Apparition

Every sound you make
rumbles in the space between
what you have and
the sanity it takes to survive.
You're not alive.
You're the ghost
of a saint
I used to pray to.
You're the most devastating
way to
skip through a couple of months.
A couple of bucks.
A couple of half-hearted attempts
to domesticate.

I promised to wait for you.
I stayed true to that lethargy.

That lack of activity
made my mind move faster.
This mission
became my master.
It was exacerbated by faded notions
of connection and
the resurrection of us.

Now that time is ending.
I'm fending off your demons
in favor of angels.
And I will strangle every last
accusation that flies my way.
I won't stray from my mission.
I am an efficient soul
that has pull with heavens.
I have unleavened bread
and wine
upon a shrine of righteous indignation
and scars I have laid before you.

What will you do?
Now that your kingdom has faded.
Jaded makes you ugly.
You tugged me too hard
in the wrong direction.
Now your protection has receded.
No longer impeded
by my need to please you.
So let me ease you back into perdition.
It was a war of attrition.
The thin layer,
that was you,
never had a chance.

Argument

 Well,  I like to be right.

This is what's left of the conversation

after our battle.

I should feel bad about it.

I should let sad grab a hold

of these untold emotions and

let oceans and oceans of

history, where you were

pissed at me,

spill out into tears.

Buckets of tears.

Fuck it, barrels of tears.

To the point

where it just seems queer.

No that's not a gay joke.

And I'm not saying this

just to provoke you or

to stoke you into a fire

That would be the opposite of what I desire.

What I want...is silence.

A blind sense that the world is at peace.

That this beast

has ceased telling me that I suck.

That I stuck my foot it again.

As if every sin isn't displayed

like the song Crimson and Clover

over and over in my fucking head.

I feel dead when I am talking to you.

There's no glue to your thought process

and it's all "you're going to have do this"

Well, I'm tired of this shit!

My head's already broken.

It folds in

when I try to hold on to a thought.

It's wrought with wispy wonders

that it understands are things with mass.

Did you take a science a class?

Do you know what I mean?

Joy is the steam in this engine,

I am stuck on the tracks.

And I can't relax in this state.

And I can't move to another one.

Do I have a son?

I feel like we should have kids.

It's the only explanation for anxiety like this.

For you to ride me like this.

For you to stand so proud

and ride around my hopelessness

like a carnival carousel.

I'm not sure you really understand

what this ride is.

I think your pride is misguided.

I'm standing one foot of the cliff

and your words are the stiff breeze

I need to blow me into the heavens.

There are seven stages of grief.

I think you've given me six.

I may have mixed my metaphors.

I may have peed in that bed of yours.

But that doesn't change the fact

That it's my bed too.

So I didn't just do it to you.

And for that

I bought myself some silence.

I Tried

I died your arms last night.

I love that song.

It's got passion and it's not too long.

It's also got cheese

and I am lactose intolerant.

I feel like I get gas when I try to follow it.

I feel like the 80's was about being lost.

So when I got to the 90's

I didn't know where the fuck I was.

I tried being a hippy without a cause.

I tried playing drums and smoking a bunch of pot.

I tried ignoring responsibility

and tripping a lot.

I tried growing my hair out

to hide my face.

But it's so curly that didn't really take place.

I tried living with my dad

because I was down on my luck.

Amish country...between highway WTF

and rural route whatever-the-fuck.

I tried going to school

but even the girl couldn't get me to care.

I tried to be here

but I just kept ending up over there.

I tried plunging down

but my family just wouldn't let me fall.

I tried to score goals

without ever touching the ball.

I tried convince her

I was ready to be a dad.

But after the miscarriage

I wasn't really sad.

I tried to hold on to love

that was already dust in the air.

It's hard to realize

that with women, you're never really playing fair.

There are many ways to fail.

Trust me I have tried a slew.

Now I stand here, tired,

trying to succeed with you.

I am a simple creature.

Just don't let the music die.

It's the only thing that helps me

quiet the judge inside.

Thoughts of Men

In our heads

we store pockets

of sin and disregard.

There’s no real

calling card for

these cognitions.

No positions

You can feel.

In the real world,

when I meet a girl,

I’d shake her hand,

smile

maybe talk for a while.

A smile from me

is possibly darkness.

A stark nest of

inappropriate actions and

infractions of the soul.

My goals are always satisfaction.

I can’t

show you that.

You can’t know the fact

that under my hat

You’ve sat on my face…

a time or two.

Committed, crimes

in a state or two.

These thoughts

considered victories

in a game

you’re not playing.

Considered exclamations

in a sentence

you’re not saying.

And you’ve been defiled.

I mean just

Degraded.

Shaded to the point

of shame.

Raided to the point

of fame.

