Morning is Morning

This world causes me grief.
Does it do this to you as well?
We both know the answer.

Gray sunless morning
It is a new day nonetheless.

Roving

Blinded by the Sun
Dead and useless eyes
Rove within us

Is second sight possible
Is there an unseen world
Awaiting?

Towards Salvation

Save what can be saved
Save what will be lost
         everything will eventually be lost
Save yourself
Save those who cannot save themselves
Save us in time for salvation

To Forgive?

Must we forgive the unforgivable?

Should we forgive the unforgivable
within ourselves / within others?

Function & Purpose

I have accidentally been saving my thoughts
for moments like these

Don't ask me where this all came from
This is simply a function of my existence

Would you ask the River
why do you flow to the Ocean?

Strange Capacity

How strange is our capacity for love?
Love flows in seasons
Dries up in others
Love follows 
No command other than
To honor it's own existence

Answers

We know what the answers are 
to that we have been searching for
We only lack the strength 
to follow through on them

Invisible Cycles

It's comforting and disconcerting
to see certain patterns play out
in the lives of those around us.

Most of us will play along with
established notions of normalcy
and be content in their security.

I remember high school and
the friend's home we would all
go spend our time at between

school and band. Lovely parents.
It was a shock to see that home
dissolve into bitter divorce.

They married young. He was in
the service and she wanted to be
with him. So it was for many years.

In time one of their daughters
married a friend of mine right out
of high school. So it went.

Airforce. Deployment. 9/11.
Middle East. Stationed back home.
A home. A child. A divorce.

I see the pattern emerging once
more. I hope it turns out better
for these two young ones.

Have you heard of the wind
scattering seeds to the four corners
of the world?

Ride the wind. Close your eyes.
Weightlessness. We will come to rest
where we must.

For Bernie

Sometimes even the good people 
amongst us compromise to serve 
what they believe to be 
the greater good. 

Morning of the Red Sun

I woke and looked out my window
only to be greeted by a glowing red sun
hanging pendulous in the sky.
Ashen sky, an unusual gray clouding
a summer dawn. Are the far off hills
ablaze? Have we entered a long-feared time?
How did the Egyptians interpret
Joseph's dreams?

Past Life Eyes

Complacency is a self-inflicted disease. 

Watch Her Walk

toddling around the living room

bright blue ball in her small hands 
she throws it   watches it bounce
across the room    throwing her hands
in the air     emits a cry of pure joy
i can't resist the emerging smile 
so I let my face wear it and laugh

Romancing Myth

resurrect me now

believe reincarnation

many lives to go

One Path

Wake up and drink your coffee

Go to work

Drink more coffee

Amble through the day

Take a break and eat your lunch

Wait for the afternoon to pass

Count down the clock's face

Get in your car

Drive home with everyone

Get home

Crack open a beer

Sit down and wonder

about it all again

Ikey

Hey friend

I was thinking about you

I was thinking about

seeing you perform

for the first time

I was thinking about

the times we talked music

I was thinking about

the time you asked

for a ride home

It's a strange life

where people like you

can be gone so quickly

I know many others

knew you far better

but I still felt your loss

Wherever you are

wherever somewhere

may be

know there are many

of us here

still thinking of you

Against the Tide

Days of uncertainty

Nights of disbelief

Caught in the tides

   of struggle

Thrashing

    fighting

       for air

What choices

               are left

                    to make

Catacombs

Mistakes
    Missteps 
Foolishness
       
Seasons of our youth

The heart as both protagonist

and antagonist

What more could we say

                   to each other

after a night

of dog-sitting

                      and revelations

Gray Mornings

I can't write
much less think
of what way
I can articulate
what I need to say

The frustration
the anger
the disgust
with our times
is one that mounts
with each passing day

I want to go to sleep
I want to turn a blind eye
yet I can't
so I am agitated
and unable to sleep

In this morning light
all I can see are
the gray shadows
of morning

AMERICA 2016

FRAYED 

PSYCHIC 

THREADS

End Times

Awake and shaking
Trapped and conscious 
Hours upon hours
Static and unnerving
Final sentence
Time diminishing
by the passing grain
To wake and sleep
and return to this again

Will you let this love survive?

If everything is free
then nothing is for sale

Eternal Season

Time is capable of passing us with hardly a thought
as body and mind enter the state of slow decay.

Have you seen a toothless skull in a cemetery
resting in the dirt, utterly forgotten?

This moment is a moment of blooming 
before the withering winters 

consume us.

A lifetime could never 

be enough for any of us.

break open your head
let yourself float into sky
discard soul coffin

Invisible Seasons

Unseen and unheard anywhere except in mind
the world changes
                              as it always does

Walk down your street
just in time to see helicopters hovering overhead

What manner of change has happened

Whose death is at hand?

On Virgil

lost in the night
walking cracked 
                          and dirty streets
with broke and dirty people
you realize
you have always been
one of them

Monument to Now

This life
What other life is there
This time
What other time is there

Moving in silence as though
sound were a thing to be ashamed of

Summers of endless heat
Winters of endless cold
Springs of waking
Falls of fading life

There can only ever be
this moment

Hear these words
out loud
or spoken in your mind

This moment
is what matters most

Eternally now

Now

Here

You

Me

Us

Now

Only

Now

We lurch through life
as though it were dark woods.

Cumulative

She could hear him stagger in the door
As his uneven steps halted and resumed.

She heard the sound of his body fall into
The deep cushions of the couch. His arms

On his chest as though he were trying to 
Embrace himself. His right leg dangled

Off the couch and was touching the floor.
She would sleep alone again tonight.

Looking at him she could have sworn
She had once known him. 

