AK North

You young son of a bitch.
I remember the day after you
Got that mark that's still not healed
On your nose. You have style;
You never waver in the way
You spend your while.
I'd pick any day to play along.
Laughing, you were always laughing.
Looked for the best place
To park your thoughts.
Costly a deal it's been
Watching time go by without
Sharing a drink, or a warm talk.
It's been a rough one far away.
Never felt defeat so much
As I've felt these days.
Used to know a secret about this place.
Now I don't know shit.
I wander aimless along old roads
Or hide away in quiet rooms
To kill the time. I shop for steel tip
Darts online because I once
Had some fun playing fucking darts.
Darts, mi amigo, it's quite sad.
Not shit compared to the times we had.
Brief, too brief it all was.
First the latch came loose,
Then the coyote stormed the coop.

Been a lark all my damned life.
Waver to the serious nature,
Constant giver to the happy and serene;
Perpetual loafer to the easy ways.
My days are numbered in that game.

Might have to find out something big.
Possibly I'm bade to get at the grit
Of some great feat surmounting
My life with speed. I can no longer ignore
Plain facts: the comeback story
Of my life.

Stuck in a secret love inside this broken old town I used to tramp about.
Not the same since my youth left me.
Found out how growing up can grab you and hold you to certain standards. We cling to that which we feel the most love.
I think I was always born to be an outsider. Took me a lot of changes to know this. Took some brave execution of my heart to push certain standards away. But I'm not ungrateful for the outcomes.
However bitter the wine the effect is so suited to be the same. I'm destructive. Drunk on the abyss of moments like this. Kids used to play about but the kids grow up and wonder why it had to change. I wonder how it changed so fast, because that was just a moment ago. And in a moment this too will pass and become a different outcome, again and again.

Legs get cold if you don't stretch them. Hearts get cold if you forget them. Friends get weary if you don't call them.
I might be lonely in the end. But I'll always pretend.

Spun round dizzy from the whirling years
That landed me back in the falling leaves
Of long Falls. How do I pick myself up,
And sort through this confusion I've
Come to feel about myself and everyone?
I'm worried about a heart,
Worried of my own,
And to what extent and what capacity
They will or won't unfold.
Sailed out of serious water to the calm,
But I looked down and the depths were
Greater than I'd ever seen.
If this ship capsizes I'm sure to sink;
Lose myself completely in the abyss
Of heavy seas that I can't understand.

I come from simple folk. We work hard,
Tend to each other in rough, direct manners. 

Never was I given to extremes
In any circumstance; never will be.
I go sweet and easy and hope for a life
That finds that pace and rhythm with me.
Too many hard truths been thrown at me.
Too many ups and downs, cold beds,
Cold love and monumental sacrifice
To bear for the sake of others. It gets hard sometimes...
So what am I to do now? Can I be the lifeboat and the sinking ship
At the same time? I don't know. 

Oh God I just don't know if I can take it again.

Lonely; I'm afraid again of this life I'm in.
I'm trying to be still and quiet. I don't want to pray, I want to do it myself.
God is there, no doubt, but right now
He needs me to stand on my own. I don't want a crutch, want to hold myself up.
Where to be? How to be? Who holds
Rightful claim to this heart of mine?
Whoever it is it must be declared. I'm
Tired of chasing ideals; want to be wanted exactly as I am. No deals, no reformations, no alterations. 

I am wholly what I want to be, plus or minus my own complications, and I'm tired of that not being what somebody wishes to see.

I want to simply be and be simple and that's not finding any part of me so I will crumble momentarily.

Maybe I'm not what you were after, after all.
Maybe it was sweet and simple while it lasted.
You start to learn the details,
See the creases up close and wonder,
"Is it the vision I want to see before me?"

Distance of physical,
Distant tonight and wondering if it's really right.
Can't help but feel a little helpless.
Can't stop my mind from brewing madness
In the ever-expanding future before me.

I could be simpler. Could fall down lightly
On the bed of a familiar house,
Tend to my mind and make myself right.
Spend the procession of years in
A quiet place and retreat from chances.

I might just run my heart down, like this.
It's all I've ever been good at doing.
Because I'm better at pushing away,
No one gets to see how much I struggle
With a given day. Easier to turn away.

