Something

Staying awake far too late
As stimulants parade me inside out,
I feel the empty stomach breeding
More discomfort,
I don't want to sleep,
It is an absence;
One more empty pillow beside me, cold.

A missing, too,
The arts are what I'm missing,
All of them so delicate,
So stuck to me,
And I to them,
We waltzed around the mind,
Just once or twice before.

Wood falls, snow falls,
Things like arrows, feelings,
Semblance pouring into me.
Overwhelmingly potent;
This is real, for you,
For me, time is a trick maker,
Sometimes at our expense.

I can carve something of wood,
That which falls is still of use.
I can cool your face,
Blow back the wind to summer,
Spend my arrows sleeping
Rather than reading everything I see,
But I don't sleep lest next to you.

After The Ice Storm A Day After Power Is Restored

What is it about this time of year that fills me so with heavy-hearted feelings? Is it the endless gray skies above me? Perhaps it is the weather in general. Broken trees and soggy ground to walk on feeling as if I'm slowly sinking inside myself as the winter turns fully into view. I do not know what it is about the cold gray atmosphere. Perhaps it locks us a little bit more inside ourselves. Perhaps it is the pangs of increased self-reflection; insecurities about the future and our lives not being exactly as we've wished them to be. I feel depressed sometimes, that much is a given. I think perhaps we all do. What would suffice to change it? I can't change my emotions as if changing a pair of shoes. But oh how I truly wish that sometimes I could.

Winter is coming along. The holidays are coming along. The end of another year is soon and every year thus passed can never be again. Sometimes that is nice and sometimes it is sad to see. I see my friends, present and past. I see them change and marry and move and bear children and cultivate their collective industries of practice and study and then I see me in the backround, lost, looking long into the future, with a grim expression of unsurity before my face. Every man and woman lives their own life and see's that it accomplishes the necessities they feel are required. I think what I am really dealing with here is youth. All the hard facts about what it is to be young and scared and constantly uncertain. And youth is present though it is fleeting and I am scared that I have not taken any necessary steps to prepare for its eventual leave.

Perhaps this too shall pass. A good day is in the future, I am certain. The things I dread are impermanent. The hardships I bear are not so hard, if only studied a bit. I am just a mammal, a human being feeling the limbic overload, and not being able to anylize it so well. Whatever the matter, I will disperse. My tone is not cheering, most of all not so to me. Things will be better. This I know through time. I do rely on that. I rely on the independent nature of Time's prevalent response to all this mess. The world is in shambles, just like me. Full of grace and understanding, prone to outbursts, mistakes and change. Lost and uncertain, self-destructive, productive, ironical, witty, arrogant, and free. Pregnant with hope, infected with pain. The world, as I, is a living thing.

Nay! Nay! Nay! (Overdramatic title's are so tre` chic, don't you think?)

"She's well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane..."

I tell you what, I never ventured myself a fan of The Beatles, but there it goes, grabbing me by the ears and dragging me down to 1967. Well happiness is a warm gun, eh? Fuck, that's great. I love it.

Aside...

Friday. Some Friday in September. I don't want to go out tonight. I am getting tired of the same old rap. A couple drinks, constant shouting, a bazillion cigarettes that will take their toll on me in the morning. Gah, just not that kind of night for me. I think I'll just go to sleep and wake up early and drink some fresh coffee, smoke a few cigarettes at ease, read a little science magazine I subscribe to, or maybe the Cosmos, or perhaps The Dangerous Book For Boys. That's a damn good book, right there. Something to keep around for little fellas to come. Ah, don't want to think about that kind of thing right now.

You know, I think I'm really missing those little bits that flash every now and then. You know the ones; the little flashes of momentary brilliance that light up your otherwise sleeping brain with a little shred of truth or something real. I feel that whatever mechanism I had to prolong, expose, freeze, photograph, anticipate, and so on those things has been shut down. Like this entry. I start it thinking, "Just maybe something will come out tonight...", but alas, it's nay. Nay! Nay! Nay!

There are the meaningful portrayals of the mess you are and there are the plain-jane messes. There are the abstract traces of the faces of you and there is just the one staring back in a foggy mirror or car door or what-have-you. Simply put they are one and the same and however you want to see yourself is by your fancies, facts or dreams.

My Right To Abandonment

You know, it wasn't so long ago that I used to frequent this place...

Every night, late and quiet, taken up by some strange thought, some deep connection, some simple, elegant, moving truth that so proposed to propel my fingers to dwell on it for a small space of time and leave it here for later days.

Well, those later days include today, when I only need to read a fraction to realize that I have exercised my right to abandonment. It has been a long, long time since anything of substance has crossed my mind. It only saddens me a little that the substantial part of what I am now writing deals with identifying my loss in the faith of my written word, and the passions that drove me to do it, and the eyes to see the passion, and so forth, and so on.

I went outside not long ago and felt the first chill of autumn's breath. I turned some thoughts around inside me. I am tired of my old ways. They are just that, "old". I want honesty in me again not fleeting but surviving. I am 23 years old. I've had just the smallest sliver of experience to make calculated guesses about the future, which in turn makes me sad. Sad only since I am afraid nothing great and unexpected will come again without my prompting it, negating the entire notion. I know that probably isn't so, but I guess that's just my thinking. I feel older too. I remember ripened youth as it flowed through me and it is fleeting since I've not preserved it in the slightest. No exercise, no proper diet. Smoking all the time, late nights, drinks, exhaustion. Insecurities, unexpected problems. The weight of responsibility constantly upon me, which really isn't much compared to parents, which bothers me all the more since its coming on eventually. Ah, I really am thinking in all the wrong ways. But, that's the point of all this, I guess. I want to get it all down so later days will come and I can say to myself, "Dammit boy, take a step back, learn from this, learn...". Maybe I will, who knows? I'm tired of second-guessing myself so much and ignoring my deep-rooted feelings as something not worth identifying. Write for thyself, live thus too.

More is to come, or so I hope. I don't like that I abandon you so, haven of heartfelt wonders and dreams. Straights of dreams await the eventual end of evening that tonight shall be, and so I ride lightly into it now with a face of an aging menace found remiss of some old ways that are worth keeping.

-The Author of This Blog

Just A Walk

Placing the straw stick in my mouth,
Bending my neck slightly down,
The sun pours over my form in droves-
These earthly things are pleasant ones.

I have to admit,
My walks would never be so fine
If they didn't contain just a little bit
Of everything. Of swallows in the hollows,
Of turtle shells shaken by the
Steps approaching.
The goose, the water lily,
The plain old limestone dust
On my soles,
The honey bee thrive
In a field full and fountained
By throes and rushes of thistle
And wildflower.

I realize some things when I walk my walk.
The both of us, like two little goldfish,
Chase each other in the muck,
Daring and comparing,
But the truth is, we're both stuck-
Stuck to be
The same color, the same ardor,
The similar nature, capable enough
To plainly, simply, easily
Love one another the way that
Two goldfish do who play in the waterfall.

