Juxtaposed Dreams in Watercolor

Mary couldn't look more heartbreaking as I ponder her through the prism of our time together.

Dressed down in soft pastels and a razor wit, her nod drew blood, a word hemorrhaging hubris; she unsheathed both with aplomb, often.

I thirsted for such nods and words from Mary, whether as benefactor or victim (she could make the latter seem like the former, laughing).

The blade is warm against my throat now as I remember the good times, crimson reflecting off silver pressing inward.

"Coffee's for closers only." Indeed. Wise words from Mamet.

"Third prize is: you're fired."

And so it goes. One of last season's second prize steak knives delivers this year's consolation eternal.

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. But closing counts in every facet of life.

And so it goes.

Mary appears less heartbreaking to me now that I no longer have one to fracture in her honor.

The sea goes red on the linoleum as Glengarry plays to no one in rooms unoccupied. And the horizon drains from view as I sail onward, my head in the bowl and wrist in the tub. A Royal Flush. Indeed. King me.

The Sun Gone Bad

The sun gone bad is lurking in the distance,

a jack-o-lantern framed against the cellar of the sky.

I continue staring aimlessly long after it gives in to the horizon,

the night swallowing its seed to blue and then to black.

I'm swallowing too, the bile of countless compromises;

it's all my strength just to wrestle my weakness weary to its knees.

Then I rise, along with the consequences

before I sit, the present tense stealing my senses.

Tripping the light fantastic to an armchair and a remote,

a cold compress pressed against my wanting soaked into levity,

and a bracing, burning chaser of equilibrium or just denial.

The proselytizing on the tube washes over me as I surrender to its siren song.

The Norfolk Ballet '84 (Broken)

Squatting in the ambiance of stripper perfumed smoke haze,

shot glass run-off, PBR and cellulite unbounded.

***

Journey, Styx and Benatar careen off restroom mirrors,

evaporating into stalls where sickly souls go praying.

***

Echoes of my emptiness tear at my gut this Tuesday,

distilling into drunken numbing Huey Lewis hatred.

***

"Owner of a Lonely Heart" now soundtrack to my musings,

as "Lovely Lisa" takes the pole to creepy stage announcements.

***

I'm lost on Granby/Little Creek as Tuesday ticks to Wednesday,

then stagger out into the dark of early morning summer.

***

I hail a cab back down into my Pier 12 home and office,

tripping down the passageways toward berthing slumber solace.

***

Crawl into my bunk in back and pass out until morning;

rinse, repeat and hope to God this Groundhog's Day stops playing.

***

Some twenty six long years gone by since stumbling into stasis;

still, Pavlov's Dog lives in my ear when certain songs sing to it.

***

Those wretched tunes I just can't stand, they take me back to Clancy's,

when optimism for my fate had not yet died exhausted.

***

I sit here now and contemplate my mindset in those shitholes,

and wonder why - just why the hell - I look on those days fondly.

***

It could just be the booze, or that I was finally free of Everett,

or fantasies of hearts of gold wrapped up in 80's muzak.

***

In the end I think it's probably something a bit more basic:

it was a time when the future held a promise now since broken;

it was a time that I myself was not yet - not quite - broken.

Quite broken -

and facing the wrong direction looking to become whole again.

Burnt Brown

On a bender of thought stumbling sidelong this evening

with tipsy discharges of imaginary sweetness

licking my illusions clean,

flashing back into blackened white still frames hung on breeze blown clotheslines

when we were neighborhood children at play.

One last nightcap of wondrous mind fucks gone walking

as I drink in this drunk of resplendent endorphins

braced for moonlight's burnt brown masquerade.

One last whisper of weakness that is my calling, my vocation

as I breathe in this bracing narcotic reaction

of life's burnt brown belief smoking cold.

This weekend, snakes melt into childhood driveway cement as I perspire into my past,

until fountains of fire and pinwheels of blinding luminescence fill my eyes swimming ...

... of joyful dancing, sparklers in hand;

trailing streams of light like a flaming bubble wand across our front lawn floating.

