Page From The Past (Popol Vuh Dream)

the sound of every car
going by with their radio
on with their window
down to chase away wolves
ring through the bells
and small devices

to challenge envy
remember what gentleness
was like
before you watched the guy with the wheelchair
get kicked over by girls
on scooters
with tattoos

and the cars go by
the wind is blowing still
like be bop
and wild dances
in the evening skies
it smiles, in the cloud lines
like azure, like sunset, like champagne
spilled into the Van Ellen belt
for dreams to bounce off of,
all those hands and sans serifs
waving like a bonfire sunset
full of pages of the *Book of Community
fiery ideals and victory
cast into the standards of past ideas
then forgotten.

potions / portions / petition for the grandeur witness

billie holiday
roman holiday
roman candle
roman catholic
catholic guilt
family quilt
layers of silt
over the ocean
drink the potion
set moves to motion
dry salves for show downs
ear eyes for shoot outs
dry eyes to lights out
in the middle
of the night

Untitled # 229

like the tree every leaf lets go
like any caged dreamer knows
the sunlight always wanes
the cast shadows swing
and flay wildly like
cartwheels through
boredom.

Unpredictable Evenings

pushing my shopping
cart through snow
its winter here
the trees bend with extra weight
and for the last
time runs
slow sap
eventually
amber
clamor with
memory cleared
painted palettes
of stripped bone blood
and women rattling in cages
full of fury and mediocrity
built on a flawed system with a
right to be destroyed
torn down time and again
you find its the blind
leading the blind

Untitled # 226

clings like a sailor
to the sarcophagus
who's been lost at sea
for far too long
when we should have been flying

so for the time we were sad,
or tormented
by the dead dancing
at the altar
of whores
its confusing
all the passing
and the corpses lining up
trying to settle out
on the old score

baby, only you know
how hard it is
when we were blind.

b#

Untitled # 224

half mute and desireless
your quiet skin
lays out long on plywood worn
jinxed but for purpose
grab life by the throat
and it sings like
lyrebird

in the morning
roll the saxophones
coleporterstringarrangements
and dulcet tones
faint pulses
and fades into fuzz
crackling through
old radios

just containers
for passion
and disease
what makes us want
to make sense
of din or
death's ease?
to have only one song?
to have them all be so long?
Its just a trap
chew your own foot off
run for the hills
shake off the scent

(unfinished)

Untitled # 223

don't let your heart harden
lets travel to astral gardens
don't get down on an ism
like Fred said
lets go by Trism
the real strength
is inside
the door to life
you hide behind
therein lies a vast kingdom
if the castle ever comes to the trees
while you're queen.

I ride to you
wherever you are
in the world made for two
horses hooves carry truth
summer's breath is on the air
and the low clouds carry a blush
that envelopes all the ideas you are

trumpets on track four
nothing will stop
the rhythm
spelling every last letter
words that are war
words are
worth fighting for
signal flags and your family's name
rubbed out on the moor.

Untitled # 221

from the beggars banquet
to the bakers weight
around his neck
From the kick in the teeth
to sheer disbelief
jack boots in step
hated for loving
suspicious disapproval
eyes pierce in the gloaming
plans of evil and swift removal

when trials of youth were worthwhile
to try the hats on
from a different style
experiment in predominant
affectations
balance the equation
with a stranger's smile
while days ago they announced
the war at the end of the world
does anything mean anything meaningful anymore?

(the sun burns a hole through the blinds)(unfinished)
a hearse or a fire becomes us all eventually

Dual / Process For Explanations Of War

man is on fire / goddess in the rain
tires screech / underneath the street
futile attempts / cynical vents
troops in fury / military accidents
truth down a hole / manufactured consent
deep in the valley / in the past rutted out
light shines like a beam / cracks form in cement
sky changes colors / gas filled bombs odors
thunder comes down from above / nothing left standing
the post war grove / kill for freedom
no disease more virulent / ivory tower observation decks
for the affluent / to cheer for lions
cultivated destruction / for damaged prions
god minions wreak havoc / in the paranoid silence
their violence out of sight / to be found later
no victim of fate / in the bomb's blast radius

(Note: To be read in a call and response pattern by an iraqi child and an american child while they face one another but with two televisions in between and facing them from which they read the lines back and forth to one another, hiding the other child while they speak-at the end of the first verse the readers flip and the child reads the other half of the text to the other child.)

Space Age Thinking

remember the future?
the house of tomorrow
and cars that flew?
anything you could wish for
anything you could dream of?
science becomes reality
the Jetsons only
in the real world

but the fallout
astro travel was kind of ill planned
they didn't think of everything
lots of Phillip K Dick but
not much sound proof of
anything else..

hear the din of the future
problems from the future
indentured servants
just like you

Untitled # 220 / Word Association In The Hall of Oats

don't hold your breath
I'm coming up slow
low on air
I don't care
would these arms
be fishes fins
if today I wanted
to leave the fair

couldn't pick up a phone
wouldn't know what to say
if you somehow
one day
turned up
a lifetime would
careen into the chasm
lord what a state I'm in

no questions to ask
of anybody
no roadmaps

but landmines and familial
boobytraps, bootstraps

quack lashes medication
deadly madness in a bottle
but the beast that
is here in the hall
no shields
unreal versus the
real in a mirror
slimmer, thinner
then disappear
in the note
of fog
in the night

