all that remains

“and when an addict runs out of brain cells he is in a terrible fucking position.”

-william s. burroughs

 

high

high, high, high

don’t even try

to understand why

 

i’m just high

 

i jog each morning

crunch and do pushups

caffeinate

hold down a job

 

high all the while

no intended guile

 

people have so much to say

unaware of my book

the dark streets of decay

questions no longer remain

but social decorum

requires me to nod and grunt

 

just pretend i’m listening to you

while you talk to me

i’ll stick with my science magazines

science wasn’t designed to be a philosophy

but i perceive me in a field

hundreds of millions of light years long

i’m an infertile seed on un-fallow ground

 

your words are sounds made with vocal chords

nothing more

 

besides i’m fading in a forest of forgotten frames

no pictures contained

memories unclaimed are all that remain

 

prescription pill pretension

high without extension

 

adrift at sea

undefined

i’d draw a line

but i can’t remember where i put the chalk

and when i come across it

i realize that i really just don’t care

i close the junk drawer and stare

trying to remember why i came downstairs

and opened the junk drawer in the first place

 

my broken starship is drifting in space

i’m getting lean on cans of beans

no longer haunted by un-materialized dreams

cause i can’t construct a cohesive thought

but truthfully everything i was ever taught

is best forgotten anyway

 

***

 

 

the legacy of Layne Staley

listening to the legacy of Layne Staley

i linger in the lyrics elevated

by the best voice rock-n-roll

has ever known

 

Layne,

i know this may offend many

but you died a poet’s death

your pain was self-chosen

a true artist

 

caught on the carts of confusion

your voice was a transfusion

offering new blood

to a dying world

 

unfurl and let the nursery rhymes

keep time with a heart

that no longer beats

 

i pray the lord your soul to keep

but i think he and i value different stones

to pave the pathway to salvation

 

you can’t be accused of procrastination

you didn’t put off death

heroin high to your last breath

your dealer discovering your decay

 

and to this day

long after the funeral bells have rung

i still listen to all that you had sung

alice in chains, class of ’99, mad season

unless rock-n-roll is treason

it can’t flow in the veins of a soul

 

***

 

 

when you dance naked on rooftops you burn your feet

satellite skies with voyeur eyes

there is no costume or disguise

the lie is truth the truth a lie

i start my morning’s paxil high

 

i’m zombiefied and getting by

paxilated and untied

so long ago i lost my way

and roamed the dark streets of decay

 

to touch the gutter i’d reach up

the law of truth became corrupt

i lost my faith in absolutes

no argument was resolute

 

i cared not then i care not now

no creases on a furrowed brow

i may not walk the neon lights

or stay up drinking every night

but i’m the me i was back then

there’s no need to go back again

 

with words i wander far afield

but nothing new will be revealed

amid the rust and layered dust

decay’s the only thing i trust

 

some smoke some weed and some will pray

paxil’s how i start my day

some say that it will do me harm

they counsel me with great alarm

 

and i forget they have not read

all the things that i have said

walking the dark streets of decay

they do not know that all they say

 

will never penetrate my mind

where the only thing you’ll find

are words i write after “because”

it just is and then it isn’t

and that’s all it ever was

 

***

adage

back when music was more than a memory

we drank in the silence of cemeteries

waves of urine washed white walled tombs

there was no need for dreams

this was the way life was suppose to be

 

adults had activated the zombie apocalypse

their suburban structures centered around a t.v.

while we left the urine soaked stones

to swim naked in the sea

 

we didn’t have a drug of choice

equal opportunity users

give each drug a voice

 

i recited Corso’s poetry

someone sang a rock n roll song

another claimed stigmata with a heroin needle

but ugly ducklings becoming a swan

is just a story

 

cats don’t try to be elephants

chipmunks don’t try to be trees

yet humans try to be something they’re not

in order to be free

 

yes, i agree

twenty-three, naked in the sea

was a pretty good me

 

and i never really stopped being a user

an addict will always find a way to feed their fix

 

let me say that again

 

an addict will always find a way to feed their fix

 

hopscotch and pick-up-sticks

are for the young at heart

wasted, for me, is an art

and my art consumes me

 

so i guess i am not human

because i am being me

i harvest after i sow

and the crop as you know

will always be the source of my nourishment

 

***

 

oh god another uppity woman part 3

(i don’t know what’s worse:

when he says that nothing matters

or when he says that women matter)

 

if god has foreknowledge

why did he take saturday off

just think if he had taken an extra day

to fine tune his creation

 

then maybe women wouldn’t exist

for no other reason than to be a female form

clubbed and drag to the cave

amid the hormonal storm

 

your vagina is my possession

in cubicles i’ll make a confession

to a man who masturbates

to a religion that confines pigeons

in cages until it is time

to send a message

 

presage?

i guess we’ll have to wait for the film

but make sure the actress

has really great tits

 

then the movie will be a hit

we give money for what we value

our actions define us

 

and no one really cares

what scarlett johansson thinks

just buy her a drink

and obligate her to my effort

 

and wonder why

she will ask the color of her eyes

and the quality of her conversation

she feels exasperation

when all we can feel

is her underneath

 

to my daughter i bequeath

the future that is male

 

yet we tell tales

that it is better to give

then to receive

 

but no one is really deceived

and christ proclaims

“depart, for i never knew you”

 

she was nothing but a view

and the best you could do

was make her a goddess

with multiple breasts

 

flesh is pressed

she is a bedroom guest

after which we need to find

her another room

in which she can serve

remaining needs

 

in fact, let’s make this a creed

she will be out of favor

if she is not all that we need

her to be at the time

of the present need

 

adam was perfect

salome was a dancer

you’re raised with the answer

that woman is cancer

before you realize the question

“what is it that she really wants

and how can i get what i want

without expending any real effort?”

i know, i’ll play on her need

for acceptance

then by chance

she will actually believe

that pleasing me is love

while wondering why

she wonders why

she just doesn’t seem

quite fulfilled

 

***

i was going to sleep but i found words i’ve never written

words don’t exist

on lies we subsist

 

forgot my phone

i’m so alone

there’s no one here to text

 

people walk by

they’re all a lie

cause people don’t exist

 

the chemical brothers

have no other

dream within their head

 

i dream their dream

but still it seems

i can’t be an unsaid

 

and so i read the poetry

drawn without a sky

no wind is real

and still i feel

the dust blown in my eye

 

i walk by apple-pie windowsills

and every empty bowl i fill

with earthly emptiness

 

nothing is real

but can you till

a soil in the windowsill

that bowers

in effort to bring a little pleasure

amid the imperfect

 

we perceive imperfection

but darkness is simply

an absence of the molecules

that make up photons

because we have turned our back on the sun

 

but there is no speed at which you could run

to always keep the sun at your back

just the facts ma’am, just the facts

in other words nothing can be spoken

 

perception is broken

but it’s all we got

 

and instead of realizing

its fullest potential

you require everything

to have a credential

 

so exposure to the acceptable

can be ascertained

 

circling the drain

fills with disdain

those who can’t draw a circle

 

there’s a reason artist won’t wear purple

until they are old

while i unfold

a piece of paper from 1982

 

(i am standing in the rain

crying out in vain

for it to please stop

and if it will not

i will probably blame god

for this run of bad luck

instead of walking indoors

removing my wet clothes

but dare i be so bold

for i do not as yet know

that i will have approval

for coming in out of the cold

though it is what i want to do

can i, to myself, be true?

without receiving your blessings

through and through

and when will i, having eyes,

finally see

that i am free

to take the moment into my own hands

and alter it according to my own plans

till all i can see is me

apart from your manifest destiny)

***