lies upon lies.

building upon a foundation of nothing
the artisan's work collapsed.
surprise?--no, it makes sense.
for one cannot build something on nothing,
even if nothing has a facade
a veneer more glorious than even reality.
but that's what i did, foolishly misled
by the lying face of nothing, your nothing.
and though i tried to manifest
this nothing into something, still it
remained blank.

and nothing has changed, except now--
this tower has come crumbling down,
babel! babel! irrational belief in
nothingness.
and now up is red and down is eight
for nothing makes sense and we are all
from sodom, from gomorrah, and babel
and russia and england, and cultures
crash. the mafiosos line up only to vanish,
all because they lived their lives on this space
reserved for nothing but lying about everything
a regular siren.
but now the rock is on top and the siren beneath
so that all is an extension of the sweet song
that leads us astray.

epiphanies lead nowhere--realizing this limbo
is just that and nothing more is too much
and so we return to sodom and babel
to be who we were, ignorant and joyous;
puppets of the great mafioso in the sky.

Your Good Graces (10-26-07)

I'm always looking,
To please you.
I want you,
To be Happy.
I'm always striving,
For you to be proud of me.
I wish I could have somehow,
Earned your respect.
It's so hard,
To live up to,
What I think you expect of me.
Pushing,
And Toiling,
And Straining,
And Trying,
And Living.
These things I supposedly have to do,
Just to stay in your good graces.
I think I'll be myself from now on.

The Auction House

trinkets and paintings
old books and movie posters
marble figurines

the new and the old
items of great sentiment
once cherished and loved

spirits of the past
ghostly tales of times long gone
live in each treasure

the bidding begins
alacritous responses
and the gavel falls

My first post in awhile.

I saw you at forty years old today.
The age was clearly etched in your face.
I saw the fatigue, the
change in your presence;
you look...good...
for the time that's passed.

Any doubt about your
identity was erased when your
eyes--pure, clean, penetrative--
probed my soul, and you
laughed inwardly at my terror.

It isn't fair. Your experience
and full life is evidenced
in all your weathering.
But I--I am still young.
And empty.
It's so obvious
that in your life
you have moved on.
My heartbreak, however:
it is frozen in
an awkward adolescence.

"Psycho"

Psycho

The plastic is wrinkled
She screamed just a bit
The mop is dirty
On the floor her face sits

Oh, Mother is in her room
The cars sped by,
She fit into the trunk
Of the Ford he will hide

In the pond where no one will see
Not even Mother
Nor anyone ever will know but me
I could never tell another

Her eyes appeared as glass
As he found her on the floor
With her fine sweet ass
Naked as she bore

She shouldn’t have done it
What ever she did
Took the money
Folded in the paper to be hid

Mother knew about it
Mother knows everything
She knew to tell Norman
Not to give away any rings

Where is the money?
There is always something
Something about money
That gets everyone thinking

Norman seemed so young
Norman seemed so helpless
Seems so undeniably wrong
To pick on people’s weakness

The mop tainted with red
Blood it may be
Or in black and white
Chocolate syrup it could be.

Mother would be proud
I want her to be
Proud of me you see
So I can stand out
in every crowd
In my room deniably.

Fallen Leaves

F A L L E N L E A V E S
written Sept. 12, 1997


Gently fallen leaves
Broken amputated pieces of the trees
What stories they must tell!
Way up high
In the clouds--
Staring down on the world
Like a majestic queen.



What might they say?
Breezes thick with poison--
Cool drink from the sky burns...
Gently fallen leaves
Scarred--
Gently they fall in the poison breeze,
Whispering their tale to me...
What stories they must tell.

