another day, but better

since everyone has gone off
my experience can begin.
I have clearly failed as a tourist.
now I am alone and can begin my success
as a traveler and lover of worlds;

when there is no one to follow, tend,
the feet move quicker,
the hands and tongue with more precision,
the eyes un-mist with relief, and
the mind sharpens to a point.

now I may even write with leisure;
the art flows or trickles
but is infinite and beautiful—
infinitely beautiful.

perhaps it isn't the solitude
from familiar faces
that brings It out in me
this time,

but it doesn't hurt
to throw the stone and
hit them both.

made in Madrid

today I bat the lake flies
as my family did twenty years ago.
I am alone as they were alone, only
I have money to buy my way
when they had to chisel theirs.

the stories are familiar ones
and no matter where I hear them
I feel equally guilty and inadequate.

the same waterfront cafés are
here, selling the same food
to the same bourgeoisies
but I am not thinking
of how to steal their left-overs
and am not planning on cooking
any revolting soup tonight.

I am, however, thinking
of my career—if
I will have one,
or how I can better feed
this puttering economy.
I am thinking that it is getting late
and that it was much more efficient
to have bought ten metro tickets
instead of just one.

far over Lago is where I live now.
I see the Tower of Madrid there
and the golden Crown Plaza Hotel.
I know that below them,
Plaza de España and
the Cervantes monument,

they are reminders of where I came from
and how much farther I've still to go.

Bonaparte

he said, “It is the Beauty of all cities;
it is the cornerstone,
the miles of cobblestone
live, It breathes
in and up and down
and out and should
never be allowed to sleep.”
Paris is not only the neon gas
of the Champs-Elysses
and hasn't been the illuminating
architecture of the Visigoths
for quite some time;
it does live and breathe
and, I think,
throbs within itself.
it has cracked my stone complaints,
even to learn just enough
of these haughty phonics
so that my heart and head
can throb in syncopation.

dude-babe

[the nauseatingly outspoken curly-
head was doing what she did best
today out at the Spanish Steps]

Our hotel is
awful;
the windows,
dude,
there isn't even a view
of the city!
Ah, ahhh!
I swear,
babe,
when I walked in I
had tears.
Dude—
Babe—
tears"

if you tear up over a
hotel room,
bitch,
I'm glad you haven't lived my life;
‘cause then you'd really be bawling
for yours.
and believe me when I tell you,
I haven't been through
a fucking thing.    

at the creek; the top of the Chain

back home I learned that
the mysterious bubbles are
the passing fish or turtles
expirating, not
underwater volcanoes or
the spelunkers navigating them,
as I had thought.

but the water is too green
or blue (not sure which)
and I'm sure the fish can
see as much of me as I can of them;
if they did, they'd realize
the unfair trade of some air
bubbles for an old boot—tin can
with garrote edges.

what would be fair is if
they grew thumbs
and threw stones as we craned
our stupid necks over the water
or to settle the score for all,
come onto the shore,
pollute the land,
and destroy our way of life.

I don't think humankind could
even cope with something like that—

it's a good thing
we're already so responsible
with what we have.

Memoir of a Passed Life

The beaches are much rockier around Lake Erie. I had become used to the smooth sand where I was from. Here, it doesn’t look much like sand as I knew it. Just tiny rocks like fat grains of salt and pepper abandoned long ago from their shakers---forgotten
garnish for the dead fish that wash up behind the house. And you always know it because, come sunrise, you smell shit from outside. Luckily, we shut the house up on the days it was offensively cold, which, for a good part of the year, was every day. The weather didn’t matter much to me---frigid, humid, plague of locusts---I couldn’t really tell the difference. My folks always kept me in until recently while my older brother is usually out fucking the idiot females of Angola. They think he has a “sexy mouth” and his truck means he’s big too. I think they’re a bunch of whores. I’m five years younger, but I even notice the girls in my grade; they‘re all the same: sluts. And the only reason they’re not whores is because they haven’t yet realized men will pay to sleep with them.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

