i continue
unaccompanied
down the shoreline
further
where the waves strain and gasp for
another handful of
sand and here the current
runs a little swifter just beneath
the surface
your shadow
pinned by knives and
silver leaves,

i remember what hope meant
on nights like these
an addiction
so dank below the salt
it grips your heart
and commands you to go forth
it means
a safe journey
it means
to ask why
or how,

i want to tell you
it is true
that
some things
are always leaving
that
the violet tomb might be curved
so that even as you
chase the horizon
you may return and
find me
here waiting,

good friend,

i will go as well
not now
perhaps not soon
but when that day comes
remember to keep
your heart pointed
towards the sun
so somewhere neither
here nor there
those
stars that
seemed so strange
to us
will align once
more.

* * *

Goodbye Oscar. R.I.P. 7/20.

But hear ye,
The next life is waiting, it awaits
With empty bags on an undocked ship
And a fistful of longing,

Asks:

After how many voyages
Will the foreigner
Go without luggage
Before help could come,

In how many places
Has my friend
Wandered aimlessly
Before life could find him.

Says:

Like you, I did not exist either
Not here, though
The want of it might return.

For whose sake?

A man might miss his chance
and never catch up,
might miss his turning.

and I am alone,
there is nothing left
but the bottle,
there is nothing left
in the bottle,

but still you came, your throat rusty
with music and smoke,
telling me that
we are rabid under the mud,
filthy and tired of existing

sick of everything
yet in that dark, we found light:
we tasted wanting tongues against the spirits
we found light

and it tasted bitter
from the luminosity that surrounds you

because I wanted that bright
as my own;
because I wanted that
as my own;

so it goes,
when you go
I tell my friends, grief
will always drink with you
but it is
a jealous companion

misplaced
In all the world there’s only
space, joyful moon

and morning,

Laughter,
wrecking

ball, seasoning air, seasonal
drear. Without a lifeline, these
teeth tell me nothing.

Fire, bliss, the heights of
malaise unsaid all
in exploding separations

ending, as usual

, in silence stealing through
the streets

[Original Post Date: 06/12/2004]

You brought your boomerang, orange
And striped, and we cried when it
Flew imperfect, past railing to sky,
To clump of hedge there below.

But we were eight, I went away
Not knowing how far I’d go or
Having forgotten your name,
Too long absent to be missed and
Too few memories to reminisce

Except this: the one where things
Don’t come back having gone
And changed, while all the while
The intent remained.

Nine asserts a dark red-orange. K is German and a spy. Two smells of pine and shades of green. Four is dark and old, bent or sitting. As a kid, I loved how the disparate graphemes merged to form a word, a complex relationship, and further on, to sentences. If I had delved deeper then, perhaps I could have carved out a Rosetta stone to translate every single emotion or thought, that the written word could be perfected to define by form. But I didn’t know how to speak then. I barely know how to now.

and every year
I shed a layer
to join the air

You are a figure drawn on a white sheet of paper. In each frame, your appendages flail in another awkward direction. Your head, which is a circle, lolls to and fro. A series of vertical lines extend from your body, as if to signify your downward descent. Frightening, yes, and panic shows across your face. The jacket you are wearing flares and hisses. It might be alive or it might be the wind. But since you are a simple line composition, these details are not sketched in: no rattling jacket, no face. And you still haven’t seen anything below you.

While you are falling, you begin to tell your life’s story.

* * *

John grew up and stopped feeling. When he speaks, his voice sounds like a cut-off sentence at the end of a grizzled record exhaling noiselessly over a gray day perpetuated by drizzle. He might smile. But I think he is elsewhere, hidden in the lyrics of those who have figured out how to express themselves. He sends them to me, those meaningless songs, late at night when his eyes are the most vacant. I wonder if it is truly possible to know another person. And if other people exist.

* * *

She says you will fall in love with her but you are unsure, perhaps you don’t care. The world is filled with falling people, how many will lurch in your direction. How many will land. Imagine this: the sky opens up and so many line figures are wrung from the clouds. Either the ground is rising swiftly to meet them or they are dropping away. Perspective, you say. Better to stay close to the ground, you think. Spend too much time hanging in the air, never know when you’ll come down.

* * *

I knew John once, he was a boy then and during that brief yet tumultuous time, his heart burst with every emotion in acid bursts. Everything he felt bubbled outwards and danced in his eyes and sang on his lips. I watched the watercolors swirl on his face, greens, yellows, blues, pinks and violets, each mash of the painting tray more brilliant than the last. We watched and, in doing so, hoped the wind-up toy inside our chests might stir. When he cried, his tears came forth unabashed. He cried a lot. He laughed a lot. I don’t know what happened.

They handed you map to show you where to go
Gave you everything but what you need to know
You know your friends enough to say
Where they’ll be on any day
Come what may

Surprise surprise
The morning sun is in your eyes
Get up throw that life away
Yesterday is yesterday
And lies they lied
They said you get what you deserve in life
But that’s just not the way it seems
You end up living someone else’s dreams
It’s true
It follows you around
You don’t have to love this town

Friday night beneath the bridge just one more time
You wish that you could leave this dirty town behind
There never seems to be a way
Hold on for another day
You will find

Surprise surprise
The sun that hits your lonely eyes
It wipes out every other day
Yesterday is yesterday
And lies they lied
It’s not what you deserve
It’s what you try and try and try again
Failing’s just a step along the way
It’s true
There’s no one here for you
In time you wait and you will find
The ones who never let you down
You don’t have to love this town