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.

bicentennial christmas

A stone drunk Santa

slow jams through our home,

his long white beard

reduced to patchy stubble,

rosy cheeks

gone yellow & hollow,

chubby physique

now stick figure thin.

Dad's lifelong passion for oblivion

once curtailed at Christmas

in deference to us kids

could no longer be,

such balance now beyond his grasp,

chased away by the ghosts of cirrhosis

gnawing at his liver.

This last Deck The Halls,

sipping Cream of Kentucky

libations through a straw,

when even prayers to the porcelain

or the rug or the sink

are unable in the end to stave off the slab

and a date with a toe tag

come the swelter of August.

regret with whip cream

My mind is rarely made up,

always casual with thought

and broken teeth grinding quiet,

forever tiptoeing

past my good intentions

wondering if they'll forgive me.

My pain shoots at me

in response to inquiry,

missing again

the avarice

I want to own

but can't even borrow.

Meanwhile the siren songs of autumn

rise like Lazarus through the fall

in the guise of the suburban leafblower,

more certain than death.

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.