My parents are hippies. Of course they look completely normal now.
But two days ago I found out that they used to send me to my grandparents’ so they could bake weed brownies and see Jefferson Airplane. With that said, I remember a time this past fall with my best friend Andrew (most of my friends are boys.) We were tripping mushrooms near the boat docks by Lakeside and Coolidge, just a slingshot from the house. The weather was bearable and the tide was low, so you could see a lot more dead fish sloshing in the brown water. That day we had already run out on a bill at the diner off highway 90 and been kicked out of the drug store for dropping f-bombs on some old people. It was late afternoon and we were higher than we thought was possible. We lied on the beach for hours and I couldn’t stop touching and eating and talking about the sand. Every grain meant something. All were moving in unison---the whole beach throbbed. That’s when I came up with the salt-and-pepper thing, while ranting, so I kept it. That’s about all we do most times: look out towards the Canada side and think of pseudo-intellectual things to say. Inflate ourselves with hot air along a cold beach, secretly hoping to say the words that would finally filter the world for us to plainly understand.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

But we lived in silent Technicolor. Once, on St. Patty’s, we kissed. But we never talked about it. Once, the day after he found his dad hanging in the garage, he showed me the long redness down his arm. But I never told anyone. We knew we could take on
the world. But we never once said it to each other.

Jack's Death

Jack sat staring
at this eyedropper of acid
he’d bought seven nights ago

it was a lucky find;
a matter of chance
he’d passed the pockmarked
fellow on his way
to record shopping
last Tuesday

*     *     *

he had locked up his car,
dodged the traffic
across to the park

when he got there he heard
‘blotter’ whispered
from the bushes to his right

tucked inside was a pockmarked
man, dressed in rainbows,
who pulled him inside
by his tweed

for the trickle
in the Visine bottle,
Jack lost some pot
and they sat and squatted,
respectively,
smoking themselves

after a good twenty
minutes of leaves rustling dryly,
Jack suggested
they wet their eyes

they did and the innards of those
bushes became fantastic things:
ocean bubbles,
tongues, ten-gallon hats,
nuclear waste
and the Pope
until the sun came up

the pockmarked man emerged
from his rainbows,
climbed to the very top of the
nearest-tallest-thinnest tree
and hitched onto a passing cloud

*     *     *

the next Tuesday, Jack
bargained with himself
for a minute or two
before dropping the
rest of the acid

now this was Jack’s eighth fry
and something must be
unlucky
about the number eight;

because as the room
melted customarily
around him,
the shorted desk lamp
remained the only rational object

so he started towards it;
nothing could pull him
and he ended up
burnt crisp—
his body gnarled;
blood-shocked eyes
staring sideways
at the pile of flies

*     *     *

but before you move along
with your life,
consider:
Jack was like the rest of us,
trying to rid the boredom,
finally, from his life,
but his Ticket ran out

that’s all anybody can really do
until the end comes for them—
how sickeningly sobering

but not for the dead.

itches

every now and then,
while walking
through an intersection
or tying my shoes,
for example,
my tattoo will itch
slightly.
I imagine, just around
the hilt of the sword.

I’ll scratch and continue
with my life—but I can’t
help envisioning ink
bubbling up under the skin.

a mildly entertaining thought
at its best,
but at least I’ve something
to occupy myself with while I
pay for my deli sandwich,
scratch,
and walk away.

so it isn’t a complaint so much;
no mind—
it could be a
whole lot worse.  sure.
it has to be why folks
don’t tattoo their ass holes.

gay pairee

there is no lonelier feeling
than to be in the City of Love
with your cock in your hand;
the streetlights as-if floating orbs,
lighting the contented, red
faces so well—just so
you can know
what they might
have made you look like.

agua je beber

so I gave them a chance—
learned a few names;
forgot a few more.
only the basics as of yet:

they are workers and schoolteachers
[not the same thing] I've learned;
they go to college and
fill their brains with shit
[I’m in there]

there are failed artistic ambitions
as always, and those types
are the scariest of them all.
the only ones worse-off
are those who haven't even felt
such ambition, or simply
don't know.

they all have stories to tell
and I haven't had to
sit through even the few
I didn't want to—

but I gave them a chance at last
and some are This way and others are That.
and hey,
if the aliens ever invade,
I'll suddenly remember
that we all need air and warmth
and water to drink,
or scotch,

and at the end of every day
we all need someone to fuck—
hah—isn't that the Truth...

my deepest thanks to Christ

I’ve escaped to the
sanctity of the church.
No, the solemnity.
I’ve left the rest
to whatever mindlessness pleases them.

there is really no concern,
only the need for solitude
as all men need sleep.
without it, I am like others
without love—only love
is not as imperative and can
be crafted as desperation dictates.
but the smell of the wood pews
has earthened me, so very much
needed.

the eternal Strife
painted on the vaulted ceiling
[the likes of which are
only found within]
has stroked my nape as well.
very uncontrived and a sad rarity,
but it has added voices to mine
in a grand echo that soothes the Self.

