

Repeat

You know those moments you get every once in a while, once in a long while, that are perfect snapshots of how life should always be? Those precious rare seconds of complete happiness? I'm living one right now. I know it and, while in this moment, I know that I'll be sad and that I'll miss it when it passes, which it is doomed to do because moments are just that: momentary. We'll talk about it years from now: that time she was here and we didn't leave my apartment for a week and we stayed in, reading books and eating take-out and listening to records and having sex. Utopian days on repeat.

I set the needle down and open the window to let the early summer air in. It's always summer, but the heat doesn't seem so brutal today. The normal tasks of eating, sleeping, breathing: they all seem less brutal in these moments. A guy could get used to this.

In a slinky white camisole and white panties, she's curled up on her side on the recliner with her serious face on, looking hard at the tiny text of her book. She doesn't even know what she's doing to me, just by sitting there. She doesn't even see what I see. She doesn't know that just watching her read turns me on. Would she hate me if she knew what I was thinking right now? Her smooth legs, bent at the knee and leaning against the back of the recliner, are taunting me; I just want to see them spread.

I take my seat on the couch and pick up the opened magazine I'd placed on the coffee table. I haven't read a word since she woke up and peered out my bedroom door. She caught me in here by myself, said she didn't like that she woke up alone this morning. I told her I'd make it up to her tomorrow and I intend to. Now, I just peer over the edge of the magazine pages, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath. The record pops a little, but it sounds just fine and I want to take her hand and make her dance for me. I wonder if she would. Would she?

"Love this song," I say as I stand up.

She looks up from her book and grins, her bangs brushed just over her brow.

"I know; you said that last time you played it for me."

I graze her knee with my fingertips, then her arm up to her shoulders. She smiles and I lightly rub her shoulders until she looks up at me and I down at her. I bend down until my lips reach hers. "Dance for me."

She laughs, "Uh uh, no."

"C'mon, dance for me."

"I'll dance with you," she negotiates.

"Okay," I say and I grab her hand and pull her up, her book thrown onto the chair.

I take her right hand in my left and I wrap my right arm around her waste, placing my hand right at the small of her back. Last night, I learned she's ticklish right there, but she doesn't know I know that. She giggles.

"Am I that bad at this?" I ask.

"Haha, no, not at all," but she takes my hand and moves it up slightly. Let's call the whole thing off, I think, and I move the hand again, but this time over instead of up and I pull her in closer. With my face buried into her neck, am I bold enough to plant a few soft kisses? Before I'm able to answer that questions, I feel her warm lips brush against my neck and chin until they find my lips.

Back and forth, we sway to the song with a twirl here or there. Really, I'm not that good at this, so I'm extra sure not to spin her too hard. She's smiling, so she can't be having a terrible time. Back in my collapsed arms, her fingers seem to find all the spot on back I never knew were so sensitive. I'm a little hard, but hoping she won't notice. Just in case, let's get this show on the road: I kiss her neck and my fingers fondle the edge on her camisole, lifting it over her head.

She grins. "Again?" she asks. I don't stop kissing her and she doesn't stop smiling as she pulls my shirt off.

I spin her around and push the bedroom door open with the collective forces of our bodies. The mattress collides with her back as I battle with my belt. I don't want to take my lips of her. She pulls me under and helps me with the problem. We fumble over each other with impossibly graceful rhythm until nothing separates us anymore. I don't know where I end and she begins. The darkness is a mask and we don't have to be ourselves under its influence.

Breathing deeply, eventually, our bodies turn to mush. Somehow, I think I can even feel her limbs tingling. As I begin to pull away, she pulls me back again and kisses me hard, then smiles and rolls to her side.

"I'm hungry," she says and she gets up to find the take-out menu.

***********************************

Vignette #2.

As a select few people know, there's another one I wrote similar to this one that I didn't post, but may edit and put up later. That one's written from the woman's perspective, though. They comes as a result of listening to a lot of Minus The Bear.



"A few summers ago, we spent weeks in her room just having sex and listening to jazz and that was the life..." Minus The Bear Let's Play Guitar In A Five Guitar Band"

"And you're holding on to me like an old love that you know every inch of..." Minus The Bear My Time

"Black and white dress puts me into a trance as I memorize you..." Minus The Bear Excuses

I Ain't Got No Home

"I'd like to see the ol' man" I tell the nurse, comin' in outta the rain. The nurses don't think he got much more time. His fits are gittin' worse. "We don't think he's got more than a couple weeks," the nurse says and I take my hat off 'cause it's impolite not to greet a woman by takin' yer at off. She tells me that they think my playin' might doim some good, though, so they let me in even though I missed visitin' hours by a couple. He don't get many visitors these days. Except me, acourse. These halls and little rooms have surprisin'ly good acoustics. Not that it matters much to the ol' fella. She tells me they had him strapped to the bed most of the day, afraid he might go and hurt hisself real bad. Or someone else. Or worse. When I open his door, though, he quiets down a bit. He can't talk no more, she tells me. He just makes noises. Loud unes at that. Scares the whole damn place. He thinks there ain't no other patients or somethin'. He gave one of them nurses a real hard time a few days back, she says, and now that nurse, she won't go back in to see him. They think he can still write, but he ain't calmed down enough for anyone ta give him any writin' u-ten-sil in a long while. He only try to communicate by makin' noises and fast motions. He can still see and he can still hear, though, and I may not be much to look at, but I can give ya an earful if you can hear.

"You should start working here, maybe," she says. "He won't hush for anyone else." I says to her, "Thanks, but Ima geetar player. I play gigs in New York City. I ain't got the the brain matter for takin' care a ol' folk or folks whose heads ain't screwed on quite right. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful and much needed profession, but I ain't got the stomach for it." She grins and gives me the one-up and I grin back at her. "If ya ever find yerself if the big apple, though, you should look me up," I says to her. She smiles and her fair skin blushed faintly and she leaves me and the ol' man alone.

"So," I says to him, "one a yers or one a mine today?" I throw my hat down on the table and pull my jacket up over my head, the one with the broken zipper I never did get fixed. I take the stool next to his bed and start tunin' my music box up. "No opinions today?" I says to him. "Oh, right, you can't talk no more is what I hear. That true?" I ask, doubtin' it. He's a stubborn one. "I guess it is, huh? Well, how's about 'I Ain't Got No Home' then? One a yers. Standard tunin': E...A...D...G...B...little e."

I strum 'em all through once. That'll get the idear across anyways. And I plays him one a his own songs and then I plays him one a the ones I been hearin' up in New York City, 'round the folk clubs and beat bars and poets' pit-stops, and then I plays him one a my own songs.

"I wrote that one, there," I tell him. "That's right. That's my own. I've been writin' - you know - whatever been comin' into my head for a while. Just ain't really put tunes to it, but why not?" He wrote his own tunes. He taught me a thing or two about havin' sumthin' ta say and how a reliable geetar can help ya say it.

He just lay there, quiet, but grinnin' his little grin at me, maybe a little wider than usual. I won't let on how the nice nurse lady broke my heart tellin' me he can't talk no more. His stories are the stories ya listen to. He's been all over this land. He's been trapped in the dust bowl and stowed away in box cars. He's been east coast, west coast, Gulf coast, no coast. He's always been a workin' man, though. He always been workin'. Paintin' and singin' too.

Now they tell him he's crazy, legally in-sane, and they go an' lock him up here in this ol' buildin'. All them stories can't be just the ramblin's of an ol' crazy man, though. He was sane when he was singin' 'em, writin' 'em all down. It wasn't that long ago he was out there, on the road, in the corn fields, with the union folks. He's got all this history in him. Maybe that's what drove him crazy. Maybe that's enough for put a sensible man over the edge.

I know he's gonna die soon. He knows it too. I probably won't come back here no more neither. I don't just come for his stories - no, that ain't true - but the songs just don't mean as much just comin' outta my mouth as they do when he sings 'em along with me or when he tells me he was walkin' on a hot road out in Cali when he wrote it. He never told me where he was when he was writin' "I Ain't Got No Home." But I think I know where he was.