(the firehouse is leaning)
(perturbed by the darkness and her affections)
(crackling nearby)
(In the heather and oleander)
(rustling alerts the eyes of strangers)
(the danger of water, or bridges)
(would he had he known it was you)
(lets play games)
(lets play)
(lets)
(forget the past and this bloody mess)
(baby, all I want to do is dance)
('click')

Untitled # 218

left with nothing
but a name
same arms
blue eyed charms
I'll meet you in the progress
of sleep

in the back room
built before the tomb
claimed you and the family's desire
to breath
your name
but stars
you held
in solid
regards

(life is fine here/there was a lot of arguing)

cobalt
coal hands
cold houses and
rocks in the sand
a lot of waves befell the sweetened beach
now filled with the walking dead
sunbleached, damaged
before tomorrow with words
unspoken

Procession For Empty Spectacle

procession for an undetermined time
processed with confusion
unintended consequences
blasted childhood resolution
with drop zone destruction

would it take a hammer
a gun and a silencer or fire
a wicked blade in the quiet silence
a well placed poisoner
the breath of apostrophe, jagged
like blank and torn semaphores
or simply the long, long exhalation in wait
profession of an apology from the cage
somewhere in texas where they're already dead
half gifts returned from half a person
crowned prince and frog
at once.

the enemy is unmasked
the location of the masquerade
in the upstairs room at the haunted cafe
dimmed voices in the cloisters
obscured by trees and rain

what is left to hear in
the here and now?
an answer for the unanswerable
an effigy for those who can't see
the difference between
vanishing and vow
the murderer waits lost in vice
for the right time
for the slice
of mortal agony
death's hand closes
like a wrapping of ice
made from antimony
(unfinished)

When Desert Lesbians Vogue With Momar. OOOooooo Girl!!

as one blogger put it

"Man, Ghaddafi and friends know how to rock a public appearance. I wish Obama dressed like that. I wish I dressed like that, surrounded by an all-female, non-matching uniformed, breakdancing hit squad."

Light Water Dry

Will the night
come again
two moons
move the tides
nights after
march's ides
the way the world turns
when it turns on you
as your take your turn
to go you
make shadows
move across the ceiling
moonlight
reflected
in the water
sitting under a tap
the water dries
the lights
fade into
shadows that come again
my hand reaching out to you

Conspiracy In Exile

wretches, dogged
like wolves
and wilderness
like children blessed
then sacrificed
to artificial
light, extinguished.

Fear Factor

Wedding photographer = job
Chance of alcohol consumption = likely
getting double freaked by drunk fat girls in taffeta = priceless

Blues For The Divine Flesh (in 3 parts)

chasing sensation
the notion
of floating
across cities
escaping
what's left of
your imagination
suddenly
a bright light catches
your eye
and you're
hoping that this
flight gives you
the truth.

-------------------

castigating wretchedness
amongst scores
of butchers
hooks, crooked
in tandem with the
dreams of
the damned
sides of bacon and ham
and the last tiny voices
of an animal's
death rattle
and cry
the elixir against
the unknowable,
the toast to all
trapped animals
small pens
like us
trying to escape
but running in place
those forgotten faces
the final solution
of the master race.

--------------------

and its
transitory
50 is the
new forty
a shortage
of exploratory
courdoroy rivers
racing across
acres of tundra
wonderful mountains
caught up in wales
and the winds
of this beautiful
august.

Phrasology

I am well aware that my writing has a cyclical, repetitive nature. That I repeat certain phrases, terms and vocabulary over and over again, or by variation. When I was a younger writer, just starting out it bothered me when I did it. I(wrongly)thought it meant I couldn't think of anything new-or worse that I was copying myself. It was only later I came to understand how it fit into being an artist- if Turner could use the same blues in his skies, Tchaikovsky and Debussy could repeat phrases, then as the song says - "why oh why, can't I?"

I have come to a place in my life as an adult writer where I am less worried about the exact words than their color, or the feeling they evoke, the flow. Sometimes I nail them, other times I find them through tremendous fumbling. Most of the time I write-because I have to-in one large gallop from start to finish. I think it kind of precludes me writing a novel-I could never maintain one emotional arc or mechanical linear idea for too long. A script maybe if I had help. Lets just say you are unlikely to hear about the 'great' American novel I've been pounding away at all these years-poetry is a different story. Probably going to need help with any autobiography too. I'll have to talk it out. Hope those tapes never surface!

My stories come out as chaotic, fragmented overly emotional, often cerebral in nature. Sometimes its an overwhelming surrender to joy-my music reviews often have this quality-but get me on to personal subjects and things tip inwards and to darkness. I can't help it. The phasers have always been set to stun. I don't want to kill anyone but I want them to take an emotional response away.

I write because I often have to-and always have, but I'm not worried about the Booker prize or being on the list of great American writers. I'm neither when I think on it. I guess I would categorize myself as a world citizen with a European bent. Its like being able to breathe. words come out when you exhale but you can sing(with some training) while breathing IN. I think that is where my writing works for me-you take things in and blend them in a concoction all your own.

and hope you don't poison anyone, at least.

Tidbits II

lets dance
on dazzle ships
attack ships
fly by night
suggesting travel
on a lunar eclipse,
solar landscapes
entranced.