Modern Fright

Big-black and broken,
some new year, new age,
thrown at us underhand.
Crumpled contents clanging like pocket change,

(meanwhile, beneath an intoxicated sunset, some gold gently strokes her curls, sanguine, until dusk snuffs them out, again)

and her future, it’s extinct.

Still posturing for some un-identity
while Brothers & Sisters of a revolution
beat clocks to death,
their rigor mortised Sons & Daughters fossilizing.

(but I’m bent, unrecognizable; chain-smoking chivalry, it loosely dangles on my lips, like lost sentiment. I can and won’t cry, simultaneously)

Hidden by intemperate tremors,
and sudden glances from below.
(so I try keeping natural)
Trying not to stare at stray hands,
who only mind themselves.

(still ill-luminated, I lie awake. Re-arranging the day’s unnecessary accessories on her nightstand)

I’m half blacked-out,
spouting sanctimonious shit,
and it’s making me sick.
‘It’s all empty,’ dawn says,
tucking me in,
her slurred reprieve half-lie half-gin.

-Jan 2010

This Land is Lethal

This land is lethal
and raised up by stinging hands.
The brittle skeletons of their being
constructing chrome complexions.
The beauty of buildings without breath,
who outlive me,
their heartbeats somehow more tangible.

Now this decade is stooped and dying,
tonguing words they’ve tried to trigger
since before we were young.
Straddling the line
between dreams and nightmares,
my mind unmade.
Neapolitan skylines, cityscapes
snubbed from the maps.
I busted them!
Like cigarettes in my palm.

And with an unmarked breath
I drowned this city.
Slapped the art, like a silly grin
from her face.
And with my arms to above
I felt God like the blood in my veins.
His villainy somehow made apparent,
then vindicated.

Yes, I think it’s true:
there’s toughs still undiscovered.
How bitter a thing, this word ‘forever’!
Somehow our city sleeps fully dressed,
piss-stains and a rotting mouth
burning at her under-arms
like fickle fires from her children –
at once at peace and then to war.
Holy hypocrisies seldom sleeping
for the dull pains of long days.

Daft and incurable
our mother’s hands the only antidote.
but they’re kept tied by her scars,
And she works long hours.
Long enough to
hatch some kind of escape
involving rental cars and nervous tics
from infinite coffee,
left to boil till it
eats itself up and
tattoos a sticky death along the pot’s bottom.

Untitled Horizon

Some menial mutation
meant to stable this ship
but I keep failing.
I’ve lost tongue for these cravings
and shed face for these paintings.
Air-brushed and unperfect,
getting sick with singular symptoms.
These fields have gone wet
with the weekend’s sweat,
lit more by comets
than paint-by-number hearts.

Can you understand the unwanted gist of my seething?
On and off like the tide
unmoved but receding.
I’m a shivering shtick.
Please don’t believe that these pleas are some treason.
Please comprehend the quiet science of my breathing.
I keep pretending these words say something
but I’m betrayed by their actions:
skinny and weak like a portrait you fashioned.
Does tomorrow still come with a blessing?
Or will my speech dry up
when my luck does too?

When the fire of old friends expires
its ash is bitter at dawn,
barely burning while the sun takes torch.
In a basement I loved,
so often re-incarnated by faces,
made alive by faith’s lonely stasis.
The bronzed skin of wrinkled presidents
further weathered by winter’s liquored rivers.

So now I’m diving headfirst into untitled horizons,
but I’m afraid of infinity,
and this scenery is limited
by an untainted, untamed window.
Screeching in to a crash-course climax
collision coming
one way or the other.

Yet I’m trying to recreate the dramatics of motion
but addiction’s excess
takes precedence
so prudence shuts up,
locks herself in the car.
Inspired by a soft stomach
and the fire of redemption
(a word I swore I’d never use
because the chewed fingernails
of pre-pubescent poetry
de-clawed it of meaning long ago)

Just give me an unknown canyon,
bullhorn and a soap-box
and I’ll toss my words
down an unending pit.
Then stand,
screaming away the days.
Re-learning then forgetting
the tired truths of my wisdoms:
slowly starve to death
singing loneliness’ lullaby.

(July 2009)

Flashes

There’s too much said
to stay subtle.
So I put another record on
because you can’t be profound
singing someone else’s song.
You just need picture proof
flashes of genius.
It’s too cliché to hate the rain now.
But some things need saying
because we’re not all perfect in memory.
So I
will never let a word go
because feelings fade
and I’d rather keep tabs on her meanings.
And though I speak of her so pretty
life can be so mean.
So I keep on lighting
just to stay lit
and pour more coffee
to keep my heart running.
Cause if the city won’t have us
we’ll die where we please.
And while I hope for something better
I pray to god that there’s no heaven,
because I have no words
for all my fallen family
whose eyes are on me now.

