Obsidian Woodblock

Untitled # 813

born without
purpose
by design
reinforce the
stasis
in the oasis
of the mind
but leave a
hopeful state
before you're
burdened
with cynicism's
fate.
(unfinished)

Experimental Lights / Sequence III

Single Exposure / Bipolar Series

Experimental Lights / Sequence II

Single exposure / Bipolar Series

Experimental Lights

Double exposure / color series

I'm Down with the Cuteness

Yo!

Floodgates (vingettes about water and death and my father)

etchings on the bedroom
window
beckon...

Lost voices in the moistened
air
my 8 year old fingers
traced their lips
hopeful smile
to eradicate
the evil
spirits
they slept
in my closet.

The moon behind the eyes
they were open.
someone to witness
me eaten whole.
my childhood soul
stolen
like eggs from a basket
like pie from a sill.

The moon would protect me
fell in love on an astral plane
wherein his face
always looking the same
vague; dreamy
like that old film
with the spaceship
lodged in his eye.
how I longed to be there
on air

my small hands
trembling, drawing
fine lines, learning
to work the moisture
into lines,
landscapes, waterfalls
dream villages in space
where I could soar away
from my father's voice
calling from the closet
"come soon, son."
and those red eyes
in the sooty inky void
my clothes, rock and roll
t-shirts and 501s
my dreams
but beyond the seams
black hands
always waiting
always wanting
always taunting me
from the
black space
unrecognizable face
will I see you when I sleep?
will you know the man I fought so hard to be?

Paige turned
old photos
burned
in the twilight
ash and sadness
of the past
evaporating
like liquid
glass.

No Waves for Sailors

I watch the clock
my two faced world
ticks me off
back in time
a mind full of visions
takes flight
takes my mind beyond these walls of
glass

the more I see
the less I care
about pain
suffering
of any kind
the well of sadness
has dried
and become
dust

I may belong to the seas
many men have fallen
before me
borne of fire
quenched in these waves
likes optimisms desire
a rogue 7th saves
the coast from
man's scarring
ways

Through the Gate of War

life in
your new world
too young to
grasp the truth
of old revolution
failed by the future

beautiful girls
black and white photo
Hopi reservation
dusty dreams
and western wilderness
I think 1942
prosperity
and reason
before the
yellow war
specters splintered
hope into denial
while soldiers
leapt for cover
slept together
tied like tethers
in the mud and blood
of dead brothers
in the normandy tide

big dreams
but no cracks
in the flag
they drape upon
your grave.
Stacked on top
like static
talk on politic
can I do anything
but shake my head
at the bottomless
senseless death?

(after) Life

someone else
will tell your story
truth fiction
tender allegory
with the ending
left off
fending its way
to some conclusion
while you recluse
in woven webs
dirty shades
will coat your mind
as sanity ebbs
and eyes
go blind.

Because the other entry was making me sad

Eclipse: The Cat That Changed My Life Forever

It has been 14 years today since Eclipse, my first cat died. He was only in my life for three full days but has totally altered the course of my life ever since.



He certainly knew how to make an entrance. By jumping out of a moving car! I was on my lunch hour when I still worked for Peter Gutkin, driving around in the industrial section of the bayshore highway area here in SF. While driving behind an old car that was being towed away I saw this black object fall out of the back passenger window(all the windows were busted out and broken). Suddenly the the black object got up and walked over to the curb! What I had thought was a piece of trash was actually a very tiny little black kitten, probably a few days past opening his eyes. I immediately pulled my car over and rushed out to see that he was, unbelievably, not only not hurt but seemingly just a little dazed. I was in shock. If I had done what this kitten had just done I'd probably be a bag of broken bones. There was this little kitten sitting there on the sidewalk with me just hanging out and meowing. As a feral cat he was probably malnurished and obviously without a mommy cat to take care of him.