On Modernity

It is no longer necessary to be kind and understanding
when we are able to curate a vision of the world that
stands in unanimous agreement with us.

Discourse has no place in discussion and we can reduce
one another from fellow human to ignorant fool in a breath.

It's no longer necessary to travel the world to view our vast
capacity for cruelty- one need only to look at their phone.

Hope suffers from the longest death. 

Barbaric Kindness

It is possible to speak without a tongue

Oftentimes those words carry the deepest meaning

That is impossible to ignore or forget

How far down the cave must we travel
before our light is extinguished
and we have to admit losing our way?

For Flannery

If everything that rises 

must converge

can it be said that 

everything that descends

must come apart?

Hibernate at home

Untethered from distraction

Curtains touched by wind

Capturing the light from the Sun.

Fish Don't Have To Learn How To Swim. 

Fish Don't Have To Learn How To Swim. 

Calculating Gravity

Calculate the precise gravity of a word
Don't over think
Think just the right amount

Once you're certain
type or write out what you have in mind
How does it look

Is it aesthetically pleasing
or does it sit there like
a dirty damp rag tossed on the floor

Does your mind turn from this task
and remember a random bit from childhood
and quickly withdraws the invasive memory

Are you crying
Please don't cry
Memory is like that

Do you want to continue
If not I understand
Put the words away

We can always
try again
some other time

Scattered Thoughts All Gathered Together (evening - 6/4/16)

Interpretations of Reality

Create the world you wish through selective perception

Change and Realignment

Consciousness moving through an eternal present of possibility

Beauty as a sign of temporary attraction

What is everlasting?

The Business of Life & Loss

How to Move On Without Ever Letting Go

How quickly we move from disappointment to acceptance.

These late nights move through us
as we move through them

Memories of distant possibilities are nothing more
than snow melting in the noon time sun.

Better to let some memories gather dust.

we were done and
that was it
and that was that

My back is nothing more than
bone and flesh
and can be broken
far more easily
than I care to admit

What is fit to be buried and what
is fit to be kept?

Desire and Reason rarely have anything in common.

I need some silence to balance out all the noise in my life.

No reason to be awake
yet you cannot fall asleep
so you stay up until
the night takes you

One must look past mere physical beauty to find substance

Enraptured by her beauty
I became a slave to an ideal
that no one else could
ever hope to match

Can we ever find the beach that has no end?

When all you want to do is talk
and the night is late
and the glass is empty
but everyone else is gone
or asleep
so you sit alone
and hope the words
will find you

I would have loved you if
you ever gave me the chance

Only the dead are free.

Like the silence that stretches across the desert at midnight.

The restlessness of the soul.

Let the page feed your spirit.

We let each other go as gently
as a breathe being exhaled.

Broken Teeth and Bloody Tongues

The Overlap of Dreams

Sueno pero recuerdo
lo que tuve recordar

Shadows that exist only at night.

There was never anything to hold onto
but we clung to another
as though nothing could tear us apart

My broken bones
cannot be reset
I grow together
fractured and imperfect

The illusion of choice
The choice of illusion

These lonely nights of worry
Where are you right now
Don't worry
I'm just here trying to breathe

Brotherhood of the Black Moon

He cruised north on Vista Del Mar with the Pacific
flanking his left side. Wind tousled his hair. The music
was off. All he could hear was the waves on the beach
and the tires over the asphalt.

As he neared his destination an airplane flew overhead
from the nearby airport. Briefly, he looked over and saw
its form buried in the dark skies. He slowed and pulled
over as he came to a stop.

In rapid succession, the headlights and engine were killed.
A car sped past. He could feel it's velocity through the
sudden shudder of the car. The lights of oncoming traffic
blinked into the darkness and barreled close and away.

There was no reason for him to be there this late. He didn't
want to be home. There was nothing in his room and at
least here he could listen to the waves and let his mind
forget about itself for a few moments.

His phone buzzed and the screen lit up. It was a text.
"At the Black Moon having a drink. Drop by."
He wrote, "Sure. Be there in 15." He turned the key
in the ignition only enough to turn on the stereo.

A loud cymbal crash followed by rumbling toms
and the clattering of percussion beating through the
speakers. From the first note he knew it was "A Night In
Tunisia" by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

He turned the key and the engine awoke. There were
no cars in either direction. A quick u-turn over the
solid double yellow lines and he was headed south
towards the Black Moon.

He needed the company. He needed the drink.
What a day. What a week. Wayne Shorter's sax
cut through the wind as the two sounds intermingled
to create a new voice.

What kind of night would it become? It didn't matter.
How could it? Eventually he lost track of the waves,
the road, as though nothing but he and that song existed.
His company was anticipated. He hurtled forward

until the mild suburban facade of the area showed
it's face again, and when it did, how he longed to rip
the skin from it. At last, the Black Moon came into
view. There was nothing to be won or lost.

We are ghosts who 
remain among the living.  

The Eraser

I began to erase the words from books because
I could not stand the lines falling flat and dead upon the page.

Gradually, I began to see the remaining words coalesce
into thoughts I had never before considered.

They began to speak freely as though they were unbound
from the constraints of which they had been born.

Pages upon pages I filled with black sharpie or the
imprecise brush stroke of whiteout.

I began to draw, colour, cut and paste images
into these books. I began to reshape them

into representations of my thought process.
Beautiful. Scattered. Old. Revelatory. Blasphemous.

In this way, I found my joy. It had merely been hidden
all along, in those dusty old books hidden in forgotten rooms.

I'm at the bar or liquor store
about as often as I work.
This is not a coincidence.

I've got nothing to prove 
and everything to lose.

God stopped talking to you long ago
but you can't stop singing his praises.