I feel so much within these minutes.
so much peace now, a raging quiet
that I could never hope to explain
to any living soul:
some foreign suggestion.

*     *     *

this has been a successful break-
out, now back into the
sweet cold of
this Austrian foothill.

would you like to save?

when I was very young
life was often too much to bear,
and so I would escape into the
realm of video gaming.
the dragons, damsels,
incantations, and lepers
fascinated me because they
were so unlike the Real
I had written on shammed
fibrous cloth.

in every town, my heroic
alter ego would rejuvenate, always
at a church, a temple, and
as with many things,
I have now created a super ego
modeled with much the same affinity;
when it gets too hot—

there must be an escape from the fires;
a book, an instrument,
concocting words as music
and vice-versa.

I become mortally
drained; the monsters and their
hollow voices do it.
so like that brave necromancer,
I drag my cowardly hind to this church
to refresh, refocus, rebuild—
so that I might step back into
that awful light
and face Them all over again.

fuck, no priest

clutching a meek knit-sweater
around my shoulders,
I made my way to the silent
church in the silent
mountains around Itter.
drunken voices echoed from the hostle,
threatening to pull me back
in for a cocktail of lights and smoke.
a few locals rode past me
on bicycles with childish bells ting-ing
though they wouldn’t have noticed me
through the descending fog.

two cat eyes peered and ran
from the steps leading to the
locked church doors.
no priest, fuck;
I’d have to break a window?
I wasn’t going back there.

no Cat so I was left to
wander the inner-gates.
the stone and pebble yard
doubled as a grave yard.
How the hell does a Father
get the day off?
I thought
as I looked over the tombs.

They were all in German
but Death has no official
language, nor tears.
so I walked through the rows
and rows and stopped at a Couple.

He had died in the 60s and she
in the 90s—now they were always.
I attempted to move on
but for some reason I didn’t.
the tombstone was newer, and clean,
I actually felt glad for them
in some morbid crevice of mine.

the sun and the mist were falling fast
and I could see my breath like Death
but it was not genuine, and I knew It.
at this time, the cat came back,
startling the shit nearly out of me.
I was relieved; I thought my
ticket had finally run out.
the same cat, same eyes
I had warmed to.
we stood next to each other
facing the buff marble—

I smoked myself; he preened;
we both needed a break.
Fuck, Father, where does God go
at night?

it was becoming very, very cold.
my foot stamped out the butt;
my hand scooped up the cat;
he sat up over my right shoulder;
we left the old Couple—
we left them all to rest.

techno music is awful but the frost is worse,
so despite the stink and cacophony of alcohol,
we headed back together—

the house of God sat behind us,
silent and completely useless.

lack poem

sadly to say
there are a number of things
I had yet to experience
before my first visit to Europe:
obviously,
the stark presence
of genuine
class; smoking indoors;
refreshingly lax drug laws.

but what lacked
so painfully
where I was from,
was passion—
the dusty kind
with no fear.

the fact that I was surprised
at the sight of two lovers
fighting on a street corner
made me nauseous
and made me want to hug them both,
if for nothing else,
than for reminding me
of what still existed

she was shoving him away firmly
though with such obvious
gentility;

I ached for someone
to throw me around like that
and like it
as much as I would.

sin titulo de venezia

ironically,
I thought of you
while passing the Bridge of Sighs;
it seemed only appropriate
to provide a structure
for my only continuous action.
it also worked
that my labored breaths
carried my eyes up with them
at just the right angle
to appreciate the nearly
full moon—waxing,
almost there, almost, yes,
and again,
highly apropos in your
absence.

the clouds were very high
and similarly thick—I'd still
swear, they were of
black velvet.
the moon rested in the softness
and its white glow made me so blue;
because of so many things, but,
This is only you here.

very much drawn in that angled
thought in the sky;
of You up There,
I managed to turn
and saw the clouds clear
completely in the space
behind me.
but I soon turned back
and didn't pay much attention to that
at all.

reprieve, in It

the man selling photos
is reading a book
and not-so-much
selling his photos.
they are dark, divided
into twirling ballet
dancers or
bridges in Venice,
where I am now.

his nose is in a drab-looking
white paperback;
periodically we will both come
up from our respective pages
and assess the crowd
for obviously different reasons.

a scraggly brown dog is
lying next to him, emphatically
chewing his ass
as if it will take him somewhere.
in my own realm of homo erectus,
I’ve been guilty
of much the same thing.