You’ve pulled my hair

screaming, “Oh God!”

As I’ve touched you there

And there

And…there

And that sends a flare

into the sky

above your head

And this dead air,

that may be a second,

is the third time

I’ve blurred the lines

between inappropriate

and “Holy shit!”

I mean thank the lord

you can’t be poured

into my mind

in that 10

to 15 second time

when you go from

stranger to known.

Because your mind

would be blown

by my audacity.

My absolute capacity

for filth.

Lighten Up!

Holy Jesus!

Why so serious?

I know you want the air of mysterious

but this is just crazy.

Every reading you’re at

you attack me


with somber soliloquies

of sensations and sadnesses you

somehow sauntered through.

And I feel bad for you.

But is that what you want?

For me to get caught in this trap

of slapped back sorrow.

Got news for you Sunshine

you’re due to rise tomorrow.

Look, I understand

that you might have had a man

who put his hands all over you.

Then proceeded to screw the

pyramid out of the cheerleading squad.

Or maybe you had that odd sort of fellow

who liked to bellow about his peacefulness.

Who liked to express his laissez-faire

in a Lazyboy chair as he finished off the

last of your food.  

Hey that’s what pot does to you.  Right?

And I get that you had a night

where you felt so alone that

you decided to talk to the phone

even though there was no one on it.

That there was a night where you sat

with a tissue in one hand,

a bottle of painkillers in another

and you hovered over the thought

which one was the better road.

These are stories I have been told.

But hey! Let’s have fun today.

Let’s ball tap an old man and run away.

Let’s go the library

and play the penis game.

I mean there has to be that room

in your mind where you can find

the funny shit you’ve done.

Where fun is napping and

waiting for a finger in the butt.

Hey...It’s a hell of way to wake it up.

So listen to me.  I am begging  you please.

Find a way to squeeze a smile

in between the times you’ve been defiled.

Find a rest stop on the 23^rd mile

of this down road you've been walking for awhile.

Because if you don't

we'll all just kill ourselves.

Then you'll have to shelve

your self-righteous need

to make our hearts bleed

with daggers you create with your pen.

So smile little camper

things will get better.

and remember

Suicide, patricide, genocide, viricide, parricide, infanticide, tomecide, liberticide, famicide and most importantly menticide is not the answer.

Hold On To

I know you are far away

but I’m not doing well you know

there’s a sadness when I try to let go

there is always a subtle justification

for every manifestation of “us”

I create.

I relate better to history.

Even when you were pissed at me

I loved deeply.

Your eyes would seep into me as home

but now

that was a long...long time ago.

time flows

life grows

and we haven’t enough sorrow

to hold on to everything.

Every scene

that ever brought us down

but you

I hold on to

like questions I can’t respond to.

you share my spirit

And I fear it has enlightened over time

to the point where it’s no longer mine

or even something I understand.

To be man around you

was not something I thought I could do

but then I did.

I place a bid on your sentimentality.

I just couldn’t pay my dues.

now there’s no you.

sure you still love me

what choice do you have?

Our hearts are a match.

now we’re older

colder to the idea of change

I wish you could re-arrange

your heart

and start longing again.

I wish you would open

because it’s cold

and I want to come in.

Division

Somehow in our division, we multiplied the idea that we should be together. Some kind of forever type shit, has hit us in the back of the head. Suddenly the relationship is not dead. I can’t help but tread lightly on this new found calm; because when we speak it’s usually not Psalms coming out of mouths. Half the time I don’t know what it’s about but I know I wouldn’t want kids to hear it.

It’s a queer set of circumstances that brought us to this apartment. This small compartment at the top of the stairs... where we keep our wares and our inner most thoughts from the outside world. Where we balance the life and death of love, just a breath above whether or I did the God Damned dishes. I wish your wishes had something to do with me and who you wanted me to be. I wish they tapped into my personality...instead of just the fact that I have hands.

What I do understand is harmony. Which is hard to feel when the place is dirty or apparently when you are a woman over thirty. I know that’s unkind but I can’t wrap my mind around why you still want me. Almost everything you launch at me calls me pathetic...and yet it doesn’t remove your hands from ass. It doesn’t allow me to pass without a quick kiss to your lips and a subtle harassment of my sensibilities.

This is fucked up to the third degree and yet my heart doesn’t want to be free. It keeps telling my head to shut the hell up and just let it be. There’s a war without and a war within me. I wish I could just throw up my fingers and mean peace. I wish your madness would just cease. I wish you'd grab me by my neck and ravish me. I wish you’d throw me to the floor and show me what these hands are really for. I wish you’d lock the door so neither of us could flee. Until the sun comes up and the birds start singing from the surrounding trees. Shit. See. My heart doesn’t want to be free.