The wind that shook the wine splattered porch

I will miss few things more than late nights of playing ping pong and putting together jigsaw puzzles in my basement apartment. The further time marches on, the more sentimental I feel about these things. It's hard for me to just be happy, and those times I didn't have to think about it at all, I just was happy. I had friends, neighbors, love, wine, and whatever I needed, whenever I needed it. I want those days again. I'm trying to build them, but right now it just isn't the same. Goodnight moon.

Lush

In another time I wasn't so cynical
I worked like a young mule in the modern world
that only made me an ass
I won't be humping the weight of a wasted generation anymore

Claire had style. She drove me wild. When she walked the breeze lost it's breath. I tossed a cigarette on the ground and tasted the coat of beer thick in my mouth. I looked at her there laughing, her hair glimmering in the night like a black pearl. I shuffled back inside half-drunk half in-love. The lights weren't turned out but it was getting dark in my mind. Glimpses of people passing muddled inside my head as I stared down to the bubbly bottom of my pint glass. People were playing pool, or raising glasses, or hands, or cheering. I guess that I cheered to. When people get drunk they want the world to know. It's their personal accomplishment and everyone should cheer a bit when they are drunk. It's like celebrating because we found a way to make fire. We found a loophole. Raised ourselves from the darkness and found a way to live outside of this trap that is our ego. We found a way to let go of all of those instincts, fears, sorrows, inevitable truths and replace them with feelings of happiness. I cheered. Here in this bar, these thirty people, we are one and the same, all in this together. We know where we are, why we are here, and goddammit we will have fun. I take a shot that I don't remember buying and squint around the room for her. My mouth is watering from the severity of the liquor. I spot her at the opposite end of the bar. I'm feeling imaginative, creative, one of a kind. I feel confident, happy, determined. I wipe my hands on my pants and gather myself together. I walk between micro groups of men and women loud and boisterous late into this revolutionary night. I shuffle and slide, perfectly in tune with the crowd, my people. I tip my non-existent hat at passers by as we squeeze through chasms created by the drunks walking and standing. I feel good, goddammit I must look good too. She looks bored stirring a straw in her glass, all dressed up and no fun to be had. Does she know what breaking through we are all doing together? Does she know this is an age of excitement and life stronger than any generation? I am going to tell her. She looks up at me like a lonely child. I feel like I could take care of her and hold her for just a minute, we could play and be happy, be these wild animals together. Her smile begins and she gives a slight nod of realization. I open my mouth "soo ja claire, zyu luks guud.." I catch the vomit at the back of my throat and run outside to spew it on the sidewalk and partially in the planter where a young tree lives it's life. I light a cigarette and walk home through the dark trees and melancholy streets. When I woke up the next day I was pissed because I had puke on my shoes.

yelling outside on a hot day

She is the child of 1970's love
In a rage of disco and hot summer nights
conceived at the pinnacle bounce of springs within a small mattress in some long forgotten room
she grew up surrounded by family
she grew to an adult falling in love too much
two kids and no love later
she is at my front window
arguing with a recovering crackhead at the rehabilitation center next door
whether the weather is fair or violent
they circle the small tables in the front shaded by large umbrellas
they smoke their cigarettes and talk in circles
tied together by the ropes of addiction
they circle the back in wheelchairs
smoking between dumpsters
and sometimes at my back gate
someone wants to sell me viagra but I decline
I don't need it yet
when it's quiet I listen
between sirens, fights, and hunger for junk
there isn't much left of any of them
there isn't much left of me
It might not just be a rehab either
some have just lost all they have
minds included
I open the gate and close it
open the doors and go in
but they remain, on the street, in the alley
at least they can share their pain

listening to the see

Liquid in the ear
smoke in the lung
dirt in the eye
the cold steel barrel
the unlit hills

dreams, dreaming, falling, swimming in them
hope to control them, to escape
old emotions swim to the surface
memories and names are now in the front of the back of the mind
unconscious subconscious deliberation
don't can't won't
one letter, one message, one call
could change a life forever
one scowling question can destroy
and in moments of pure loneliness
when the world has turned it's back completely
these are the things that awaken
and this is why they want to die
this is why it's so hard
to trudge through
when every choice seems like a mistake
and in the wake of action
the passion
the loss
the heart contorts, confronts the mind
blind from lust and passion, distraction
drink, smoke, be merry
choke, cough, failing
realization of decision
understanding mistakes
sometimes this takes years
sometimes it never happens in a life
it must be so easy being ignorant
never eating from the forbidden tree
never waking up from the American dream

Full stomach, dry eyes
Can't see no future
can't understand why
we all got problems
and it's all wrong
got to get it while ya got it
because you don't have long
I'm a hard skinned lover
I'm an easy mellow man
I'm sick of this impossible prison
it's more than I can stand
but you know I need you baby
oh, you know I did you wrong
but please, please, please
don't leave me so all ----- alone