Turn away, don't turn away. Stand up straight,
Don't fall for this. Come to me, stop breaking me down.
Stop caring, please stay. Are you running? Why
Am I running? What is this? Who am I to you?
What is this I feel? I'm scared. I'm scarred.

The Sleepy Watchman

Any clang or clatter
Is what my mind used to sound like
On a drive on a dark night
Through the places of my old home.
I don't speak for ghosts;
Fractures featured by small changes,
Used to be, has not, now is my home.
Wonder what the nights
Will turn me into this time...

Felt a warm wind pour over me.
Found a keepsake seemingly misplaced.
Turn it round my hand, I wind.
Pouring over in a semblance of divine.
Look to you, my butterfly.
Look and stare and long to answer
Exactly why. Attraction, action, reply.

This town made me wretched.
Kicked the life out of me
In good measure, I'd say.
Picked out a place for all my dismay.
But the boy is a calm soul.
Might watch too long
But the feelings are strong
Enough to will against my control.

I surrender.
Bow down under the changing weather.
Give me meaning.
Show that I am starting to believe.
What was once again can be.
I release.
Yours to be, to touch, I feel it, motion
Form and breathing...
This was one so performed
To increase.

The epic struggle of our lives
Is riddled with moments, rhythm, change.
You are you perpetual forward,
Caught inside a cyclone,
Motion for a pace of peace in line
With what you've always had in mind.

Resolution to a bittersweet evening
Is that my feelings are subject to my believing,
That all is temporary and true...

Let me say, it has been good. All of it.
Despite the distaste of hardened hearts,
Despite my seemingly comatose state
These past few years,
And, of course, despite my follies,
Losses and wayward viewpoints
On what it means to be close,
It has all been good regardless.

Traverse the sky by slight degrees.
Open up a mind found slumbering easy,
I pierce the limits of my connection
To what I feel and love and need.

Going to hope for something...
Going to open up again and be.
Might just take a blow or two,
Run through the fire and be discovered
More than compatibly complete.

But this night was golden.
A perfect sequence of semblance
For something always best admired;
When it happens it's a magic.

I have nearly ruined myself on poison of misunderstanding.
Evaporating underneath the sink of brown, warm water trickling
From the bottoms of pipes I sit, afraid; so worried it might stop.
Gave myself away like a cheap display,
Let my worries build and bind until I saw
All of the mess I'd left behind,
And took a long moment to pick up broken glass,
Fragments of me spread an speared into these last
Hopeless years of a good hearts neglect.

Now I'm awaken but stricken by a shift in my division.
I am about to find life but life is leaving.
Just goes to show that I've great timing.
Suicidal with this heart of mine.
Clever ways to sabotage all the good I've found,
And consecutively lost.

Me now sick of me for everything I feel and fail to see.

Two sides being worked;
One to maintain, one to subject,
In a mind of which time to reflect.

Forgive my absence to care;
Rejoice in my display of favor.
One is to behave, the other to impart.

It's a timing, weather thing.
Sometimes it's the driving rain.
Really makes you work your heart.

Simple but so unsatisfied.
The glaze and the glow of nighttime eyes.
Drenched from so much indirect.

This is where I feel the need,
And this is where my heart directs.
Fall down by the both of them.

Blame it on the best of years,
Through all my worries and my fears,
It seems that it really all worked out.

I sing the body electric.
Naked notes are ghosts of rhythmic prose
That shake inside aching ears.
Primal outburst;
Sudden attack of molecular disruption
Into quiet atmospheres.
Struggle to bind, might break,
Might collapse upon myself
In the afterthought of this chaos
Forming from foaming fingers
Pleased by punching beats
Out of this mind machine.

When the flood began,
And the water came rushing in the room,
I didn't mind that I
Was about to be swept away.

Told myself that this might happen.
Told myself I'd be prepared;
I didn't imagine how quick I'd be stricken;
My heart said something but I didn't hear.

So the walls collapsed and everything
Fell out of place for me again.
But I like the space, I can move in this place,
A mind at ease in a voice that learns.

I worry about storms.
I worry about my feet in my mouth.
Will I ever get settled, and not be so bad
At the simple life of someone who listens?

I have a thought, if faint and distant...
My hand warmed by another grasp.
A place to park the car every night,
And christmas lights in the middle of July.