I will take my strides,
Eyes wide, and realize that the fall,
The great leap into unknown drifts
Has got to be the very best thing.
I'm not going anywhere special,
Not driving towards anything specific;
I'm just going on another walk-
Just going on another turn of the pond,
Going to find that other goldfish,
That other lovely dusk of hues
A thousand fold in multiplicity;
I'm just takin' a walk your way.

Stride For Stride

Stride for stride, my bosom breached by a frozen spear of former summer grass,
And left unchecked are all my boyish manners, now found lost to me in morning mirrors.
Drizzled days, both flax and fluid, apart of the same good and bad that turn the check in countenance resume my parched and wilted valves and pipes in their inward and outward lulling hymns.
For a product of a heart that feeds on wayward longings; I draw on memory, when the sun birthed weeks on end of simple sunlight. While I slumbered softly stricken with thoughts and dreams so made of countless yesterdays and smiles, no longer fondly found beneath such pleasant prisms of glowing silence.

For what I see, of blues sky prisms and poetry- resounding woes out far beneath the dim-lit sky. The blood of fall in the form of leaves everywhere beneath my feet; moments made by the parch and pardon of lovers’ lips beneath star-lights; these are things for which I’m made to do and do without. O holy maiden of the morning, leave me warning of such tribulations I can no longer beguile of resolution’s pangs and longing aches.

Fresh Flowers (Versions 1 & 2)

Version #1

You are fresh
Like a summer field flower,
Lazy and sun soaked in the
Afternoon hour.
If you were a flower,
Would you find honor in the touch-
In the picking of you?
Or would you rather
Remain untouched,
Smiling wide through the day’s stride,
Until your winter wilt and fade?

Version #2

I think you are fresh like
A summer flower.
Lazing in the field, a sun-soaked
Spectacle jutting in the breeze,
Birthing by the honey bee’s brush
The multitude of your breed.
Sleeping nakedly in the sun,
And folding over with the evening’s turn.

As I sit here listening to Chopin I find myself lost in the hauntingly beautiful notes pressed ever-so delicately down like drops of rain. I find, that nearly nothing I have done these last few months has granted merit of significance to my existence. I am absent of a calling, and as the years keep falling I feel failing in the fleeting of time from my youth, where everything is deeper, truer, more vibrant and newer. I always envisioned myself dying young. Is that strange? I guess its very hard to fathom so many years ahead. It would seem much more fitting to die young, while the life was at its fullest; while one would be remembered lively and happy and busy and full of such stuff as all creators find continually jealous of and longed for and strived towards.

Don't misunderstand, I have no death wish, no want of breath ceased merely because I am young. To die young is doubley hard on those that continue to live. I have traced this by my eyes that have measured the end of a few friends, too soon taken so that it would seem even a crime to occur.

I'm misguided is all. I suppose I need only obtain a destination and I will make it. For even if I fail I succeed, as almost all endevours are never fruitless. Stick your neck out there and you've got the right idea. Still- its that choice that I dwell on. That one little destination I have not yet answered that I fear. It could nearly be any-which-way. I'm awfully scared of what I am capable of doing with myself. I have a certain moral flexibility that enables me to find myself in some seemingly quite uncomfortable situations which I would find quite the opposite. We'll not delve into that at the moment.

Maybe I just felt the need to write something. It's been a while since last time I put anything in this blog and it is losing a pulse more and more with my frequenting it less and less. Ah well, changes will come, and soon I'm sure. Until then, be good, little friends of mine.

To be quite honest I'm almost absolutely certain no one enters this domain any longer. That's alright by me.

Clair De Lune

When evening comes ‘round
I hear you beddy-bye making sounds in the bathroom.
Taking down your hair,
Glowing under low-lit bulbs over big mirrors
Looking into them and thinking thoughts full as the
Kitchen counter with coffee cups come morning.
Soon you’ll be in bed,
Softly pressed between soft sheets of white and I’ll be coming
To tuck us in.
It’s nice to have someone to walk along the raindrop days,
It’s good to feel that soft vibration like piano keys
Lay next to me to lull me to sleep.
What’s more, we’ve only just begun…
I know, I know,I’m coming to bed now.

Re A Lize A Shun.

Are you sifting off to sleep?
Are you soon to meet the dawn?
Traveller, traveller,
Treading on and on you go.
The world has been erased,
I am displaced.
I am me, a mortal plane
Of blood, bone and sinew,
Strained beneath the here and there,
Everywhere composed,
Unchanged,
Quite possibly deranged...

Soft, slow summer night lights
Lit the streets we walked upon,
We caroled on, we reveled for,
Raved on, spat and sat and saw
And saved for rainy days,
And sunny days,
And everydays,
And this is stupid.
This is beaten down verse of
Something I'm too lazy to entertain
You with properly,
Straightly,
Honestly and forwardly.
Merry-go-rounds of sputtered words,
Slip and slide alliteration,
Little words with little meaning,
Finally I figured out why I'm so sorry
At composing verse,
You just can't write the stuff
Until you've lived it first.

A Bit of This Or That.

I haven't been writing much these days because, well, there just hasn't been much to write about. My head feels dizzy from all the things I look for as inspiration, as muse, as truth to be written, as letters to be bullets, to encapsulate the brain in vivid reflections self-evident in timelessness and wonder. The only voice I ever found was the one barking twenty years prior into my ear, into the future, into my fingers, and finally here- but its bullshit; its old. There's no room for it these days when the whole world has seemed to have gotten itself in a big goddamn hurry. My thoughts are obsolete. Spoken flowerings of generations past where I was never witness to what was really going on. So, you see, I find myself at a loss. I can't quite fathom the future- at all. The future, to me, is dark and cloudy, murky and full of hopelessness. I know that sounds obliviously stupid but I am a bit of a black and white sort of fellow and it just doesn't help much with the general consensus being that of dangers, frustrations, inflations, degrations, fashion, sex, smothering, dieting, rioting, bigots reformed, opinions reformed, politically correct, progress in excess in meaninglessness. All the real future-tellers were ignored before and will ever be until what they have told has made itself apparent to us when it is far too late to rectify, changed, prevent, or produce. Don't go asking me to recite specifics for you, I'm of the belief that petty facts are what make the day go longer, leading further from the point. The idealists are in straights again only now its chic to be an idealist and cool to be a crybaby and hip to not have real opinions, personal opinions about things. Sure, we are all of us chock-full of opinions but tell me are they really so complete? Maybe I'm getting off here and maybe I don't know what the hell I'm saying and maybe, just maybe I'm not worth a shit as a writer because I reject my generation like a child rejects his bedtime and I shun these walking zombies who find solace in the easy way out and I scorn those that defy their own shadows and the shadows of their formers out of ignorance and pride and the likes. Christ, now I really don't know what I'm getting at. Perhaps it's just a rant. A silly little rant because its easy to be angry but its hard to clearly see and change, you know? The isolation's killing me and I think it's brought me full circle again and I don't quite know if that's a good thing or not, you see. So, at one o'clock in the morning, on my porch with a few cigarettes, a tape recorder, this computer, and some whisky, I sit, thinking, relating, rejecting, observing, reflecting, and inspecting the perfections and imperfections of my life in this Life.

