Shoegazing

I didn’t come here to write it’s just the blank page incites; I compete with its emptiness. Words on the rocks, advice on ice, please don’t make me a drink. Hippie love in, some were trolling for men, I was just ten, back then, believing in the perfect woman, not knowing then that Hope Sandoval had already been born. She hangs brightly? Clings too tightly; yeah I know I’m suppose to tell her what she wants to hear, men seek to endear in order to possess, I guess I am less than a man because I regress into the fetal with daydreams of moonlit sandy beaches where she reaches and just holds me.

 If I’m relevant will there be love?

         Which one is the hand towel and which one is just for show? I need to know so you can bestow approval. I’m always in danger of removal, but is the threat real? I file an appeal but the gavel grates and I abate, the law does not apply to the lie. Lady Justice isn’t blind, the material around her eyes is meant to remove personal perception, but in the end it is all deception; the great cosmic joke, chant but nothing will be invoked because it doesn’t exist. Wish you may and wish you might on sandy beaches I alight and find myself alone. I should end this here, dog without a bone, that is why they are man’s best friend cause we take that which you give us and bury it deep so no one else can take the only thing that really matters to us. It’s not the bone it is the fact that you gave and I can save all the formulas for those less fortunate than I. Waves wait for me to dive and drown, end this sound that when I’m around everyone is less fortunate but I am bent and broken by words unspoken I strive to be the seed of what you need while what I need is to be me with me being acceptable to your perceive and of course that can never be because who would ever conceive of me.

***

never nudge a nihilist

oh you may say you agree

one plus one can equal three

if that is the world we wish to perceive

 

but then you become an opera singer

saying, “me! me! meeeeee!”

 

and i see

that you haven’t thought through

the things you claim are true

 

if when the synapses stop firing

are truly the end

then death makes everything trivial

or because death is really the end

then when pondering all that comes before

nothing is trivial

 

needing an answer is the cancer

that can never be cured

one thing you confess but then in distress

you wonder why no one cares about your cause

 

but you are your own cause

and no one will pause

 

existence is a lily pad and the universe a pond

and you are the frog who sits alone

and no one will take you home

unless they can turn you into their perfect mate

with only the effort of just one kiss

 

***

 

 

the dark streets of decay 20

this is not a hollywood ending

especially if the film is directed by me

where you will see by the final scene

that all the main characters died

and on their death bed everyone was alone

oh yeah the priest will sign

and say such words as “atone”

over your lifeless and empty corpse

someone, maybe someone

might even feel remorse

that you are gone

 

write lyrics for a song

that you will never enjoy

or hear from some hopeful heaven

 

unbaked bread remains unleavened

which is why my favorite metaphor

is cold concrete and midnight streets

out here on the perimeter

there is only reality exposed as insanity

by the harsh light of day

 

all i’m saying

is you think that caring creates consensus

until you realize no one really cares

 

words have no sincerity

the obscurity of darkness brings clarity

and absence is the only acquisition acquired

oh, everyone conspires to fill the warehouse

 

but one that is abandoned, forgotten and in decay

empty from one crack to the next

is the only truth that is conveyed

 

that after all is said and done

i wake alone to realize

i’ve missed another setting sun

 

***

 

 

all work and no play make jack a dull boy

when i was on the dark streets of decay

i was bold and confident

my lips and my finger saying,

“FUCK YOU!”

 

but since i’ve left

what i have written

is more like,

“can i get a hug?”

 

while everyone thinks i’m still saying,

“the existential aspects of the metaphysical

are so hopelessly devoid of meaning

as to render life as being absurd”

 

frustration communication

“don’t touch me!

no, wait, don’t let me go”

 

i’m beyond going down slow

someone has pulled the plug

and i’m circling the drain

 

i’m told they’ll hold

as soon as i’m clean

submit to the scold

and find the serene

 

oh why and the hell do i search for love

among those that sacrifice two doves

for their newly circumcised son

 

but without your warmth

i shiver and shake

oh jesus christ and for heaven’s sake

do frogs need more than lily pads and flies

you are so ignorant yet you make me cry

when you reject me

 

***

 

 

the dark streets of decay 19

trapped in time and out of rhymes

i sell my novels for  dime

 

one trick ponies in the tent

the ring master cannot invent

a new show for the circus crowd

but their applause is always loud

 

satellite eyes in voyeur skies

bounce signals off our true disguise

i realize now i am not wrong

DARK. STREETS. OF. DECAY. my swan song

 

i left them in search of answers

puppet, strings and i’m your dancer

but every time i hear you talk

i want to just go for a walk

 

back then i had such confidence

needing nothing but your silence

i was for sure there is no cure

perception propagates the pure

 

but now i waver with the wind

this week we must now all pretend

that this is right and hip and cool

the disagree becomes a fool

 

when i explain i’m not insane

and once again i must profane

for god’s sake there’s no fucking god

and everything upon this sod

doesn’t happen for a reason

no one orchestrates the seasons

 

so let me be, let me be me

i’ll walk in rain and laugh at trees

i’ll stagger, stumble and i’ll sway

preach nothing but that all decays

and ask you just to go away

i’ll venture forth into the fray

 

avoid the rationale of reasons

in short, i’ll avoid everyone

 

***

 

 

 

