The Me I'm Meant to Be

For you know who...

Great first lines in Modern Poetry

come and crack the hourglass,
the stars are ours tonight.
In the settling din
the traffic spins
by in the dying light.

They ride by,
more lost no one's
wanting to be someone's
baby, darling, lover
hunter, murderer
other
in the heather
and the gorse
(unfinished)

techno-landscapes(momentary thoughts on airport sex)

Your life is a suitcase
unhappy dreamy spirals,
exploding at airports; high
cramped coach longings and
mile-high wet bar fantasies of
shibari walnut girls,
pedestrians waiting in
neon traffic isles of
shimmering techno warning signs
and rushing strollers
Antarctica isolationist waiting
for zen jet-set moments
perfect bathroom strangers
cocks fondled through
cheap wool trousers
eyes look away
from slot in latched doors
crisp whirring of exhaust
fans, blasting off
in porcelain marbled industrial
halls rinsing blood and cum
landscapes of flying corpses
in space.

Premonition of history (fire/decay)

You will love me
as you tear down my cities
built over centuries
of aged vine
and cattle driven passages.
Of wet strangers and wagons,
dustfields and haybales,
The distant rumble of a thunderstorm
and a cool breeze
blowin' wild 'neath
an ever widening sky,
dissolving in the brightness
of the evening sun
like a westward diving fireball
skittering over a gasoline lake.

Like Cascades

Washed my head in the sunlight.

waves bathed down like cascades

of music and feathers

smoked like classical

alcoholic homosexuals

who will wake up in the morning

look over and not

remember your name or

the door to get up

the door to walk out for

the door that always opens

into the brightest day.

back to the home you cannot go

The flames that lick from down below

the faces that love you

and the faces that leave you

But they all tried to tell ya

even shadows cast

In sunny California

My Joy / Revelation of previous age

Title: Gorgeous Love
Date: 2007/09/13 04:07

Good things come to those who wait?

For those of you who don't know it(and that would probably be everyone here) Kitchens of Distinction is one of my all-time favorite bands ever. If I could express the exquisite joy I found in their records as a young man I would self-immolate. Hearing another gay man sing about loving men while sonic guitars melted my unconscious mind just about made my teenage heart burst. I bought everything I could find by them. They were never really very popular except with a few indie kids and didn't sell very many records either. Other than the single for Drive That Fast's brief foray into the lower reaches of the Alternative chart in 1989, they neither troubled the Top 40 nor had any hits to speak of-and I absolutely loved them. I still play their records to this day and have followed the lead singer Patrick Fitzgerald's solo work as Fruit and Stephen Hero-who is about to put a new album out this month(Whoo Hoo!)

Why am I writing about this? Well, if you read this here diary you'll know things haven't been well of late for Steve. As I needed money pretty badly I decided to trade in some CDs in order to free up some cash to be wild and frivolous(READ: eat) and although I had traded in almost 150 CDs and promised myself I was going to leave the store without getting anything, I figured I would look around Amoeba while they went through what I had. After 25 years of buying records there is not a lot I don't own or want unless its a new band. However, there are a few mythic purchases out there that have a holy grail type quality because I assume I will never in a million years be able to find them. That goes double for rare out of print singles.

Well, I wasn't counting on it, but I figured I would take a gander in the used section. Low and behold, I found a single, but not just any single. A promotional CD single for the song "Gorgeous Love" released in 1990, nearly 17 years ago! I mean, this thing is almost old enough to vote! Now, there are two things that makes this even more wonderful a find. This single contains a track called 'concede' which I have never heard before(not even available on their recent compendium or any place else) and never thought I would since their singles are rarer than dodo birds and the biggest kicker is it was only $2.99. Yeah, 3 whole dollars. 3 measly bucks for a missing piece of my teenage wasteland finally falling into place 17 years later.

Well, considering the past week and the craziness of things, the fact that this little tiny piece of cardboard and plastic just made my whole year was pretty magical. And it hit me that if I had killed myself on the 2nd of this month I would never had lived to experience this moment. Imagine sitting in a record store meeting an old friend for the first time? Staring at the cover in disbelief I realized my hands were wet and so was the(luckily) plastic wrapped CD. It wasn't water but tears that were streaming down my face as I sat there in the racks clutching something that for so long seemed far away and out of reach. Something I thought I could never have. I kept muttering to myself "I can't believe it, I can't believe I found it."

Sometimes in the worst moments of our existence something very wonderful happens to remind us that even the smallest amount of joy can pull us through the blackest parts of hell. Sure its just some single by some band you've probably never heard of, but its a lot more than that. A whole lot more.

Thanks too to my friend Bart for convincing me to try trading stuff in at one last store. I would probably have never had come across it otherwise.

Three of a Kind

The first sigh of a child,
the first drop of water
in a dry desert.
The inner life of the mind,
an orange with nothing
but its rind,
stripped, empty, inert.

Non-Alignment Pact

It was days and days and days of rain
until you came along.
cobwebs and dirt and grime and death,
I couldn't sing my song.
The planets were unfocused.
I was lost in a dream,
the clouds were spinning madly.
nothing what it seemed.
Pin the butterfly to the board,
like you pin and mount me,
my heart exposed to
the sun and the sadness
and the rhythm of the sea.

Dust again

over oceans
and green hills
I traveled...to you.
Through clocks,
sand compressed
into rocks
and back
into dust again.
come on home
back from the hole
in which you've been.

