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