These Are My Stripes

You're waiting for the real effects...
Like a trial prescription you try it out,
But sometimes the drug just doesn't take,
Won't commit,
Won't relieve,
Is hard to quit.
Half the time you worry and fret,
Suicide dreams of utter neglect.
And it spins and it spins,
Until the fondness that was
Stops,
Drops,
And bottoms out.
Then you're just filled with salty talk
For salty wounds that make it
Hard to walk. Dream on then,
See the "could have been"
Of it all, until a knife of rememberance
Stabs you in the wrist,
Leaving you limp,
Spilled on the tiles
Where you finally slip,
As the melancholy rises.
Guilt is inevitable.
No one can escape the sorrows
Of their soul's sufferings.
Offering a plate of repentance
Is not fulfilling enough for
Resplendance, radiance
Bound to faith unfounded,
Body and soul binding
To anything that eases,
Releasing,
Temporary,
Perfunctory.
There's a singer on a stage,
Breast akin to the expanse
Of universal boundry, sifting
General public opinion into the
Mire of her heart, all the while
Pursued by the grave, and
Death itself lay behind the curtain,
She is certain,
It is written,
All things expire,
The voice, the fire.
This is all just self-denial.
To commit, to leap
Into the heap of wanton feeling
Leaves me reeling
For the door to run away,
If I stay it only prolongs the ending,
Shall we be pretending
It to be any other way?
Maybe that's false.
There the ultimate feeling,
But it comes at a cost,
Or so I believe,
And often perceive.
I delegate emotions
Without much reprieve.
Foolish in numbers,
Subject to games
That I often detest,
Still I submit all the same.
Leaden, hardened bodies fall
Suddenly limp to the forfeit
Of time's collapsing product.
Harvesting the life we are given
Seems an awfully tough concept.
Driving and striving for
Something worth having
When the having is losing
All that was won before.
If I turn the face long enough
Perfection must arise,
But then you have the price again,
Seldom right, always grave,
Slaves to the end
For the comfort at stake;
It would do us one better
Never to be comfortable
In the first place.
We are all of us gamblers.
You come to me wagering,
And the odds are against you,
I am a rough hand,
I am a big game,
A big gamble,
Just remember whats at stake.
I'm not going to tread on water,
Not forever,
Somewhere soon I'll cut it out,
My bouts of resilience
Can only last so long, I'm sure.
Take me as I am,
A blade of grass is received
In no other way than this.
Though I'm maybe something more,
Maybe I'm not,
You never know.
Just let me grow in sunlight,
Soak some rain,
And whither in snow
To be birthed again as
The years roll on by.
I promise not to ask why
You are the way you are.
I'll ask you now,
Please do the same.

The Window Lies To Me With It's Green Sunlight...

Well, it is a strange thing indeed,
When Spring arrives and then
The cold comes back in little spells,
Blowing the heart back into winter.

In winter the heart, the mind
Are fraught with deep reflections.
Weighty plights are made of this...
It is just too much to compensate with words, I think.

Timidity stirs almost effortlessly-
It draws you into a kind of stage
Bereft of the audience's criticisms,
Everyone is playing to different tunes.

So, composition seems a trial.
What would I give in words
What I have not known all the while?
I take a step that needs a purpose,

But the affront is that I'm ridiculed
In pools and waves of self-reflective,
Ebbing, concave constructions.
It is for me absence or self-destruction.

In winter, I am merely jutting mortal planes
In far off dreamscapes without the change,
Without the hope, as busts of cold seem
To control the expiations of my soul.

To put it simply, maybe justly,
Winter is just so impossibly lofty
The way it holds you stock-still
With a feeling of it never ending.

Saturday Evening Post

Escapism is surreality at its finest.
Lips to lashes lash the eyelids
Left before her in the parting
For a drink from mouths that move
By muscles metered for the courtship,
They jerk swiftly in the muck of other
Voices spouting spasms of rhetoric.
Features dense like riparian buffers
Of untouched waters and you
Want to touch them for their worth.
Stalling however, stuck is the finger
To the counter top spill, wet wood grains
Meditate on what's in store, what will bloom
And how soon another evening fades
From youthful yard birds savagely chirping
At one another for a bit of wisdom.
Near her heated face the ice begins to penetrate
Between the lips full to the brim with
Scepticism for his forgotten name, not nearly
Remembered as he wish he were.
Wiser men have fooled themselves and
Foolish fools have risen knowledge from
The tampered ways of Spring's display.
Long drawn eye breaks take the kill
And make it ache with stings of hope,
She scribbled something with the pen
And now his hand is stained with a memory
Foreshadowing only bittersweet notions.

Yo.

I have not actually just plain posted on here for a while, so i think I am a bit overdue. It is a beautiful Sunday, the first of April, and I am hungover, tired, and ready to ride my two-wheeled beast into oblivion.

And it looks like you're not really getting an update after all. I AM going to ride my two-wheeled beast into oblivion, right now.

Goodbye, bitches.

Honey, Don't It Look Like Rain

To the solid earth my body's bade,
All in due time, not right now, I'm afraid.
I'm still all wrapped up in this
Commercialistic, greedy world.
It tastes of salt and then
It's under your skin shifting visions
Into confusion again and again.
Really it's a bit of dancing,
Staged by players wrapped in feathers
Of incredulity whilst the asshole
In the corner
Of the ballroom
Recites some modern prose he wrote,
Boasting about using the word "whilst."
It's a crying shame, really,
That six feet deep seems a very nice sleep,
Though I know better than to prompt the offer.
Until it comes, I keep waking up,
To Life as a constant, painful, monotonous joke
Reminding me of the reason for laughter.

Into the Black Hole, Out The Quasar

I am a traveler, and these are my travels.

I stick my eyes upward, and suddenly find
Black bands bending light while I
Drift into the spherical plane resist
Themselves and leave me smiling
Into the depth and rhythm of cosmic churnings.

I stop into the mire, I bounce inside the mixture;
Time stops, all is motionless in the
Magnanimous speed surrounding me.

Then, all at once,
Streaming into consciousness I find
Brilliant light before my eyes.
It twists and shapes and combines with the darkness,
Huddling like the hot air on black pavement into
A burst of birthing fractions made whole again.

I reach the outer edge,
I find the end point pregnant with clusters
Of numerous prisms expanding infinitely
Into the otherwise empty space of the cosmic fugue.