I've become a puzzle of quietude.
I sit all night and wonder why
The darkness makes me unsettled.
Perhaps it's because I'm counting on you.

Sea Collins

Dear friend,
Singer of stages and random acts
Of weathered joy bound by memory,
Hear me out...

You and yours are dear,
True light bound by beauty
Found inside your ever - constant
Struggle for the perfect melody,
But our time may soon be near it's end.

I watched your many faces fumble,
Watched you crumble when none
Were looking; saw you draw a breath in
And steal a second chance of bravery.
We raised the music like a child,
And it fumbled and called on
All our grievances in waves of culprit
Behaviors and syncronicities.

You go with your heart- the reason I've
Been loyal so very long. How do I
Reconcile the difference my heart
Aches to take? It's buried in the dust
Of distant land standing, and I'm
Afraid of myself losing more light
Than I ought to, anymore.

I seek a path that might not be paved
For us any longer, and I'm so very sad.
You can't stop now; you've got that
Fire we bonded about long ago,
When I heard your foreign tongue
Mash out all those strange sounds.
You broke me down,
Emulsified my measure, and formulated
A new instrument of production
I'll never not want to be.
But I'm limited in production;
A temporary feed for the meter,
And anyhow the time's soon to run out.

God blesses the beautifully acute.
A vision of a meaning found by feeling
And believing to achieve what you're
Seeing and I'm really quite impressed,
For what it's worth.

Quicksand

All I want are easy answers,
And right now my life's a disaster,
But with some beautiful things
That pull my heartstrings.
You'd think it'd be simple...
To know which way to go,
But it's so incredibly hard.
I talk one way, think another.
I want to be near it all,
See it all succeed,
But deep in my heart I know
You can't have it all,
At least not in the way everyone thinks.
Sometimes waiting it out is the right answer;
But for me I feel this reality sinks,
Like quicksand.
Quicksand in the boots on my feet,
Almost knee-deep,
Until it softens the sound of
My heartbeat,
Then covers my eyes,
To shut out the light,
And the waiting is complete.

Calculated Degrees

Ooh, It feels so fine.
To think of love cascading down the mind,
Like a drizzle in the heat of July.
You stand outside all day to feel that drench
And be happy and warm all the while.

I can't imagine much better...

Put me on a stage,
I'll be a machine, and play my heart out,
But I always save a little bit for one,
The one that saved me first.

That's where I'm headed,
By slight, calculated degrees.

So what,
If I buy broccoli ambitiously,
Thinking I might take the healthy route.
It's sitting in the fridge,
From God know's when,
And I'm not about to dig into that mess.

Is that a metaphor for life?
Probably.

Calories, fuck them.
Ingest them beer by beer, if I may...
I'd rather smoke a hundred cigarettes
And talk until my voice is ripped apart
Than waste a simple day.

What is this mess I'm writing?
Well, you have the beer,
And the cigarettes,
And a lack of broccoli, of course,
And a low caloric intake,
So it's probably just drunken banter.

Figures.

Habit

Almost down for the count,
Splitting open from the inside out.
I smell her...
Can't think that way right now.
Got a whole big other thing going on too.
Got a whole bunch of life being lived up here,
Locked in a little house on a rainy night, and busy-brained.
One way or another, or both;
Does that work?
Probably not.
Habit is habitat of natural dissent accommodated.
Hiding in the back round,
It's easier.
I see a present so radiant I can't think of anything else,
But it's wrapped in a golden lining of such material
That my hands, and any other tool at my disposal,
Are ill-equipped to breach inside,
To gain entry to the heart of the prize,
And I don't want my undeserving hands
Handling such a beautiful thing;
Just doesn't seem right.
Can't solve the dilemma.
Can't feel natural at all right now.
Sort of swimming in too much stimulation.
Dazed by a dance of bliss and occupation.
Like a country giving way to the next great ruler,
I've surrendered my hope to preserve my homeland,
And am falling prey to something bigger
Than I have the strength to study and beat.

My waters run deep;
My expanse is immeasurable,
But only when I feel complete.
So there's time to spend
Until that happens again.

I stood outside a gas station smoking a cigarette with a coffee, thinking about this place and these last few days. A man walked by me and as he did he looked me in the eye and asked, "Howya doin' today?"

For some reason that was just what I needed.