... of celebrating my independence from life's suffocation

at least until the morning as the holiday fades,

when evergreen hopes in the moment are revealed as everyday burnt brown once again.

Homeward Bound

Soaked through my own lather nearly half a century in the making, I slither down the block I grew up on, a bottle of Tanqueray in one hand and jug of Minute Maid OJ in the other.  I take a deep slug from each beverage and march on, my stomach blending the brew. Claustrophobia clouds my thoughts, though I'm not physically confined (it's more an emotional enclosure pressing in, clamping tighter).

The night has caught up with me on this particular stroll and I see a light flickering through the window of what used to be my upstairs bedroom, though the rest of the place remains bathed in darkness. I stand there transfixed near the driveway, drinking and dizzy: I haven't known the inhabitants of this hovel since my mother sold it almost 30 years ago.  The same is true of the neighborhood at large.  I have no reason to believe any of the former residents are still around, certainly their kids have since grown up with rug rats of their own now (some of my contemporaries may even have grandchildren).  Still, I have an overwhelming desire to run and hide, feeling the unseen eyes of those disco days following me from their perches all around.  I'm as nervous out in the open as I was when I lived here those last years (from Cuckoo's Nest to Raging Bull measured in cinematic time).

Terrified of ... what?  Or is it 'who?'  Anyone, everyone.  All those who see through me, past my calm facade into the madness within.  Who see my family and how we live(d).  I was taught well the power of shame, with a strength equalled by few other things in life, at least in my experience.  Mom was the headmaster for this lesson, Dad her fine example.

I reflect on this briefly before tossing the half empty gin bottle straight through that bedroom window where it explodes into a shower of glass and dull screams of confusion and shock from within.  Fuck 'em.  I'm the one out half a liter of booze.  You're welcome for the housewarming gift.  Drink hearty.

I resume my stroll on down the block, taking with me my orange juice still to enjoy.

And then the bottle strikes me squarely in the back of the head.  I turn passing out but there is no one there, no sounds of scuffling feet or other indication of life.  I see my bottle lying a few yards away as my knees buckle.

Fade to black.

Dad

He lay on the couch with the worn gold pattern,

his head hanging off, a death grip on his bottle,

drooling on the rug braids with 100 proof spittle,

heaving into mixing bowls when drowning from withdrawal,

his beauty burning bitterly, corroding through our family.

His gentleness metabolized in ways his body couldn't,

gestating into madness simply hating for existing,

giving up the ghost at last in a joyless plunge to bottom,

looking past oblivion on the way to a toe-tag gurney.

But there was light mixed into darkness from a man who treasured Christmas,

sharing powdered donuts and the love of Sunday funnies.

Teaching me to ride my bike and breakfast made for dinner,

buying kites and Uno bars and Birch Bay beach trip summers.

Past a 52 year old cirrhoses crippled body

lived a joyous spirit trampled into viscous poison.

Maybe I can ferret out the diamonds in the dogshit,

shovel past the toxic bits and scrounge for fonder memories.

Fond remembrances, they clearly do exist:

it's just the smell of the rest that keeps me away.

a wound of light

a wound of light so slight strikes my street's end, flashing

casting forlorn hues of effervescent color,

bleeds into the comfort of my achromatic hovel,

arcing down a lightning bolt of sickly solar yellow,

damaging the hand of stark dark raving nothing,

molten, melting into my chocolate snowflake memories,

that ornate glint, a hint of hardened luminescence,

morphs into a tailspin of melancholy menace,

viscous backwash! burning backlash! searing peptic!

hammering, yammering, "it is how it is."

pulling cold asunder from an overcoat wrapped tighter,

i'm sulking 'neath the stain of all these stilted distillations,

into the darkness, into the maelstrom,

into ghostly shadows of what might have been if only,

into the quiet breach of what never was or will be,

into make believe memories of baconesque nightmares,

through to kafkaesque daydreams that whisper sweet silence.

i grin, grim; relieved, resolved; resigned to what's necessarily not,

suturing dawn's bleeding into softly sightless healing,

i close my mind's eye to it all.

translucent. blackness.

bliss.