Legs (a small portion)

"Alright, let me get this in order. You have no personality, no manners, you don't talk about yourself, you're body's not all that fabulous, you can't dress, you don't have a nice car, didn't go to college, work at a supermarket, and you're not charming or mysterious. Seriously, Brush, what's to keep me from walking off right now and finding a man with at least one of these qualities? Really, what have you got going for you besides a solid impression of a brick in the dirt?' 'Well, Suzanna, I do have this one thing about me that seems to appeal to women. Don't get me wrong, I would love nothing more than to trade it for a personality, a good job, a degree, or something like charm, charisma, you know?' 'Well, what the hell is it, Brush? Jesus, I'm dying here!' 'Well, I would like to show you, but we're out in public, you know? I can't just go flashing it around in front of all these people...' 'Flashing what arou... oh Jesus! You're kidding!? Tell me you're kidding, right?' 'No, no I'm not, at all.' 'My God, Brush, just how big is it...?' 'How big is what?' 'You know, your thing...' 'What thing? I'm talking about my legs. I have fabulous legs.' 'Oh for Christ's sake!' 'No really! I do. I should have been a goddamn dancer with these gams! I mean, I'm not trying to brag, but for a man my legs really are top notch. Alot people tell me so. You simply must see them..." There was a long pause between Brush and Suzanne. Finally, after weighing the facts of the night, checking her watch, looking around for escapement and finding no avail, she shrugged her shoulders and looked at Brush. "Alright you son of a bitch, lets see those goddamn legs you keep raving about."

Your Thoughts?

The sickness of my soul is not dissipating with spring, with booze, with anything. It used to be, give me a good pen and some paper and I’ll fucking destroy worlds of thought with words. Now, it’s all electronic; its all without a pulse. Some kind of crutch I can’t do without. I guess that’s the way of things but while we’re on the subject I think it stinks and I wish I had never submitted to its ease and convenience. And yes, god dammit, I do feel like there is some kind of sickness in my soul. I feel uneasy, restless, exhausted, bored, excited and confused almost simultaneously- all the time. So I do things to keep me distracted, you know? Like these fucking movies. I watch a movie about a guy who is on his last leg, about to give up the world and commit the eternal deed of darkness, then he’s interrupted and some cute little blonde job with all the right answers comes sprinting into his life with surgical precision, cutting right to the cancer in his heart and removing it, and somehow everyone comes out O.K. and in love and all that crap. Well, I don’t really know why I watch the shit, I guess it’s been programmed into my brain or something. The worst of it is that I actually prefer the kind of movies that I feel most resemble my deep, wanted fantasies. I am a fiend for love, only I don’t know shit about the subject. All love isn’t the same- I don’t care who says it. There’s love for flowers and rivers and sailing and smoking and having a good wine in the porch in July and there’s love for a dog or a goldfish or a distant cousin and there’s love for your family, the close one’s I mean, like mom, dad, sis, bro, grams, gramps, aunt, uncle. It’s different for everybody, but the thing that sticks, that really cuts down deep is that other, bigger love, you know. That kind is the kind that makes all these other’s happen, in one way or another. Hell, you could say it’s the other way around if you wanted- that all these prompt the big Love I’m getting at. Any way you slice it it’s still that big, end all, be all, chips fall where they may, dare to live kind of love. That is the love which my soul thirsts for and is sick from being deprived. Honestly, anybody else writing shit like this would make me sick, make me annoyed to even read it because I would quickly scoff at the lines and say, “so and so is too goddamn young to even know what love is!” It’s bullshit, I tell you. We all know what love is. Sticky, stubborn, pissed, intoxicating, motivated, destructive, ambiguous, dangerous, deadly. It is the means to each and every one of our ends. Too much love, you go mad. Not enough, you kill yourself or someone else. Long life full of love, a whole damned series of generations riding your coattails. Short lived love, the tragic undertaking of painful memory and cheap articles and literature. Love is a motherfucker, I’ve decided. It’s so hard to figure out. I’m so pathetic, really. I can’t even say hello to a girl. I guess I’ve got it in my head that something will just happen, you know? BoOM! Love is here! Days of agony over! Bullshit. Some say you’ve got to work at it and some say its magic before your eyes. Whatever the hell it is it’s damned late or neglecting. I probably no good right now, anyways. If love came walking around some corner I wouldn’t even acknowledge it, most likely. I would keep walking along, my eyes planted to my feet and the pavement ahead, thinking about why it is I am such a sap and a weakling and an obsessed freak for this silly concept that seems anything but. Love would go on, unimpeded and I would light a smoke and try and think of something to do later on since I can’t just sit around loving somebody.

Red Comet Dust

You're constantly watching me.
Sometimes I like that-
Your eyes transgressing symptoms
Of my soul, like a doctor to a
Slow healing wound; very dangerous
And sensitive, and worth the look, perhaps.

So I will tell you about my day.
Today I woke too late and rushed to work,
Sleepy, starved, (in more ways than one)
And disengaged from life itself a little.
It began with the clouds, I think. Or,
Perhaps this new place I am going to call
A home, only it is empty and sad. I can't fill it
Enough to make it mine, but I stay here all the same.
When I peered up at the sky today,
The clouds, stuck upwards shutting out the light,
Gave me the faint impression of winter's slow fade.
I became sad and hungry for folds of life,
Life I had not yet known,
And to accelerate time to find them before me instantly.
Because of time, then, am I sad.
Time has stolen the past from my present-
Stops the future from my present-
Leaves me in this present
Where I look about searchingly.
What am I trying to find?

The day went on like that for some time.

I came back to my empty shell of a home,
Spent some more of time's useless currency
In distractions of the usual measure.
Music and glowing screens and
Something to fill my aching stomach.
The day was not all dismal, I promise.
Spoon River Anthology kept me company,
And I finished Sidharrtha this morning.
I was so happy that he and his friend
Were once again united
Before they too became the primal dust,
The solid earth, the leaves of grass.

But in this night, you know, I am always tempted
Towards those terrible thoughts that hurt me.
I jealously find everywhere togetherness,
And I, with nothingness. I have my heart,
Beating out of habit. I have my blood,
Barely warm enough to remind me I'm cold.
I have my eyes, brazen yet mockingly
They reflect my cold face.
Tonight they wept a little.
It was at the expense of fiction, rest assured.
And as the tears dried from my face
They began to fall from the sky,
Solidifying the anguish in my heart.

Why do you watch me so?
Why, why do you care what becomes of me?
I no longer plead, I no longer despair-
I am complacent with this existence for now.
Though it seems I am not so well
It is only sometimes I feel this way.
When I want capricious loyalties
To bar, and friends, and youth, and night,
I only find the night.
In that absence my mind finds a blank screen,
Filled full and fuller still than it can hold of me,
But never a word uttered to anyone but myself.
I am a bit selfish.
I am hiding,
In waiting,
Yearning and needing,
Wishing to breathe
And be happy.

This is just another glint of red comet dust
In an otherwise black and listless night.

So I Let The Motherfucker Sing, You Know?

A year in the maker's and my eye,
While you and I were still two foxtails on the hill
The world was passing by in effigy.
The same eternal year,
When the lone hill reflected my thoughts,
In cris[, hopeful fractions
With every turn of every season.
I'm standing here now,
Lost for the foxtail
I still wish I was dragging around,
But the world is in turn,
Beneath, above, and among our heavy hearts.
I do indentify with the butterfly
Perched on the open petal of
The returning flower, when next year returns it.
A day without sunshine is night.
A night without sleeping is futile.
But every moment I want to sleep
I'm forced awake by that demon in me,
The one that whispers, "let it sing, let it sing."