Freedom

Sunny afternoon dispels
The mundane of today's work.
If I look at freedom,
In all it's issues of basis,
I think I might have at least a crumb
Of the the prized posession.
I am free,
In that my mind preserves itself,
Not in that which fills my pocket but
Rather in words and music
And the joy in keeping company
With all walks of fine people.

I really despise money, truthfully.
Though it gains to one thing,
It costs so much to acquire.
It makes people driven in very silly ways.
But we are all forced to reconcile
These things, and can live accordingly,
As our hearts desire.

Some people feel a need to impose
Themselves into the world by
Impressing achievements.
Be it land, wealth or fame,
A need to make their mark in eyes
Unknown. How silly. There are too many
Of us to be impressed, and to impress,
But if you can make a good impression
On one dear fellow, and do good by it,
Why would you ask much more?

I live for the love of words. They bring
Something in me much more valuable
Than any day's wages.
I live for the love of music,
The true currency of humanity.
I live to seek and give love.
It is so honest and right.
And freedom is thus manifested.

Rock and Roll Show

Got a bit of the night fever again.
The lights blazed themselves in me
And bright-eyed I came home late;
Still partcipating in the last three hours.

But the bar left the people,
And they riddled the streets riotous.
"Where you goin' now?' 'I don't know. What's still open?"
We watched the glasses and bottles float away.

Banter, business, cigarettes in the basement; away into the night, and home. Music blares and blares in us...us.

Finally home, I think of that which
Escapes me nightly. Maybe that's why I stay up- looking for that jump. It's got
To be around sooner or later.

But the company I keep are music, cigarettes and booze. Disorient my morning so I can wake up grumpy and full to the brim with fire. I work better.

Let that day roll on by sweet and swift and find a comfortable spot to deduce the logic of my thoughts. Tonight has become a pleasure.

The Variable

Twisted and broken down,

You can find the essence underground,

Voices ringing out in daunting unison;

A vision disrupted by a prison of

Decaying matter,

Barely registering on the faces of passers,

But so the spoils go only to

The very best of us not affected.

My mind reels,

Pull back my eyelids to reveal

A cosmic fugue of dark matter

Binding together that

Which I’m assembled of,

Being stardust.

We are those that choose no choice.

Living only by a screaming

Inner voice.

There are no ways to reconcile

Inevitable,

Because we are the variable.

October 4

The streets sheen from the rain,

Reflecting the glow from houses and streetlights,

And I'm walking down the avenue,

With a cigarette and a small umbrella.

Fall is come,

And all its manners are cruel and real.

Cold comes flooding my face

With gusts of wind and rain;

The snow is soon to find me,

And everyone else I know,

And we will all complain of its coming,

Until we've resigned to the fact that

It's just plain here to stay.

Tonight is reflective,

Like the streets.

Not a clear picture,

But vivid enough to conceal

The reflections of the inner work.

To brave the evening, 

And to settle the substance,

I pour a glass of irish

And sort it out as best I can.

I'm sitting indoors,

My coat still tightly bound.

The only comfort I can fathom

Is too far away from me to be found.

Isn't that just the way,

Isn't that just the way it is?

What I See Online

I’m looking at all these poets these days;

The ones who talk shit, or never rhyme, and is that

What’s become of writing?

What’s wrong with rhyming? I don’t see the problem

In being clever with some fucking rhythm,

Not everything is a skewed prism,

One angle, one view,

Connected by a faint light

Glowing through one set of eyes.

I didn’t go to college. I didn’t bother to deal that way.

I stuck around in the dregs

Playing music on shitty stages, for little dough,

And long nights, since nearly ten years ago.

Now I’m older, and the twilight of this young man’s life

Is setting in. I don’t sleep well, I don’t have the speed

Of someone pushing against the train,

But I take my time and show them all what method can do

When it’s worked out in front of busy brains.

These days most everyone is buried in their phones;

Their beady eyes scrolling, their fat cheeks glowing

In a stock still position,

And I wish a car would reel from the street sometime

And smack some reality back into them.

A limb here, a shirt there,

And then everyone would blog about it,

Or send their friends a fucking snapchat

Of the mayhem on a Tuesday night.

Fire

How much fire do I have in me
Before I finally decide it's time to sleep?
I try, try so hard to work it all out,
But the words, the feelings keep me up,
And I can't kill them no matter how hard I try.