-June 2009

love is unassuming

love is unassuming,
so
let it fill up yer fingers and burst
she says she’s got
dollars in her
purse’s
menagerie, so she
buys me cheap wine (cheap courage)
and makes faces
for my eyes
she said, ‘love like
you’re life unhinged’

too much, that

dorothy rests, affixed
against the front-door
she has a polka-dot apron which
matches her eyes (blue and purple)
and

she’s seen the youth
gut this ghetto and soil the city
leaving
young, tattooed hearts sputtering
for love’s last breath
but
she’s cross town, crossing town,
and i’ve seen the smile
(though it’s unassuming)
only younger

i, breaking consciousness,
surrender
my angst and ammunition,
like twenty years of strife –
the cold-blooded puddles
almost
looking gorgeous,
while flowers catch light
under winter’s
double-barreled night

-March 2009

There Are Things You Just Can’t

Their veneer’s
not so sharp
as you think.
Having waited
out the storm
I touched her hand,
and saw the light
like a hole in her eye.
‘There are bones
beneath yer skin,’
I said,
‘(or there used to)’.

(for you and I        have legs and feet        make us to move        our bodies meet)

I told her
words work
(and they do),
but it’s something
she isn’t really
asking;
it’s her fingers
begging to know
if the trembling
is a side-effect
of the cigarettes,
or the cold.
I said she should
live like a light
in the sky
because fireworks
(and it does).

(but clocks have limbs        which tick and tock        that will turn back         and will still shock)

And will I remember
her fingers again
or is that
lost
too
could not someone know?
I remember them
feeling like motion
again
and crashing
still.

(just remember, don’t:        go on and on     /     like idiots     /      for each other)

That’s when
I had it
that
moment of clarity
before the
surface shrinks by the shadow
then breaks; splashing,
’neath the weight.
Baby
I’ve some parts mechanic.
And I haven’t
touched
like this
in a while –
like lights
flashing/exploding
in the sky.
Realized
maybe
I’m on fire
and it works.

-July 2008

Echo Chamber

Nothing is mirrored as voices,
clamoring like tiny wars
echoed through history –
a fiction you can dictate.
In time the weak ones fade to whispers,
so it’s useless latching on to skin
when earth’s mouth could fit us all in,
but lets us sit, unfazed,
dripping silly with self-conscious
parody and disdain.

Clinging fast to a world we feel entitled,
though I see it’s undeserved
when those lacking voice speak loudest.
Jealous of earth, who flaunts time
while we weak ones waste away.
In cities my sisters and brothers walk off-step
cause nothing lives in sync,
save prayers
if the accident will.

How subtle life’s harmonies,
how glorious discord makes her melody!
Aging day and night,
born new and dying.
Re-learning and forgetting
the tired truth of lullabys:
that there’s nothing but sleep
to cure the sickness of a modern heart,
but tomorrow’s gonna be a better day.

Born of a clay city,
where art is out of breath,
barely living
in the short gasps of her imitators – You Pretenders!
Rest assured,
universal truths are unreal,
because no painting lasts in new light,
and time has no photographs of existence
which match mine, or anyone’s.

We’ve raised our children for the future:
afraid to live forever,
and unable to escape legacy
because their Television Daddy’s
brought them up to
write novels and films
about the men they wish they were,
conveniently forgetting it’s within reach.
We thought we’d learned
that modern life is making movies,
forgetting with time
life is only its moments,
and to stay stopped is surrender.

-May 2009

next to love she wonders

next to love she
wonders
if existence could
comb your sea-sick hair
and can
water-weary skins
love in sync

seducing clarity
on a map
we
wrestle time’s great
big bear claws
from his side
pinching
nerves and blocking
blood
in the veins

while
broken-fingered spiders
aggressively caress
their new-borns
though not as yet awake
in a
nother life

and i
stifle squeaky tongues
as they repeat
‘unique new york /
i need
unique
new york’

but she sits still
pretty,
sullen and dead-faced
blood sport
displayed
cross her chest
while i
lie unawake
scraping
the city
of its skin

-March 2009

& yet & yet

Empty clouds breaking bad news
over torn dictionaries, whose pages
silently shriek in the wind
while U and I collide
again, neath hundreds of broken
street-lights, whose flickered pulse
resembles fractured heartbeats
and unsung eyes telling me
I’m not so familiar anymore.
These shoes won’t leave land
so I can’t rise above the slow
sweat of the city, whose beat
seems more steady than sweet.
& yet & yet I feel undeserved,
struggling with the insignificance
of dead texts, dead words,
painting pictures just to say nothing,
tainting moments with useless insights
because I’m not my Father’s son,
it’s a different animal.
And life is too prone to imbalance,
riding shotgun in used cars,
over rural highways where
the bay is broken and       ice       falls
while I waver and bend,
but won’t fold.
Self-taught to learn to love myself
in all shapes, cause no one else can,
and it’s not so important as I’ve made it,
so I keep looking for contexts
to paint you in to while something
tiny and often biting stays strapped
and uninterested in escape.
Beyond belief and breaking protocol,
running like the river
and working words out,
whose meanings obscure
the dull glory of bitter days,
praying that I’m heaven-sent for bigger things
but duly set for life mundane.

-April 2009

Burn Yer Feet Like They’re Lookin for Prints

I will dictate the thousand mile parade.

And I will chase the clouds across the sky,
choose the cadence of the concrete
(though it may not be so kind)
and connect the cities like constellations.

Wander on black-top / ponder on roof-tops.
I will make love to my notebook,
then fall for the static of silence.

In the mute light of the road at night
I will find distinction in
lost skins, blood kin, and skeleton.
Then travel back again.

Well, we’re all our own universes.
Like flowers in a garden;
half-dead or half-dying:
I feel like I’m waiting on closed doors.
Kept in ’cause the world’s been made too full
and they’re trying to give us room.
-October 2008