Letter To The Future

Dear Future,

It is often hard to see what it is you hold in store for me when I find myself resolute to seek you out more clearly. Oftentimes I devise grandiose dreams of achievement in the various forms of interest I encompass at the particular times in my life. But, as it is almost always the end result, I find myself more and more confused with the coming days and more I learn. Many different great and achieved men of the past have come up with their particular solutions for your purpose. It was just yesterday I read how Mr. Ralf Waldo Emerson stated in Self-Reliance that all things of the past are irrelevant and that to trust yourself and yourself alone is the only way to go about living. Of course, due to the fact that I cannot correctly dictate his words verbatim you receive a vague statement of his ideas from me. Blaise Pascal, another former interest of mine, states that man is nothing without his humble sumbission to God and Christianity. Pascal says, "We almost never think of the present, and if we do it is simply to shed some light on the future. The present is never our end. Past and present are our means, only the future is our end. And so we never actually live, though we hope to, and in constantly striving for happiness it is inevitable that we will never achieve it." He is a great man, but at the end of the day he and I differ in our beliefs. Mr. Emerson too, I hold in great respect for his insight. He does put an awful lot of stock into the youth of every generation. Many others tell me things, also. Kafka, for instance; that great and wonderous German vagabond of the conscientious thought says to me, "We too must suffer all the suffering around us. What each of us posesses is not a body but a process of growth, and it conducts us through every pain, in this form or in that. Just as the child unfolds through all the stages of life to old age and death (and every stage seems unattainable to the previous one, whether on fear or longing) so we unfold (not less deeply bound to humanity than to ourselves) through all the sufferings of this world. In this process there is no place for justice, but no place either for dread of suffering or for the interpretation of suffering as a merit."

I understand these things well, dear Future, but all the same they seem to confuse my sense of reality all the more. These are men who have lived very trialsome, arduous lives and documented their experiences along the way. Blaise Pascal felt so necessarily bound by his questions that he spent his life in seclusion rendering his visions, and dying too soon the summarize them into a concise manner, leaving us Pensees. I don't wish to be that way.

I think that my greatest problem is that I am far too anylitical of myself moment to moment. I feel that it is using up so much of my creative, spiritual, and intellectual energy that I am drained of any progress in other engagements I find myself a part of. Perhaps the greatest promise of the future is that it holds absolutely no promise, not even for life itself. My will is my destiny. I believe that among other things.

I used to believe I was such a scattered individual. I thought that I could never pick one thing and stick to it with all my might. I know better now. I know that I need not pick any one thing, but all things, if I wish. There is much that I love of this existence, this nature, this humanity, this little spec of stardust in the universe. An upright idividual would simply choose all, and expiate all with the light and truth and love of one's own passionate virtue.

O Future! What more can I ask of you but to contain me? Nothing, I think. If love there, I shall arrive. If great success in work and life be there, I shall not notice. I shall simply acknowledge my existence and ambition for that which I am aroused by, and propell myself onward in the directions of those things until I have reached that absolute furthest points of both satisfaction and possibility. I am C. A. Dominick. Poet, Musician, Painter, Wanderer, Dreamer, Astronomer, Philosopher, Lover, Fighter, Soldier, Teacher, and child of Nature. I am many more. I can build if I so wish and I can destruct whatever house of brick or establishement of thought I so wish. I will tear down all ways of conventional thinking if the task is asked of me from my own trusted will and conscience.

To you, Future, I send my regards. As the custom goes, I will forever be headed your way, never quite reaching you until at last I perish. What I leave behind is for someone else to understand. I forever ride your coattails in the wings of Destiny and find my feet trodding the soil of all my loved pursuances.

Sincerely and humbly yours,

Charles Anthony Dominick

Good morning.

The taste of day
Is that small space of time
Between my wake and leave for work.
That five minutes
Where I sit down
With my breakfast in the morning.
To turn out the loud tv
And hear some of my quiet morning thoughts.
The taste of day is only a taste.
When sunlight
Pours through the windows.
Because
The day is gone
When work has come.
And quickly am I off;
To busy to think
Of anymore tastes
Of this day.

The Weekend

I should have known how it would go from the beginning. I have this gut feeling, you know? I just I knew it would turn out a bit sour.

Well, I don't have much time so here's the short version:

It began with a post on that goddamn myspace; you know the one. Anyways, a band from Minneapolis posted about needing a drummer. I happened to like this particular band very much, so I sent them a reply saying I'd be interested in the gig. I guess I got this crazy idea cooked up in my head that I could move back to Minnesota and play in this band and it would be a good time. Well, lest to say, the wrote back. They invited me up, in a manner of saying, and what else could I do but accept? So I did, only the thing is, I only told a select few people about it. I didn't want the whole goddamn state knowing I was coming up to try out for this gig in some ghost of a chance I might get it and once again become a citizen of the northern state. Well, things went to shambles from the beginning, but in such an array of different variables.
1.) On the car ride up the first day I have a very long, very gut-wrenching conversation with a former Someone whom things never seemed to go quite right with in one way or other. (I realize that that sentence was riddled with ambiguity but I need to respect the other person's privacy, though I do feel it is a relevant occurance on this recent adventure.)
2.) First session with the band: knowing only two songs from their page I played them both accompanied by a bass and two vocalists. No guitars, no sax; but at least there were hi-hats (I'll explain this later.) The whole thing lasted about fifteen minutes after I had spent nearly forty-five trying to find the goddamn practice space in the middle of the city.
3.) The hidden message: The whole time I am up here it is seemingly for a visit, but as I stated before I wanted to keep my alternative agenda hidden for the time being, both for fear of it blowing up in my face and so a certain person need not know about it until the time were appropriate. My former bandmate of the old band has been wanting me to move back up since I left and start another thing with him. I just can't do it. Not for that. Not that alone. I don't care about being signed or any of that other bullshit. If it happens, cool, if not, who cares? I just want to play some damn fine music, you know? My friend has opposing opinions. Actually, I won't elaborate any further, this is a tale for another time. It goes way, way back.
4.) Ten inches of snow everywhere. Need I say more? It was 68 degrees when I left Joplin.
...ten.
5.)Session two with the band: This time, bass, guitar, and two singers; almost everybody. But... just as we were about to start the old drummer came in and confiscated his hi-hats. Apparently they weren't his and he needed to return them. Talk about fucking timing. Anyways, the vocalists left the guitar and bass and I played what we could with what we could. Doo wop is impossible without hi-hats. I know this now.
6.) The old bandmate finds out about the whole deal. Yup, now the cat's out of the bag and he probably thinks I am a backstabbing sonofabitch. Well, so be it, I guess. Sometimes you have to go for your own, you know?