The music stops
it all sounds good when you don't know what it means
it hurts more when you do

spitting

His body was there and he could feel the dust settling over every inch.
Praise be to Allah.
Praise be to Buddha.
Praise be to Christ.
Praise be to Zeus.
Praise be to Ra.
Praise be to the darkness.
Praise be to the disappearing electron.
Praise be to agriculture.
Praise be to the mothers.
Praise be to the earth.
Praise be to good intentions gone awry.
Praise be to CERN.
Praise be to Obama.
Praise be to I'm A Celebrity Get Me Outta Here.
Praise be to the homeless.
Praise be to the church.
Praise be to L. Ron Hubbard.
Praise be to the spirit of the dead.
The ego splits
Three bottles of cough syrup buys you a ticket
to a disassociated view of life
where everything happens at once
or not at all
forever
The table spins in your mind and mixes with tomorrow
add in alien math and calendars that don't make sense
take your plans hopes dreams and aspirations
put them on spin cycle
repeat
when you climb out of the muck
when the puzzle pieces fit again
you wonder why everything was such a fuss in the first place
you feel the music in your bones
grab a sketch pad
meaningless thoughts float from your open mind
onto the blank page
your cerebral stew is still simmering
your control is less intentional
reproduction doesn't matter anymore
your sight, your vision, is in tune with the gods
in tune with the world
in tune with your soul
the ego forms
here you are now
a needle in a stack of fine tuned hay
lost, lacking something
lacking a million other needles
so you can be lost in the stack

chew

He held on to the day like the wasting edge of a cliff. She flew into the night like rain drops. The same situation with it's up's and it's downs. His heart beat and hurt. Her heart traveled to destinations like the bee to the flower. His eyes swolen tucking in long forgotten shades like the mundane leaves on the ground. Her eyes lit like fire across the sky, burning brilliantly with untainted glory. His fingers slip more on the strained rock face. She tires of flying alone, and wonders how brilliant her eyes really are. He whispers for help and she smirks. He begs and she turns. She flies through the canyons, the mazes, the trees. He looks down into deep darkness, and up to the same. He prayed that there wasn't a god. She prayed that that god would forgive. They were alone, he dying, she trying to live. He digs his hands in with a last fluttering bit of strength and the rock cuts his fingers. Deep dark reds spiral down his fingers, and hands. He pulls himself up regardless of being drained and left for dead. She spirals in the air seeing him in the pale light. Her wings are spread white as the dove and leathery. He picks up a stone, should I throw it? She sees this and trembles in the air. He tosses the stone lightly in his hand mesmorized by her beautiful burning eyes. Anger and detest. He squeezes the rock. In his enclosed fist he could feel them starting to dig into the soft flesh of his hand. Opening it a thousand tiny scarabs crawl from the wounded palms and engulf the man. Slowly his body is deflating and being coverd by scarabs. She cries, the tear falls to the earth and showers silvery blue light on the earth in circular waves. It brushes over the scarabs and the turn over dead. The mans body is mangled and unrekognizable. She hovers over and studies the corpse. The remnants are sticky and starting to stink already. She opens his mouth and sticks her arm inside. She struggles and pulls out a bloody heart full of the black dead beetles. She ties it with his shoelace and puts it around her neck. That night she didn't sleep. That night he slept forever.

retrovertation

I'm a drop
I'm a sliver
a cold object in the blackness
I'm a bafoon
a complete negligent
i bury my sword in the ground
not to fight anymore
i sing to goed
or anything in the empty that will listen
i cry
i hang my head in resentment
the filament of the light that burns us
that dirty lighter, match, or oven top
range, grove, trees
i want to touch
i want to hold
i'm only held by memory
i'm only held by the thought
that somewhere in the world I may
have one person just like me
so much like me
they are perfect, amazing, loving
they let their souls come out, they fall
I'm falling but not in a good way
I'm staring into the dark, LED lit phase
I'm alone, in loneliness, in myself, in blissfulness, I'm the destroyer
I burn hearts and carry off feeling
I waste myself for nothing and more nothing, I don't get what I need
but I try sometimes to get what I want
I like the dirt, the earth, nothing
I like the whole, the holes, and something
to keep me, my mind, my sea, my belief
I like when you call me Matteo, matty, and Mr. Ping
I'm a hollow, ahole, gulley, buccaneer, full of shit
full of himself, connasuirre of the unclear
unloud, unallowed, forever in here
locked up caged up paged up
followed swollen fluttering in nothing,
and you're here for?
what, what am I, what are they
frayed existence
I am the solid the button the metal
I may be rusty but I am strong
and I hold on
with
every
bit
of
my
life