*     *     *

it is damned hot today
and we are all out in It.
I should go get drunk
but I’m shaded.

to the left, finally,
an open house
of God.
there is too much going on
in the street today.

I’ll get up, look east
to the bar
then go west—
into,
under,
past the vaulted archway
of the basilica.

Granmama

the cottage was set
in a space between
forests of toothpick
trunks with tufts
acting as canopy.
the space around it was large,
flat, with rows of
wheat to the back
and plump sunflowers.
the light woke me,
despite the cover of trees.
the mist hadn’t yet risen.
so early—

my stomach feels raisin-like.
I sneak low, and
pick off a ray of sun
and grind it down
with my teeth
to the taste of shit.

an ogress lived in that cottage
whom I called ‘Granmama.’
she was awful looking, her
veins bulged; she was lumps
all over.
she fed me occasionally
when I’d come out of
the trees—few and far
between,
so there was no point to ask.
just sitting;
gagging on sunflowers.

in fact, she died some months ago.
but I never moved into her cottage;
I burned it down and slept under a toothpick.

Amsterdamage

sure,
my throat feels
awful—
like I swallowed
an angered
pufferfish.
sure,
all I have to show for it
are some grainy
stony photos.
and fine,
I don’t remember
one thing
that happened.
sure, sure, sure.
but goddamn it,
I could do that
every
fucking
night.

ozzie troglodytes versus the cardigan s.s.

last night,
while I slept
off the hangover,
some guys were caving
in the skull
of some unfortunate
fucker who was only
trying to do his job.
     “the bar is closed”
     he had said,
and they clubbed him
real good.
     I wondered,
     “who would be crazy
enough to run
from the polizei?”

apparently they fled
to Amsterdam.
not bad;
     stoned people
     are easier to catch.  
and besides,
animals like that
need to chill the fuck out.

middle-dirt

finding Europe
was like finding Home—
some place I thought
was too good to exist.
what an absolute relief
to have found a way out.

but I still have to
return home
and somehow tame
this wild discovery—
the desire that'll
squeeze out from my gut,
tearing the wet stitches.

it's still better to know
I've somewhere to go,
because I tell you,
the way it is now,
Hitler would be proud of Bush—far
more than Blair,
or even what has become of
his own Bavaria.

MaryJane with blue hair

…a spare hour at the terminal with some old words—
written in a time when I thought myself useful.
At first I didn’t notice her,
but her voice seemed gentle enough
to pull my nose from the strategic
grid of ones and zeros, I mean,
she looked to me like the curves of a Q.

“Excuse me,” she began,
breaking my concentration,
“Can I use your mobile?”
I reached into my pocket and handed it over;
She smelled strongly, like old European blood,
     with which she was probably unconcerned,
     and had the liquid-blue eyes of a hippie
who probably didn’t believe in showers.
She dialed and began talking rapidly
while I examined her:
     No purse, suitcase, backpack, knapsack—
     just a clear plastic bag with a sticky label, no seal,
filled with grey and yellow papers, Marlboros, and a belt.
I looked down at her waist—her pants seemed to fit fine.

Jane was her name, and she had blue hair.
Well—
just the front was blue.
She was a bit thin and looked perpetually
     on the verge of tears;
     I felt like I should have been attracted to her
     but I really wasn’t.
“I been in jail two-and-a-half days,” she smiled at me.
     I didn’t respond.
“Want to know why? They found my roach.”
     “Two-and-one-half days…?” I took back my phone.
“Yeah!  They were yellin’ felony possession.  Fuckin’ Nazis!”
     
I noticed the bags under her eyes
     and the blue sloshed around in her iris.
Briefly, I considered taking her
across from where we sat;
It was the closest thing to the mile-high club.
But I had been listening for quite some time;
she was excited now, talking about her
boyfriend and hometown, how she missed The Pixies.
I had stopped listening after the prison transfer.

