Waiting to see your eyes

the days trickle by and
you can never stay still
time and moving for a cure
the sound and color of the world
nor time passing you by
will ever erase this
but twist it into new shapes
and it will live in you always
waiting to see your eyes

after the lathe of years

here I do still stand decades tired
my blood feeling loud and caustic
like a river about to burst into flame
and all things must be done again

poisoned air of the filthy night

She was out there moving
through the obsessive haze
and the oppressive heat
of the humid night
dreaming of a rescue
and hoping for a fuck
that wasn't too degrading

He laid on his kitchen floor
staring at the ceiling fan
the dog hair under the cabinet
using up all of his shine
to make himself contented
laying there alone
talking to the dog

Always the poisoned air
of the filthy night
enters their lungs
and doesn't care
their brief little lives
the lights they have
but never turn on

ick

clickity clicking through the insomnia

lickity split I write down these lines

without knowing this slow burning rage

without feeling this blanket of depression

I'd have no friends to mention on this page

ickity ick ickity ick I think I'll be sick.

small answers

Let's drive cross-country and talk about it

find a random river and baptize ourselves

somewhere we can really see the stars

we'll know the easy and small answers

to all the large and hard questions

then sleep the sleep of the newly free

What a noisy cat I am.

So if I worked this right this post should show up in four places. Sort of makes me wonder if I couldn't build it up to posting in hundreds of places in a giant unending loop. Like a giant prayer wheel.

zero tolerance by ron whitehead

zero tolerance by ron whitehead

Tell them I am coming

Love and magic
are half dead and becoming myths
chained to the back of a gasoline tanker
and being drug along the interstate.

let's find a car
even if we have to steal it
and with gas guns and ammo
feel our way to the rescue.

I fear little else goodbye

I don't want you around me I don't need another person who can break my heart or my rhythm I move through the world on my own counsel and my own permission to my own goals.

I don't need you to assess the dangers I will go down with this life not you stay away even if I did decide you can hurt me I fear little else I close my windows to both light and air goodbye.

You can never bring it to me

If I remember them every day
sooner or later the medicines take
and there I am all alone in time
a room where I need nothing else
where I don't let the telephone ring
time marks itself in subtle ways as
I try and put everything in its place
trying to bring my own devastation
so I never have to fear it again
and you can never bring it to me.

the spikes of that opiate dream

sometimes but it was only at night
when I could feel time passing by
like a breeze over the searching tips
of the spikes of that opiate dream
I heard others screaming out in pain
but other times, and only at night
it was me.

just move along

her memory will walk around with me for years
and remind me of how difficult things can become
I'll remember her in painter's light hitting the world
the lingering smell of woodsmoke after a fire
and her easy laugh about it all

We come to agreement with life's tragedy
it bleeds away a drip at a time not faster
drip you are more alone
drip you are less strong
you lose your surety and color

but you move on.

unfinished

I have been having trouble sleeping
I toss and compose many phrases
trying to hit my real meaning

But when I do sleep I dream
in eloquent and perfect poetry
my brain is teasing me onwards

I am sweating and shirtless
in the heat of high summer
Skinny and cigarette ash about to drop
Trying to carve those words into stone
while I can still remember them

Words have meanings I'm all about the meanings.

I'm alone in a room trying to write it down
A long time alone trying to write it down
Life has meanings and I try to match the words
Always alone trying
to write it down.

Fuck you I won't buy what you're selling

everything is not for sale
and life is not about the money
no matter what you or television
or the subtle attitudes I encounter
everywhere from almost everything say

the trouble is most people
seem to be mostly dead
at least they have never lived
and need their asses kicked to life
or to get the fuck out of the way

Move or get it moved, step aside
let the live, strong and militant pass
we have devils to confront
we have revels to perform
we have lives we plan to live.

since you never liked poetry

That river is a poem about you
but you never slowed enough
to hear those calm sane words
since you never liked poetry.

It has a long natural time line
forever and to the sea
and even if you never listen
it still will know the words of God.

Giveitaway!

if I only had enough money
I'd give give give it away
until the culture was destroyed
it's all about the money you know

You'd lose the reason you use
to be able to look down on me
but I still would have no reason
to look up to or respect you.

yet.

maybe then we could
find a way, working together
to build a real culture with
value not measured in cash.

why we are alone

sure - let me suffer the light of the sunrise this morning just like that other morning with Fall and diesel fumes in the traveling air.

I met her again last night and remembered that day to her smoking nude on my back deck her perfect in the breeze and weak moonlight.

She remembered we were broke and far from home not a perfect moment of beauty and her curiosity cured hurried off to her life.

Your continuing feast

sorry but I need nothing further from your feast
your wallet
your world

I know how you measure your own worth
with things
with money

I fell outside of that ubiquitous doom
by luck
by will

things always seem to shout at me where I went wrong
except grace
except beauty

the epiphany will come to us one and all

stirring Her coffee
She predicted the weather
and laughed at the tornadoes above Her

"I only like the destruction
to see it all go down so that
you and God can rebuild it."

I still have no plan for
rebuilding the structure
with the tornado debris in my head

How could I ever
presume to rebuild this
the outside world can fend for its own

"You are the artist
I will give you inspiration
quiet and the epiphany will come"

together our lives will burn burn burn

anything but this
slowly sliding into dullness
where nothing matters and
I don't even see the spark in you

anything but this immersion
into an empty routine among
empty tedious words and people
I'm not done and waiting to rest

Come we will have a fire
sit around it and plot giant leaps
feel anticipation tingle and
together our lives will burn burn burn.

and burn, burn burn.

Phrases and ideas rip across my life
like vivid colors lighting up the dark
like meeting the ones who fire up
and burn, burn burn.

America stands up from its feast
waddles away drunk into the night
I breathe in the toxic wet air and
I light my last match.

fast and sharp and smart

You?
You're a wolf
fast and sharp and smart
loose before the soft white underbelly of
the slow and fat and not-smart people you see.

a dangerous outlaw
a looming threat
raising red flags
sounding the sirens

Fear against the fast and sharp and smart

realizing a lion is in the room

I seem to be waking up in the morning

and when I realize it is a new day
I have the same sort of reaction
as realizing a lion is in the room

Lion taming is a favorite hobby
and I face my days full of fight
but sometimes I want to just sleep
and wake up in some other room

You can never bring it to me

If I remember them every daysooner or later the medicines take
and there I am all alone in time
a room where I need nothing else
where I don't let the telephone ring
time marks itself in subtle ways as
I try and put everything in its place
trying to bring my own devastation
so I never have to fear it again
and you can never bring it to me

feel you there and come

I saw your half-circle of light
in the outer darkness of my field
unexpected or not
surely you knew
I would feel you there and come

Turn the lantern down low
tell me the whole story
of what I need to fear
and just this one time
we can peacefully walk away

I no longer sizzle across the city at night

I no longer sizzle across the city at night

I no longer sizzle across the city at night
a burning arrow whooshing for the target

I can see the dry and strident light blaze
from the window of your spiritless house

Sometimes I long to come in from chaos
that surrounds me here in natural light

But I gather my spirits and hold them close
and count my verdant rain-wet riches

I move forward slower towards the goal
My aim approaching the truth.