I immediately did what all animal lovers do and picked him up and brought him to my car. I found a towel in the trunk and wrapped him in it as it was a cold spring morning. He sort of snuggled in and as quick as you could say cute he was asleep. I quickly drove to a corner store and bought some milk and a can of tuna and went back to work. I found a cardboard box in the shop and made a little bed with the towel. I put a peanut butter jar lid full of milk and a little bit of the tuna on a napkin(chopped up in very tiny bits)on a napkin-he immediately went after both. I put a bottle of warm water under the towel and put the kitty and everything else in my trunk. I was afraid to leave him in the car because he might get hurt but the trunk was clean and flat with no way to climb too much. I closed the trunk and hoped he would be okay for at least a few hours while I went back to work. Of course I checked on him every 30 minutes anyway. Other than a little diarrhea which I assumed was from the milk, he seemed fine and spent most of the time sleeping next to the bottle.

Later at home he seemed fine. Curious and wandering about. Cute as a button. He mostly slept in the box I made and drank water. I figured I would take good care of him over the weekend and then on Monday take him to the vet for a check up. Sunday night rolled around and I returned from a school function to find him wandering around the living room looking what seemed like shaky. As I continued to watch him he fell flat on his face like his feet has suddenly given out. If he had been sprightly and bounding I would have thought it cute but it wasn't. And He wasn't. As I rushed over to pick him up he fell down twice more. I picked him up gently and he began to cry out. Oh no....



Well, I freaked. I knew something was wrong and told Lee to get the fucking the car NOW while I got his box and stuffed him into a towel. We FLEW through town-me in tears, he continuing to cry-over to Pet's Unlimited. As we sat there in the waiting room his cries got louder and louder he started to shake and I got more and more upset. Finally I went to the front counter and said "can't somebody PLEASE do something, he sounds like he's in a lot of pain.!" They got a vet tech to come out and take him from me in nothing but a towel. I didn't realize it then but he was dying. What I didn't know then but is quite common in feral and older immune compromised cats is that fleas, when they bite, release a tiny amount of chemical which helps them numb the surface for the bite so the host isn't aware they have been bitten. What can happen if the biting is severe is the chemical can build up in the blood and lead to septisemia in cats. IN the close up picture you can already see his eyes are yellowed from his renal system being under seige. It was really only a matter of time before he would have died either from that or the number of other ailments he also tested positive for. In all likelihood they chose to put him down(at least I HOPE thats what they did)so at least he didn't suffer any more. I told myself that he might have died in the back of that car but he got to experience love, good food and a warm bed before he went off to the great beyond-and maybe one day we'll meet again. I see him all the time in every stray black cat darting away. He certainly made me very happy for the brief time he was here.

I was devastated and numb because I didn't know what to feel but I was very sad too. It was like a whirlwind experience-love and loss in this incredibly compact time. I didn't know what to do. I just cried and cried. Lee paid the bill while I spent the next couple of days in a fog. Then in the mail I got a card from the Pets Unlimited people. It was the most gothic looking card I have ever seen-like an Edward Gorey drawing but with animals. It was a condolence card! I couldn't believe it. I had grown up with animals that came and went and though always traumatic, I had never gotten a card for it-or one as touching. I thought to myself "Damn, THESE people really give a damn, not just about my animals but about my relationship WITH my animals". I knew now that I had gotten a taste of what having an animal again and realized that I really couldn't bear to live without them anymore. I vowed to go back and adopt a cat. I did get two cats eventually but I decided then I would give this cat a name because he deserved one-he radically altered my whole week and he was(almost) all black. I decided to name him "Eclipse" because he eclipsed everything else that was going on in my life-all the chaos of school and my horrible job-and brought a calm focus to my life that has remained in my relationship with my current awesome kitty duo and ever since.

I think of him all the time. When people ask me how many cats I have had I always say "three". I couldn't have made it through the last 14 years without him. Every so often I catch a glimpse of a black kitten and I imagine little Eclipse bounding and meowing and making someone else happy. I miss him terribly still.

Something Light and Gay

And you thought Ken was alone all day with that alcoholic bitch Barbie out shopping all day for matching shoe and clothing ensembles. Because, even a fashionable young man needs a "buddy" - So...Ken may not have a penis but at least he has a boyfriend!