He was home. He just didn't know it. Some men's homes ain't where there stuff is or where their families sleep. Some men's homes are where ever they can get to with a sack a clean clothes dancin' against their backs and the sun beatin' down on their necks. Some men just ain't at home if they ain't sweatin' or bleedin'.


******************************************


I'm trying to write more prose, but shorter than my usual 20 - 40 pages "short" stories: a series of vignettes. I have already written one (that would need editing before posting) and am in the process of writing another. So, those are what you can expect in short term.

This is just a hypothetical account of an event that happened. In short: this is what I imagine Bob Dylan's last visit to Woody Guthrie to be like. Guthrie had Huntington's before anyone knew what Huntington's was, so he was diagnosed with various mental disabilities and Dylan would visit him at Greystone Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey. Woody's mother also had incorrectly diagnosed Huntington's and I believe she died in a fire she set, which also killed her daughter, Woody's sister (if I remember correctly from Guthrie's autobiography Bound For Glory). I have no idea how debilitating the disease was to Woody, so he probably was able to talk the last time Dylan visited him in real life, but - as I said - this is only hypothetical. In fact, the characters don't even have to be Dylan and Guthrie, as they are specifically left unnamed. The name of the song (and the title of this vignette) is a Woody Guthrie song, though. This is a scene I may visit again in the future as it's something about which I've considered writing a full story. So, we'll see.




"Woody was not celebrated at this place, and it was a strange environment to meet anybody, least of all the true voice of the American spirit." - Bob Dylan Chronicles [page 98 - 99].

"I'm out here a thousand miles from my home, walking a road other men have gone down. I'm seeing a new world of people and things, hear paupers and peasants and princes and kings. Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song about a funny old world that's coming along: seems sick and it's hungry, it's tired and it's torn. It looks like it's dying and it's hardly been born. Hey, Woody Guthrie, but I know that you know all the things that I'm saying and a many times more. I'm singing you the song but I can't sing enough 'cause there's not many men that've done the things that you've done. Here's to Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly too and to all the good people that traveled with you. Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men that come with the dust and are gone with the wind. I'm leaving tomorrow, but I could leave today. Somewhere down the road someday, the very last thing that I'd want to do is to say I've been hitting some hard traveling too." - Bob Dylan Song To Woody [1962].

That Same Old Moon

The twilight ended
hours ago
and the calm, cool dark
seeps through the slits
in my blinds.
But the darkness is shattered
by a thin ray of light
that stretches over miles
and lands
on some far away coast,
where a lonely boy
sets the needle down
on a jazz record.
I know you see
that same old moon.
The one above my head
that now sleepily awakes
over yours.
Soon, you'll look up,
as I do now,
you'll see its face;
you'll see its shine
while I see yours.

Can you see mine?

************************************************

I just sort of feel a little less alone when I look up at the moon or the stars and realize all the millions of people who are looking up at that same moon and stars at the exact same time. Not everyone at the same time, but a good fraction of the population. People thousands of miles away from each other can all see it. It sort of unifies us no matter who we are. We all look up and can see them. When I look up, I wonder if you are. When you look up, do you wonder if I am?

Happy stargazing.




"Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white. And in between the moon and you, angels get a better view f the crumbling difference between wrong and right..." Counting Crows 'Round Here

"A few summers ago, we spent weeks in her room just having sex and listening to jazz and that was the life..." Minus The Bear Let's Play Guitar In A Five Guitar Band"

Point To Pray

There's always something to say,
only not enough voices,
but when selective memory fades
we'll be trapped in the trenches of our choices.
Raise your flag to heaven
since you are God's gift
and cross you fingers that
His judgment will be swift
because you can taste salvation
on the edges of your lips
and in the blood, when you bite them,
that drips.
I hear the pop of the first seal
and see the mane of a white horse
and the end has begun,
but you feel no remorse.
You're certain your savior
will bring you home
to live in love
and worship at His throne;
so pop another seal
and hear the galloping on -
pop, pop, pop -
and we'll all soon be gone.
Pop, like the last bottle of campaign
on Doomsday.
Pop, because now there is no point
to pray.

************************************************

The end of the world is still a fascinating concept to me. The four horsemen rumble around in my head a lot. I think it's a really powerful - and terrifying - image (example: see below). There is no redemption. There is no hope.

Have we - as a species, as a planet of disconnected souls - gotten there yet? Are we all too consumed with who IS right or wrong, or IS moral or immoral, or IS winning or losing, or whose god IS the one and only? Can we put the score cards down and say "Planet Earth: zero" and start working on fixing that? Not just for our planet's sake, but for each other?

Or have the seals begun to pop?

I heard this story on the news this morning:
"Prosecutors said Mr. Sucuzhañay (pronounced suh-KOO-shen-y’eye) and his brother, Romel Sucuzhañay, who was not seriously hurt, were attacked because they were Hispanic and because the assailants were under the mistaken impression that they were gay."
[Full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/nyregion/21brothers.html]

So, you tell me.




6.1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, Come.
6.2 And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon had a bow; and there was given unto him a crown: and he came forth conquering, and to conquer.
...
Book of Revelation, Chapter 6
[http://www.reformed.org/bible/kjv20/B66C006.html]

To Remain Unread

These are the letters I write,
but never send
and they all have your name
scribbled on them.
If the words remain unread,
are they meaningless:
a love never loved
unless professed?
Scales are the measurement
and clocks are the consequence
and I really wish I knew
whether this was your preference
because I'm awake at night
and I don't think that you are,
but I still wish I wasn't stuck
here, so far.
Distance can be counted
and felt
and this is just the hand
that we've been dealt:
for better or worse
and I'll dig through the dirt
'til I find a way to bridge the gap
and end the hurt.
I know I shouldn't say it -
or maybe I should -
but I would change everything
if I could.


********************************************

Mhmm...




"And these clocks keep unwinding and completely ignore everything that we hate or adore..." Bright Eyes A Scale, a Mirror, and These Indifferent Clocks

"Three-thousand, five-hundred miles away, but what would we change if we could?" Counting Crows Raining In Baltimore

Exit

Don't say that you missed me
even half as much as I you
and for the record
distance does not make the heart grow fonder.
Wander
from coast to coast
while my sorry soul surrenders.
It's not a sonnet or a song.
Silence is Survival:
throw my throat out with the trash
and thrash the rest
to the fist that holds this pen.

Defenseless.
Defenseless.
And you know what
my best is.

Back turned.
Insert knife.
Twist
and shout
and splatter
and plunge.
Expunge,
extol,
exorcise:
and I could be your best bet;
let alone
your worst ex.

Exit stage left,
but this is not an exit
and when you think the story's over,
when you think the credits should start to roll...

you'll still see my face
and all the years that you stole.

*****************************************

I was annoyed and couldn't sleep several nights ago, so this is a half-asleep stream-of-conscience (stealing ideas from Taking Back Sunday, Elliott Smith, Saves The Day, Brand New, and others). Some are subtle, some are not. I'm really only posting this because I chuckled when I noticed that some of the shit I stole out of songs were in there unintentionally. (Do I use more lyric puns when sleepy?)

Hopefully, I will have some better and more original materials in the coming days, weeks...





This may take a while:

"And if you ever said you miss me then don't say you never lied..." Brand New Jude Law And A Semester Abroad

"I'll do everything I can so you can be what you do, coast to coast, coast to coast..." Elliott Smith Coast To Coast

"Am I correct to defend the fist that holds this pen?" Brand New It's Good To Know...

