the frozen muddy

She is a whisper

of dawn

at midnight,

a sharp breath

of clarity

born.


I dream of nothing

but blackouts

and madness,

she is the promise

of morning

come dawn.

--

She is a figment

of my

exhausted pointless,

the last filament

of desperation's

hope

with daydreams of nothing

but delirium's

coitus,

disappearing

into shit storms

of shimmering sleet.

Damaged

down South Street's

filthy drifts devoid,

she is gone.

Leaving nothing behind

but the frozen muddy.

infinite dip

I am indeed terrified

of my own clear head,

horrified of the things

it'll see and hear,

of the things those things'll

make me feel.

I have not been comfortably numb

for going on eight years

and I miss it terribly.

The only barrier between me

and an infinite dip back into the pool

of oblivion

is a certainty -

plunging ever deeper  -

that I'd soon drown.

But as the embodiment

of an exposed nerve

rubbing raw against humanity,

I know such a barrier

is doomed to fall.

autumn unfunny

There is only Carrot Top

and infinity to solve,

cold in the afternoon

with September waning

and October's claws

gnawing to unsheath.

downbound for the valley

I'm tumbling down the mountain of youth,

faster to the valley of senility.

Their voices down there

- cloaked in madness -

grow louder to my ears.

Still, they don't take themselves

so seriously as the kids on high

and their early bird specials

are quite reasonable.

phil fish was right

sounds of my body

breaking down

echo down the hallway,

stopping at the can.

the noise from the weakness

is deafening,

the light from what's left of me

luminous no more.

i'm but the unfortunate consequence

of losing one's stomach

in all nonsenses of the term.

new keds shoes

glancing at the house

once holding me close,

keeping me sick

with wino bourbon blight.

--

my friends are gathering

in the cross corner lot

for remembrances of broken glass,

ghosts at play with new keds shoes.

--

i'm always almost with them,

dragging a bit behind

carrying shattered consciences

of errant kites fallen into power lines.

--

this gorgeous patch of suburbia

in its formative years

fills the caverns of my memories

with rosebuds and plum trees.

--

safe for a time

from our little house of horrors

where mom always said,

"don't play happy in the house."

--

or maybe she simply set the stage

for me to draw my own conclusions

of our depressive misdemeanors

with a fierce beauty all their own.

puddles and circumstance

Her foot steps drum

through rainbow puddles

staining sidewalks sleepy

in quiet after hours

broken but by laughing coughs

and distant sirens caterwauling

toward those unfortunate denizens

bested by circumstance,

beaten by this night.

The Briny Deep of Bandaid Bitters

I'm seven years washed ashore

from the briny deep

of bandaid bitters,

cowering, covering wounds laid open

with no numbing libations

to salve my psyche.

I've learned to comport myself

with field dressings

of Effexor and fear come crawling,

keeping at bay

all that burns

like salt water on a nerve

exposed to the ocean breeze.

Dyslexic Misanthrope

The softest side of empty

is plenty hard to live with;

the quietest despair,

a dissonant dementia.

I am a dyslexic misanthrope,

driven to self destruction,

content with self distraction,

left with self delusion.

I stand in repose

wrapped 'round life's tangle,

with the knowing smile

of a joke played on myself:

The horrific

and the beautiful

are but two sides

of the same straight razor

and Leonard Cohen called

to let you know

you need a shave.

Dance of Drunkards

The Wicked Witch of the West

was but a patsy

for the evil goody two shoes Gilda

perpetrates in perpetuity

on munchkins blissfully unaware.

"It's not easy being green"

is not Kermit's lament alone

and the companionship of flying monkeys

are a cold comfort indeed.

Thoughts of the shifting moralities

of these Ozraelites

haunt me needlessly,

like all good hauntings should.

Meanwhile, the cold rain

of February

bleeds wet upon the overcoat

as I remember Father

and his perpetual legs-akimbo

dance of drunkards,

steps as ageless as cirrhosis

scarring time

like the wizard that he was.

"Ignore the man behind the curtain throwing up onto his slacks.

The great and powerful Chuck has spoken."

