life got worried
got tired, wary even
we took what we could carry
in pockets not so deep
arms not as strong as your heaart
We took what we could
to the purple wood
sat at gray falls
breathing in the damp
listening to romance in F sharp
dreaming
eyes wide open
unfocused, we see each drop pass by

But now it's just the clouds
crying like lost ch someild
not really wanting to find a way home
not knowing where else to go
once aware here there was no home

Without air we are not
we are nothing but watery illusion
breathe, it is not optional here
Breathing
not a thought what goes in
what's expired
sooner or later each must open the mouth
Life

That was the first time round
a third-world marketplace, shit in streets
poking cow ribs, crooked sticks
From Paris we come to sit with the devil
only but we were there
alone, cross legged
cross-legged under the Bhudda tree

Up in a flat-toppped banyan tree
learning to fly like kites
free as the blue

First I heard, the steps were down
the hall, then it was
tomorrow's mourning come back to me
thankful for the altitude, the blowing rock
and the redemption songs, save our minds

Breathe

whose

Yes, then once
it was revealed they belonged
to him. It all made
sense spintered
faith torn tender flesh hung
shreds putrefied
hung shreds
petrified witing honor
your mother your father
commands for you who are
are not but children
belonging to this man or that
and after there will be another.
Some more
subtle less evidence
remainder carries over
overlooking like the others
simply things that are
belonging to another
they spoke of a holy bejesused
son of virgin
mother god one
father loving all but these
through smoke like
ignorance
one broken faith selfish
not one but many floating
among revelations threatening
swallowing us whole
This we can believe
with apologies to tom

to be edited

awake at night with poem in head
at night I wake, words in head
With words in head I wake
Words in head wake me at night
but is it poetry?

I lay with sheet, dog, cats, body
seemingy quiet all
all but the words that woke,
writhing in my head
awaiting some response, some one
too late, gone now
but a lingering sense, a place, left roaming

I breathe the words
I breathe with them but I cannot say them
fleeting they are, like foxes hunted, dogs baying, hidden away
The words envlop me with sloped shoulders
With sloped shoulders we hear the words that wake us in the night,
tiring themselves, immune now to poem speak

I hear the herons, the owl
who hooing and raucous, one slender one not
crickets rub their legs, singing life away
the sky winds through trees tall in the night
intersecting moon clouds, silhouettes of the night
chirps coming down, rooster crows

(to be edited)

i need to learn to edit with blogger so i can compare the first version of crap to the second crap.
i want to write, i was ready to go, but i read some of the stuff here and thought it needed editing but i didn't know how, so i re-wrote some, and still it's not right so i just gave up for the time.
there's not many folks i can talk to about writing
there's not many i can talk to about god and religion adn all that stuff
maybe i'm not supposed to be doing any of it and that's wht there's no one around.
would i have been not better off without that letter?
who knows, never will, cause that was a long time ago and i took it to heart eventually and that's the only reason i came this long and far away
just shows you never know

who knew

dressed up and excited but no one wants to be first
staring at toes of shoes, seeing scuffs missed while polishing
maybe you shoulda just bought a new pair
she said, he looked
not to each other but the others to see
was it time

no time like the present
keep me posted, who's late, who drank too much before getting here
I will tell you who will be the dirty winner
then you can accomplish your next goal

Unflappable. Who made that a word? Who gave permission?
This is what America's all about, blustering and blabbing
never asking or listening even when it's too close to call.

Everyone thinks they have a shot at history but first,
you gotta get up and go to work and no one wants to do that
so it's stupidity we choose.

Currents curl around, cold arms, taking us away
taking our options with it.
What about your childhood dreams?
Crap, nothing but crap.
Sucking the air til your lungs hang out, wet bags gasping like a fish on the dock
A disturbing debut, marked by tears and scars,
now they call it character.

SO the festivities keep going, shine or rain flowing
waiting for another stupid question
whose answers, some were overlooked, some thwarted,
but mostly they were never heard since the only point was in asking
so we would know how smart you are.
No answers please,
don't want
don't need
don't care
because sometimes to know requires to do.

Distance is what it's all about.
Sooner than later, sometime someone has to go there.
We can't all be last, or lost, or anything at all.

i went to the race, made a bet

when no one reads or listens or knows what you say you can say or do whatever and no one the wiser. Not one of those they talk about in the morning when they come in to work and have nothing exciting to talk about but make up crap about other people. Did you see that story?

Personally I don't think it's right, or that's what the church says, or it used to say that, but one thing is if you change your mind then it's too late cause when the times they kill you then you are out of time. What the hell were you thinking anyway?

There's lots of people killed by all the good times they had.
Is it worse if it the bad times kill or you kill to have no more?

Every one of then thought they knew the moral of the story.
What they didn't know is everyone in America was waiting, listening, trying to hear, eavesdropping on none of their business. What business of yours what any of us do or how many survive? But all they heard was nothing but the wind whistling through parched lips of little girls, permanently pursed, won't suck again. All of these we hate, we hate our own more than that. Running through the park knowing there's not another way.