"The worst is over; you can have the best of me..." The Starting Line The Best of Me

"Well, shake it up baby now (shake it up baby), twist and shout (twist and shout)..." The Beatles Twist And Shout (Totally different context, but what the hell, hahaha)

"I'll leave the lights down low so she knows I mean business and maybe we could talk this over, 'cause I could be your best bet, let alone your worst ex..." Taking Back Sunday Bike Scene

"And your love will be warm nights with pockets of moonlight, spotlighting you as you drift: the actor in this play and you walk across the stage, take a bow, hear the applause and, as the curtain falls, just know you did it all..." Saves The Day This Is Not An Exit

"So if I'm a liar then you're a thief; at least we both know where the other one sleeps and lets end this tonight..." Brand New You Stole (LOL)

The Contagion of Lethargy

These are the same white walls
and the same cold stalls,
the same busy typing
and the same early rising.
I'm as blank as these pages,
haven't written a line in ages
and I tally the losses and gains
with an ink that runs through my veins.
The contagion of lethargy
breeds despair and apathy,
but we swore it was never be we
because the future we could see
needed hands holding up arms
and voices carrying alarms.
We dubbed ourselves
the Warning Bells,
but our revolution
suffered stagnated evolution.
Has our youth lost its thunder,
our passions torn asunder?
Monotony and misdirection
and misunderstanding our own reflections
breeds disillusion
and false conclusions.
Disaffection drains us dry;
he is menacing and sly
and so our spry skin is thickening:
the sight is sickening,
like we can't see anything at all:
no rise nor fall.
How much longer can the setting sun wait
for a savior to seal our fate?

*******************************************

Somehow I didn't post anything in February. So, I'm making this one public since it's been sitting around here in draft mode for weeks.

This is about visionaries who go blind.









"If we're now so dissconected, it's our reflections we ignore..." Kevin Devine The Burning City Smoking

"Everybody's talkin' 'bout revolution, evolution, masturbation, flagellation, regulation, integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations: all we are saying is give peace a chance..." John Lennon Give Peace A Chance

Wind

The wind sings your song
like a lullaby
and it whispers your words
like strings and tin-cans.
It carries along your smile
on clouds or the backs of birds
and when I breathe it in,
your scent tickles my nose.

But the longer we go
the fainter it gets.

And I want to write a love song
that isn't just a guess.

*********************************************

I really do apologize for the lame, cliche title. It's a short poem; my options were limited!






"I wish the world was flat like the old days then I could travel just by folding a map." Death Cab For Cutie The New Year

"I need a phone call. I need a plane ride. I need a sunburn. I need a raincoat." Counting Crows Raining In Baltimore

Nothing But Trouble

Oh, son of fire,
oh, fallen star:
what gloom you have brought
to us thus far:
skies of mud
and oceans of tar,
and miles of men
with no life
left in them.
Do you count the sinners
like sheep
to comfort your
tired, boiling brain?
The promised ones
have fled the city;
this scene's about
to get real gritty.
I'm face down
with a mouth full of dirt,
but I'm not angry,
just a little hurt.
You want me to listen;
you want me to see:
there's ferocity and fury
in ever degree.
The fire rises up
and the earth slips out from under me.
Your expression is priceless:
glee and excitement,
a childlike grin
and no tinge of resentment.
You're almost beautiful
as monsters go
and I'm sure this pain
is all you know.
Does doom twinkle
like bombs in your eyes
while you listen to our tortured
and suffering cries?
You dance to machine gun music
and bathe in the rubble.
I suspect, however,
you're nothing but trouble.

******************************************

Taking a walk with the devil.






"I talked to the devil 'cause that's what young boys do." Frank Palmeri Talked To The Devil

"And what does a mirror show you, can you see the gray? Your sadness it is quite lovely but it's the sadness of a slave. Why don't you give yourself a rest, oh give yourself some room. You can't get your arms around everybody. You cannot carry the doom...of the living and the dying, how easily you bruise. Oh Delia don't go 'round when the devil's loose..." AA Bondy When The Devil's Loose

"Trouble makes no scene, she sweeps in surgical and clean, leaves me begging on my hands and knees. And she's always on the clock, but she doesn't own a watch 'cause she wrecks me straight into my sleep..." Kevin Devine Trouble

Pretending

What do you fear the most:
your reflection of that ghost
that hangs on
the shoulders of your shadow?
The promises you've broken,
the truths never spoken
ball up into a cancer.
The lying's in the answer.
The chain you drag
you built
with hatred and heresy
and hallucinogens.
Your heavy heart
chugs blood along through
ungrateful veins
who simply spit it out.
So you bite your lips
'til they're chapped and bleeding,
feeding into delusions,
reading into illusions.
You swear the voices
get louder at night;
you sing to yourself:
it's alright, it's alright,
Rage dismisses your
half-hearted pleas.
He plays with your head.
He is such a tease.
When time builds no
brighter endings,
you might as well quit
all your pretending.

**************************************************







"So you crawl up those stairs and sing yourself to peace." Wild Sweet Orange House of Regret

"It's okay, it's alright, nothing's wrong." Elliott Smith Waltz #2

"I'm nothing it I'm not the rage." The New Amsterdams Drinking In The Afternoon

The Guilty and The Saved

When the world explodes
don't say You didn't
see in coming.
The seas are humming
and the skies are preparing
to plummet.
Are we Your puppets
or are me masochists?
Which winds will blow our seeds
into oblivion?
You see our shadows
lurking in corners and under beds.
Your sheep,
misbehaving so well:
they make the earth swell.
It's enough to make You weep.

A fire-breathing counterpart
counts down:
our days are numbered.
Fault feeds the flames.
Is a fall so far behind?
The end of times?
The daylight dissolves;
the heat rises.
The devil devises
his dreadful deeds:
that fiendish fallen angel.
Who will wake come morning?
The guilty or the guilty or the guilty
or the saved?
Who would know the difference
anymore anyway?

*****************************************

"Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away."
- Revelation 21.1











"The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
Percy Bysshe Shelley Ode to the West Wind

"Then they'll raise their hands, sayin' we'll meet all your demands, but we'll shout from the bow your days are numbered. And like Pharaoh's tribe, they'll be drowned in the tide, and like Goliath, they'll be conquered." Bob Dylan When The Ship Comes In

"I prayed for providence; God said, 'Don't pray no more. You went and made your mess, keep your blame off my feet.'" Kevin Devine All Of Everything, Erased

Hallucinating

You're allowed to look now;
this isn't a prison.
See, those walls are just air.
The shiny metal bars
are just figments,
apparitions.
Your far too busy brain
built them up,
but you have no savior
to break them down.
You're hallucinating,
but this is nothing new.

Dank depictions of doom
dance between your ears.
It's a fairy tale warning
that keeps you up at night,
makes you shiver in the sunlight,
makes you jump with fright.
In earlier soliloquies
you've heard yourself recite
your voice rattles
and your tongue bites.
On the ground
is where you'll end up.

Duck and cover,
cover up.
The poison that you swallow
won't kill you -
unless you're luck -
so drink up.
Baby,
they're only bad dreams;
they're all just bad habits
to blow off some stream.
No need to worry;
don't give it one more thought -

But those lessons you've been learning,
may need to be retaught.

************************************************

Continuation of a theme.











"I'm hallucinating -- hallucinating. I hear you cry. Your tears are cheap, wet hot red swollen cheeks, fall asleep. I want to hurt him. I want to give him pain. I'm a roman candle. My head is full of flames..." Elliott Smith Roman Candle

"Why don't you give yourself a rest, oh give yourself some room? You can't get your arms around everybody. You cannot carry the doom... AA Bondy When The Devil's Loose

"Drink up, baby, stay up all night with the things you could do, you won't, but you might. The potential you'll be that you'll never see. The promises you'll only make..." Elliott Smith Between The Bars

Drown

You suffer your habits
and mask all the dwelling

and you smile along

like your brain isn't swelling.

They know that there's something

that you aren't telling.

From out of the wreckage,

you stretch out your arms

and you swear from now on

to do no harm.

To yourself
you vow
not to shutter again,
but you know it’s only
the way your head spins:
the ice is thin.
When the voices begin
and sing their hymn
you know you’ll be unable
to rise against them.

