aka

Gettin’ to be great at anything is like throwing yourself into a whiteout a snow sky (not a blackout) and surrendering to how the world feels you touches you allows you to exist… and fights you to see what you’re made of (engulfs you if you’re not made of anything worth asserting yourself) and celebrates you if you can stay in it’s light (and darkness) long enough (aka endure) to change and tolerate pain, and work at staying the same while changing. call it core values if you want. call it spontaneous expression. call it art or authorship if you want. call yourself god. see if I give a fuck.

double.neg

face it. for the love of god

my whole life begins to falter
my pulse breaks away from the pressure my blood runs up a fever and i get the wax pallor the second i clench my fists against an invitation…

dear god
tonight may i make a double
negative

involved

god was involved

When they threw the book at you, you caught it and began to read. you sure had plenty of time, son. soon you were self-educated and ready to go out in the world. in your homemade uniform you promised to kick some pretty ass. you didn’t even bother to comb your hair. a child playing with a deck of cards on a doorstep, looked up when you passed by. they stood up in their overalls and saluted you. that was the moment we knew god was somehow involved.

typewriter. six

the voice of the machine
unmistakable. a whole room listens as
the natgeo journalist in the forest of my mind
takes a tentative step forward

that night
the ritual

a quiet preparation of the scene
the placing of a sheet
rolling it into view

the smell of oiled letter arms
placement of the fingers
for some thought momentum

the ringing of a bell
the end of every line

i slap the arm to sweep the barrel
down the rail again
hit the block and then recoil

writer’s block…
deus ex machina

carry on

loss 7

another loss – vii

it’s been over five years since I saw you, my friend, and I heard that you died this july. i don’t know if you ever really got clean, but i heard that you tried and that’s more than we could of said about us back then, when we were full tilt, chaotic. the new life in me cries for you, my friend, the old embers in my eyes glow in remembrance, i mean, i have forged a path in recovery and life has new wonders to share. i only wish you could have made it through, too. i relocated north of there, not long after the night we shared with music and laughter and our common bond. the signs had accumulated for some time, flashes of gunfire and madness and theft, and the trails and traces of my chemical romance had ended in black smoke signals, severely. my angels were there looking out for me, they saw me into my despairing, then gave me a chance and reason to change, and i implored God and let go and reached out and took up a new and renewable source, and brandished my pen once again. each and every day i can thank my loves for letting me live, and i wonder where were yours, where were yours? your star would have risen and lit up a world, and your daughter would have felt loved once again, and for her and for you and the world i am sad…

ten

ten. indivisible

i breakdown, too. useless, not unlike a chevy silverado, nothin in the tank. if there’s no coffee in me by 6am, make a lawn ornament outta me. so i start early, crackin those beans through the grind, by hand sometimes, yawnin bedhead and all, spring winter summer and fall, gotta keep myself runnin and runnin along, so i can be luscious good and vitamin k for you, my love, roarin my middle age burnin fuel with that special manner makes all the millenials turn their heads, double take, slap their faces to wonder where the hell i came from? yes, i am my own sensation, out in the wild west of this great nation, one being, guarded, sentient, indivisible, under god, and irreverent to the core. last week against all odds ran my first ever ultra, just ran and ran eight hours long like a lunatic, up and down quarry road through the american river canyon, drawing poison oak for the second time in three months, so sore for three days i could hardly walk and find me thrilled through the pain… just now i saw the county job i applied for has hit processing stage, so juicy like a quarter orange shall i climb out of my navel and squeeze on to the commodity, precious life, dear god, and hopefully get around my self center and finalize my time, this life, on the carrying about in service to those less fortunate, county state country corner, with a beating heart and a backpack and a rushing spirit glancing off the darkness like light does. that’s all i want, anyway.

trax

the weekend came
with rain and the grasses fantasy
green

reality was dishes
was rent and quarter
moons and abrasive

the train tracks are so
godddam polished

when the weather clears
i think i will go eat lunch
on them

or paint my nails
or lay my spine out
or straddle them in denim
and ride them

choo choo
like a freak

or follow the vibration
to the end of
the world

like church bells
like prayer

like god was in doing
the thing which
when done

made you

smile