Dogen sitting at the bar

like a panicked emergency vehicle,

cuts through the traffic,

swimming through confused cars,

my anxiety cannot be traded,

for curiosity or anticipation, 

as it is borne of a visceral perception,

the immediacy of contingency,

and an empirical heart,

this anxiety is like a friend,

whom I've never known,

a stranger with whom I've shared my life,

watching,

robotic flashing reds, 

yellows,

greens, 

reflected in the grease,

of fatigued concrete,

I fall into a dream,

in which I am in a dark room,

reaching for a light switch,

when I find it,

I flick it,

but the room remains dark,

I can hear rain hitting the window,

it's a house I know,

I can hear distant voices,

like commentators at a baseball game,

I wake up.

mezzanine

that sky beyond the clouds,

where a frail bird can fly,

over unturned, tortured soil,

over older hearts,

in a park,

pickling in the youthful sun,

but we can't stay here for long,

you'll be moving on,

and I'll be gone,

fallen into the fractures,

that shake the fault lines of time,

but what if it could be different?

something original and new,

you could stand at a distance,

I might connect and hit it to you,

or even past the difference between what I say,

and what I mean,

over a sea of wild and wide open eyes,

into the mezzanine. 

loosener

haggard old needs nag,

stifle and shove,

pulling at the pant legs,

dragging,

with that stubborn desire,

a hanger-on,

a leech,

a parasite,

making lonely days,

drip slow like molasses,

but to stand,

or sit, 

or run,

or work,

through the ache,

and all the chains,

can turn the fear,

into nothing but a shadow,

that you saw in the corner of your eye,

in a dream,

cutting you loose,

to energize,

to play, 

to dive deep,

into the flow.

 

crutch

some days are angry wasps,

or lonely birds,

and I'm a colicky one,

never quite fit the puzzle piece,

caged in a damp shirt,

a box fan works the sticky heat through dusty spaces,

perched floors above,

the swarms of traffic,

rushing trucks bullet,

from deadline to deadline to deadline,

clenched jaws,

swallow the fatigue,

and long for the sanctuary,

of a good night sleep,

I'm not expecting tenderness,

or a comforting touch,

emotions remain an untamed ox,

when the mind is mush,

if everyday is a mountain climb,

than I'm a man with a crutch. 

a puzzle unsolved

let it be unresolved,

a puzzle unsolved,

I won't shake your hand because there is a barrier between us,

I'm not appeased by your glib smile and pat on the back,

you were brought up thinking there could be a resolution,

taught a story in which things ultimately work out for the better,

you have become used to that emotion you get,

the appearance of success,

when you convince people that you like them,

and that there is no problem between you,

but then you tear them apart behind their back,

or at the very least, forget about them,

and all they have done for you,

you lazy motherfucker,

you are a loathsome sight,

and I am sickened,

that so many of these beautiful, naive sheep fall for your bullshit,

so now, 

as you stand before me,

I won't shake your hand,

you looked shocked and surprised,

yours is extended and waiting,

but I want you to accept the barrier between you and me,

I want you to understand there is a problem,

and it is unresolved,

and I want you to embrace this unresolved state,

to let it be,

be strong,

I know you can do it,

I want you to feel the distance I feel,

to go to bed at night knowing there is a problem between us,

that things are unresolved,

for your disingenuous movements have made me weary,

so please accept the uncertainty,

put your hand down,

and go,

keep going,

for there is a barrier between us,

it is ok,

it is just unresolved,

let it shake you awake,

let it make you hungry again,

for something more than the mediocre bullshit that you have gorged upon,

the false modesty you are so full of,

which has made you so complacent,

numb,

and fat,

 

why, we are a puzzle unsolved,

so please live with it now,

this distance, 

let it be unresolved,

let the puzzle be unsolved,

it is the natural state.

girlfriend

your whining girlfriend

just fucking shoot me now

orange red sunset

pseudonym

"Ever feel like a pseudonym?" she asked,

"What?" he questioned,

"I mean, do you ever feel like someone other than you?" she asked,

"Well, that's not really a pseudonym...you write under a pseudonym specifically because you want to protect the real you...like you're scared that your real name will be negatively affected or something...." he replied,

She laughed quietly as if she didn't care or already knew what he was explaining,

"That's not being very honest...or open or whatever," she remarked,

"Well, it's a dangerous world...privacy especially is all fucked up now," he stated,

They lay quietly on the couch watching the flickering television, 

hypnotized by the images moving through the darkness of the room,

"Hey, are you going to come to the cottage next week?" she asked curiously,

"Um, is your Dad going to be there?" he asked,

"Uh, probably...why?...it doesn't matter...just come..." she replied,

"Then no," he said sharply,

He continued, "he's just going to put me through the ringer."