There were some damn good things about the trip though too. My dear friend Nick and I had drinks and talk about time, space, and the philosophy of transportation, as well as the lady bartender at Book'Emsm ay yi yi. I played with the little man Carter, who is wild and I feel will take to drumming quite well when he's old enough. The kid hits everything, its awsome. He's a little over a year old, by the way, and my friends son. I finally got to hang out with my cuz. You know, I live up there for a whole fuckin year and see him once but I come up for a weekend and stay at his house twice and find out he can play the goddamn piano like a madman as well as the guitar. Damn those really talented types. They make me feel like an insufficient fool. I didn't get to see everyone, but most of the ones that I really wanted to see. I literally slept in a different city every night. Now I am tired and I have to shower then sleep to wake up to hard, laborous tasks bright and early tomorrow.

I am sorry this could not be more elaborate and detailed. I have a problem with stories, as you might be able to see.

-Charlie

To Find Words, Is To Find You, Is To Find Myself.

In my attempt
To conjure some words here and now,
It feels as if some beast,
Drinking by the riverside
Dismisses my grasp and want
Of submission.

I let leave the beast,
Let leave those words I need,
And walk onward towards
The never-ending horizon before me.
Distances covered,
Sunset settled to sleep
Beneath the soft clatter of my feet.
Stars break above me in the blackness,
And for a moment I feel them pressing down
As if in one swift strike
They should burn away my being.
But I further on,
In the primal dust of shear nothingness.
Forever searching for the words
I once remembered falling all over me
Like sprinklets, specs, and pieces
Of grass and water and sunshine.

Discovering a man upon himself,
That is to say, upon the bit of land he long stands upon,
Finding nothing before, beyond, or behind him,
Is to discover innocence evaporated.

From this land I now acquire,
Bereft of simple pleasure's aspire
I find no way to mimic lines
Without my doing them in the living day.
If we are those that spend
The currency of life in such a way
As to redeem a story or a thing to say
Then let us burn on with this fire
Or leave it alone for another's desire.

What Does?

While the rest of the world was sleeping I was awake, riding the rings of Saturn at 45,ooo miles per hour, but the cold winter wind blew hard against my cheek and I was roused from even that delightful flight. So I got around... chugged some coffee, chewed some mints, breathed a cigarette and walk about the place in all its dull and lifeless presence. Spent the whole day doing so, too. Spent it riding on blue carts instead of white particles of ice chips, snowballs, and bonsai glaciers. Then the day was done, my freedom won, and the car started, puttering me away into the three-o-clock streets again.

Everyone is moving always. Everyone is staying always, too. Thirsting for a drop of knowledge, we all are, and ever thirsting for whats next, whats new, whats just around the bend. What is just around the bend, anyhow?

I think it began somewhere back in 1999 when I was young and things were easy and music was the new territory to explore and employ myself about. Take me back to that day and take away my sticks and see what I should have been composed of by now, I wonder. Is that a regret? I think not. I think it's a curiosity of sorts. I don't mind that I picked up the sticks and made nine years of it. But what if I hadn't? Ah ha! It's a "what if," that's what it is. Well then... What if I had been born in the time of Alexandria? Would I sit with Archemedes and study the stars? Would I fight in the great army of Alexander's and conquer new and different places? I can tell you this much: were I born back then I would have been nothing special, nothing noted, nothing of importance of my time. Just another backdrop. Just another extra in the hindsight of time.

It's not that I want to depreciate my value. It's simply that I know I would not have stood out. Very few really did. Those were the days of Gods; gods for everything. The few that stood out were those that dismissed the notion that the sun is a god, that the earth is the center, that the stars are holes in the great black blanket of night.

It is too hard for me to judge my worth in this time. I am too young to know what I will amount to. Most of us figure that if it hasn't happened by now it won't, but its simply not true. There is always time. Just a little is all that's needed. A few moments to change to course of history.

And then there is me, sitting here in my empty house, thinking about a hundred things at once with no connection or purpose. Furthermore writing them for the empty massed like you to read.

You few little spies, you few little curious cats. What do you do tonight? Take a peak at my words and say, "that boy is simply absurd." Well, fine then, cheeky monkies. It never makes sense, I never make sense. What does?

Snow Falls

Snow falls
And the children run to meet you
Where the street bends,
The hill binds,
And the houses shovel their drives.

Maybe in a year or two
I'll know better than now what to do.

The beat still goes on
And the mail still finds the box.
The cat still curiously sways
And the foxhole still holds the fox.

Up until now I have looked at my life whole
Finding myself in an awkward anticipation
As to what I should or should not be doing
In my actions and destinations;
However I have come to know this road
So paved in struggle and strife and now
I see that it is only a simple question
Of whether or not I choose to face my own life.

Snow falls,
The winter chills,
It locks me in my own mind.
It binds, it breaks,
It blows with the wind
That blows us through our time.
In the winter months we are stuck in doors
To reflect ourselves all the more.
As the snow keeps falling
The future is calling
And the wind moves me more and more,
And more and more.

Some Photographs

Photographs...

Are Good Times....

Unfortunately I haven't had time to take pictures in a long time.

It's Just Me Again, Tellin' Myself Away.

I turn that glow down in the back of the room,
For effect;
Maybe just to reflect on some stuff, you know.

Do you feel that cold night air creepin' through
The tall buildings,
The river banks,
The alleyways and high up windows?
That wind is a lonely wind,
Like us all,
A little bit.
Take a lover, why don't you.
It's winter now, and anyway there ain't much else to do...
I wish I could take a lover;
I just spend my nights in taps and raps
Against the surface of this here old desk,
Thinking of needing for wanting's releasing of me.
I shut out the lights but they come back on,
This time inside me.
They don't let me get a wink, these days.
Most men feel guilty as they age.
Guilty for the things they did,
They do,
They never did
And wanted to.
Stuck in bed and sick with sorrow,
Seeing the sparrows fly tomorrow,
Feeling jealous, trapped,
Just tapping, just rapping on the table again,
Or the starving dreams inside my head,
Inside our heads is the saddest thing
In this big bright world.
One day we're all gonna fly away like sparrows;
Shed that ground and shake that sorrow.
Until then, Miles Davis, help me out;
Give me a reason to go and walk outside
And watch the cars go by without feeling empty.

The Mother of Invention

In the midst of my contemplations,
Musing here in front of the screen,
Hazelnut-flavored pipe tobacco calls out to me
And shouts, "Give us a try! Give us a try!"

"But why?" I softly say,
Leaning forward to reply.
"It is your duty, we're cheering you on,"
They say to me, so I decide to abide.

In the midst of my pipe smoking pleasure,
Musing there on the porch outside,
The shining moon smiles down upon my face
And says to me, "from my light there is nowhere to hide."

"You may be on to something, clever moon,"
I say back as the tides churn elsewhere
From his great gravitational swoon
That climbs through the gaseous earth's atmosphere.

Just then I awoke, my forehead stuck
To the little black keyboard keys.
Just my luck to be falling asleep
At the mercy of The Mother's means;

Oftener than not I stare too long
At the soft, white, glowing screen.
Next time around it's caffeine for prevention
From the slack and slumber
Towards The Mother Of Invention.