Once I thought it was my house where we lived but they set me straight early on. Maybe the mistake is thinking they were supposed to love me. Or maybe they did and we didn't know it for what it was but bought into a story tale. All these people came from only Adam and Eve so after all, do the math. I'm no good at math. I can't even breathe.

It was my house but I only lived there to do bidding; whose bidding? All of theirs. Didn't I tell you, did you never see? I was there, out in the open, except the ones hid away. Even I forgot where we left them.

All films are propaganda but many are quite amused to sink into the seat. Give the rumpled damp dollars to the kid standing there behind the security glass, safe from everyone but the ones that do them, all for a little piece of paper to go through the wash later in the week. All I did was I was born but I never asked for it.

Many people in their jesus pose think they are friends but that's when they don't know me. Then one of us gets away and everyone is gone, we are alone with only the others of us. There is such a thing and we're not crazy. Just don't let me go. I just need some help to see myself before we disappear and forget everything we thought we knew before all of this. We're probably not here much longer.

Many people in their jesus pose have swastikas on their skins but it's okay because you can't see them if you don't look. Not looking is how we get from there to here. But no one sees or no one cares or no one believes or they see it all and don't know what they see. Or no one cares what any of it means.

Then one will say I know how you feel but we all know that lie. We never told you really, not a thing. My brother's dead. When he was born I was two and now we're fifty and he's been gone a really long time. You don't know even how you feel so why pretend to know about us? Whatever is not this one or any other of me.

If all you ever do is say the right things can you tell yourself what - you're smart? a poet? Doesn't mean you know jack shit about the real world. So maybe one day you're the hero and the next they're all over, looking, waiting for you to pass the cross hairs. When all you want to do is get the hell out, you can't.

In the bathtub sleeping or something like it. Whatever, whyever, none of your business. Because that's how they do it, in tubs full of water. I don't know why I have to fill the tub with water cept that's how they always do the movies. See the black dull chips, the dull white dirty finish. Now it's just me and nothing more. Like always if you stop to think about it. Slow drip like my first metronome, bleeding myself. Looking down the drain I feel the voices rush against the open wounds screaming, what I can't say. None of us speak that language. How long we've been here I don't know. Does it matter?

I only said it so it couldn't hurt me. So they couldn't use it against me. Everyone knows they are good and we, we are not, we are liars. I gave permission to die, I'm not afraid, none of us. I only did it so they couldn't do it to me. So they couldn't take any more. Nothing's left.

The barrel doesn't feel cold after you wrap your tongue round it. Not very cold in your mouth. It's just where we're living, it's the last that we're giving. Only a second to pull the trigger and then we won't need to do it again. You can just keep walking and no one will ever know. Even if you're not done I am.

Waiting for the noise to die down but the chanting grows louder louder and louder.
Everything
something
nothing matters.

sunday second not a mass

I was going to go but I didn't.

The darkness is there waiting.
Not the fear of night type of darkness but an empty space.
Rapacious.
If I don't do something I won't find it.
I won't find anything this way.

I should be, I should do
I should never, I should not
but here i am and what I do is
i just am.

the answers are not volunteering
maybe its the questions are wrong.
Voyeurism, egotism, narcissism.

Feel that, then ask me if you care
It's not academic.
It's just confusing and lost.
Chances are it doesn't matter, I'm come too late for any of it.
Truth be told you're tired of it too
No one likes to be questioned for answers that matter
It's only the polite questions acceptable even if you say we're friends
But how could that be?
Here is nothing but distance and time and stories
you never asked for
but I told anyway
Wanting for close we create distance,
seeking connection we're flung further away
Telling the we never helped either
although the we cannot separate from an I not discrete.

There it was
one big shadow in the door
with a drawl going on so listlessly
the clouds above shuffling through the heavens
feared even to make a sound

There were people buried in those crypts
smooth white marble
cool and soft
luminescent in the moonlight
some covered in slips of papers
written in prayer
but do any of them answer?

The cobbled streets slick with rain
steaming plops of horse shit
the spreading light of midday sun breaking through the storm
and there are only the same people now as ever before
unchanged

Inside
so much space
heart spaciousness to go on forever
but it has no use
peering through the dry dead bones
Is there no hard way to lose a soul?

There it is now
my sanity rearranged, sitting pretty,
shiney once the tarnish removed.

You never know what sort of people live in your house.
It was just a little story I meant to tell but
truth is the last thing anyone needs.
Better to be lost, even to banish yourself
like a sick old cat left out to die.

In the end all things are linear.

Over there in the south lies the truth
Here, the light is here, in the east with the sun
Dreams, more real than truth, nowhere to be found.
They be hidden away real good.

Here in the playground
they dance, they play, they bully and fight
You watch, misremembered, til you get in the way
a little bird looking for a nest
grabbing on the rails of other realities.
That was not just a soldier knocking
this morning on your door.
We can't stay any more.

