Wednesday, January 26th, 2011
The color that lands on the river
Is a belief system,
A twelve step program
To ease the addiction of night
Sunday, November 21st, 2010
I don’t worry anymore
Nothing like I did before
I don’t worry
I just watch them rolling back
I don’t worry anymore
‘Cause it’s all right, all right to see a ghost
And I wanna see ‘em go down in the river where they go
And I wanna see ‘em rolling, rolling back
And I wanna see ‘em go
‘Cause it’s all right, all right to see your ghost
I’m gonna run to the river
Kiss my hand and wait
Gonna run to the river
Gonna throw a blue bouquet
‘Cause they’re gonna be cool happy genius heroes
I’m gonna miss ‘em so much
I will settle in and dream
Of a slow and funny scene
I will settle in and watch ‘em rolling back
I will settle in and dream
‘Cause it’s all right, all right to see a ghost
And I wanna see ‘em go down in the river where they go
And I wanna see ‘em rolling, rolling back
I’m gonna run to the river
Kiss my hand and wait
Gonna run to the river
Gonna throw a blue bouquet
‘Cause they’re gonna be cool happy genius heroes
I’m gonna miss them so much
I’m gonna run to the river
Kiss my hand and wait
Gonna run to the river
Gonna send ‘em on their way
‘Cause they’re gonna be cool happy genius heroes
I’m gonna miss them so much
Yeah, they’re gonna be cool happy genius heroes
I’m gonna miss ‘em so much
* * *
Listen on Youtube (Santa Clara)
this morning
the highway turned to beer
and i drank the whole
of it in, from san diego
up towards home
and all its dark
the white foam
of my head
sloshing around the colors
of stale mugs
shot glasses
it was a dirty sunrise
my car followed or seemed
intent on finding it
ogled towards it
light, a vulgar nude
sleep, akin to lust
inapproachable
the stumbled words
of billboards:
this project of an under
stimulated america
at a gas station later
on the wrong side
of a hangover
i held
the pump
the shifted tide poured in
i dreamed of a bed
rising up
gleaming arms oyster clung
and pearl-ladened
a heaving part
as the night came down
as turbulent currents
might come upon
a diver
unexpected
my friend is leaving, if
we were still friends
after what i had said
there is no art
in suffering
for transcendence
when i arrived home
just shy of 5 o clock
everything seemed
wrong, perverse
our lives as silhouettes
of palm trees
against the sky
but i had drunk
the whole highway in
– a man often
mistakes
want for need
and he needed
to leave
and I wanted to
miss the details
against the
brilliance of these days
to come
some things too
sharp against the light
other things
too trivial
and always
my love like friendship
remains
insensible
arriving late
as the hour of sleep
and leaving early as
if waking
As if all things were meant to wake
In the wrong hours of night
And all waking moments
Measured by the changing light.
Monday, January 18th, 2010
we write only what we know
the verbs wake us, keep us awake
with their incense
they surround us, their incessant
songs waking what once was night
now morning
now lunchtime
we write only of our narrow view
while bukowski paened his whores
and his liquors
we pain only for our shadows
these are not friends, at night i drink with
a hundred acquaintances
while my friend is dead, asleep
all his verbs now gifts to outlines
that remain
Monday, January 18th, 2010
Well, we were young
And turtlenecked all through spring, then it was
Summer on a turning millennium;
And when we turned
From one another, way back when,
It seemed like youth was always a safe excuse
To have been in love:
The heart darts and pushes
Past the curtains
Of sunshine, a furred critter
Suddenly wild.
Then, David says we can’t be it all.
I’d like to know why not (though
his logic is irrefutable),
A short fall cuts to a long winter;
The things in between
Were made in opposition.
The millennium no longer young;
Well, then there was that slow day so many
Years later
Wondering if this cat twisting
On my chest was a thing
Returned
Or if that other thing
Had ever run past the gardens
Into those wicked billows of sunshine.
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
He was born with hands as large as his appetite, grasping for his fair share. The other, not so lucky.
Monday, November 30th, 2009
Implicit in every word
Is the danger of being heard, as
On a sunlit afternoon
The rain ruined against
Her brow, and how she
Pronounces the coming wet
Might yield a gentler storm;
When all is flood,
How the arc gets named
Might defer a differing frame.
So tonight, she speaks
Of revelations, and I turn
To watch it in the clouds:
Implicit in every bird
Is the stranger being heard.
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Should you wake
One morning on a small patch
Of green where love
Had grown careless out of neglect,
Should you froth
To consciousness beside
The sea of foam that
Swallowed your golden fleet,
I’ve only got a few words to say:
Stop drowning.
And for God’s sake,
Do something about the lawn.
It’s a mess.
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
1.
We are to the brim with aches from teeth long shaken out on green apples and poised fists. Our teeth had left us toothless; we spat stones for each temptation, hands the manifestation of longing: two insects fluttering in search of a mating home.
2.
We are to the brim with blacks and blues remembered from tall dark woods trimmed to a single brilliant stick. Lo! How each generation seeks to define itself by suffering. I am damaged goods, she says, I may learn to love again but not now, not really.
3.
We are to the brim with wanting triggers emblazoned onto skin. For each tattooed minute we had lost a fighting head and thus gained a double conundrum. This is no way to live. This is no way to sing. The jagged son of Jupiter rises at our throats.
4.
Or none at all.