Some woman’s voice announced Flight 266.
The conversation finally stopped
as I looked over to the lady speaking and she stared up at the speakers.
She told me she’d save a seat for me,
but I was tired of it—squeezed against the glass while she stared out.
     Jane had nothing for me, and I had nothing for anybody.
So instead, I sat between a fat man and a rather large high-schooler.
I took a deep breath and looked around at the other passengers—
Jane was nowhere.  I kept my head down,
let out a warm exhale, and slipped out my bookmark.

dream in blue green

A monotonous hum shook my ears
as I moved across the plaza.
My destination towered distantly;
     a mystery snoozed against speckled black.
Unique eunuchs dirged along
with agonized faces—
carpals [broken, tossed aside] find their way
     into my mouth in rubbery dissonance.
Those sucking moans, hummed from
sunken sockets, tugged my skin.
     (there is no time
          recall the taste of gold ideas
     and hair)
Climbed endless stairs to find
     she’d gone to safety from no one
     but herself and the notion of defection.
The first time this year
     the bright white satellite doesn’t shine, but
I ran anyway, but then
     shocked dead where I stood for
tires-braking-steel-and-glass-and-fadedmusic
tangled (mangled) limbs and my heart burst inside.

Just before waking:
     brilliant gold,
     Blue In Green,
     deep in red.

descubrimiento del andaluz

I.
Wandering
along buzzard lines high over Earth.
It is freckled with shanties and the occasional
oil fire.
Death reeks from the four corners.
     A stir among the stars.
     A supernova?  
Or maybe it’s just God,
turning the shack set aside for his soul
into ash.

II.
Along the lip of the fallow bay,
starbound columns rise
from chimneys—slender fingers
     poking nimbus-bellies.
Here he can smell a sweetness—
     perfection.in.all.things
the style, smile, sneeze
even sleight-of-hand—
     [everything]
Sense him perfectly—
the malaise—
before he can.
Will beg him “leave me be”
only to count the seconds
till his return.
She will bring life to this world
and deliver it to him.
For years
he’s been splitting hairs to catch a scent
Now it lingers here,
along this curious bay.
He is convinced
and plants himself readily,
thankful that he doesn’t own a watch.

III.
all of you
you Uncompromising
you Faithless
it does linger here
and i will find it
     [somewhere]

toy soldier

I carry a spectre from my past,
when,
mangled-lacerated,
I stared from a tatami floor
at the plank ceiling above.

Dragged in.  Indignant
as I coughed and
bits of red stained her sock.
She called me Boy,
Foolish Fighter,
while puzzling me together.
She called me Boy
and not even a moon between us!  Bitch
Though—
the way she stitched—
renewed me from the earthy womb.
Cocooned,
taking porcelain-sips of her,
     Why live? Or let live?

*     *     *

I, grown among weeds,
mended as
a beautiful stranger to myself.
More than the one, unfamiliar face
     that found Deadman pitiful.
     Burned in aortal hubris fuel,
     left smoking and alive.
One becomes one hundred
     equally beautiful
     equally strange faces.
Perpetual mementos that surround,
     allow no light.
Luckily, in a stupor
they float as blank canvas.
My world at the whim
of my brushtip.


*     *     *

I knew nothing of her---
would never know.
     Certainly I will stay with her.
She kicked me out once
     the glue had dried.  Damn it!
I should have loved her.
     But she called me Boy
          and I hated her.
What a fool I was to dwarf fate
or define myself by a number.

romanza iberia

The sun drips like slow honey,
     matting tangled hair.
     Sweet and salt,
     It melts them.
This is life—this is freedom.
     The waves, in which
     they splashed passion,
     bob and weave.
Churning insides occupied
     when the muse knocks
     as she fries the day’s catch.

Her steps move outside—
     Starboard—
     A hazy rat-race effigy
     along la Costa del Sol.
She stares, inconclusive.
     Sighing a lifetime
     as he approaches, steps erratic,
     sipping on a cigarette.
               
Potent ale yields daily atrophy.

He is yelling ---
     of the untended fish,
     in rolling R’s and
     serpent phonics.

Today, she does not hear the slurred, broken English,
     nor see his nakedness and leather soles slapping the deck.
     The waves swell, breathing on her ear.     
          
     That smell!
The stove,
     which, like the fish, now sits
     charred, black and brittle.

On port, she purges
     the fish, his words, her self.
They all flutter Hell-ward,
     falling in with the seaweed.

Lucky 7 [for RM ~ 1985-2005]

It's always the one you don't expect that ends up creamed in the
dogfight------that one wide-eye.
The reason to get up at 4AM with some
bad-breathed son-of-a-bitch screaming
“Slow!
Weak!
Worms!”