While You Were Sleeping

Do you want to know what my very favorite sound is? It's the sound of a good, worn in coffee maker as it starts out in the morning while outside it's still dark and only a faint bit of light lets through the otherwise black horizon.

I love that sound.

Today I awoke as usual, around 6:20am, refreshed and rested from decent sleep for once in my life, got some granola and juice, took the vitamin, threw on the clothes, and headed for work. When I got there, I saw one of my co-workers pulling in. "Ah, shit. I forgot didn't I?" I say to him, as he laughs and says, "I thought you wanted to sleep in?" I switched with him. I forgot that I wasn't supposed to come in until 10am. Son. Of. A. Bitch. Because now that I think about it, sleeping in would have been real nice. A little more dreaming. A little more time between the covers, soft and full of a warmth that seems to come only from a whole night's worth of drapery over warm bodies. So I returned home, where I am now, listening to the coffee brew and soft music slowly wake me up while I decide what it is I should be doing with my newfound free morning this Monday.

Old Flames Never Pay Because We Never Write The Check

This one goes out to all the would-be's,
Hopefuls, longed and lost.
I could have had you, you know,
But I let it go.
One word,
One series of perfect prose
Is how it goes,
And we both know it shouldn't be so.
You need to be needed,
You want to be wanted.
But I let you down easy,
So much so
That you did not know.
One series of prose
To cut through the cold steel walls
Of your twisted, harsh hearts
Would be just enough;
Still if its not real
I'd rather fold than bluff.
I don't gamble with strangers
And you should know better,
But alas it had ended
And the air is now deader
Since I have been gone.
Infact you did know better;
You knew me all along,
And my same old song
That just spins and repeats
While I want what is wrong.
But beauty never strays,
It sticks and tricks, and man it stays,
And to this day I look upon you,
To wonder why I drifted away.
But then I know,
Oh how I know,
And it is so
Just like the snow.
Falling down,
Catching up to us in strides.
For those longed and lost
A half-hearted love that never dies,
Stuck in my mouth
While the truth's in my eyes.

From Summertime Of Someone Fine and Fair

somethings for someone

Dark is the path,
But I see the lights
In the whites of your eyes.
Our steps echo into
The misshaped tangles
Of the nighttime.
The cool summer air,
Lightly touches my fingers,
Or was it your hand I felt?
Winding round the bend
I see nothing save patches
Of moonlight and fireflies
They slip and dive
And disappear before my eyes
But we press on through the darkness.
We came upon a few strange clearings,
Then I saw the child in you
Run away into them, disappearing
I looked up once you leapt,
And found a star peering through to me
Then I looked down and you were there
Beside me walking patiently.
We talked of many things,
And many things are worth the talk
Still I remain upon this walk
And recollect your casual ways
As if with you the tree softly sways
And not the other way around.

I,

Think I,

Think you,

Should jump...


Maybe its

Not right right now,

Maybe you

Are scared and sad,

Maybe I

Am full of shit;

Optimism

Is the thing

The thing so good

When mixed with love

Or some good stuff

That tastes so good,

Like that.

Hey,

I don't know if

I am ready,

But I like the jump,

I need the jump,

I crave it like a craze

I just can't shake sometimes.

I'm going to dry you off,

Set the car for cruise control

And beam us straight into the sun;

Where we'll be happy

Away from everything,

And everyone.

Take a good look...

Go ahead and try me.

Letter To A Friend

The Daily Routine:
I wake up sore,(like in a 1950's movie, referring to being angry) and saturated with new and different levels of exhaustion due to the fact that I can never go to sleep at the proper hour, because I'm usually doing something mediocre with someone mediocre, sitting around talking about how everything is seemingly mediocre in this mediocre town. I know, I know, doesn't that all sound so cynical? Well, it's just about the only way I get to telling a story. Anyways, after the wake-up routine I get to my mediocre job and resume my quiet life of desperation. The day drags on for eight hours, containing nothing spectacular, just a few cigarettes here or there, some carts of course, moving out, then in, then out, casual glances to and from attractive women, but it's obvious enough in their eyes when they look back; "he's cute, but he pushes carts, that's too bad." It's like a slap in the face; maybe one of them will wake me up from my silly existence in this corporate copulation of low prices and bulk buying. At any rate, the day finally ends, I go home, and drink a pot of coffee while listening to Sly and the Family Stone, half-wishing I had a joint or something to kill the day properly. That's the daily routine, to sum it up.

And Then Some...
You know what I really want? I want, when I die, to be given a book. Not just any book, mind you; a giant book containing every thought I ever thought, every word I ever uttered, alone or with others, every facial expression, fuck-up, embarassment, and so forth. I just want to re-read my life and figure some things out. That would be, as they say, "a trip." Nevertheless, it is January 17th of 2007 and I am exactly where I am: 22 and still perplexed, restless, helpless, pissed, determined, angry, longing, ready, and a little hopeful, with just a smudge of wisdom through the little bit of past experience underneath my belt. I keep telling myself, "hey, you're young, you've got virtually no attachments, why don't you just do what you want?" And I will... eventually. It's that whole taking a chance bit, I guess. Now that I've tried it once it seems silly to do again when I know if it fails I will be set back a year or two more than I already am. Feeling how I do personally, that little year or two in my life is something I would rather not lose, even if it was a great time. Of course, when you dare to live there are no right or wrongs obvious enough to see, only the comet-tail of a chance to catch something that catches your eye in the passing.

All the same, it's mostly just winter. Winter makes everything louder inside. The snow deadens the echoes and muffles the backround so you mostly just hear your own thoughts bouncing off the walls around you. Then there are the holidays, of course. Only for children are they truly enjoyed and simplified; I come to dread them these days. You forget about the passing year until it passes and then you see how you passed with it by thinking of the last time you noticed these things and then you wonder why you feel a failure. I could say I've failed many a thing in my life but the truth is that is almost just what I enjoy the most about it. You can't fail if you don't try, and I've tried enough things to feel the real pangs of failure, which consequently diminish with every new encounter.

B--- say's I'm very hot/cold. This is one of the few things she and I agree on. The rest of the time we argue about religious theorums and philosophical questions regarding the existence of God. Then there is the usual bickering about nothings that only seem to occur between a boy and a girl. Then I wonder if I really screwed up alot of things with the few good women in my life, and also what will happen with the next one, and why there hasn't been one in a very long time. I generally believe its me. Instead of killing my relationships, I kill the chance. I don't much doubt this conclusion, only I often wonder why it is so. I expect that somewhere in me something is saying how I am too reckless and unstable to bother about a lady and I need not waste someone's time anyhow. The thing about life is that it is nothing like the movies. I know that that doesn't really sound like something a rational person would come to conclusively but as for me I used to think and hope it was- at least a little bit. But there never is that part where you meet the girl under perfect terms, or you go on that wild adventure where nothing leaves you scarred and it all ends up ok. And the work of living is sometimes awfully tiresome, lonely, and seemingly pointless.