"What?" she asked smiling,

He replied, mimicking her father's voice, "You got a real job yet son?...you still working part time at that coffee shop?...how do you expect to provide for my daughter on shit money like that?..."

"Oh bullshit...." she said laughing loudly, "you're crazy."

As they lay there, the summer night breeze blew gently through the open curtains. She seemed to fall asleep as she lay against him. He puffed quietly on a joint as he flipped between fishing shows and an old Steve McQueen movie with the sound off. This apartment seemed to have become kind of like an oasis of sorts. Like some kind of peaceful space where he could be with her unimpeded by the usual demands of ever impending adulthood. 

"In a way, lately, I do feel like a pseudonym...I feel like someone else..but I don't know who," he said quietly in the dark of the room thinking she was asleep. After a awhile he began to drift away into flowing lacquered memories and old songs.

In the quiet she asked gently, "are you still awake?"

"mmm hmm," he hummed lazily,

"I'm still awake too," she whispered.  

music in the park

another weeknight,

another batch of clouds,

a bucket of balls,

before the pails of rain,

worried souls,

cash crunches and tapped out hearts,

another restless night,

with panicked dreams,

of corporate cannibals,

burning out the landfills,

trying to kill the music,

a failed experiment,

of rich men in leather chairs,

hidden behind curtains of conformity,

the "opium of the masses,"

making us skeletons of fear,

screaming in lonely rooms,

but then I heard music,

and I awoke to remember,

the world is my own,

another crisis was part of the lies,

another passing storm,

another sunrise.

vultures over the landfill

an old woman irons shirts,

in the window of a highrise,

under a midnight moon,

a man below screams at the TV,

with a six pack and a foul mouth,

rust and the smell of paint remover,

wisps of hair flutter in a dirty breeze,

looking for answers,

in ideas, sounds, words,

finding only interpretations,

opinions nothing more,

than the bastard children of thoughtless bitterness,

the tap of leather shoes,

move outside a squeaky door,

an ant on the ceiling,

a spider on the floor,

their lives are small,

but mine isn't much more,

just a speck on infinity,

fueled on alchemical lore,

born to be responsible,

to choose the endless chore,

of seeking the Self,

hidden at the core. 

beyond the beyond

sloppily pushed out doors,

drunken saviours stagger on,

wandering through empty streets,

spinning memories repeat like a song,

pouring their guts out,

spilling their guts into trash cans, 

dumpsters and rusty sewer grates,

trying to connect to someone,

failing to connect,

trying to connect to themselves,

trying to connect the broken-in-two-Self,

but all they got is those preachers,

those thoughtless, 

miserable preachers,

 

dividing, 

 

and dividing, 

 

and dividing,

when the world steps out on you,

a poet may step in,

because as the world begins to end,

a poet gets ready to begin.

office man

where you going to go office man?

what's up that ladder?

turn the covers back,

lay down to catch brand new dreams,

let them surface,

grow fresh and strong from unkempt gardens,

a thousand miles wide,

borne of colours and music,

hold on with white knuckles,

for everything hangs by a thread,

try to be alive before you are dead,

then let it go,

forever to slip this faltering vessel,

meanwhile I can see it,

but I need to see that it is special,

when, as I boy,

I sat in church,

listening to sermons,

I didn't understand,

my Grandma,

would quietly lean over,

and slip a candy into my hand.  

Bodhisattva moving on

"people how you doing,

there's a new day dawning,

for the Earth Mother,

it's a brand new morning,
for such a long while,

there's been such a longing

but 

now 

the 

sun 

is 

shining,

let's roll back the awning."