goodbye love
goodbye

world keeps slipping away

and the moon is hollow too
like the subway that directs me to you
like the parking space on the street that is dangerously close to the fire hydrant
hysterical being, constantly grieving
forgetting and dreaming
lazy in the sunburnt streaks of life everlasting
basking in some uncanny glow
the wildfire of nature burning too close to the tent
screams in the night, in the trees, dropping branches
holding onto talisman and prodigal paper
untamed I said wild and feral
seek as I may I long and search forth
put forth put on disguised
shadowed played by and actor
who isn't me and never could be
distasteful disgraceful remembered
for that or nothing that is close
to this to that and everything goes flat
entropy increases my my me me ceases
the bloody caesar, who holds the clean hand of Pilate
I dance to the sound of generations lapsing
to the green hard board and million transistors
the deafening light of a lcd screen
the blinding sound of your digital movement in C minor
or maybe A flat
give me a chance
a change a open range
a horse a gun and a saddle
built to do battle
no soft flesh on the killing fields
as you loose the dogs
the hawks circle and I feel fine
gone is the sun
gone is the heart
bold and hungry the lions of my spite leap forth
and push you to the ground with a forearm to the throat
cause and effection external. internal.
bingo, bust, everyone is a winner!
got to get mine, mind, nine out of ten dopamine receptors accepting
build up, higher, higher, heightened by the moment the second
the fall the feel, the air, how shallow, the gallow comes
rain down upon me zeus with your bolt
my loves, walk to me with heads down
I part away from them
distant, I want to hold on
I can not
this rope slips
and everything is forgot

red sense

As I roll pennies into 50 cent increments I think is this really what it's come to? After punishing my body and soul to get a little bit ahead in life and now I'm at this point? What a crude joke civilization is. I have all the words of greatness. I have hands to sculpt whatsoever my heart desires. I have enough change for a one way train pass downtown, then an 8 mile hike back through the city. Here I am in the heart of the land of opportunity, struck, more broke than Bukowski in his flop houses. At least he could buy a candy bar.

Somewhere in Afghanistan a warlord grows rich and fat. With a fleet of vehicles and America backing his bankroll. Everywhere in the world politicians are rubbing elbows and scratching backs. Corporations getting greedier as the noose of the economy wrangles around our necks. Across the ocean North Korea is standing with nuclear weapon threat. The disobedient fuckers. I might have sympathy for the cause if it were more noble than just proliferation. I would say a protest to the world bank, or something along those lines would be more of a reason. But no, they have the whole world worried about their crazy asses, over foolish pride.

I owe the government money for my military service. They reported me to the Treasury. I owe back taxes as well. Probably not even as much as a Haliburton employee makes in a week in Iraq, but it's crippling me. I owe a lawyer a thousand dollars for a divorce he didn't even finish. And I still had to pay her bills.

If I were a chimp I would fling my shit at the world. That is how I feel right now. Like I'm in this financial cage with cold steel bars, and the room only gets smaller and harder to move in. I feel like I'm choking and drowning in shit built up. I praise no men living.

I read something about trends in Japanese youth. How they are not caring about working, becoming different types of people who are virtually "useless" to society. They are just catching on to a growing part of American culture. We, the new generation, of consumerists. We the lost generation finding our reality in fake reality, building a wardrobe, a limitless expanse of electronics, and accessories, but not families, or homes, or a future. We are living to be older and even more useless than the previous generation that has flung us into financial turmoil, and unhappiness due to the pursuit of money, quickly, just like the world is moving quickly. We have no time to stop and say WTF is going on here. We can't, we have to update, and tweet and talk about everything, shorten it, and expand everything that doesn't really matter.

Across an ocean in a place you have never been there are people moving slow. Men in camoflauge, pacing in the dirt, and sand. Sleeping at night dreaming and hoping to be back into this American wasteland soon. They watch movies to get a glimpse of what the world is doing without them. They check thier mail which not a lot of people do with excitement. They are happy to wash their face and feet, or clothes. They like it when a day goes by without having their lives threatened. They work hard, work out hard, and train hard. I've been there, seen it, done it, hated it. I missed home like nothing I have ever missed in my life. Is it everything I dreamed? No. I felt more at home when the pressure was on, when I had my friends that relied on me, and I relied on them, and our backs were never left bare, and our stomachs always full. Life doesn't have that. I've lost all those friends to time and distance. My belly is empty and my back is exposed. Each step I take is another tiny little crack in my soul, and the soul pours out into this page, and this page is about the only thing I have left. These hands, this mind, and it's not worth a fucking red cent.