AND!

They can wear the same clothes too...SO Gay! They both look so fey I can't tell who's top!

p.s. - Ken's into Twinks!

Escape From Distopia

You hector
but save the lectures
use the past
to destroy the future
wait for the heaven
to unleash the
vultures.

If you have an
old wound
fresh wound
the world loves
to open it up
pour in the salt
and the pessimism
and the self-doubt

But I can't tell
do I care about it
or do I just
try and save myself
from the pain
of doing it
over again.
the seas will rise
from dark green
and blackest hole
to over flagpoles,
roofs and town
washes over all
with her pain
a path cuts through
to you in this
deadly swirling reign

In the way you love the blind earth
and dreams
I sing my song
to you
and to me...

I don't know what lies beyond
this place,
but I want to get out
to leap,
into mother natures
paradise
made only only
just for you
and I.
a man and
a man
here,
somewhere
beyond the wasteland.
where sandsharks
patrol these waters
like some vacant
hobosapien wondering
what happened
to the perpetual
flame
(unfinished)

No Cure For The Early Poisoning

sometimes
I catch my image
in a mirror
or a reflection
and for a moment
I don't recognize
myself.

I am not me.
full of bile
and jealousy.
a broken down horse
a derelict car
you would have towed
away if you could have.

never was one
to sign away my rights
or hand over my life
I never knew if
the ship I was
on was sinking
or if it
was all just
a dream.
walking through
your own life
for so long
without really
living, stumbling
around in the
darkness, humbled
by the light...

Light...
Lights in the distance
fire in the sky
explosions level
the city
for an old
score.

This boy is laughing
and this boy is crying
and this boy is searching
and this boy wonders
will the voices
ever stop screeching
tear it all away
like cellophane
not much difference
in the real me
and the one
who remains.

The Ferns of Childhood's Demise

we are what we are
never who we seem
we are the dreamers
dreambeings themselves
in dreams, revealed

but hungry snakes
with eyes of dread
books by Blake
with nightmare's stead
bolting now
blotting out
erased memory
luscious pout
coach rides in the night
beckon you
wailing wails
from inside you
hound me in
the night
(we never
seem to get
it right)
self doubt whispers
into ears
as we sleep
greet peace with
raised fists keep
on fighting, TKO
down for the count
fist of fury
knock you out
but when the last clang
of the bells
is heard
only you and I
face down
and bleeding
on the curb.
Would have better
chances with the goons
than families
that lied
when they promised
love too soon.

Thank You

(to every artist who ever got me through the more hellish parts of my life, every songwriter, every song, every second of emotion expressed without the care or judgment of others, the selfishness and the selflessness of it all....I thank you. I wouldn't be here without you.)

If You Called Right Now I'd Come Running

staring at the leaves
clapping back at me
in the breeze
we talk for hours
me, the trees and the flowers
all covered in dew and whipped by the wind
you can't rescind your promises to the rest of the world

there
the smallest idea
tossed to the sea of chance
but it will learn to dance
anyway
there
the biggest problem
could be gone by tomorrow
nobody knows
like a light going off
like a match
extinguished.

Random Thoughts

I don't care about the
weight of the world
I just want to enjoy
myself while finding
the long way out.

(yeah, I know...three posts in one day. what IS he doing?)

Men in Private Worlds

never was the loneliest boy
or the ugliest
or the weakest
of all the boys
this one bends
over like a door hinge
to purge the demons
that dwell within
this one sleepwalks
into the night
on wings that
swim through clouds
in a nighttime sky
can't seem to get to sleep
the moon light wakes
and for a second I am blind
no one teaches you to talk to the dead
or how to respond when they answer back
in a world that seems no longer in touch with you.

but

They couldn't break me into two pieces
one to tie to the top of the cold mountain
one to tie up and leave in the cellar
to age
with the wine
in time
my tragedy becomes
divine
it erases itself
like so much chalk
that I choke on
I am smoking
the leaves like a sieve
down the sewer
where even a flower
can grow out of
you cannot beat me
I will regenerate
I kill the hate
that lets the phoenix
be slayed.
who will wield this
flaming sword?
will the game be played
will I be silenced
with a word?

