Sunday, April 18, 2010

sunday

strong.
a still life
the bad place shuffles
what to write
of what spirits
these are the questions to which i've no answers.

i called it on myself i s'pose
nothing but impediment.
shaking hands we call it a day

the shrapnel of daily life
american steel
right between your eyes -- not yours, mine
and now we're going home
if they're to be believed.

that's only one way to simplify my soul
but the grace period ends tomorrow.

now whirring through the air, i see colors
in my head,
up above,
breathing in
confusion settles
at the bottom
now picking up the leaves - what else?

Sister Rosetta was right about the music up above my head
but there's trouble too

We weren't always in this Parisian flat,
in fact,
perhaps never
Never is a long time but not as long as the years passed by

so we cleaned up
or tried
on a rainy sunday, headed for church
but they wouldnt let us in
so we heaaded back homeward
thinking
no thoughts,
it's easier that way
comes naturally

walking along, without a sound
but for the doves, the sparrows, the jays, the mockingbirds
laughing,
rejoicing at the rightness of the day.

there is no one here out to see or hear
shredding of the souls
if there are many of us how many souls do we have?
maybe we should keep only a few
buthow to choose?

Still the trees shake as the herons land
sparrows tremble in their song as hawks hover above
waiting for currents to carry them in
just so

But words like these are only experimental
like the rest of us.
You may as well dance if you got 'em
cause there's no answers coming this way anytime soon.

empty s

sleepy sediments stripped from memory
slow and muddy
sounds of winter rivers watching from
afield
listening to summers memories
everything mostly of simple explanation
once we quit

i almost think the picture is all i can see

but now here in the current i keep
eyes open
mouth open watching the floor remembering
not alone you are when others remember for you the moments
reflected there
wasting time so we don't have to walk through

but what to do when these words are wrong
they always are
never the way i wanted it to come out, always the wrong thing
mine own dishonesty i cannot seem to stop
perhaps for not taking the truth as is

left alone, with all the others
no words are meaningless nor do they have a meaning
without spoken echoes and eyes in concert
they are just bits and scraps lying around
not fashionable enough to be accepted into any real meaning

just words tossed out
like so many cats and dogs along the road
hard of breathing
unclaimed they die

yes it's hard to please you
but still i left the lights for you

no'ne ever said

dimming periods of stability
losing the period anyway
who needs periods when we can't make a complete thought anyway?

who ever knew the man i was taught to call father, or dad?
was he ever completed or is he still hanging?
was ever he a young child,
a boy playing with sticks and scraped knees,
with little girlfriends poking paper valentines into tissue-covered
shoe boxes decorated for the day, sitting on the corner of the desk
in second grade?
did he play with sticks like other boys?

I decorated my shoe box with tissue paper,
set it on the desk
cause that's what they told us to do
but not to get valentines
not me
when i played with sticks it wasn't nice
and i don't know why
it wasn't them that were mean
i couldn't do different
i didn't mean to do it but it happened
i couldn't take it back

but i decorated the box
the colors were fun, taking me away from what scared me,
it was at least pretty, so i thought,
for a change
though the box was always empty

was his box empty too?
is that why he became who he was that i knew?
but there were more of him than i knew
and i saw a few
liked none, but others did
who was he that they knew?

how ever did he get to be?
he went from there to old man, bad heart
baggy jeans
next to last, they'll all be dead

does he ever think what's next?

not saying

if you wanted
to you
could, but i
would
never ask.
who wants to think about it?

once i was thirteen,
not much to say before that
not much after.
from there to here,
from beginnning to there.
some survived some longer than some others.
sometimes a truth is known
only to those who can't
own it.
that's pathology.

living, dying, dead,
they overlap and swallow each other.
sometimes what they knew if they thought
they never did know.
who wants to think about it?

there were
some remembered some
more than some others
but i wasn't ready to dance.
still.
I won't dance tomorrow either.

only two there were in a funeral week.
less before the week, more the week after,
as if.
probably i thought of me
only a child,
not reason for anything.

in the cemetery
separate, parked in the far back,
unbaptized dead, in sin a contagion
plain stones lean drunk like sailors
on leave stumbling cross
a grassy plain

can't but wonder what's
underneath, nothing, after all is
rotted, gone
porcelain skin, coagulated pools,
rust stained eyes
like an old porcelian sink, chipped black iron holding fast
against drunks who vomit, girls washing blood from their face.

i think they did
think, that is, but no one ever did
ask
once the proper face is put on things
there are no more quesitons.
yes, i think that's it.
no one ever said they weren't smart.
who wants to think about it?

Saturday, April 17, 2010

twelve

if ever you remember anything i know will you tell me?
i believe doesn't make it real
there's no stopping thinking once thinking is started
truth can be imagined so can't imagination be truth sometimes?
at least that's what they said - not so nice but you get the idea

whatever the ideas i have no idea where they came from

sometimes i just couldn't help but fall asleep but now
i know i wasn't asleep just gone over there it seems
but all the time there i was.
did they know i was gone, watching from afar or not at all?
what did you think i was doing, hanging around, needing?

city

soundtracks racing by as we watch lives,
the door always open but never going in
out in the dark the light from the door may as well be another poison
we are just a daughter of a father
there are no qualifications to be one you know.
neither one

a stale and moldy mass of limbs, call it humanity
and you misspoke,
we are not your equal

soggy with tears in the muddy moldy city on the river
swollen slowly, stench rising like a mirage in the desert, wavy
waiting for another heartache
we let our heart get tired of it all and went looking for Ra

does anyone want to tell us where we're going?

if the city lost its people and the people lost their souls
then what will happen to the muddy brown bayous?
out from the club sings the sax, people draw near
drowning out the birds now they want to hold it in

it can't all happen and be at the same time in the same place all the time

for now it's another late day downpour
leaving the church so we can follow Jesus
twirling once a lacy white umbrella in the second line
keeping step next to the little red wagon and its urn

here we are again back in the streets but not homeless
but we can't find a priest anywhere
I waited too long for asking -- you're already gone.

song

i called, yes i did and then i hung up,
no i didn't want to talk but only for you to tell me what i
thought i wanted, needed to hear
nothing to do with you
the road to closure is over there
but we have no idea what we're trying to give up
since we were never there
it was the other one
that's all

and then i was a drummer
depressed for a month dents in the flesh
hammered and ironed, sunken scars
anchoring thoughts on the bottoms
where the muck keeps visibility none
and then i hit some more

we just grew up different
all of me and us and you and them
we don't even know who all they are who talk in the stillness of alone
still more chaos than you'd think

it was another concert in another town
driving all day with various activities along the way
of the concert i recall nothing
only sleeping on the side of the road
entombed in safety there alone
so far away
but i don't know where

i told them not to come
but they did anyways.

Did you know it was me?
Would you have talked to me if you knew?
What would you say after all this time, these many past years?
All I want is everything there is left I need to know
that's all.

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houston, tx, United States

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