It's like a speeding car coming up to a curb.
You wanna slow down so you don't kill yourself,
But the thrill of what's next keeps you going,
And fuck slowing, when that's the only
Mentality that you know by now.

I want to get a grip, but I tighten my grasp,
And comfort slips from my fingertips,
And I just keep holding on instead of
Letting go like I ought to. Another hour
Should do it. I'll stew in this until I'm through with it.

Burning, burning; the whole house is on fire.
I pace around restless and aimless,
Noises poised inside my ears shouting at me,
Telling me the things I know and feel all along,
And so I have no choice but to shout right back.

Maybe I'll self-induce me in a coma
With some drug that will push me into a sleep
Where my mind alone can ring out all this mess
Without my body feeling the effects so vividly;
I will push myself into the abyss of dreams.

And in the morning, when I'm disoriented,
Wondering what the hell happened the night before,
I will be calm and steady and make the coffee,
And ponder the essence of why
I am forced to beat me out of me every night.

Picture

All I can do is look at your picture
And imagine you face to face.
I can't, however, imagine the flood
Of feelings that would wreck me
When that moment makes it's reckoning.

Discovering this big sort of love,
One that scares you half to death,
Leaves the other half a mess.
Between hope and everything else
That's going on with me, I might just
Retreat to a quiet room,
And explode from the interest.

Can't shake you,
Can't wake you in the morning.
Can't get you drunk on wine,
And make you dance with me tonight.
For a boy like me, who wills his way,
You are a formidible adversary.

We've got this distance-
Well fuck that.
We've got some time until we meet.
Well then fine, I'll wait it out.
Kicking and screaming I will abide.

The Bar

Isolated thunderstorms
Surround the bar tonight.
Intermittent showers of
Froth and ice pour down the wood,
Surrounding me on all sides
With thunderous claps
And lightening glares,
As the glasses empty fast.
Relief efforts were needed
When glassware piled up along
The north side,
While the ticker was playing havoc
With table traffic.
I walked out of that mess
To escape the downpour,
Light a cigarette,
And sound the report.

Loser Heart

It's coming around again.
This loser heart is being tried.
Southbound but split two ways;
A mind like a train speeding to one,
But my heart, it leads to the other, undone.

I spent my whole lot dreaming,
The spins were reeling in and out...
A part of me so divided that
In myself, not myself, not alone
But not together with what I had.

Years go by, roll on hard or simple.
The comforts dissipate and the walls
To scale make my spirit tough, rugged
And thickened by either doubt or trained thinking.
But this loser heart of mine shared it's time breaking,
So I'm giving it another shot, because
If you don't keep pushing for the dream,
For the thing that binds all your lost efforts
Then you have nothing in life, really,
And you might as well take a bath and find
A simple mind to coalesce the world with.

Raised

I was raised this way.
To love the wonderful, simple things.
Made to love the mood
More than the movement
Of life, in it's chaos and meaning.

Bred by simple sorts,

These folks are great.
They made me me.
They warned about some,
But not all. For if I knew it
I wouldn't be me entirely.
Learned experience is dynamic.
Enlist myself in excursions
That intertwine my meaning;
So I find myself whole,
By hands I've sculpted
From pain and love endured.
Independent, whimsical and true.
That's the stuff that holds down
When the storms roll through.

Shadow Sort and Searcher For Future

I feel like a phantom in this town.
I come out at night, but I hide in the corners,
Dark shadows, and alleyways,
With a few ragged sorts,
That understand my distant nature.

Everything is a role;
Put on the collared shirt and take an order,
Slow down the night with something
Sounding good and right,
Joke with the coworkers about the night,
And silently drive home,
To the quiet I like.

Even in the public eye,
Parading with pride the art I help heave,
I'm always off from the meaning,
Just setting in the groove I remember,
Then of course, disappearing.

The faces, they look at me.
They wonder what I'm up to,
But I only give them a little bit,
Just enough to pay the due.
I cleared the slate a while back.
Now I wait to pack my bags
And return to soil that makes sense.
But I always disappeared in that town too.
I'm always disappearing,
And I don't know why.

If you've got a beautiful mind,
What the hell's the use to hide?
Well it's a curse to be so selfish,
But I once gave them everything,
And ended up afraid and sad,
Because it wasn't always well received.
The pain, it lasts, but I'm going to open up again,
And let the flood pass.