I live in the air

i know nothing of birds
types, colors, or habits
with life I feel the same
when I wake up
I'm never really awake
not like I was when I was young
when I knew the taste of morning dew
the cold air in the morning was a gust of life
as I thrust into an exciting world
my want wasn't the same
I got tangled up in myself

The velcro ripped apart
and I was a lone strand
stronger, better than before
I tangle into more twisted knots
I pull out from those
bent useless

the devil's in the details
and everything else
we build our cities
like ants in a hill
taking what the world gives us
and making it work for us
in ways nature never meant
breed and destroy
on and on
wash me away
like the grainy sleep buildup in your eye

brown veined and hungry

I don't have to sleep to have nightmares anymore. They creep in from the back of my mind. They explode with all the colors of a lavish cold funeral. They get to where I think to much about everything so they don't take me over. The little tendrils that have wrapped themselves around my neurons; strangling everything about me I used to love. Walk, go, what are they doing, what am I doing, where is this going, what is the point, when will I be happy, x, y, and z will make me happy but those things are unattainable.

I don't want to do this, or that. I don't want to care about anything. Not caring sounds easy and that is what we say about people that have it worse than us, we say " they don't give a shit about anything, look at them". Not caring is hard. You try so much to not let anything get to you and you lose something else, something more important. In not caring there is far more pain. You wake up one day and realize the rest of the world gives a shit, they let everything get to them. Now that you have become that distant person no one gives a shit about you anymore. I've went through my loose attachments with what seems to be normal life, pulled out the scissors, and cut those ties one at a time thinking I was the balloon end, alas, I was the ground. Those balloons carried my happiness, my future, love, honor, respect, friendship, loyalty, and joy. They floated into the sun and burnt up.

Now I walk through the crowds like the living dead. I hardly raise my voice above a hum. I don't shake a leaf from it's spot in the gutter. I make little more wave in the world than a sleeping spider. It doesn't feel good. Not much feels good.

I stand on the subway platform looking across at the people standing. I think for a moment of something I wrote and I smile. There is hope. I pull this memory out and I want to hold onto it forever. The beauty I have found in my own creative energy is more than any prescription of zoloft could ever give me. I will leave you on that note.

i've got eyes that see
they see the black and white
they see the lines that seperate you from eye and
everything around us
shades of grey that
destroy

my peace is your peace
and we sweep the floor
what blood
what torn flesh
disability inability
wastes me

Finger foods for better moods
eye candy that rots my teeth
so much in common
so much in need
the reflection in my eyes
this three d image
this salt this
cold this whole flesh
everything I bleed

your done done is done and fun is fun
mirror on the wall
makin' magic
rippin the fabric
holding back the static
i love you
washed away the melee
the frey
the words eye say
i pray
to an undoing god
the sod that I breathe
the web and the need the breed
come and get me
I'm ready to go
to show to flow
frow cup to gulley
to stream to lake
and all the hearth I break
unrelenting always resenting
repentiong
a god is a god is a god
and love is so hard I can't breathe
I weave I seethe
I reeeeeeeemake
take a bit
a shit a lit
a mit a kit
a virgin smitten with being bitten
the lonely lovesick kitten
the drivel the dazzle
the moping the babble
the late night games of trivial pursuit
making a puzzle work
doing the white
doing the power
playing with the white thing
back and forth forever
song play song play song play
net, serve, disaster
closing walls I'll deck the halls
I'll rub my balls
because I no longer care
I wish you away I say it's okay
I play and sway back and forth
the world at more
I morph and store my memory
melody
rhythm
system
semming
from nothing
depression can take so much out of you I have to warm myself up
bury me

for the cold hearts and iron stomachs

the ceiling goes up forever
the floor is always there
we can look up
but looking down is pointless
if i found you in the cracks
down in the grain of the wood
the blood of the earth
I would sigh and smile

If we chance meet
on a train to Howard
on the cool seats
in the early summer air
flashing light of the sun
behind you
as it dodges the buildings
of the city
I would have a full heart

If we left earth
not in a plane
or a spaceship
if we danced without bodies
in the bodies of the universe
I would weep
and the tears would water planets
life would spur from that
and the yellow gold of a million eyes
in the lights at night
would see us together

If all I had was nothing
and everything was gone
if the days lasted forever
if I could not go on
I would rejoice
in the fact that it would be over
no more would the morning dew
fall upon my lawn
engaging my spite
in my lonely early yawn

If the moon was my spotlight
in a world dimly lit
I would touch the rocks
to make sure that is what they were
because I would still believe
in the dark corners
and tricks of the eye
I would want to extinguish
disbelief

Now I have the wires
the filaments and fiber optic cables
I have the books the signals
the words and the thought
in that is loss
in that I lost myself to the beauty
the inner workings of my soul
have become but another diagram
another power point presentation
on the evolution of man