At the end of the century
or the beginning of the next,
across pages of history and
secret knowledge that vexed
I came for you.
not knowing what you looked like
just a recognizable face,
seemingly passing me by
until you fell
into place.

goodnight sweet prince....

tidbit

Remove yourself
from the story as sold.
Reinvent
another future,
one where you
belong to
one.

Foregiveness (if you won't I will)

the erstwhile child is vilified
by eyes that smile while they despise
cherishing one over another
borne of medicated lies

to cope with loss of self
we hope to leave high
on its shelf; undisturbed.
undisputed, in disrepute
unhappiness becomes resolute

No need to be absolved
the story of your life
is not a sit-com,
in 30 minutes its resolved.

No, need to be evolved.
the solution to the potion
that keeps you from love
(denial, escape, denial)
just a day to float on
until the miracle mile.

(hang in there - it can't be raining in your heart forever)

movement 10

esoteric thinking,
all the ideas of the past
have passed through me
into history.
the devils hand
and the hand of god
shaking hands
my hands shake
I mistake the past
for the future
using it to decode
the numerals
like a teacher.
I hole up,
wrap myself in gauze
keep myself from death
which gives one pause.
in a moment
in a second
I escaped,
it was all
torn away from me-
I was free.

solar system

one touch
and you're
polarized.
solarized,
like saturn
returning
engulfed in
flames,
like those
spoken of
in hot days,
by knights
long ago.

No poetry tonight

Just incredible, endless over the top declarations of my love for you Bob. yep yep yep.

Its getting late in the evening, my love

everyone is laughing,
your smile is inconceivable.
take me to the Albion
to the blue room
where I'll believe again.
I never see
the prejudice,
the sign of any
idiots trying to sell you god.

the spirit of a rainbow,
call out letters sprayed
on a stucco wall.
the transferred wealth
of all imagination.
will we hear
the clarion call?,

I'm not after riches,
to cling to you like dew.
I don't know anything at all
but my love for you.

You, your
Spirit is a rainbow catcher
dogged by pestilence.
Desire is slowly
siphoned away
on the other side
of the fence.

Its a short form,
with a dull sword that cuts deepest
they tried to cut my heart out,
make me forget my name,
who I am, try to
change me, make me
give up before
the race is over.
All they want to do
is make you eat and
breathe the pain,
nothing can ever
stay the same.
Beat them at their
own game.

Funny how I find myself
In love with you.
there are no words,
I'm stuck like glue.
your beauty is naked.
an endless conundrum.
won't it all be wonderful
when the rainbows come?

because 3 in one day is okay

and because...well....do I need say anything else?

birdsflyovertheoceanwhyohwhycan'tI

Now I know what is on the other side of the rainbow....and he's furry!

Green Spirit (blues for Patrick)

For Patrick, who pointed out a way through a fire which consumed him. And for turning me on to Soft Cell, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk and many others. For listening, wanting to know WHY I liked something, and then giving a damn about the answer.

Moonbathing in a Dream (Reminder of Red Orpheus)

press your face
'gainst the glass,
while the evenings
hours pass.
the books are on the table
underneath the sill.
despite the secret love of sin
happiness is still
here in strokes of paint,
the soft wag of a tail,
fingers in your hair,
complexion so pale,
no need for restraint
when your soul is able.
days pass
'neath the streaming
miles of glass-
our hearts keep pace

(under the moon in a dream)

Your army with a thousand spines.
fighting for the free.
art against the chaos,
needle's eyes can't see.
behind an artists' tease
a mask to hide the loss.
invisible ideas
tears that shatter stone,
hearts wrapped in candyfloss.

One day we'll dim the lights,
turn off black memory
of all that screaming and the fights.
can't live 'in theory'.
words we used as weapons,
music used as swords,
silence reverberation from
the mind's floorboards.

We're never alone at night,
look into the sky.
we'll figure it out as we go
finally found 'that' guy.

One More For My Baby(one less for the toads)

they can throw stones
and ring my bones
let them stare at
my happiness,
I'm home.

when you step upon the stage,
I reach for my libretto.
Allegro, staccato
Mi amore non troppo,
I'll turn every page.
For an hour it seems
like a minute,
didn't think I'd find love
til I realized I'm in it....

With you,
With you
It's you.

(it takes a gutterman to know how to pull you out of the gutter.

yes, another one...further to you

woke up on the grass
on a cool summer morning
in another age this lifetime.
dew collected on my face,
hair out of place,
remembering you.
where did it all
go right
this time?

no more....

it won't hurt anymore
when my eyes are closed
no more bread crumbs left
in a darkened forest
on a trail leading
off the rails
to nowhere...

no choking hands in the void,
red eyes peering into my
deep unconscious mind
leaving scars that
would make
a slasher weep...

Its all in here in front of me,
had it been here all along?
too busy looking over my shoulder
into the past
growing older,
into the pain,
into thousands of black rabbits
and the deafening thunder
of thousands of gears
grinding up my childhood heart.
Thought it was better off left in its box
of blood soaked bandages
thrown down a dark hole
and left to be
forgotten.

but a little blood left
kept hidden for myself
stored away from the light
let to run free again
with you tonight.

A little hope left unfettered
in a believing heart
can still save someone.
and if luck intervenes,
if desire survives
in the middle of dreams,
rarer still in a lifetime,
that hearts once grounded
once again learn to fly

(unfinished)

In Every Storefront Window (for Bob)

Never thought I'd find my reflection.
my nervous breakdown in reverse,
not as young as I once was
but never the less
finding myself
in love.

Those days
repeatedly lost,
In the noise; somewhere!
maybe I'm not a fool,
despite the self-doubt
I finally figured it out
and whatever relative cost
was in store, somehow I found you.