(this is not a) Photograph

what do I know?
grew up in
an inferno
burnt to a crisp
before I knew
fire, desire
lakes of mother's
ire in the floating
darkness, tarred
and feathered out
like strokes of paint
fainting bruised brushes
a likeness, cast as harmless
but somewhere
in there
is me
how did I come to be
a knight against oblivion
fighting for love's recidivism
flights across chasms
a trick of light crossed
with Genet's plight
no marble lions
at the gates of the temple
you created
trying to entertain
I see all the cracks
from the love
you confiscated
the blisters
I kissed to
bear the strain
you're king of utopia
in your kingdom never
a single drop of rain


(the man in the moon danced and turned his face away)
(they rip the vines from the earth while the mind of Venus withers)
(I'll hide under the bed until all the screaming stops)
(Will they ever find what I once was....in a great big haunted house)

No Words for Winter

I don't need words
whether winter is here
a mind at peace
a heart full of leaves....
inside this sphere

Split Death/ Life moment

spent too much time
in the garden
of disillusionment
when weeds
and thorns
dredged up scorn
from beyond
the mystic
barrier.

we were
forced to
carry her
like a chariot
like charcoal
smudged on
the corpses
of the past
no coins
or shrouds
just the maddening crowd
and the endless
rows of judging eyes
and their weakness
and the moaning
of their lies.

Untitled # 415

For all the roses
and the celery
and the laughter
and hilarity
I sleep here
in your dreams
where beams
of light meet
seams in prisms
forestalling
cataclysms
in the lingering
darkness....

As the leaves change / mailboxes for the soul

should be sleeping
but I'll sleep
thinking of you.
The days here are warm
the bees swarm
clouds vanish
after the midnight
storm.

Impress
the soft
spot in my mind
where faltering
failures fast away
drowned, the fountain
takes all our lives
to drain
the strange nameless
pain away
but I've found
its a shame
to believe that
life's a masquerade.
Call it plain
or give it a name
its all the same

How many fates
in my trembling hands
have I yet to hold?
sometimes you hide inside darkness
other times it hides in you,
wear it like a shield
or a bullet belt
its all how
you wear it
and share it
not evading the
magic and wonder
necessary to
change the martyr
imbued through or
impressed via paragon
to a prison
of the soul
no matter the
sentence or the
distance of view
its still a cold
and dirty hole
you can climb out
if you want to..
IF you want to...

Ads

I posted something else today but I put the ads on the bottom of the site because they distract from the writing and have become graphics, which I was never aware of until they just started popping up. When I first signed up for Adsense(the google driven ad service) it was to be strictly text based ads-no pictures or graphics. Now that it appears that has gone out the window, I see no reason to give it top billing anymore.

Onwards...

Darling, you don't ever have to be afraid (we could be ghosts)

I could give in
but its a trap
the jaws snap shut
clap closed
but
is beautiful anyway
anyway
and anyway
way over the day
its rainbows
and emeralds
and skies
bluer than
sapphires
with our hearts
like candy-colored
coach rides
into dreams
reflected
in the clouds
I'm from...


(smoking cigars on the back porch
chairs creaking dreams leaking
into the sky full of streaming
skies now are open
my heart is hoping
will I be everything
or be unspoken
the windows
are washing down
the coral
is twirling like
a whore
visibly lost
like a corpse
without a name
(did I mention I see you when I want to?
What on earth do you think I am standing here for now?)
you can be the hero to swoop in
at the last minute
because you have to
the cape fits
nothing sits quite
like the featherless angel
that you are.
Nothing is quite the
same shade of silver
saviour of animals
aflight on a glimmer
as the stars are
when we kiss
like the pain
that erupts when
I am missing you.