--Beastie Boys (Jimmy James)

immolation

hardened regulars,

with leathered skin,

beaten down,

broken by steady adversity,

team jackets,

dirty brimmed ball caps,

shuffle in and out of the liquor store,

well ashed smokes dangle from lower lips,

they seek comfort,

a safety in an alcoholic daze,

like the arms of a cosmic mother,

protected,

a baby in a womb,

but they know,

and they teach me,

there is an acceptance,

a surrender to contingency,

an embracing of the unknown,

like the fighter pilots,

or front line soldiers,

who fought drunk,

went blind into the fire,

gnarled, shaking fingers turn keys,

unlock squeaky doors,

into quiet, dusty apartments,

to sit in front of TVs,

where they work the liquor down,

drowning down,

into the black,

where we can't control,

I don't fear you anymore,

I know you are waiting,

you've been there all my life,

a ghost in the flames,

a face in the darkness,

we have to live here,

us drunks and soldiers,

courage so fragile,

we don't know why we are fighting,

and we are friends,

they protect me even in the most raging, twisted dreams,

and when it's time,

we will walk together,

through the black,

into the light,

purified.

old tree

I look for meaning,

past decrepit buildings,

and dirty streets,

past faded friendships,

and twisted sheets,

but now I stand looking,

upon the old tree,

slowly dying,

years piled high,

still tall and free,

stop acting weird,

nothing's changed,

nothing's new,

between the "feeling good,"

and the "feeling blue,"

there's a build-up,

then a release,

then a straight line through.

 

Chuck Close

feels like a prison,

some overcast days,

cell to cell to cell,

lunch break and a short workout in the yard,

keep my defenses up,

no eye contact,

home is where I lock the bars closed again,

 

I cut the dreary, drizzling silence,

with beats from the Shaolin slums,

shatter the illusion of ego,

scatter the pieces across a grid,

each a small painting,

in-itself,

for-itself,

only left disoriented,

and unhinged,

 

if you don't step back,

to see the reality,

of the coherency,

of the picture.

 

 

outlaster

angry winds

withhold mercy

dripping sweat

labours on

frigid nights

endless days

long hauls 

stone gaze

sleepless dreams

twist restlessly

tested will

sees demons

break downs

break chains

break open

hold fast

no escape

no questions

no answers 

glory comes

only to

the outlaster

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pop star Orianthi doing Jimi

layers

you were deep before you knew it,

many exits away from some kind of Satori,

but growing younger by the day,

I met you at the end of a Chet Baker trill,

soon you shot me with Miles Davis staccato,

I patched myself up with Bill Evans' hurt,

and woke up to know,

the soul is made perfect through failing,

like a pristine moment of letting go,

with the heart leading and fear trailing,

like lying awake by the window,

listening to rain ringing off a rusty railing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

for those still in line

master mythic cycles

love is effort is authenticity

life fucks hard!

the fattest lamb

adrift in a world of ideological innuendoes,

pompous undergraduates and graduates,

father-hating feminist loudmouths,

indecisive co-dependent men-children,

beg the pathetic alternative of,

rednecks in pressed shirts, slacks and bluetooths,

greedily sopping up the lard-enriched gravy of mass cognitive failure and mis-education,

each camp guilty of rationalizing the abuse,

they inflict on themselves,

people giving credence to flagrant bullshit,

passing off textbook views like some kind of personal truth,

rather some kind of fervent assholery,

crusade-like in their primitive literalism of an ancient patchwork of writings,

stamped "holy relic" by the Corporation of Christianity,

exercising it's Constantine-like lust for power,

the demon vigor of epistemological evangelism,

herding more imbeciles day by day,

village bible-college idiots stammer and giggle behind sweat covered pulpits,

built with stacks of money from the lonely, hurting and poor,

reiterating falsity like some kind of meaningful experience,

proselytizing obvious misinterpretation like some kind of existential awakening,

like the mouth-breathing empty gaze of modernity,

like pretentious sycophants piping weak, sloppy music through their pretentious headphones,

blind to the morbid sickness of chronic delusion,

each word from their mouths, 

a greater untruth than the one before,

misspeak, blissful ignorance, 

fucking fools,

lifting their shaky hand to their heart,

tears streaming down,

mouths quivering,

hypnotized like fat lambs,

by the carnal throbbing of mutual belonging found in collective delusion and apathy,

now take heed,

and watch the steady atrophy,

the slow fading,

and irregular breathing

of this sick circus,

as it winds down like a nation of failed and exhausted rusty robots,

abandoned to sewage covered metal fields, 

left only to corrode in the resolute downpour of civilization's fecal rain.

the sibilance of dawn

life,

slips through my fingers,

like the sun,

slips through the blinds,

memories,
are ghosts,

that slip from my mind,

pain,
is my wise council,

helps me hold the line,

love,
runs too fast,

I slip behind,

loneliness,
is an angel,

her lips slip from mine.