Your senses are susceptible
to the slightest of slights
and you roll up your sleeves
like you’re ready for a fight.
You back yourself into corners
and can’t find your own way out.
There are seas out there calling you
if only there was light,
but the darkness robs you
of your wits and your sight.

Those drugs keep you stable
by kicking you around
and you feel more at home
when you’re too lost to be found.
Where sanity is impossible to conceive
and nightmares are easy to believe,
that’s where you’ll always be,
underneath the bow.
So, lay your head down
and for good now -

drown.



***************************************

Sometimes shit happens that shakes your bones. They kick you while you're down. Then, you have decisions to make: to get up or stay down, to shape up or decay. "You choose whether that slip is repeated and permanent or not." The options are clear and the ball is in your court.















"I try to will myself away while shouting habits plead their case..." Kevin Devine You'll Only End Up Joining Them

"One time I broke my vow. We laid a circle of roses, symbolized what was forever..." Sunny Day Real Estate 9

"The morning finds our bodies washed up thirty miles west..." Brand New Play Crack The Sky

Here's To The Decay

You’re only prolific in your daze
because words make more sense that way.
Senses sing while hearts soar,
but you ponder what it’s all for.
Sliding, seeking, sidestepping, shrieking:
is this a nightmare in the making?
Making memories out of fantasies
and hearing love inside of ever sneeze,
these haunting lullabies
are embedded behind your eyes.
And when the cries are no longer audible
you shout out for the infallible,
but He cannot shut your mind down:
no, child, you’re just a lost sound.
That ringing in your ears
isn’t even the worst of your fears
because fire fights from your throat
and you choke on every note.
Hell finds a deeper home
where your thoughts were once free to roam
so now demons and goblins reiterate
the revelation that is your fate.
It sickens you to the bone:
the skills you’ve honed
that lock you in your heated space
when there’s just too much out there to face.
The heavy air follows you - it lingers -
and you wrap strands of hair around your fingers
until your fingertips are white and cold.
You’re about to fold
and you know it won’t matter;
you can’t hear above the chatter.
Your bruises prove the existence of colors:
your body's a canvas for all your failures.
Your nerves are fried
like your dignity and pride.
You’re mechanical and monotonous.
You won't put up a fuss.
In times like these, what’s a little weakness?
Just one more flaw to confess.
And you know it won’t make you feel better,
just a little bit deader,
but the world is gray anyway:
so here’s to the decay.

***************************************

Fight off your demons (and goblins)?













"I'm racing towards the one mistake that locks me in my place." Kevin Devine Just Stay

"And every word is nonsense but I understand and, oh Lord: I'm not ready for this sort of thing." Counting Crows Anna Begins

"Grey is my favorite color. I felt so symbolic yesterday. If I knew Picasso, I would buy myself a gray guitar and play." Counting Crows Mr. Jones

"Blue stars don't seem so bright when everything you see is in black and white." Socratic Decay

Choir Of Miles

Ashes are green now
in this delusion
and humanity
feels so foreign.
Only unlucky fools
believe those smiles
smiled, showing teeth
that - like bars -
trap the truth inside
our ivory prisons.
Every syllable that escapes
is uttered three hours late.
Our secrets slept
with the Eastern sun
so you remind me
of the moon.
You were tangible
and touchable
once
but that was back
when the sky was blue
and the sun was yellow.
Now they're just sad
and chicken.
I can't hear your voice anymore,
not even when I'm listening;
there's a choir of miles
singing hymns of a different ocean.
You used to have sapphires in your eyes,
but now they're just stones.
I guess when life is living you,
it's tough to feel anything at all.

*************************************************

Not gonna go there.












"Our secrets sleep in winter clothes." Neutral Milk Hotel In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

"The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly saying, 'Death to all those who would whimper and cry,' and dropping a bar bell he points to the sky saying, 'The sun's not yellow: it's chicken.'" Bob Dylan Tombstone Blues

"In the world we stole, there was a choir there." Sunny Day Real Estate Pillars

"Stones in your eyes, stones in your eyes, stones in your eyes, stones in your mouth, stones in your ears, stones in your mind, stones in your eyes, stones in your eyes...Living in a jar, think the lid's the sky. You're hoping for a savior on your cross outside. Stars are just a million little fireflies. The sun is just the whole world and the light outside." Brand New In A Jar

"Life is what it makes of you." The New Frontiers Passing On

Just One Possibility

“I swore you sang,” she said, she said.
“It sounded like champagne and chandeliers
and when I awoke you were present,
but only in body, never in spirit.”
She turned away,
her back to the day,
and she remembered
the look in your eyes
when her hand first
touched your thighs.
In the back of her head
she began to feel frantic;
She never say anything
about romantic.
But intentions are hidden
in words that are rusted,
her hands search to find
a lie that can be trusted.
Her perfect nightmare
pulled apart
when your eyes seared through
her broken heart,
but the fairy tale gone wrong
found its unhappily every after
after all; in a long
story that read
like a sonnet
dictated by a ghost.
“At most,”
he replied,
“you actually love me” -
a pause -
“but that’s just one possibility”
and he folded his face into his hands.


************************************


This poem has been plaguing me for days. I gave up. I can't tell whether it's done. I just don't know. It's challenging because I'M not sure what the true intentions of my characters are. I can see it from so many angles. However, I kind of like that because so much is left up to interpretation. Read it at least twice. I don't think you'll see anything on a first read. These characters are not just Cliche-Boy and Cliche-Girl. There's a tension, but I don't know with whom it lies or where it begins...or even exactly what it's regarding. It's about the consequences of a dream.









“Shakespeare sang ‘err on err,’ so I sang.” Sunny Day Real Estate Rodeo Jones

Time Is Poetry

If time is just an abstract
I'm drowning in clocks
and there are big hands and little hands
boarding at the docks.
The ships, where they lay,
carry away all my shocks
from yesterday passed tomorrow
in a brown postage box.

It's secured with locks
to protect what is mine,
but nothing leads to another
and it's recording in rhyme.
We're all voices and shadows
within spaces and grime.
The inevitability of circles
should be a crime.

So I'll meet you next time
beside the playground fence
where we'll fool around and run
and hide from our parents.
In my memory, there are holes,
but even worse, there are dents;
Our fortunes and secrets
no longer make sense.

Counting hours for distance
while hearts fade,
I'm throwing up my sentences,
every confession made.
And then that ticking voice
offers me a trade,
but our connections are dissolving
and are horribly frayed.

Our lives were delayed
and now they run conversely.
My brain used to love you
despite impossibility,
but the sun has stolen
our youthful unity;
I won't fight him, though:
he has his immunity.

To the burden of uncertainty,
I am no longer confined.
In your shadow is a shape:
a body and a mind.
That spot behind my eyes
is no longer blind.
So, my history was continued
not merely redefined.

********************************************************

ROFL@life.

This is about how weird life can be, especially when you live long enough - and love long enough - to watch things come full circle. It's supposed to be sad while also being optimistic. It's about feeling disoriented, but knowing it's the only way to get back on your feet, to a place where sometimes things make sense again. It really IS about how time is poetry. Over hours, day, years, and on, lives are lived and lessons are learned and if you focus it right, you can make something come of it. Unanswerable questions - only with time and passion - find their answers. Maybe that's how one finds love too. There's time to right your wrongs. There's time to reconnect. There's time for those relationships that make no sense right now to work themselves out, define themselves, and redefine themselves. There's time to pull yourself out of whatever fucking ditch you threw yourself into and make it into something of beauty, of art, of worth. You just have to DO it. Kevin wrote me once and said: "Nothing's ever 'over.' Life is about accepting these pieces of ourselves that are fucked up and realizing that through acceptance we can better figure out how to keep those pieces at bay." Even your low points can have meaning if you make something good come of it. Don't let yourself waste away in vain.

This is about time taking things away and giving things back all in due course.









"Sew it on. Face the fool. December's tragic drive when time is poetry and stolen the world outside, the waiting could crush my heart..." Sunny Day Real Estate Seven [Clearly, I don't quote this song enough.]

