I Am Writing Somewhere Else Now

Hello! Not sure if anyone ever reads here anymore, but I am writing on a different blog these days. It's called A Half Strangled Crow of Desire. I hope to see you there.

ahalfstrangledcrowofdesire.blogspot.com

Seluah- Black Sand

Post

Strive to remain the point of reference
constant in
this wind
that just will not relent

Gone

Just before waking
you dream a dream of
a fake Sweet Sixteen
her disappointment with
the stand ins and the reasons
why not
disaffected
drifting off
to her room and
when you follow
to check on her
she is
gone
the chill on your skin
suggests the unthinkable
and you wake to that
first
and then the day

The Fall - Monocard

The Glory Of True Love

Outback

Your friend's ashes are waiting far from where he asked you
to scatter them, while you are finding yourself staring down into
an eighth of an inch of blood on a dinner plate (finish your beer),
listening to a father and his college-aged daughter talking easily
and openly (you're starting toward maudlin, so move out)
teenage boys hold the doors open, think of silken black hair,
arms, veins, lips
when suddenly a family,
two parents in glasses and their three small children
moves innocently through, a brood...

You're brooding soon, under the moon
smelling the wet black parking lot
removing the thing from your jacket pocket
arranging it so that it points up under your chin 
then firing while still walking long strides
which just knocks you down, breaks your jaw,
but more importantly, your train of thought.

Great Compilation

November Evenings

There's something about night falling
in November, a brief and solemn
excitement, the last lights
of a sinking ship

Do you like Winter?
Not really.
You should move somewhere warm then.
But the twilight tells me to
Stay.

Errand Boy

Explain to a formerly smart, vivacious, attractive
twenty year old girl that the life she knew just last month
may not be coming back ever again.

Tell her that what's bothering her now is not
exactly what she thinks it, but an illness that
never goes away, though with time, might be
better understood and, with strict medication
compliance, even managed.

You tell her.

A Car Is Not A Home Until You Make It One

Six a.m. sleeping in the car
with the sounds of wind and rain and morning traffic
a day like this strips away the last of the leaves
and the hope 
softens us up like an artillery barrage
before Winter's frontal assault
change is coming, I am changing.

Experiment in Terror

Gimme Danger Little Stranger

Yellow Tigers Crouched In Jungles In Her Dark Eyes

Things had shaped up into mostly mud and drudgery by then. I was twenty-two and released from the gates of Camp Pendelton about six months before, still alive (beyond my expectations) and without a plan, money, or any desire to go home. I was trying to do the right thing by someone I loved, in a young idealist's way, who was struggling a little more than I. By the time this night came around, I was working two jobs, breaking freight,  and sleeping an hour or two in my van between shifts.

I paid the bills and she complained. I grew resentful and shut down. She branched out and started making other plans.

Mike Russell, who always slept with a 9mm locked and loaded under his pillow, got in touch with me from out of the past one night. We went out to a rock 'n roll night club in El Cajon. We drank, and I felt pretty good for the first time in a while. I had a shaved head then and wore boots and a Charles Manson t-shirt.

At some point I found myself watching a girl dance. She really wanted to dance but her boyfriend was too cool or too shy, and he wouldn't stay on the floor with her for long. She was Mexican, liked hard rock songs and stood about five feet tall.

When she danced, she flew. I immediately felt like I could see her soul. I mean she danced - let herself go and gave it all.

Anyway, the D.J. played White Room by Cream. I knew it would move her, and she was moving me, so I asked her to dance right in front of her boyfriend with Charlie Manson staring on from my shirt.

Her dark eyes sparkled and dazzled and smiled with the excitement of music and, taking my hand, she led me to the dance floor. Only the two of us danced. We sweat from one end of the floor to the other and back several times and lost ourselves.

I think of that letting go now with great longing. She never spoke to me in words, and I said only thank you.

Fall always spins the wheel of memory and, tonight, it landed here.

Is Planning To Fail

Something must have died in the refrigerator,
and sediment from the well has clogged some mechanism
that won't allow the heat to rise or the water to warm,
and you'd best believe it's going to cost you.

You've got to take care of things before they break down.
Say it again.

Now stumble forward into the tilting world,
and try to keep a sense of humor
will you?

The moon tonight in silent silver
lights the brown stalks and weeds in front of the house
and the leaves have thinned
enough to see that I have neighbors.

Winter is stalking me, but this bed feels pretty good, and there's
no second job tonight: no cranky dope fiends, no depressed kids
alone in the world, or young men with their jaws wired shut
with an exit wound on their foreheads waiting for something better,
I hope, than another go.

Columbus Day

The physical therapist is talking
baseball absent mindedly leaving me
unsure about this traction contraption
and whether or not we are doing anything
but going through the motions of healing and billing
while outside the day is shaping up toward perfection
the sky is blue and crisply vivid in that certain way
that makes you believe everything is okay
or makes you worry that a group of death-worshippers
have hijacked a passenger plane filled with children's choirs,
business travelers and family vacationers, depending on your orientation.

The sad mother, estranged, is telling me about her own mother's
ever-blinking eye and the wonders of acupuncture, she speed walks
seeking youth in her face and I go to the gym for the first time in a year
moving slowly but persistently trying to match my heart rate to the
machine's gentle expectations, sweating after in a chair, feeling it roll
down my skin.

Can't Help But Wonder

Walking From The Parking Lot

Dark and wet today
that autumn smell of leaves and
sweet decay

I half remember
but fall short
of ignition
 

September Morn

The beauty of this day is undeniable
I see it, breathe it, appreciate it
but never trust it.

In Bed Not Walking

All the cities are going on
doing what they do without me
walking their streets taking it all in
like it's my own great big private circus
until I've seen too many faces and my feet hurt and
I stay alone too long then remember how most of the time
I have been alone, just walking by
and then that thing happens in my head
and I become like a ghost again and the cities like cemeteries.