if only the forest were as green as your eyes

well, i might like to linger

but all its beauty is a guise

          can’t wrap me round its finger

i trace your face of supple grace

          and dance within your arms

the darkest night cannot erase

          your laughter and your charms

i call upon the muse of love

          to sing a song for you

a song of love that’s sung by doves

          could not give you your due

this poet dreams of fancy schemes

          of music, rose and wine

and tables with embroidered cloth

          and china that is fine

cause words cannot escape my mouth

          when i’m without a breath

the worship due the beauty you,

          your name my shibboleth

the heart departs devoid of art

          without your presence found

then you return and i relearn

          the joy that can’t be bound

i find the gist of every list

          both void and incomplete

if you’re not numbered at the top

          cause nothing can compete

with the beauty you possess

          so rare it’s undefined

in throne rooms i am just a guest

          in presence of divine

 

***

 

the less i write the more i perish

a pack today i wile away

          within a constant rhyme

when i’m not writing poetry

          them i’m just doing time

the money made from books i’ve sold

          will never pay the rent

but there is nothing else i do

          wherein i am content

 

i’m not a boy who plays with toys

          no motorboat or wheels

just a blog i have called “with words

          i wander far afield”

i like to kiss and reminisce

          but mostly i just look

i’d rather write two hundred poems

          and fill another book

 

a writer should write what he knows

          but i’m not all that bright

so i “stream of consciousness”

          when i sit down to write

the inner workings of my brain

          i then put on display

i penned my first way back in school

          and here i am today

 

i call myself euterpe’s child

          from late classical times

from her womb until my tomb

          i will wrestle with a rhyme

i deluge words into a verse

          and feel creative joy

and all the other things i do

          well i just don’t enjoy

 

***

 

the aspartame of your advice

tank tops and tangerines

nothing’s as it really seems

and if it is what do i care

we only tether when we share

our dreams and lies and compromise

our swollen egos satisfied

 

to make me what i’m not you seek

and pray the lord my soul to keep

while i walk in dirty laundry

far from conversation’s quandary

moments are my even flow

beyond this i no longer go

 

ashes to ashes, dust to dust

dance within the silent gust

and find the line within my mind

that makes me feel your words unkind

that i am not, well, this is true

advice is rejection from you

 

do as you say? well, i will play

i’m talking fifty shades of grey

give me reason to concede

beyond your ego and its needs

concern for me? well, that is nice

the aspartame of your advice

 

means you don’t respect my views

it doesn’t matter if they’re true

the books i read you’ve never read

but on your influences i’ve fed

digested and passed through my bowels

but i have chosen other vowels

 

that makes me look at every word

as simply something that’s preferred

i hate to tell you what i think

cause then you share with me a link

come and join the cause collective

in other words change my perspective

confirming that it’s all perceived

oh when will you just let me be?

 

***

the soliloquy of sunrise

in the early days on a sunny street – jack kerouac

 

it was an empty sandlot in the day

where all the children came to play

sand castles and baseball diamonds

army men with hills to climb on

 

sweaty socks and sandy shoes

girls in pink and boys in blue

don’t be home till supper time

ice cream cones for just a dime

 

imagination taking hold

sticks were swords and rocks were gold

school was gone all summer long

drank from hoses on the lawn

 

born in nineteen-sixty-one

youth was hotdogs on a bun

sunny days go out and play

watch cartoons on a saturday

 

***

At the Fair

Fish and chips, this is a good batch. The batter is crisp, not a little soggy from the oil like you sometimes get. I paid for extra lemons and tartar sauce and have drenched this carnal delight. The July heat has picked out everyone’s wardrobe and the crowds are revolving around the areas of fun while I lose myself in the mess I am making on my fingers and my face. I should have gotten a soda but I don’t need one so bad that I would want another long line to interrupt this euphoria: three large pieces, a generous portion, sharing the parameters of the plate with a pile of fries under sunny skies.

 

***

absent from the pictures that are present in my mind

a wandering poet drinking the sky

i swallow the moon and laugh till i cry

there’s nothing inside me, no weed and no booze

now clean and sober is what i choose

i don’t say its better i just say it is

for over two weeks now it’s how i live

i still lay with women who think i’m all that

but where they see diamonds i know is just crap

the morning is making me dream of the night

coughing from cigarettes i gently ignite

nobody notices here in l.a.