"With the salt all ablaze and the ships where they lay, there must be great fear in a spark..." AA Bondy Of The Sea

"Meet me there in the blue where words are not. Feeling remains: sincerity, trust in me, throw myself into your door. I go in circles. Running down..." Sunny Day Real Estate In Circles

"But the connections go. Bubbles break on the surface like they do on the flooded craters round here - the ones that've been here for years and have God knows what underneath." Billy Prior via Pat Barker The Ghost Road

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." Winston Churchill

We Are Who We Are

I just want to be in a car right now
on my way to anywhere.

Tiny American towns
with lazy Sunday afternoons
call me away from
may air conditioned office rooms.
Sometimes I see these four walls
as my living tomb,
but there's fresh air somewhere
and a nation in bloom.

Wind and sand
stings our cheeks
the happiest red
that burns for weeks.
There's nothing in front of us
except miles and heat
and we sing with the stereo,
a little off beat.

We're on our way to a place
we'll never see again
unless we truly are the lucky ones
every now and then
There's an ocean that isn't mine
just around the bend.
"Mine is better, but
yours can pretend."

We joke that we don't know
how we wound up so far
from our rooms and basements
and our dingy corner bars.
But we've known all along
because we are who we are.
I want to see a snow-faced boy
and I want to hear a little guitar.

************************************************

Feeling tired of being at home. I want a road trip that's more than just an over-night, but...I have - like - a job now. Downgrade. Haha...well, not really, but it makes trips tougher. Today, I missed driving through desert. Weird.









"Do you know -- who I am?" - Ummm...all my friends.

"I want to hear a little guitar. I think it's time to put the top down." Counting Crows Raining In Baltimore

"Lullaby for a snow-faced girl is what I'll sing, watching you, the whole time." Kevin Devine Lullaby For A Snow-Faced Girl

While Oceana Weeps

Humans are skin and bone
and blood and bite.
Our roots dig deep
in uneasy soil.
Like weeds,
we strangle.
A choking planet,
red in her face,
glares up at us
with bloodshot eyes.
"You told me lies,"
she shouts and cries.
I shake me head;
my hands are tied.
While Oceana weeps,
we multiple:
a spider's egg hatching
with seedy spawn.
'We are pretty parasitic,'
said under-breath and parenthetic.
I liken this disaster
to Revelation
only faster.
And there are no pearly gates.
What is the proper fate
for a species programmed for hate?
For beings who need bribery
to have principle?
Even martyrdom means nothing
without sex.
Oceana rages;
she curses and spits.
She's begging you, please,
to find your wits.
But her tears will flood
and her crust will cave in
before we recognize
the mess created.
When the sun stops turning
over our homes and huts
just say, "It wasn't me;
the bitch went nuts."

*************************************************************

Told ya I'd be posting quickly!

And yes, I know it should be "'It was I; the bitch went nuts," but the bystanders in this poem aren't very bright anyway.

This is another poem about the need to be better to each other while (meshing in the Apocalypse...for good measure). It's about having to open your eyes and stop making excuses. It's about the need to stop thinking about Life in capitalistic terms. Whether you believe in Mother Nature, God, or non-of-the-above, it's about the reality of a dying planet and the need to actually do something about it...things that are very doable if only people were willing to sacrifice for it. There's an "I" in the poem because I think a lot of people (myself included) want to help, but haven't really made a whole lot of progress because of disenfranchisement (i.e. what can I really do? and is my small contribution really going to help when corporations won't commit to making any contributions at all?). I don't know what the answers are. But it's about having to do SOMETHING.

[By the way, I recently found my draft for that 'Apocalypse' poem I was working on a year ago and...it's a lot better than I remembered, so I may get back on that one soon.]














"These tides sweep us out of reach." Sparta While Oceana Sleeps

"And you were too busy steering the conversation toward the Lord to hear the voice of the Spirit, begging you to shut the fuck up." Pedro The Lion Foregone Conclusions

"The bitch went nuts. She stabbed my basketball. And the speakers to my stereo. She called me 'cunt,' but nothing prepared me for what I found when I came home. Oh and I made my own bed. I lie in it. You lie in yours. You lie, you lie, in yours. But they want more, they're at my door with torches. Please leave me alone, you know. Just shut it. Just shut it. Just shut it. The bitch went nuts." Ben Folds The Bitch Went Nuts

The Way My Pen Fell

We don't talk as much as we should
most days.
So when the breeze blows
I mistake it for your voice.
You were real once
and you used to glow,
but now I can never find you
lost somewhere below.
So I turn to what I know:
a happy hypothetical in verse or rhyme.
I only write half
of every thought on my mind
because the rest is hard to translate
and I'm at a loss for time.
But my muse is hiding
under a smoke screen
and a dirty mask
so my limerick
turns blasphemous fast.
This isn't the story
I intended to tell;
this is just the way my pen fell.

******************************************

Expect a few new poems in relatively quick succession. I can't promise that, but I've had lines building up in my head for days and I can't mesh any of them together, so they'll all wind up being separate works.

This one is about people who disintegrate.



[For Jess...I have a new one: 'disintegrAAAaaaaatioooon.']







"In the days when you were hopelessly poor, I just liked you more." The Smiths Half A Person

"So you think it out on paper, hypothetical and safer." Kevin Devine This Box Is Empty

"You know you're walking around with a mask on, and you desperately want to take it off and you can't because everybody else thinks it's your face." Dr. W. H. R. Rivers via Pat Barker Regeneration, page 242.

"When you set the table, when you chose the scale, did you write a riddle that you knew they would fail? Did you make them tremble so they would tell the tale? Did you push us when we fell?" David Bazan When We Fell

Maybe It's Rapture

The devil's at play
in your kids' playground.
He's in your neighbors' eyes
and your Senators' hearts.
Is it the death of humility?
Have we forgotten our humanity?
Maybe it's Rapture:
one dead policeman
and two dead suspects,
or
a head on collision,
or
an accidental overdose
or
a war barely begun,
we're told, but over - so over.

The officer fires
then he crosses his chest:
like a target on his heart
with a bullet, now he rests.
His badge on the pavement
and his brothers surround,
but the damage is done:
no silver lining to be found.
The dealers that dealt
the deadly blow die
drowning in His blood
(with which the streets now flood).
Their families left
with a lifetime of guilt
for the lives they'd built
and the sons they'd killed.

Her car flipped over
on top of mine;
I was dead before the fire was out.
With scorched baby
and headless husband,
I watch the reports
on how the highway is shut down
so "find other modes of transport."
Is this all that can be said
in the wake of what is lost?
The newscopter circles the scene
to survey the cost:
it's dollar signs and hours
and three young lives erased
and you'll never hear my name
or know the smile on my daughter's face.

He shuffles and stirs;
his vision a blur,
walking his tight rope
of disaster and high hopes.
What's another pill?
If only he could sleep.
Ambien and Vicoden
cure all your ills.
Orange bottles fill his dresser drawers;
he can't remember what they're all for.
But he knows those voices in his head
will shortly disappear.
His blood becomes thin
and his skin almost sheer
and when his heart stops,
he won't feel the fear.

The men march in step;
they watch their feet
plunge into mud.
They're hot and hungry
and the air's too thick
to breath their lungs full.
A young mother clenches
a folded up flag:
all that returned
of her high school sweetheart.
Her son cries out for his daddy,
but flags don't play catch as well as young men.
She wonders:
for what cause will my son never know his father?
And she knows "for freedom"
with never be a good enough answer.

So come 'round here all good Christians
(and even you bad ones);
listen here you social liberals
and you fiscal conservatives:
can't you see your planet is crying
as your children are dying?
She can grow anew,
but has grown rather accustomed to you
and she's begging that you be good,
though it's been a long time
since you've been good.
Don't keep your feet planted
still where they stood;
pick them up with all your force.
There's a fork in the road
and it's time to change course.