 

give me another cup of coffee and a few more hours

not doing well today

sleeping pills made midnight go away

but i’m still suffering from their effect

to my jello head i genuflect

and just can’t seem to start the day

 

everyone laughed when i put on Azam Ali

ignorant minds remain blind to all there is to see

now they wonder why i prefer to be alone

silence my phone

and swim my troubled sea

 

i didn’t mean to write a limerick

and i know my consonants mimic

till everything and all is an alliteration

but i try to lighten the mood of my mind’s obliteration

with a rhyme scheme as a gimmick

 

so here i am at nine a.m. mentally unstable

like Kerouac waking up under a table

with the tremors of detox

cold sweats and drenched socks

sobriety inside of me but i am still unable

 

to function, maybe now even less so

it seems the more i reveal the less i disclose

academians acquire acquisitions

and assemble a different position

but alcoholics know what really killed Poe

 

and nothing is ever that simple

you can’t cure acne by popping a pimple

and definitions and labels do not describe

the assistance i received when i imbibed

a seductive smile with cute dimples

 

and i don’t know how i got here

from sleeping pills to talk of beer

and lately every emotion becomes a poem

since i no longer hold a jeroboam

i’m sober but i still can’t seem to steer

 

do i need to write a sequel to the sequel?

on the dark streets of decay i was unequaled

now i wander more aimlessly then i did on those streets

the simplicity of solid under my feet

when the story is finished you’re left with a prequel

 

they say when you “say” it lightens the burden

a victory won like the battle of Verdun

but i cannot stop and harvest the crop when so many seeds were planted

when you believe what you have received you tend to take things for granted

and think there’s such a thing as being unburdened

 

oh don’t read with a critical eye

weigh me against your collection of lies

when you try to catch a tiger by the tail

um, you will fail

when there is nothing to surmise there is no need for compromise

 

and now it’s ten and i again

just can’t seem to comprehend

the disorder of my jello mind

so i’ll be kind

and bring all efforts to an end

 

***

 

 

 

a long drawn out death scene

the failure of fluorescents found me fondling my phone

mazzy star music and me alone

 

i look at her look in the photograph i took

and realize her look has no meaning for me

 

massive amounts of mountain dew

and i wonder why my abs

can’t break through the layer of skin

 

why am i here again?

wondering about abs and skin

 

i need something to write

but the dark streets of decay

took it all away

and i can’t repeat that performance

 

oh i’m up late again

but i’m sober

over and over

but it really hasn’t made a difference

 

but that’s not the issue

it’s when i sit alone in a room

with me

and i think of the line,

“i’d walk a thousand miles to slip this skin”

 

but that won’t happen

so what is the realistic step?

being accepted?

that also is not realistic

 

can’t i just skip this moment?

and a few million moments more?

 

there are days i don’t know how i function

then there are days i look everyone in the eyes

and think, “i don’t care”

 

the joyful jubilance of dancing on air

is for the young

whom life has spared

 

the editor emailed that the manuscript needed changes

the printer couldn’t format the book the way it was written

 

now i self-publish

 

now there is no one to keep my lines in line

and the reader thinks i dine on insanity

like Kerouac released from the Navy

 

mashed potatoes and gravy are good

and so much better than words

especially words written while whispering

William Carlos Williams,

“i am lonely, i am lonely

i am best when i am so”

 

and no one knows that i wrestle with the weight

of wrenches while i undo the rusted nuts

so i can disassemble my mind

and for no other purpose then to escape

the boredom of being broken

 

no, i will not be unspoken

and i am only looking for one person

who will read what i write

no, scratch that,

who will read and understand

 

for after all it is me on the page

setting the stage

for critics to write a bad review

 

but i can’t undo the fact that you

must live in a world where

one plus one must equal two

because in my world it doesn’t

 

i don’t even like to number the pages

throw the manuscript in the air

and read it in the order you pick it up

it won’t matter

 

but until you understand why it won’t matter

you will never understand

 

so i sit alone with me

slowly i start to ease

into the comfort of my skin

as i realize my unlimited dimensions

can’t fit in your three dimensional world

it would disrupt the very fabric of space and time

 

morning will shine about the time i climb into bed

i’ll wake having forgotten all that i said

and wonder if i should be embarrassed

i put it out there to be read

 

linger in the instead

write, “pop tarts are an art for which

only the consumer gets paid”

if you ever had a pop tart

you won’t disagree

and wouldn’t i be popular?

 

once i wished upon a star

only to learn it had died

a million years ago

and it’s light was the illusion

of lasting memories

and crickets that croon

that all your dreams come true

 

oh the lies they tell us when we’re young

like how four is the result of two plus two

 

and so many of us never unlearn those lies

we just get by on the framed knowledge

that hangs on the walls of our mind

and never see how it contradicts

what we eventually witness

 

i think it all began when my love left

me on the sands of a coral island

airplane ascending

with me pretending i had the power

of Linda Ronstadt

and would one day return to my blue bayou

 

i wrote my first poem about

the distance between she and i

and a poet was born

a few years later i would write,

“nothing makes me question the meaning

of life more than meeting a past love”

and this poet’s birth became

the promise of a post mortem abortion

and i unraveled the truth that there are no absolutes

and the seeds originally planted withered and died

in their budding infancy

 

oh how i cried for clemency

until i learned

it just is and then it isn’t

and that’s all it ever was

and yet it took me how many pages

in the dark streets of decay to convey

those two lines?

 

men cloister women to keep them close

i grew up in that type of household

and that’s all i learned about love

 

oh fragile wings

oh snow white dove

the window pane

impacts your brain

and the illusion of passage

is a red rose held by a black glove

 

and everyone pretends they’re happy

because no one knows what happiness is

 

but the hour is late

or is two a.m. early?

 

i don’t know

 

i guess it’s all a matter of opinion

but then that’s all anything really is

 

so i will leave it at that

and a reminder of the fact

that when you’re whacked

your heroes die of cataracts

 

***