I guess I'm just writing to share with you the general things on my mind and how it is for me these days. The fact that we're not around each other anymore leaves me to wonder how a fellow writer is doing. All things are made clear in the end but the end never gets here, and that is supposed to be the good part about life. It is, I think, but never quite understood in the direct sense of perspective. The best thing we can do is make a plan and stick to it, come hell or high water. Well, the motherfucking water is frozen on the streets tonight and I keep moving but I'm slipping enough so that I feel as if going further is going in vain.

Do tell me how things are for you since last we spoke. Tell me what you're writing, whats been going on locally, aspirations, disciplines, confusions, directions, happiness and sadness. Anything at all, from one dear friend to another. It is in the earliest morning hours when we lift our heads, expecting to see a vision of clarity, however only finding the faint glow of the lights from outside the window, and the birth of a new day full of the same old offerings.

PS
Disregard the overall depressive tone of which this is written; I am not truly depressed, only that is how I write. I know you probably know this but all the same I'm not about to jump off the bridge; merely throw a few rocks in my frustration.

-Charlie

Bedtime Stories: A Brief Introduction

*Tiny living soldiers stand guard every single night when the lamp goes out and the wishy-washy moonbeam glides through the window pane. Mother and father and baby abed, to rest their heads and wait for dreams to smother, as the bother of busy banter collides in quiet canter around the toilet’s edge. Deep in the heart of the green shag carpet our heroes huddle ‘round the bubble-gum puddle and strategize the plight for the night. Snipers in the air vents, seals in the drain. Repellers on the windowsill and spotters on the clothing hill.

“Double time boys!,”

The sergent informs as the swarms of green soldiers make way to their posts.



Tonight we’ve a special subject to invite you to reflect,

SO PLEASE COME ALONG AND FOLLOW

AS WE'RE CAREFUL TO SELECT:

A HOMEBORN HERO

From the cupboard where the rest of the brave are gathered

And introduce for you a night in the life of the little soldier’s strife.

OUR SCENE IS SET IN THE BATHROOM'S BOWELS,
In the heart of night at a very late hour,


And our brave little lad is feeling sad…

Sgt. McNarles, first name Charles, stands guard at the medicine cabinet and things are getting desperate. "It's just the right night for a midnight fight over pharmaceutical delights," he spouts as the soldiers shout out the roll call in the mess hall behind the bathroom stall. Tiny soldiers, all conformed to the everydays and nights of the big, savvy people and their enormous fight against nose hair and gingivitis, make of themselves simple, sorted systems of symbiotic strife. The cat is fond of them; they lose a lad nearly every month, but the cat is glad, with a belly full of miniaturized green beret. So the motto goes, "wherever there's a soldier, the cat knows, so be on your toes." Charles McNarles, guardian of endless bottles of cure-all concoctions, is found remiss and a little on edge tonight. "I've got to get going, I've got to stay ready," he repeats to himself, over and over so steady, as the sink water drips and the shower curtain wades through the undertow of the air ventillation coming from below. A creep in the hall with a creak in the step of an animal small, but free and unkempt, and McNarles is distraught as he calls from his post for a spotter’s repose. “All’s clear to the right!” Geffer shouts from the couch, “Left looks ok to me,” Harper shouts from the bonzai tree, and so Charles shakes the quakes of his fear. “If I could only disappear…” he says, rubbing his chin while he sits back on top of the acetaminophin. The nights are long here on cabinet hill, and the bathroom air makes for an eerie chill, so the boys keep warm with the drip of the faucet and the tick of the clock gets awfully quixotic. Many nights as these pass with hardly a scare, but times will and do come when pet dander’s in the air and the men lie alert as the cat comes alert and they ride on the looseness of doom, claw or broom. McNarles stands guard, he is one of the few and proud, breathing quietly, but shouting loud inside for liberation’s glorious stride. Yes, tonight was all clear, the cat away to the vet, but we’ll not forget about the other creatures stirring for the features of the household’s inner workings, where they’re stirring, dancing upon death’s display. Still, this was long, and long ago. The soldiers life is another story for another time.

"What the hell am I talking about?" -The Author, "Brilliantly written; it is warm and inviting like grandmother's cookies." -The New York Post, "This is one of the greatest tales of the year.”-The Times, "A masterpiece among masterpieces." -Chicago Sun Times, "Who ate the last piece of chicken?" -Roger Ebert, "No, you idiot! You weren't suppose to write that down!" -Roger Ebert, "Oh fuck this shit, you're all nuts." -Roger Ebert, "I think it's nice. Go and get me a Sunday paper now."-Mom.

Hello To No One

No one comes here anymore. I am again alone in the confines of my stately role as a singular creature. I am often sad, but who is not? I am often bewildered by the days about me, but each one of us has known that fate time and again. To be myself completely is a hard-earned accomplishment bereft of ease understanding. I am here amidst my familiar surroundings but my mind and my heart are elsewhere always, never leaving notice of their departure, and never bringing comfort upon their return. All this, and now and then a little gray skies and shivers, and you find me simply being as I am.

I don't want another winter ever. I want the sunshine forever on my shoulders and the warm air filling my lungs full and fuller still with confidence in the day and night. And the night, to be out of doors among the stars bright above, that is what I long for. Then again, in the coldest of cold when the atmosphere is incredibly thin there is no better way to stare at the stars, but in that cold my eyes give way and tear up and weaken beneath such heavenly lights and I am forced to blink and lose the perpetual bliss of a long gaze above. I don't want to blink anymore. Who would? When life is so fleeting and we are so busy all the time, who would want to miss a single moment in the time given? A man's full life is merely a yawn from the mouth of the cosmos.

And then maybe I am sad simply because it is winter and no amount of good friends, drink, warmth, or love could cure this ailment. Only at night is there some small comforts, simply because social events are prompted easily while we all sit around a table with warm coffee and cigarettes and talk of each others' miseries. You think after twenty-two years I'd get used to the spin, but I guess not. Now I'm stealing others' words so I must depart. Adieu.

A Room With A View

I send out the S.O.S. tonight,
To find the loved ones gone away.
In doing so
I find a little room inside my chest;
Its been black and cold for a very long time.
When I turn the light on
I find the switch still works,
And I see that it permeates
With concern and distress.
As I look about
I see photographs of others
And realize I forgot a few things.

There's a room inside my chest
That is lighting up tonight
For all those I've sacrificed
To push my self ahead.

Now I don't know what to do
When the spin feels like something
I just can't keep up with anymore.
Shall I shut this light off
And walk away again,
Or is there still some meaning
Left that I can explore?

I'm Only Dreaming...

Facing myself melting away amid these four walls...
It's a mere quiet understanding of the way
A man would be who put the whole world
In a lockbox and left it idling.
Dreams are fantastic,
But bitter all the same.
I could dream for days unending but
It would stop,
It always must;
And then you're left at the corner,
Wet and alone.

So I take to this quiet prison called writing;
Boucing off the walls the hints or thoughts or dreams,
But never quite making clear what I feel and know.
So I'll end this on a philosophical note:
That which we possess inside is easier felt
Than expressed with pen, hands, or throat.