**********************************************

It's been a little while since I posted anything. I have a job now, so I either don't have a lot of time to write or I'm just too tired to write anything decent. I've written stuff, but nothing decent until this. I've had a lot on my mind. Getting up every morning and watching the news sort of makes me realize why I was so depressed in high school...watching the news can be unsettling in the morning and then it sets the tone for the day. On the other hand, I'd hate to live an uninformed life. Network news isn't the best place to go, but it gives you an idea of what's going on.

For the past several mornings, they've run stories on Officer DiNardo who was killed in Jersey City last week. [Jersey City cop dies from gunshot wounds] It's stuck in my head and is the basis for the second stanza. The rest of the stanzas are hypothetical, not based on anyone in particular. We cover death in the country strangely. Maybe it's universal; I don't know. But we seem to take it so casually. Unless it's Michael Jackson or something.

So, this is about the NEED for humans to look out for one another. We need to treat ourselves and our neighbors better. We shouldn't be concerned about others only to the extent that it effects us. Our world - our home - can survive without us, but...what would be the fun in that? If we don't pull together soon, though...all of everything, erased.












Lots of inspiration...

"Oh, the living and the dying: how easily you bruise. Oh, Delia, I don't go around when the devil's loose..." AA Bondy When The Devil's Loose

"I don't want to talk about Jesus, I just want to see his face. I don't want to talk about Jesus, I just want to see his face. The trees are swingin' like hangin' men, and I just want to see his face. The trees are swingin' like hangin' men, and I just want to see his face. And rapture, sweet rapture, won't you lay your hands on me. Rapture, sweet rapture, won't you lay your hands on me, for I am blind..." AA Bondy Rapture, Sweet Rapture

"Because I've had to come to grips with scope and figure, how my problems stack up in a world this close to ruin; I don't believe that it's rapture..." Kevin Devine Ballgame

"But it's over - so over - you're imitating, fascinating conversations based upon my lies." Pablo Loser Crew

"A young mother down at Smithfield, 5 am, looking for food for her kids. In her arms she holds three cold babies and the first word that they learned was 'please.' These are dangerous days. To say what you feel is to dig your own grave..." Sinead O'Connor Black Boys On Mopeds

"Only that if I were going to call myself a Christian, I'd have to call myself a pacifist as well. I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and...and j-just leave out the awkward bits." Wilfred Owen via Pat Baker Regeneration, page 83.

"It's been a long time; it's been a long time; it's been a long time since I've been good...Heaven can wait; Heaven can wait. I will be good, swear I'll be good. I will be good; I swear I'll be good." The New Frontiers Spirit and Skin

"And every coughing car and every coiled snake and every shrieking star and every burning stake: dissolved to atmosphere, all of everything, erased..." Kevin Devine All Of Everything, Erased

Far Enough

We're such a nothing of a start.
We stall before we depart;
we never say anything anyway.

A simple plea
with great solimnity,
I lay down my sword.

Words shatter bones
with syntax and tones
and I now I'm beaten and scarred.

Your prepositions paralyze
and your commas tell lies:
you are a walking ellipsis.

But you're sung and not said,
hummed and not read,
and I tap my feet as you fade.

Defeated today,
I wander far away
like I'll find you if I walk far enough.

******************************************************

It's about having something, taking it for granted, fucking it up, and then missing it when it's gone.








"So tie the noose and raise the cross. The martyr's arrived. A desperate plea for sympathy; it's all you need..." Straylight Run Sympathy For The Martyr

"'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity."
P.B. Shelley The Mask Of Anarchy

"I had finally given up on love and romance. If I laid down the sword, I'm giving my innocence..." Miniature Tigers Cannibal Queen

Sweet Dreams, Momentarily

Your body needs a rest,
but your mind will get the best
of any lie you dole out
until you shake and shout.
Prolificacy
is a sin, you see,
but what matters most
is that meddling ghost
behind your eyes,
muted and paralyzed.
Measured words - like incantations - shoo
away the demons haunting you.
A proverb, a poem, a lullaby,
lingering tales, then a sweet goodbye:
a sentence with resolve
and your specters dissolve.
Sweet dreams, momentarily.
'Til you wake warily.
Razor blade daydreams:
your muse, it seems
and now you can't stand
the blood on your hands.
It's a story untold
or too folded to unfold:
tuck it tightly twixt your teeth:
hide the secrets underneath.
Hold your breath and just pretend
that you control the way this ends.

**********************************************

This is about all the things you try to do when you're feeling your weakest, but sometimes it gets the best of you anyway.








"'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free -"
P.B. Shelley The Mask Of Anarchy (Seriously, read this poem and ponder upon it.)

"He has a halo, for dreams return to dust. Words dissolve on the page like tears in blood." Sunny Day Real Estate Rodeo Jones

"When your mother sends back all your invitations and your father to your sister he explains that you're tired of yourself and all of your creations: won't you come see me, Queen Jane? Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?" Bob Dylan Queen Jane, Approximately

Road Maps And Mixtapes

Ghost towns and highways,
from ocean to ocean:
it's the life we live
and the places we've been.
An artist's tribute
in headphones and hearts
reminds me of how
we're not so far apart.
Kindred spirits
can always find
their way back to each other
in due time.
Road maps and mix tapes
eclipse the gap
and parallel for now
travel our paths.
In the span of space
from rhythm to rhyme,
cacti to pine,
and the hours that
without regard
pass us by,
I lay awake
and hum a tune
that was written by you
and - to me - rings true.

A lullaby
and we'll be fine:
sleep peacefully
all through the night.

*************************************

While I'm revealed I don't have a "tour" this summer (because I'm poor and also just got a job from which I can't just take three weeks off), I miss the road. This is about driving to weird places and it's about why it's worth it. It's also about finding something to help you sleep at night.







"You'll taste it in time. You'll taste it...it time." Sunny Day Real Estate Seven

"Sleep peacefully. Like the way you look this morning. With faith in your eyes and me in your hands: a whispered promise in your heart. Lullaby for a snow-faced girl is what I'll sing watching you, the whole time. It's three-o-five on Monday morning...or is it night? I don't know. Is it night? I don't know. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. We'll be fine." Kevin Devine Lullaby For A Snow-Faced Girl

Taut We Remain

If we're all in this together
then I'm no more dead than you.

I loved as best I could
from so many miles away.
And the distance between us, dear,
well that's just the price we pay
for honor
and sin
(and look at the mess we're in)
and the solutions discovered wherein
dissolve
like our bonds.
But taut we remain
still
despite the heavy rain
and the awkward pain.
Sunshine seeps through panes
and reminds us how clear
vision can be
in hindsight.
This might
be the eye of the storm
or the eyes staring at me
from that table across the bar.
You leave me guessing:
forever haunted,
forever hunted,
a forever of only one.
Life and death
equate in sleep
and sleepless nights
scare me to death.
Windows and doors
and wiley floorboards
sing cautious lullabies
of how my heart defies
reason.
Is there something to believe in?
Are my lung still breathing?
What's wrong with me, then?


************************************

I know is should say "Is there something in which to believe?," but "believe" doesn't rhyme as nicely with "reason," so deal with it.

"Ugh...liiiiiike, I don't know." Exactly. I don't know. This plagued me for a couple of weeks and I don't know if the outcome matters at all, if it was worth all the trouble. This is about things that won't die; it about resilience. But it's also about the strain of that resilience. Lots of things feel unstable and messy right now yet everything seems to be staying in place, for better or for worse.

I found this interesting:
Taut -
[–adjective, -er, -est.]
1. tightly drawn; tense; not slack.
2. emotionally or mentally strained or tense: taut nerves.
3. in good order or condition; tidy; neat.
[Courtesy of http://www.dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/taut]

...those seems like sort of an ironic mesh of meanings for this little word.






"The people you've been before that you don't want around anymore. They push and shove and won't bend to your will. I'll keep them still." Elliott Smith Between The Bars

"Peace, be still." Pedro The Lion Secret Of The Easy Yoke

"What's a bond if it dissolves in water?" Saves The Day My Sweet Fracture

Consequence

Shape shifting shards of sanity
steal what's left of her reality.
Blues and grays
and passed on days
feel like eternity
weighted with scum and debris.
Your shadow in a haze:
she still loves your gaze.