It's gonna be a while for we can go.
Go ahead, put your bones in the bag, all ready.
What shoulda been a ten-minute ride
keeps rolling, under the
wide blue sky ending not even at the horizon.
Somewhere in all this lies a child.
That's where he'll find his power.
But it's not love,
love will never be
Crying won't change it
It is what it is is all it is
nothing else.
It makes no difference
after all.

seven

one hand proffered another swung
back poised
waiting for the fall of that minute next and
then after next, another
seconds, crumbs falling like rain.
Who would know the ten eternities
preceding the grave?
the birth of a soul
convicted before even one breath,
sins never imagined.
Hanged like a thief no mother would claim
we waited for another day, next,
certain one would come, followed by
another from faith without basis.
And without reason, without cause
it was sanctuary we betrayed, not ready to be sold,
ingratitude was a word learned well then, well earned even
Ah, but that was before we knew there were none
others to take us in
as though it matttered - we knew not of other
but still childish things and fairy tales we wanted
Oh we tried, really we did, for a time.
Bless me father, for I have sinned the words
recited with evil tongue unknown to me,
not knowing what even yet a sinner we could be.

They say, those men, that god made me in his image
so why not in his thoughts as well?
What's just one bad day.
June second is inevitable, it has to be.
I pray but for silence to hear but one
voice, to know only what I was meant for
and I pray for you, I think,
but is it really, whats prayer?
Then without doubt we were but just a girl
to whom hope came easily, faith not
or perhaps was the other way round
not belonging in
this mans world
but for to discharge a debt
I fail to understand.
And so fall the hands, the minutes, the crumbs of the day
passing one at a time, single file, heads bowed,
passing through the palace of god.
Would not the lord deliver some soul
before the cold stops my blood?
Not here, not this vessel, yet I wait
I wait, I wait til the waiting is done,
while blood runs cold,
living in compulsion of fear.

Ready for Disciplined Writing, to Learn how to Write

i have notebooks and pages fulls of lines and snippets and ideas i write, esp as i work and review thousands of pages a day, on the most mundane topics, like the 3G and WiFI networks and the patents accompanying all that stuff, and pharmacology and exclusivity and first to file for generic exclusivity and the rapidly diminishing returns once the ftf exclusivity is over ... see? Nothing there to excite, to incite, to inspire, to aspire. But here comes something, I make a note. All I do is stare at my several screens a day, all work on the computer but personal computers are a security issue so at least i have an iphone and can check facebook, but there's a limit to any real writing. Friday I worked 4 hours (3.5 actually) and reviewed 878 documents, 100% accuracy. I want to write - I don't think I'm any good though R does or says so anyway and though he certainly is a very good guy, better than I deserve, he is also very honest (never in a mean way) and supportive to the max, but really i don't think he'd say he liked any of it if he didn't, nor go so far as to select a handful for a competition ... so maybe with practice i can write something more passable. I need a regimen, a discipline. Feedback, criticism would be nice - I tried to edit some stuff I'd posted earlier but the originals went somewhere leaving me with the revised, so not anything left to compare to look at edits. So I guess i'll give a try, to force myself to write. The starters I don;t know - perhaps all the stuff I start with at work -- might be very Kafkaesque. He too was a lawyer who hated his non-thinking job and wrote as an escape though there are in my little brain absolutely no illusions to have such a gift as he. It seems much of his response was molded by the circumstances of his father's shop, his school there on the main square, and both the great discrimination shown him as a Jew and the tedium of the bureaucracy he faced just trying to do as he was asked while at the same time there seemed to him to be some motivation that favored no one completing their tasks.
If anyone has a idea, a discipline, I'm certainly open.
I've nothing to offer in return but my friendship, for whatever it's worth as I know I can be aggravating, dense, obtuse and annoying ... yet always I am grateful and thankful, and I've even been known to say prayers (whether they are heard or not is a whole different matter)

trees

trees
marks meaningful
as defined by those who know
what's best meant by this or the other
some more than others.
Not one a poet writing with fingers and with toes.
The fingers and the toes have their own insistence
and what are we to do?
Swpet away to wordlessness.
Washed the words we set them to dry on towels,
aside the pots and pans from last night's dinner
More people eat dinner than poems, it's true.

Poems feel a void, replete with
electro tech babbling backgrounds like streams of consciousness
with nothing heard,
ends loosened once and never tied to anyone or anything
we float along these shadows,
and the work is never done.

Went to the bayou to see the trees,
what they had to say to my silence
Reaching out above the sky,
scraping dark clouds and sunbeams with equal abandon
shading bayou waters, catching bodies and other debris
wrapping round the trunks muddy and dark
fashioning it to something useful
like a poem?
It's mystery we prefer to truth.

Watching waters of the bayou brown and fast
thinking what?
fancy pictures of trees on bottles
that sell the wine, drunk beyond care
subtle foil labels, stark tree
outlines, anorexic skeletons
black and white photos of lonely, shapely trees,
called art
trees of character
trees of lynchings, crucifixions
their limbs beat others limbs
still
no one questions, no one doubts
the trees character