i’m nothing that’s anything but in the way

goodbye to memories i killed with my past

i fried and inhaled and drank every glass

but nothing is something when nothing at all

is all that you claim is the sum of it all

i move without meaning my motions confirmed

the confines of gravity making me squirm

if you are enlightened then i am a god

but blindness and happiness will only defraud

i dance with the desert and drink till i’m dry

for beyond this moment it’s all just a lie

so why am i sober or not getting stoned

i don’t fucking know so leave me alone

in context of compromise destroy and create

but nothing exist after quarter to eight

the world that we live in will no longer be

i’ll move to a sandbar and marry the sea

kerouac died before he could quit

good chance i will vomit and return to it

but so far today no vomit i lick

but i am aware of the slow burning wick

that mocks my sweet mantra of just for today

if alpha is beta which role do you play

and my stream of consciousness floods all the plains

the stream requisitions from an endless rain

tainted or pure the banks overflow

and i’m always caught in its undertow

it’s not that i am tempted i’m just simply bored

i commit to your needling needs like a whore

and double the cigarettes i daily intake

a lone naked swimmer inside a shark tank

where a feeding frenzy devours my flesh

and i’m doing nothing to help me forget

and worse yet i wander without any aim

no higher ideas i try to attain

whether i do or whether i don’t

nothing’s accomplished if i will or i won’t

today i’m not doing is all i now know

if this is a joke i’m getting it slow

so many before me with their predilections

never could win the battle addiction

like cats trying to be on both sides of the door

my thumbs are opposing and still i want more

of all i could be or maybe could do

i don’t want to be a me that is you

with all of your constructs of what we should be

drunk, stoned or sober i’ll always be free

for i am not doing because that i should

as if something better will grow from the wood

no change in perspective towards all absolutes

just twenty pied pipers caressing their flutes

today i’m not doing, tomorrow don’t know

i’m not in the mood and that’s how it goes

so save all your mays for your april showers

i don’t lean on me or a higher power

there’s nothing to be no champion to cause

just is and then isn’t without a because

 

***

 

can i get off at the next station?

is the poem enough

can all be said within

do i need to write a novel

tell my story beginning to end

 

give it the title

a lost soul posing as an artist

 

chapter one, page one

 

“boredom abounds

a myriad of sounds

cascade across my consciousness

 

absence of bliss

i run to your kiss

and call upon a casual causality

 

fragmentary fragrances

unfolding in my mind

i took a pause

to find the cause

but all that i could find

were afterbirth

and songs of mirth

and dreams left undefined”

 

well, maybe not

it would be just another

esoteric etch-a-sketch

that no one would understand

but me

 

the rejection driving me further

down the rabbit hole

 

oh i try to function

but truth is

i’m just hiding in plain sight

ready to ignite

and taste the ash of my decomposition

 

filling out forms for the requisition

then standing by the mailbox

for all eternity

waiting for the delivery which never comes

 

nobody bothering to tell me

that i have already died

staring at me with

dead soulless eyes

my super power is unmasking

the sorrow they try to hide

 

it’s raining

i walked in it

now i’m watching it

and goddamn if it isn’t

saturating my depression

with an extra ladle full

of sour sauce

 

god has my depression taken hold

i don’t know where to come in

out of the cold

 

i’ve done therapy, prozac nation

oh and this stupid fucking writing shit

 

i am a cigarette unlit

in-between the fingers of a non-smoker

folding with four aces

in the last hand of poker

 

and it doesn’t fucking help

that i’ve ridden to the roadside of nihilism

a two lane highway

so dark headlights are useless

and everyone just gets out and walks

very, very slow

and what spark or flicker

may light my way

will have no ignition point

after i die

 

how i envy the eyes

that lifts to the skies

singing

oh Lord, how great Thou art

 

my community is of a bunch of smokers

i’m always generous with mine

and if i’m out

someone is always happy to give

 

oh the lives we live

after we extinguish

and go our separate ways

 

i’ve tried to quit

but it’s like a cult

making it impossible to leave

 

but i don’t hang out too long

what would i say

except that i suck

 

share these thoughts on parade

which i can’t get high enough to barricade

and stop the endless procession

of their march

 

first world problems

trapped like sardines

and salty sausages

unable to capture

the canary or the crane

 

reading about the train

and all that christiaan pasquale experienced

 

it doesn’t matter if it makes sense

when you wallow from depression

you’re a cloud covered eeyore

by a sunny forest stream

unable to feel anything but the rain

 

i guess a poem is enough

to discuss and convey

a novel or play

may be more entertaining

but as i said

i’m not finding any of this much fun

 

i don’t want to feel this way

channel it into a five act play

that would take me months to write

like living in the constructs of a religion

that doesn’t allow for a divorce from depression

 

a momentary confession

because that’s all poetry is

a moment

 

and those of us outside the atonement

make the most of moments like these

like pasquale tasting the breeze

from a train passing five feet from his face

 

i’ve bowed my head before the statue

saying, “full of grace”

trying to identify with the religions

that prays to a goddess

 

but my depression is a concession stand

that sells everything for free

till i am full of things that are worthless

 

and i begin to understand

(if not truly contemplate)

suicide

it would just make everything stop

 

there are no storms raging around

all is inside

like an alien that has burst out of my chest

turned and devoured

 

a shape shifter that lets you see

stars through the trees

while i dwell on why

the tree tops block out patches of the sky

 

the cat comes from outside

rain escape

races muddy paws across the table

paw prints on my poems

 

i wonder how many beers

bukowski spilt at his typewriter

staid sentences in silhouette

 

and i am starting to feel better

dirtied these pages with my poems

like the last mound of dirt

laid on a grave

 

writing may not save

but it strengthens me enough to smile

as i take the stage

and pretend i am something i’m not

 

***