I saw a poet and a blind man
on the corner of a street.
The blind man spoke to me,
and he said, "son, you listen here,
the poet, he can't see."
And the blind man didn't see the irony.
And when I'd passed the blind man
the poet turned to me,
saying, "friend, look at me,
my thoughts are full of philosophy
because of a blind man, and all he can see."
And the poet didn't see the irony.
~05/2005
Light footsteps tread
outside the door of conviction.
“Let me in,” says a small sweet voice,
but I turn over in bed.
Some lovers are best left unheeded.
“Let me in!” repeats the thing, now monstrous, but
I pull the pillow over my head
and feign ignorance.
~05/06
We shall be wild.
those of my age.
We shall be rebels, we shall be ruthless,
we shall ignore the old adages -
becoming bottles of brine
with shouts like sounds of animals,
and dressed to get jacked up,
by the dozen, by the hundred.
Thank God we have our morals.
Thank God we're almost twenty-one.
Thank God we're not dead yet,
so let's play a round of Russian roulette.
Let's play a round,
all around town.
We shall be wild,
we shall play with bullets.
We shall be protectors, and persecutors;
we shall love the bullshit -
becoming coffins of cancer,
fucking and fasting like animals,
and dying to find out how to be fake
for a friendship or a date.
Thank God we have our morals.
Thank God we have our freedom.
Thank God we're not grown yet,
so let's play a round of Russian roulette.
Let's play a round,
all around town.
Let's play a round,
all around town.
~09/07
And insofar as paths go,
I generally retrace ones that
as a young and inexperienced tracer,
wobbled.
Accustomed to balance through
years of practice and logic,
my steps are straighter but less
joyful.
Is it a slow loss or one traumatic
point at which our eyes begin to
calculate and plan and lose the
moment?
Would our decisions be worse if we
stepped back in time and forced
our limited omniscience of adulthood onto
them?
And if so, should we approach
complex and unsolvable paths with
the naiveté and simplicity of
childhood?
My path has strayed and
only a child’s mind could
make it logical.
-12/27/08
echoed gunshots at evening's end -
they assuage my anxious soul;
if we're all just wastes of oxygen,
then someone's got to go.
~10/08
canvas - white out -
the ground is breathing, puffs
of smoke, soon to be torn
by tired tires -
there is a tension, a certain
tension to the taming of the
autumn rainbow -
it surrenders to erasure with
solemn - descent,
assured of mercy -
but apprehensive of its
trimestered resurrection -
canvas - black dot -
the howl of the hunt, the stalking
predator, swallowing its
willing prey -
there is a warmth, a certain
warmth inside the belly
of the beast -
and then an endless need to
migrate - to move,
attracted to the horizon -
life is merely an arc of
transient fantasies -
~11/09-04/14/10
WHAT AM I TRYING TO PERCEIVE?
MY UNFETTERED SOUL,
GET RID OF THE DEVILS
WITH A SIDEWAYS MIND!
IT’S DIFFERENT THAN LIFE;
GOOD THING I KNOW HOW TO BREATHE.
I’M ALMOST A L I V E, FINALLY!
DON’T. DON’T BURN COLORS.
TAKE IT AS IT COMES.
THESE ARE MY TEARS;
MULTI-COLORED SPIDERWEBS,
LIKE A KALEIDOSCOPE ORGASM.
RAINBOW ICE IN MY VEINS,
JEWELS,
DROPS OF ACID.
I NEED TO GET RID OF THE DEMONS
THAT TICKLE ME, SHAKING
THE JOURNEY.
LIFE IS MELTING AWAY AND
WE NEED TO STOP IT.
~12/08 - 05/09
capital letters no longer exist in my world.
there's festering clusters longing to begin,
but the phrases and people and places are now
humbled, because i jumbled them free of their
formalities, their faces, their opening statements.
if there is no genesis, there cannot be a revelation,
and certainly not a postscript. pressing messes into
sentences, i scan them until they spell sense,
but the definitions oscillate like oversized jewels,
accosting me with the scintillation of sirens, begging
me naked, bathing, to build them back their bridges.
but capital letters no longer exist in my world,
and the holocaust it's caused has a meaning that's lost.
the holocaust it's caused has a meaning that's lost.
-01/04/10
I had a dream:
I was alone on a vast expanse of dark desert.
A horse of fire bore down on me,
Rider's sword waving, rearing menacingly,
Like some grim and ghastly tale from colonial times,
And my head was ready for the taking –
Then to the tip of an iceberg, and I was chained to it,
Like Prometheus to the mountain's summit,
As a horse of ice bore down on me,
Gnashing its teeth, and I knew it was hungry.
If I was gutted next, I didn't feel it;
The blood only flowed from a bitten lip.
I shook myself awake, groped for a light,
Because every dark corner obstructed my sight.
This is where I might die, I might perish, I might become nevermore,
Like the Raven of Poe's, like the innocence of a whore.
Lighted now, the room seemed bare and seemed boring,
Yet sleep engaged me in hide-and-seek –
A game without laughter for a man who felt meek
After feeling the horrors that Bibles foresee.
Revelate, revelate! O reviled saints!
Paint me a picture of hell and of pain!
Paul and Peter, do you fear the rapture?
I’m fascinated by fate, but still I’m its captive.
Now shaking and shivering, I lack any courage –
The battle in my brain is of epic proportions,
And it distorts the logic that governs the days
Of the populace that plods along at a pace
Clocked and counted out by diamonds on a Rolex:
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock you're dead.
But still I wrap myself up in the blankets;
In fetal position I feel more protected.
A mother's love teaches a child, till finally
He makes his own life and fulfills his own dreams,
But dreams are fickle friends at the best:
Peace must be made if you desire your rest.
So cease not in temptation, but uncover our evils,
For this is the kingdom of power and glory
That never is tethered.
Amen, I say, amen,
For the good of our friends and of our children,
Amen, goodnight, the end.
~05/07
He beat the pavement with brass knuckles
to find a purpose for life and pain—
the concrete held its secrets in
and smiled at the brash display:
how audacious the race of men can be!
fighting and flaunting their stupidity.
For even God, with infinite omniscience,
doesn't know the reason for existence.
But mice and men must have a pretense,
or the cats will hunt them down,
so on and on we hit the ground.
He beat the pavement with brass knuckles
until his breath came short and shallow.
The adversaries stared at one another,
and the man's eyes grew swiftly narrow.
What a cold, taunting, crafty surface!
but the ground, with all its pride and arrogance,
will never break to interrogation,
to scream to men and all the nations
that life's best lived with humble ignorance—
free of fists and brass and bile,
full of respect and humble ignorance.
~04/07