Rare truths spoken
as righteous tokens
to the girl who longed
(perpetually wronged).
From a dream, awoken:
her fantasy life broken.
She thought she belonged;
it's sorrow prolonged.

But she pulls on her socks
though Consequence knocks
her off her feet:
there's a face she hopes to meet.
He's secured with locks
and hidden in a box
so he'll stay fresh and sweet,
away from misery and deceit.

His visage pleases her:
comfort in a blur.
He's hers alone to view,
but his whispers are untrue.
Promises that never were
inside her cause a stir
and she knows something's askew,
but she'll say she never knew.

He rips through her rib cage
with inconspicuous rage
and drops her heart
like it's just another part:
a war she did not expect to wage
and in which she's unqualified to engage.
She used to be so smart
before he picked her brain apart.

In Oblivion she'll now reside
with a book and a pen by her side.
Consequence claims another soul,
another shining smile he stole.
It's time to hide
to keep her pride
inside her cozy hole
where - at least - she's in control.


*********************************************************

Light twists,
heart skips a beat:
through all this destruction
who knows what you'll be?

*********************************************************


Parts of this have been in my head for a few days. These poems are getting tougher for me to describe: sometimes because I'm not sure what they're about and sometimes because I just don't want to talk about it. I guess it's about recognizing a pattern of unfortunate situations and the consequences of such situations over time. Eventually, it all becomes predictable and almost surreal.





"Goodbye to sleep. I think this staying up is exactly what I need. Take apart your head; take apart the counting and the flock it has bred..." Brand New Degausser

"To vanish into oblivion is easy to do and I try to be, but you know me; I come back when you want me to. Do you miss me, miss misery, like you say you do?" Elliott Smith Miss Misery

"In the depths of my gloom, I crawl out for you. From the peaks of my joy, I crawl back into: tearing me down every time you smile, every shining time you arrive." Sunny Day Real Estate Every Shining Time You Arrive

Wonder Why

I'm not okay, but I will be.
It's a fine line you can't see.
Absurdity
is fond of me.
Hanged with a belt around my throat,
I'm reading your note
and embarrassed letters I wrote
into words of love so remote.
Now drowning under tidal waves
of questions and regrets I stave
off sorrow, but within I cave.
I am not brave,
only broken and stubborn.
It's not of your concern.
It's a lesson I learn and unlearn
and either way I'm left to burn.
On a desk is a picture of us
which I leave you as a posthumous
gift of my naivety and hubris.
Characteristics you won't miss
anyway,
but you may remember someday
when things aren't going your way
and language is no longer your forte.
Will it matter to you
when I lay with a gray hue?
Will you be shaken by the view?
Will you claim you never knew?
It's a long goodbye:
that which has no reply,
for people who don't try.
I will wonder why.


******************************************

This was not what I was supposed to be doing today. Ummm...it's about what you think it's about. Except I'm not actually dead. It's about being an impossible person and facing an impossible situation. It's about how it's never what it appears to be and probably never will be. At least for certain people. At least for me. It's sort of like "lol, me," but also "wtf, me?!"

Also, I sort of miss JamisonParker. Bring it back.






"It's not what we're owed, but it's what we've earned and it's closer than we realize and it's time, now, to burn. So burn, so burn, so burn..." Kevin Devine Time To Burn (foreverandalways)

"Cut this picture into you and me, burn it backwards kill this history..." Elliott Smith Sweet Adeline

"I live in notes and photographs and everything I'm holding back like all the words that weren't enough; you remind me of a song I used to love..." JamisonParker Your Song

Love In Dances

She's reading her book
and that look that you threw
and the dagger in her tongue
is of no concern to you.

It's times like these
when silence means everything,
so she's passive and patient
despite the taste and the sting.

But inside her grows
a cancerous mass
of unuttered thoughts
mixed with poisonous gas

that tortures and tears
and remembers the glares
of eyes soft and faces fair;
all the thoughts she couldn't bear.

Photos of imagined memories
haunt her in her sleep.
She wants to scream,
but can't make a peep.

She's a ghost in a fairy tale;
there is no happy ending
for her:
just past and present blending.

It's like you never said a word:
speech through glances
and funny looks,
love in dances.

She cries.
Her tired eyes
shift to hide
their lies.


************************************

I don't know why I'm posting this one.

But - hey! look! - there are stanzas in this one! I haven't done that in a while!







"It's times like these when silence means everything and no one is to know about this..." Taking Back Sunday Ghost Man On Third

"I'm the family's unowned boy, golden curls of envied hair, pretty girls with faces fair see the shine in the black sheep boy..." Tim Hardin Black Sheep Boy

Songs And Cigarettes

A new face,
a soul reborn:
from a carcass
I am torn.
Such bloody symmetry
is what remains of me
in muddled minutes
when no word fits.
Repetitive at best,
I make the wrong bets.
I hear your threats
over songs and cigarettes.
Played like your marionettes
or hidden under silhouettes
my breath is shallow
as I'm hung from these gallows.
Branches and bones break
and one last breath I take.
Passers-by will dream and wonder
how long 'til I am torn asunder.
Come dance with me
under this killing tree
where I will be
eternally.


***************************************************

^ What I did while I should have been working on my short story.

I'm really not that depressed. Honestly. But when Gordon Schochet recognizes that a strength of mine is writing "dark," I feel like maybe that's something on which I should focus.

Is it bad that it comes relatively naturally?





"Sew it on. Face the fool. The mirrors lie - those aren't my eyes - destroy them, raise my hand. Reflected in savage shards: a new face, a soul reborn..." Sunny Day Real Estate Seven

"I dreamed another dream and I was free and no sorrow can find me under that killing tree as I wait for my true love..." AA Bondy Killing Tree

Bloodshot Beauty

Broken artist's soul,
now you understand it all.
Red splatters against the wall:
you've seen the rise; you've seen the fall.
The bloody brain matter brawl -
away from which you were lucky to crawl -
left welts and scratches
from wrestling matches
in which you were over matched
and underestimated.
You hated
and seethed
and choked on air
unhealthy to breathe.
Pure water eyes
use pale lids for disguise,
your bloodshot beauty:
now too horrific to see.
Your lungs filled up with paint
and your muscles seized without restraint.
A God above you - a saint -
appears as you begin to faint.

As the blue bird sky sinks
into solemn silence,
I think,
I will dream of such violence.


**********************************************

I've written a few poems recently, but none were any good. Not that this one is, per se, but I need to get back on the wagon at some point, right?




"You turned white like a saint. I'm tired of dancing on a pot of gold-flaked paint. Oh we're so very precious, you and I, and everything that you do makes me want to die. Oh, I just told the biggest lie..." Elliott Smith The Biggest Lie

"And I dream of Michelangelo when I'm lying in my bed. I see God upon the ceiling; I see angels overhead. And he seems so close as he reaches out his hand, but we are never quite as close as we are led to understand..." Counting Crows When I Dream Of Michelangelo

"It's my brother's blood in my dirty lungs, in my crooked mouth, on my swollen tongue, on my father's gun, on each stranger's face, across the blue bird sky, on every hand I shake..." Kevin Devine Brother's Blood

So Many Things That Never Worked

Running backwards,
chasing cars,
blaring music,
thousands more,
hot rush of smoke,
and a blinding fear:
the issues that
have led us here.
A limerick that
I couldn't sing,
a gift to you,
I couldn't bring,
a carrier pigeon
who dropped his note,
a cursing sailor
who lost his boat:
I am so many things
that never worked.
I jerked
and threw away
what wouldn't stay
or ran away
anyway.
Today,
on snowy fields
on back roads
in country lands
where promises bestowed
are daily broken
(my rightful token)
there are girls and boys
happily making noise,
and holding cold hands
and making grandiose plans.
My toes are numb
and my nose is red
and I'm swallowing truths
I never said.