Witness before the circus in ancient Rome

Its always Saturday in heaven
unending guitar solos
and forever sunshine
infiltrate the minds
of young and old alike
gotta have a miracle
I could learn to love
it here,
the window is down,
the wind in my face
and its all too beautiful.
I can't believe we're home
there a whole heap of
problems in this world
but right now none of them
are mine
the fantasy boys
are in the front seat
leather interior
I feel superior
at long last
it doesn't have
to be a circus
when its more
like ancient Rome
can't believe I've found you
I can't believe I'm home
I can't believe I'm home
you could keep telling me
I 'll learn to believe you
lots of dreams
and endless streams
of happiness for you
yeah....

(millions of guitar solos)

Spies of Joy in the Russian Winter

Looking up in to the trees
hung with spanish moss
I think of you
and then the past
overwhelming feelings
of loss.

But I smile.
the wind blows
whistling through
cracks in the glass
panes rattle,
clattering yet
framed in like
cattle under
western stars
while hours pass...

I smile; random memories
you across phone lines
in the presence
of the divine
divided by time.
dancing on belief
here in god's
department store.
stored memories
becoming random
infused with raw
emotion over departed
essence leaking
out from graves
we slaved over
under moonglows
in obsidian
night skies.
secret knowledge,
russian saints
rendered paint
infused with science.
sacred geometry
astral astronomy
mathmatical progeny
we fall into and
out from pain
get lost in bliss
on the Nasca plane.

The Truth

I love you Bob Gutterman

Wish You Were Here

and that you were holding me.

Burnished (sleepwalking in cities of gold)

In the mirror
its a halo
in the real world
a crown of thorns
a burden
you wouldn't
burden yourself
with if you
had but known.
Yet your voice
can ring out
to those that hear it.
the way dogs
hear the subtle
approach of the
shaking of the earth
and the fire
and the blood
and the ash
smeared on
the blackened hearth.
its dark
and languid
and turning to
gold with age
page after page
after paige.

yeah yeah, I know...I got up to go the bathroom and the golden reflection of a headlight on the side of the house caught my eye turning the corridor in between the apartment buildings in a flash to an Aztec city of gold.

The Boy with The Books and The Boy with The Paper Orchid

Its a long corridor
and the lights are low
and the sound of the creaking
from all the floors below
signals change in the spirits
if you listen
you can hear its
hiding in the basement
and the closets in the hall
and the spaces that seem
lost to time
it seems as though
the wooden panel
reveals a toy piano
with an everlasting flower
when commanded
on the hour
it plays a song for you.

"Could I run this far without my love?
throw flowers from a distance?
you laugh and sing
and in the spring
we'll watch the color
change the trees.
you and I, just
you and I
my love."

for Bob-More words about food and love

if I just stand back
far enough
bend backwards
until I become a bridge
you can all come over
all the voices
will be quiet
all will be in silence
no need to explain
the rails run off hope
hidden behind poetic license

trying to find the path ahead
my eyes can't make it out
unclear in the haze
of my endlessly circling
circadian mind.

I lay down my hands
on the footstone
of hope's demise
clench my brow
and furrow up
sorrow left
over from the
town where
I was born.

Unravelling (Wilderness)

from the place where I stand
I haven't seen any land
in days now..
no place to plant a flag
the plants
retch and gag here
in this messed
up island wilderness.
in it I disappear

I want us to travel
before the fates
unravel all this string.
Sort through the
truth and lies
or be the bee
killed by the sting
To be fully alive
after the bells ring.

Donut store jingles for dead serbian poets

you think your
soft side
displays weakness,
error, a hole
to stick the spike
in and twist,
to exploit
when you show
vulnerability
in the face
of adversity.

Living in another world
tell me what's so wrong
with love this time around?
I know trust isn't easy
when there's such misery.
I won't give it up
when the groove's just started.
No I won't
give it up.

You were cloak
but like new rain
you soaked
right through
my defenses.
I'm lost
in the realm
of the senses.
white picket fences
got to give it up
give it up
give it up
give it up
tell me what's so wrong
with the dark places
love comes from
When you've been
so long without?