In the showers we’d say, This kid’s got balls,
and punch his arm
until it purpled like his face and he’d wave us off---
they were always there:
sometimes at 4am,
their passion     [that kid was passion]
would light the room like those phosphorous ones
we used to buy with ice cream;laughter thunder-cracking through the flesh of
keloids coagulated in hourly bellows and
razor-wind-chill---deeply bred
ravines running limp forearms;
when the only options were to punch
the angry bastard in the teeth
or tuck your tail.
Those were the things that made you want to fuck
the whole goddamned thing and move back to your basement.
Or worse, in with Father Himself.  
The Temptation never dies
and neither would we;
we might miss the next gem.
Why does someone like that,
someone
[necessary
to survival]ends the way damned
and more deserving people should?
The week after, Lucky 6 flew a run for him.I broke sunwardtaking my chance to stare Him down:
My friend is gone, now
where in Hell were You?

the collective oblivious

I can’t walk down the street
Without passing some poor soul
Who just lost a dog

     A mother,
     God,
     Or all three at once?

He grabs the patched elbow
Of my brown corduroy;
Sings between hiccup sobs
And the roar of traffic.

I try my best to explain:
His dog ran under the car tire
So that girl over there could walk
Her new one and feel the things
     She would never feel in this age.

He calls me “crazy”
And walks away, blubbering.
I cross the street and
Continue walking, alongside
The girl and the puppy.

I ask her what of Life and
She thinks she’s all alone.
     Strange;
I didn’t know where to look for it either.

We all learn eventually
Or die
Having learned nothing.  But
We all die anyway.

In the meantime,
     Running between uninterests,
     Frantically scratching the nickel,
     Flipping the ticket over again,
All of it with sweat-beads,
Is nothing more than masturbation.

We bend, all of us.
     Some break,
And all are freed when it’s over.
While out in the vacuum,
Senseless of screams,
We advance
Perpetually forward,
Blue-green and so fucking full-of-It.

if you haven't yet left

it’ll be perfect.

the bed will go over
under the window there
and the sofas wherever.
I may have shattered some
of the China, but
wasn’t it a bit
tacky anyhow?
look, I bet
you didn’t notice
the garden—
wild tomatoes!

and you’ve already met Ein:
very un-wiener and almost
housebroken—
lazy with the rats but
somehow endeared.
kind of like me, eh?

yeah, thanks;
I like it too. Oh,
the house next-door…
I hadn’t really checked.

why don’t you stay here?
we’ll go have a look
there in a year
or so.

my first blonde

there aren't too many
things more attractive
than these accented
European women.
it's sick;
I fell for one
and all she did
was ask for a bowl.
[anything out those lips
was instant gold.]
I don't even think
I answered back;
not shallow enough
to follow through;
it wouldn't be right
of me to do
anyway—

if she wasn't disgusted by
my fatalism and
worldly malaise,
I'd have to tell her
how much crazier we are
back in the States.
but even then,
she wouldn't believe me. Fine;
I'd stay with her
two or
three months
and prove her very wrong.

these are Belgian roads now

all these
quaint
farm houses
must have seen a war
or two.
I almost feel bad for
the thatch
roofs;
fields;
[fallow]
the farmer’s wife
stepping through the fog
to toss slops
at the pigs.
but then I
pause,
and remember where I come from.

we left Britain yesterday

there doesn’t seem to be much
difference
in the landscapes; all farms
are equally as beautiful. but
the cows are a bit
thinner
past the French border.

don’t they eat?
[them?]
[cows?]

it seems
there is just as much grass,
corn and
surely more charm—
even if they do like
black pudding.

maybe they’re all just mad—yes.
that answer is good enough
for a foreigner
like me.

5 freeway

sitting shotgun,
I noticed the lot of tread-marks.

so many close calls;
late reactions;
a survival-death microcosm
all in the same boat of shit.

I looked at the
anonymous remnants,
maybe to give them some spark;
I decided—
for the shorter skids,
they probably walked, or limped from,
but the longer ones,
at least a fatality; come on—
it isn’t so arbitrary when
considering the properties of Death:
slow to come; prolonged in struggle;
never as expected
or as it should be.

this sounds so familiar…
maybe the long marks
lived-on after all.

why it comes

when I fiddle around with notes,
it is much like when I fiddle with words;
both simply come from the core of me.

most times it is a matter of survival,
other times it is only chum—
a misfire in the dark,
sometimes for a particular someone
but every time for myself.

at times I must wake the Spirit from
deep down, and then
smoke the bastard from
my cavernous innards.
if I am lucky,
it will come
gushing like my jugular,
like a drunken piss—
this is rare, and
so much more valuable: when,
the words and notes,
they do all the work for me;
nothing feels better than
finishing a line with
the next one in your head.

when it comes, it comes,
and that’s the most beautiful music.