All my books have empty pages
All those answers stowed away
Fade into an impotent gray
Fancy bars on fancy cages.

Years of words, acquired wealth
Yearned for once, now despised
And useless whether truths or lies;
A tower of babel lined with shelves.

No words to heal the wounded pride
Nor lift the life of humility.
Two words can seal eternally
Until two words divide.

Maybe I think too hard, rhyme too much, dig too deep.
I can’t find my cigarettes, my surface streets
To shut up the doors, dance in the dark- wild and free.
Where are those familiar surface streets?

Opium for the masses, or the comedown?
Should I wish to swim again on solid ground
So I’m not standing in a ghost town?
I got sick before this solid ground.

Nothing to lose, toes to the edge,
But you can’t build a life on the ledge.
I can’t bring two lives to fledge
If I can’t step off the ledge.

So bury the gypsy in a shoebox near here.
If I make it back this time next year
I’ll dig her up again, I swear,
Unless she finally disappears

Somewhere no one needs her.

The wind an elegy
Turning from ash, to flesh, to ash,
Time chipping away the reef,
Degrading like trash
And I keep my doing.

Pleasantries and obligations,
Mixing and feuding mundanely
Late nights to early mornings
Fervently, insanely,
I keep my doing.

No more words.
Let that wind sweep away
The debris of impartial thoughts,
The debts I never repay,
So I can sleep uninterrupted.

The tired that aches in joints,
And bends low the spine,
Spreads as venom
Until completely supine.

Sleep alone is no longer
Sufficient to rouse.
Fatigue and forced activity
Tempting to carouse.

While every errant word
And stagnant pool of thought
Leaves the tension of reality
Painfully taut.

And now the purple mist

Once settled on the far hill

Stumbles, sneaks, and spills

Into our clumsy tryst.

And now a subdued sun

Casts quiet rays like tears,

Gray hairs from its beard

Fade and fall before they’re done.

And now the dusk-bird sings

Another aging season

Advances whether reason

Has soothed the deeper sting.

And now darkness descends

A cold moon consoles.

Exposure both extols

And, in turn, condemns.

Caw, black sentinel.

Strut your promenade,

Belt your raw warnings,

Darkened plumes displayed.

Walk upon your feet,

Flightless wings spread wide.

Spend your day on dirt,

Not in crystal sky.

Oh ageless omen!

Harbinger of hell.

Feast on death and filth,

With maggots in your swell.

Your eyes ignited,

And I was a spectator.

I waited for them to rove for me,

But only silence.

Conversations resumed

From some unknown origin,

But I was lost,

And left behind.

I threw a fit

For your attention,

But resentments steeped

Cooled your eyes.

I was a child, a lesser one,

Sent home to think

Of what I’d done, or couldn’t do,

Of all my insufficiencies,

And the ways I’d never deserve you.

30 years ago

You lied to me

Because I came so small,

So naïve.

30 years ago

I swam in the immensity

Of your choices:

Forged in the intensity.

30 days ago

In a dim room, in anxiety,

A stranger photographed

Inside of me.

30 days ago

A small heart fought to grow, to beat,

Caught somewhere between life

And defeat.

30 seconds ago

I forgot to breathe,

Or if I’m to fight, or cease,

Or grieve.

30 seconds ago

You lied to me,

And I forgot what to forsake,

And what to believe.

As long as I keep seeing you at night,

In dream, how can this end?

You’re the only one who can take me back

To the river house, to Elbow Bend.

What anesthesia drapes over waking minds

That you walk faded in the day,

While in nightly visions, memory so acute

Restores those sparks of you that strayed.

Why can’t I expel you now?

In these morning-afters you are gone.

Why is it you won’t stay with me?

And why won’t you leave me alone?

I want to lie down,

Let waves of years wash over me.

Days ebb and flow, I drown

In the numbness and oddity

Of time wasted and hoarded.

This simple test, this vapor,

Passes so slowly by my broken watch.

Even as these hours taper,

I find brand new chances to botch,

And throw away.

Can you hear my ticking heartbeats?

If you can’t, I am alone.

I curl up in defeat,

A heavy, dead stone,

Until you speak life to me again.