50 spins 'round a star

I've ruptured aspirations,

slicing my imagination,

the memories bleeding out

into the last vestiges of summer.

An accidental tripping, stumbling,

crashing into aging,

convulsing on the edges,

cracking wise before the fall.

I've torn asunder wonder

and my civic standing today,

the neighbors - slinking caffeine junkies -

take their sojourn elsewhere.

As the weather turns from August swelter

to September autumn amber,

I wander through my yesteryear book,

making sick upon the page.

She's half gone, slipping softly

through my psyche today,

speaking a language I can't fathom

with a hope that's not named Bob.

That piece of her remaining rains down

hatred dressed as passion,

as I surrender punch drunk

on the wrong side of my needs.

Finally, a steely-eyed truth arises:

50 years of breathing,

knocking me flat back on the floorboards,

staring up at the ceiling looking down.

wordshit

I drain

my excess wordshit

onto the pages

of this abyss

lest they abscess

into a volcanic metamorphous

of nonsensical tirades

struggling through the social niceties

that choke

this sweatbox called life.

... meanwhile, a cold wind blows

through drunk town ...

April Gray

It's April gray, 

a morning lost;

one Sunday laced 

with the duped and doped;

a Fool's Day fallen on deaf ears.

It's April gray.

Summer of '74

My hometown blooms

in twilight fading shades of grey

as the summer simmers

and then slips from my mind.

There remains only the house.

The room.

Them.

There, no sunlight penetrates

to disturb this tomb.

The dead don't notice.

But I do.

raining afterthoughts

it's raining

afterthoughts before her,

blowing

pissed-off into the wind.


Somewhere Monday

but not yet.

Sometime tomorrow

but not now.

Somehow broken

yet unbowed.

Some things tear

and won't cauterize.

My mind is a patchwork broken,

threaded with cobwebs

and moody medicine,

aching to break clear

just once.


My past is taking on water,

soaked with salt

and nausea's backwash,

passing as nerves

chewed to cheesy bread,

cloaked in this carcass

I call home.

pebbles and petulance

My nose is running

but I'm not.

My head is thick

with thought;

my eyes unsteady

and crossed;

my legs bowed

and bought.

She's up the block

past icy accusations,

dropped off the face

of reconciliation.

I've given up the ghost

of meeting expectations

without a whisper

from that spectre

long since given up on me.

Meanwhile, the alley shimmers

with pebbles and petulance

and me here tonight

trying finally in vain

to soften the edge.

a blinding brace (with squirrels)

My father was but a dark shadow

passing down the hall,

a perpetual winter

onto himself.

My mother was but a blinding brace

of robes and smoke,

a withering wind

blown back hard.

I'm but the seed of misplaced rage

trapped in a past

caught on a half torn tape

spinning in my head,

a nightmare on rewind

I can't bear to eject.

Through it all, the squirrels in my yard

find the pickings pretty slim,

the trees stripped bare,

crying quietly into March

and neither much concerned

about poor, poor pitiful me.

idiocy of the ostentatious

She weasels past

in a disco shaded gallop,

dropping trou

but only in her mind.

New York's gone retro

for a wink in her honor;

she is wit beneath

the idiocy

of the ostentatious.

And yet she's howling mute,

rendered silent in her fury,

still locking horns

with seething demons in her head,

trapping an overpowering sense

of righteous wrong

left empty -

turning, bending, twisting

in on itself.

She felt her life flashing

between her eyes,

falling down into sickness

and up into the laundry hamper.

But still she's turning, bending, twisting

in on herself.

And still she's shaking, writhing, falling

onto her sword

of Damocles,

chased by a whiskey

with always the work

left to do.

Trash Day Cometh, 1995

My refrigerator sparkles

with splashes of poison;

my trash can is bulging

with remnants of pleasure.

My toilet, it whispers

to me, empty from nothing;

my heartache keeps throbbing

to punk rock religion

or perhaps simply finally, to regret.

Falling

she grows aloof,

i fall afield;

she's calm serene,

i rage away.

an autumn sun

bonfires the sky.

october blues

melt yellow to orange,

a gorgeous nonsense,

where acid laced donuts

choke sad sacks lost

into the waxy white

winter to come.