***********************************************





"Don't ask me nothin' about nothin'. I just might tell you the truth." Bob Dylan Outlaw Blues

Miles Behind Us

There are simple things
that make us move;
they change our shapes,
make us love like fools.
You see your reflection
in the pools of her eyes,
as if that's the only place
wherein your silhouette is safe.
That unfamiliar feeling
is her own heart beating
and that mess in the mirror
cleans up pretty well,
but she'll scoff as she walks
and she'll hide as she talks.
That which -
by any other standards -
are deemed unequivocal,
she questions the most...
as if questions
bring forth truths.
Your hand on hers is true
and so is that grin from across the room,
but so are the endless silences
and all those miles behind us.

**********************************************



"Yesterday, I watched you leave ten seconds too late. Yesterday." The Movielife Ten Seconds Too Late

Light I Lit

The sound of your voice
fades in and out,
but I guess I believe you
without a doubt.
There are so many words
you know nothing about
and - like a child held captive -
I'll scream and shout.
You think you're so smooth,
but you lack class and clout.
Souring, searching, but
stuck so still,
motionless waves that
claim their kill,
I'm hungry and hunted;
you'll get your fill.
Your shadow behind me:
the chase is your thrill.
Once, I thought it made sense;
it was a perfect fit,
but you showed your knives
and you threw and it hit
and you outsmarted me
with your charm and wit.
But you're soft and you're warm
and what I know I can't admit,
so when you're on your way back home
follow that light I lit.

*************************************************




"This little light of mine, shine bright and blind the reaper's eyes, hear you stomping on the tops of pines. We rest as death lays on his knife." Wild Sweet Orange An Atlas To Follow

"'If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay,' said Gatsby. 'You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.'" F.S. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Get Your Way

Keep far away from me
like I'm diseased and contagious.
Already at an arm's length,
I'm still a threat, still dangerous.
I want your smell, your taste,
though I know that's outrageous.
It's a constant stream of
knowing and never knowing
that keeps my thoughts
flowing and over flowing
like you can't make up your mind
while mine is going and growing.
Hold me close
then throw me aside.
"I want in!"
I haplessly cried.
And with silence
you amply replied.
You had me fooled in
every step of the way.
And the smirk across your lips
is all you ever had to say.
If you really want to lose me,
you're about you get your way.

*************************************

Limerick-y, but...whatever. I figured a little bit of silly rhyming might mask my frustration a little. Haha. This has also been slightly edited just...because. Ask to see my notebook if you want to see the unedited version. There's only one line different; you're not missing too much. This was written over several days. I guess I'll slightly less frustrated now than when I began drafting it.

Also, this should probably be divided into four stanzas of six lines each, but I don't like stanzas much these days. When everything's blurry and confusing in reality, stanzas seem to take the point away a little. There is no organization in life. Life is just a stream of randomly occurring bullshit.







"I wonder how it's going to be when you don't know me. How's it going to be when you're sure I'm not there?" - Third Eye Blind How's It Gonna Be?

"Tell me what you want. I'll be it, darling it's anything you want, look no more. Just let me stay the night, I'll sleep on the floor. Tell me what you see, I'll see it even if, it's invisible to everyone. I think you know that I can see you girl, so don't fight it, love..." - Ultimate Fakebook TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT

Wilson: And that's why religious belief annoys you. Because if the universe operates by abstract rules you can learn them; you can protect yourself. If a Supreme Being exists, He can squash you any time He wants.
House: He knows where I am.
- Courtesy of yesterday's seventeen hour House marathon and http://www.housemdquotes.com/ [lol that this site exists, by the way...and that this is exactly the quote I was thinking of and I managed to find it in about three minutes]

Mrs. Lintott: And you, Rudge? How do you define history?
Rudge: Can I speak freely without being hit?
Mrs. Lintott: You have my protection.
Rudge: How do I define history? Well it's just one fucking thing after another.
...
Mrs. Lintott: History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
- The History Boys [I really need to see this movie from start to finish...I keep missing the beginning.]

Heap

You say these words to me
like they're magic incantations
and I melt because I'm solid,
like ice.
I'm cold.
It's just the weather.
It's a reaction to the season.
It's the rainy misconception
and the waste of another reason.
It's all misunderstanding.
It's all in bad hand writing.
It's all a lie about love and loving.
Warm hands or eyes -
it makes no difference -
it all amounts to shit:
the substance which you fed me.
Broken promises spell trouble
so I guess I'm in a heap,
but I wish you'd still come find me;
even your lies sound pretty sweet.

************************************************

It's about dishonesty. Or loving.

Or maybe there's not much of a difference.







"I'm kickin' like a kid 'cause I can't get rid of it." Kevin Devine Trouble

Something Like Happiness

Coffee stains
and razor blades
and mismatched socks
and dirty mops,
a string of benign
and beautiful shots
that snap imagination
out of hibernation.
The smells are familiar,
like I once lived here,
but ran screaming
with fear.
A feckless foe
faces me,
stares me down,
asks too much of me.
To break
down
apart
up
off:
the thought
leaves me
numb.
And I'm already cold
from a tale so old:
a fairytale nightmare
in which I disappear.
A damsel in distress -
perhaps you know the rest -
with her dazzling prince
and a moment's glimpse
of something like happiness:
it feels so warm,
but only when you are,
like blankets from the dryer
or maybe hell's fire.
Still, your steps sound distant
and your voice is so faint
and I dream that you're nearer,
my reflection in a mirror,
so I could see you clearer.
But dreams vanish with the sun;
they mock me just for fun.
I'm writing you this story
of lonesome glory,
but my pen's in your hands:
you decide how it ends.


****************************************






"...I felt just about the closest to this stuff that is called happiness as I have ever struck." Woody Guthrie Bound For Glory

Snap

She speaks in shallow promises
and broken hearts:
she repeats what's whispered
in her ears.
She walks along
on her tightrope
as if there's no such thing
as absurd.
She brushes your cheek,
but you never feel it
like her heat
is your repellent.
When the sun shines,
she cries.
It should be dark
all the time.
The light
hurts her eyes,
but she denies
it's you that makes them sting.
So, she shuffles her feet
and bites her tongue.
She imagines a day
when you're not gone.
And when it rains,
she smiles and sings.
She wishes she had wings:
to you, herself she'd bring.
Like branches,
she sways
from side
to side
and you,
her wind,
made her snap,
so unkind.
It is she
who is your sport
for ignoring,
though she was born
inside your smile
this morning.

********************************************






"She brings her friends so we wont have to be alone. I fear I might lose my composure without warning. I am a child of fire. I am a lion. I have desires and I was born inside the sun this morning." Counting Crows Hanging Tree

Half Alive

Laying on my back,
half asleep
or maybe half dead,
thinking half dead
is all right:
it's half alive.
As sure as we're all alive,
we're all gonna die,
we're all gonna die
and that's just fine.
The fan is off
so it's too quiet to sleep
and you're too far away
so it's too cold to dream,
but closed eyelids
draw you nearer.
Fingertips
and eyelashes
and feelings
and looks
and I've already read this book,
but you managed to get me hooked.
Again,
a wrong turn
down a dangerous road,
but it's so tempestuous
and it tingles
and tastes
suspiciously
like you.

*************************************************

It's about doing shit you know you're better off not doing...but - then again - what the hell? Ya only live once.







"Would you say that the one of your dreams got in you and ripped out the seams? That's what I'd say. That's what I'd say." Heatmiser Half Right

"As the priest got up to speak, the assembly craved relief, but he himself had given up. So, instead, he offered them this bitter cup: 'You're gonna die. We're all gonna die, could be twenty years, could be tonight. And lately I have been wondering why we go to so much trouble to postpone the unavoidable and prolong the pain of being alive.'" Pedro The Lion Priests And Paramedics

"We're all gonna die. That's just life in time. The hallelujah, the by-and-by, we'll all fly away so high." All Get Out Wasting All My Breath