A Short Trip

He sat uncomfortably in his car, in traffic, in the rain. His back hurt from pulling a muscle earlier in the week and it twinged every time he moved a slight bit. He was driving to see his girlfriend of many on and off years. More off lately than on.
He sighed at that thought.
Digging into his cd holder, he pulls out a cheaply wrapped cigar, unwraps it, and pushes it between his lips to look for his lighter.
The light changes from red to green and while turning the corner,he lights his cigar.
A puff of smoke and a slightly rolled down window later, he's cruising on his way to the highway through the small cow town he lives in.
The rain is beating down on his windshield in a slow monotonous tone. Too slow to even turn on the wipers at their slowest level. That irritates the man.
"Why can't it rain just a bit more so I can turn the damn wipers on and leave them on?"
He looks out the window up at his God and peers out into the darkness.
"This ought to be a fun drive." He sighs again.
Traffic on that Friday night was just lovely. Trying not to get too irritated, he flips on the radio, blows a puff of smoke from his cheap cigar and sits back, grimacing at his aching back.
"I shoulda taken some aspirin, dammit." He mutters to himself.
The music blaring from the radio is Motorhead or some such band and is really grating on his nerves. As he hits the highway heading north, he pushes the seek button on the radio until the sweet sounds of public domain music pings in his ears.
That's classical music, if you were wondering.
The nicotine from the cigar is hitting his system and soothing his irritations enough to let him sit a little further down into the seat.
The cruise control is set at 65.
"Yea. Granny driving in the rain, at it's best." He chuckles to himself.
Silence.
As much silence as the car allows, with it's wearing tires, the radio station forgetting to put more music on, the rain, now landing more frequently on his windshield, and his own thoughts of his life.
The classical music comes back on with an apology from a soothing lady's voice.
"Technical difficulties" she says.
"Right. Probably getting shtupped in the cleaning closet..." The man laughs at his own thought.
He flicks his inch worth of cigar ash out of the slit in the window frame, takes another puff of the cigar, and blows the smoke out of his eyes so he can see.
The rain on the windshield is blurred by the wipers, like the memories and thoughts pushing their way into his mind.
The music had a way of forming pictures in his head as he listened, and smoked, and thought.
"How interesting that music does such a thing.", he thinks.
"One wonders if it invokes in others the same thing it invokes in one."
Horns start bleeting their tune as a dramatic flare in the music builds.
A pair of dashing pirates sword fighting on an old ship on a stormy sea, comes to mind.
The music calms.
So do his thoughts of swashbuckling.
The show ends for the lady with the soothing voice.
The next show starts. The host with the nasal voice, is annoying, but the man pays no attention.
Nasal boy is explaining the evenings entertainment he is about to play for the riveted listeners.
Up next, an opera by none other than Ludwig Von Beethoven. His only opera apparently, by the nasally done bio of it.
It's entitled, "Fideleo" and it was recorded in 1962 in London.
The olfactory description of the entire first act is now spelled out by the radio host.
"Get with the effin thing already. I'm interested. I'm interested."
The opera begins as the man realizes that he's only hit the brakes twice in forty five minutes. The traffic has lightened on the highway.
Lightning strikes west of him.
He blows smoke in that direction to obscure it, just to see what it would do.
It does nothing but drift out the window.
Noticing that his cigar is now only about three quarters of an inch long, he puts it out in his makeshift ashtray made from an old mint can.
A lady sings with a high pitched voice as the opera plays in the background.
She's singing in German.
"I thought opera's were done in Italian?" he questions.
"Duh. Beethoven." He says to himself.
As the rain beats down above him, his thoughts drift from childhood, to adulthood, to his son and how much he misses him. He picks his cell phone up and texts "BEETLE BUG!" to his son.
They always played that when they were in the car together. They were together at that very moment. His son was with him in the car when that thought passed through the man's mind. He was sure that he himself would be with his son (in spirit) when he received the text. He knew his son would laugh when he got it.
Beethoven's opera kept up in the background all the way to his destination.
The thoughts of loved ones and friends, stayed with the man.
Blurring together.
Just like the water on the windshield.
He hoped they would never be wiped out of his mind.

endless sea of indignity...

endless sea
of indignity
caught in the waves
i almost caved
swayed by the verse
the sad, sad curse
played havoc with my heart
tears my soul apart
so i run from it
and alone i sit
away from the sounds
your voice resounds
inside my head
and i dread
that endless sea
of indignity
wounded my pride
so i tried
to inflame your ego
made jest your libido
all so sad
yet admittedly glad
that i found out
what you're all about
before i swam the endless sea
of your indignity

Daddy Long Legs...

a daddy long leg
casts the tiniest shadow
mirthlessly it crawls

Air

It’s all up to you, my friend.

In your eyes I see the weight of your world.

Large, caring, excited and yet, sometimes, dark.

Drastic it becomes until you can’t find the peace.

Pieces of the sky surround you.

The power you hold is immense, too immense for someone so young.

Swirling around your head, gentle halos of warmth,

Golden and red leaves sparkle within you and I see the light.

It’s possible to become what you are supposed to be.

Fear holds you back and you stop, suddenly.

Take a breath, become one with the air and realize -

It’s not something learned, it’s all inside.

In My World 10-02-07

In sync,
With Life’s vibration.
Being able,
To pay the bills.
When you’re,
Happy doing your job.
There is,
No arguments between your loved ones.
Your friends,
Don’t stab you in the back.
World War,
Doesn’t happen.
Soldiers,
Are actually ambassadors.
Everyone,
Is healthy around you.
Drama Queens,
Do not exist.
Your faith,
Is rock solid.
Your body,
Is just the way you like it.
The Mind,
Has the time to think.
The door,
Can remain unlocked.
Reconciling past,
With who you've become.
The singing,
Of nature can be heard.
That warm feeling,
Of being Loved.
These things,
In a sum,
In my world,
Are Peace.