I've no answers
I just offer chances
to the unanswered question.
I know it won't rest here
people are still crying there.
truth gets hard up
there's no sense in lying.
Help me!
Find a way through this maze
I can't help it.
Get past this evil threat.
Only angels wouldn't fear this dread
bottled up
like volatile matter
you hold like its a baby
speech get tied up
Help me!
Far away from this maze...
I can't help myself
(living in another world
with all this evil dread)
but its another world
In another world
got to give up
the evil that sews
through my skin like demons
stone shattered with
a flower...help me!
far away from this maze....
I can't help myself....
god sicks his angels
he only knows what kind of tale
you tell....in another world
to you.
to you...
to you...

Arthymic dropopropoline Dependoze(Mood Indigo)

I'm only hanging on
cause of your love
where does it come from?
I don't know...
but I'll claw my way
through this squall
god knows I've
seen it all.
to get somewhere
closer; or just a touch
a quick spark
of the burst of heat
before electrical
arcs need to
pulse and repeat?

I came in through this door to another world (golden rays)

he's beautiful
so glad
death mistook:
got a soul
like a Cocteau book.
If I could beat hundreds
of ethereal
black rabbits
what's one guy
in a black robe?
Just stab it!
We'll lift the
black pain off
your heart
with love
and art.

Black Waters

Its just dark sometimes. fuck it, just keep swimming....

Hang in there Kiddo

I can't believe it
don't leave yet
(try it) I'm in love with a married man

missing parts(unfinished symphony for Robert)

I sent the boatman back
across the black waters.
not time, your name
not crossed off lists.
vague hints, threats
unanswered became
bets: called on
Game, the hands
are dealt and melt
back into felted
wool sweaters,
box tops, sock hops
dirndle skirts
and frocks.
You were hare
when I was fox
well fold this hystory
into a box
full of clocks
that run and spin
we'll make due
with Gin
much to
my chagrin.
its him I'm in
no use lying
when its you
I'm missing.

(I'm watching the clock, the fan whirs away in the distance of the room. My eyes are open starring endless at the ceiling, my thoughts revealing disaster, I cannot plaster them up in walls of tell-tale, mountains of shale and the seventh veil(I exhale)its you this typing is coming out from precious/the words.the herds.conferred with meaning: i extrapolate feeling while you're worlds away in the sinister gloom of the beepingclickingwhirring doom. Lets ride away my love on this hay-tied broom.)

can I get a witness

Fading dial tone of the call in the night boy

Oh, what a day....

should have been fireworks.
Should have been on fire,
drinking wine, soda
unafraid to lose.
tell me to relax
while the window calls
my eyes, to the trees
and history.
Will you be in it?

When tomorrow started
they never told me about the
cost: or the high wire
and the falling man
endless arriving,
dropping in...
for the party that was
yesterday;it's me.
see my eyes-tell me they aren't lying
about freedom, it never seems to
be inside me
inside you
there are a hundred oceans
of uncertainty
can I swim through
them all?

Love In a Big Cold City

not letting go
never so succinctly
no amount of coldness
described ice on the sink we
lived in then.

It was never clear to me
why the spiders came
but the webs they left
hang in my head,
draped with dread
in this cold city.

(sometimes you want to go insane/the pavement heaves and crack the same)

Water rises, ice calves
mentally recalling,
the history of coldness,
too clever by half.
spellbound by love,
your darkened mind
hung here in heaven
restless gods freed
from the alcove of death
and bread unleavened.

Holding(wing)

and if the stars
were all exploding
one by one
in a dream
it wouldn't be
too far
from the sun
love holding
what I've won
new life
new hopes
begun

your feathers
embedded in leather.
steel spokes
choked on wax,
ask father or better
yet the jokes
is on us all
higher and higher,
tighter and tighter
until there's
no place left
but to fall
and to fail
set sail again
on these dicey waters
shed shame on the wing
instead of helicopters
(unfinished)