Had A Cigarette

Caved under pressure,
But these feelings, they don't last,
Not forever.
Expiate my soul to evaporate
In the wonder of sound.
In it I will drown.
In it
I am home.

Day 2

Dear Cigarettes, I already miss you, but the relationship is just not working. It's been so many years, and all you've done is grown more greedy and bitter in your taste. You demand more of me every year, and you stress me out. You keep saying you want me to relax, but it just doesn't work. My heart starts racing, my breath is shortened, and none of it feels right anymore. Sure it was great, when I was young, flirted with you regular, but didn't have you by my side constantly to deal with any excuse. It's really hard to imagine you not in my life right now, but I know it must be so. I mean, the facts are in. You're high maintenance, and it's killing me, trying to keep up with your habits. There will always be fond memories I will hold with you- ...mostly because I had fond memories and I was holding you. But I feel that sooner or later this is all going to come to a crashing halt and I feel it should be now, while I still have my dignity, and at least a little of my youth left. You always left me breathless, let me just say that. The best companion over coffee. A good drinking buddy. You're just too destructive, and I want to fend for myself, for once. I need to take care of myself, and you never helped me there. You just kept driving home my bad habits. Maybe one day down the road we'll meet, glance at each other, and that will be that. I'm afraid to say, however, that I hope not. You're just a selfish bitch and I can't stand that anymore. You've made me a selfish bitch too, stealing me away from friends and family just to take a few minutes of nonplus time spent with you alone. You stink. You're high maintenance. You always make me go outside, even when it's so cold and you know I don't want to. It will be late, and I'll want to turn in, but no, we have to go to the supermarket, or the gas station, or worse, the liquor store, where you really encourage my vices. You are cruel, unforgiving, and a whore. Everybody know's you, and what you've been up to. It might not be so bad, but that shit you've got on people really shuts them up and listens to everything you say. Well, not me. Not this time, you saucy minx. Go piss on somebody else's parade for once. Go set yourself on fire and crumble to a pile of smoke on someone else's doorstep, because you're just cancer to everyone you meet.

Rough Hands

Do rough hands make a man?
Makes you wonder sometimes...
With a fistful of sand,
The hourglass still falls at regular intervals,
But the glass gets weaker with each turn.

Some men are born into this.
Born and raised with edges and angles;
A view skewed by evil and trouble,
And they are forced to reconcile
With every would-be contender alive.
There is a rare jovial fighter;
Mostly those just born with fire.

If he can't control it
He'll burn down too quick.
But some find a way out of this shit.
Some channel it somewhere to prove
That against them no one can pass.
Some choose a cause too big,
Then cash the checks and wonder
Why the hell they had to live.
What's to live for if your heart
Was broken from the start?

All good men start out broken.
How else would they be good
If they didn't dabble in the force
That fights their efforts,
And always be swinging like underdogs
With the faint scent of winning?

Rough hands, hearts ablaze.
They'll never stop for all their days.
And raise a hand for cause and right.
But they still burn on
Through the night.

Copyright ©2013 Charles Anthony Dominick

Change

Scared of the changes
But I know I must take them
And learn again a perspective
Derived individually.

My head spins with indecision;
My heart is pulled in many directions.
A grasp I'd gladly pay
A handsome sum to have.

When you are up to you neck
In it, you suppose you're to going
Drown in the problems
But what's the point of that?

Abandon your free right
To do whatever you want
Because someone did it first?
Just another fool, looking at the worst.

Love, dear boy. Love in life
Is the one true thing to bring about.
It'll make you sing.
It'll make you rearrange your brain.

You love, you are loved,
There are many things to love.
Spend some time deciding
If you're going to stop abiding
Life as a passenger.

Get some drive.

Copyright ©2013 Charles Anthony Dominick

September

The cool crisp air comes flooding in;
September has always been
A strong month for me.

When I filter my being into a
Singular viewpoint,
Surrounded by falling tempatures
And leaves unending,
I guess I just plain crumble
Like they do under my feet.

Many changes all at once,
It's very hard to sort this out.
I can believe there's going to be
A way for me to climb the hill
And see a peak I might commence
As one of more significance.

Copyright ©2013 Charles Anthony Dominick