A word. A sword. A prayer.

Late. Now Imagine.

2008-03-18T00:51:00.004-06:00

1.
A cup of coffee in a shaky hand.
Lips touch a ceramic mug and brace for unknown heat.
The taste of brown liquid on a (thankfully) unscorched tongue.
A mouth fills and swallows, warm down the back of the throat.
Elbows on the table hold up arms that hold the mug steady.
Eyes peer over the lip of the mug.
Eyes stare back, intently.
A hand takes up the cigarette from the ashtray.
Bold lips close quick and lungs inhale smoke-tinged air.

2.
Two hands grip a cold, plastic steering wheel.
The stereo plays music loudly from a compact disc.
A tongue quickly licks nervous lips.
Smoke drifts in spectral wisps across the car.
Lights disappear rapidly past the windows of the car.

3.
Two hands fumble at ring full of keys.
Feet stumble up several flights of stairs, dragging against carpet.
"Shhhh!" accompanies quiet laughter.
The door is unlocked and there is a pause.
Eyes find eyes again and body presses against body, against door.
There is a pause, and silence.
Opposed toes shuffle shyly around one another.
The moon shines in a window.
Eyes lower to jackets.
Foreheads touch with an exhale of breath.

Two shadows slip through the door and disappear into darkness.

My teeth are fine, it's my head that hurts...

2008-03-12T13:19:00.002-06:00

There is time enough yet
for crooked smiles.
For teeth crushed together
by unrelenting jaws.
There's plenty of time
for the taste of sweat and cigarettes.
I'm waking up to this sun-drenched world,
soaked in whiskey and veiled
in wreathes of smoke.
I'm yearning for a road
to open up in front of me and disappear.
Across the Great Divide
of body and soul
we ought to make out our destination.
Such a journey makes for faint hearts
and weary bones.
But my teeth are fine,
it's only my head that hurts.
And that, I can survive.

Death Rides A Horse - Russian Circles (Inspiration and Accompaniment)

2008-01-10T15:37:00.001-06:00

Why is not merely the question
I am my own destination
in an ever spinning globe
we endlessly run round and about it
Never slowing ceasing striving leaving a horse to die it's own sad Death
and the flaming skeleton of humanity rides upon her decrepit back
I
Know
You
I
Knew
You
First
Sounding out like trumpets and war cries
the skies hold devastation in their eyes
but her lips are sealed and I can't breathe anymore
Anyone who calls upon my name
should hole up and wait
for the millennium
It will bring a new king in my place
I'm far too old and small for all of this wavering balance beams of light
we contest for the crown that only the weak receive
and lose again all of our saddles
to the Horse that turns to dust beneath our feet of clay
Unadorned and reported
underscored unreported
masses complacently describe joys and traits that search for answers
that cold mouths never ever ever
bring

Bring

Bring

Bring
Bring
Bringbringbringbringbringbring

Tickle me
trickle down my back and out my spine

the sign of the times is an ever growing shadow of regret
I've yet to see anyone I believe,
I've yet to smell fear on the breath of kings
our shoulder packs are light without the millstones that belong to our necks
this time
I guess I've said about enough by now
our first report will be
like the last
opening up to eyes shut to the world that is so closely and cavernously surrounding us
in light battered harmonious swells
that account for wave upon wave upon wave
of joy and elation fear adorations
this comes faster and fuller than a flood of
triple your salary
Bibli-
Republi-
Democati-
you see how we've all been cut short
you see the smile behind your
only dressed up confused half intentional self righteous unadorned
make believe that this is the truth my friend
friend
friend
friendship friends come in all sizes friend friend friend
according to me this is truth
according to you this is nonsensical gibberish that flies like a fist into the
jaw of a boxers opponent set on turning the bone back into the dust from which it came and
we see with new eyes
we acknowledge the end
we look to it in admiration and flee to
a world
untamed unlike our own
this day we will see the coursing of dogs and hares
and blood through the capillary veins and arteries of our great
city
state
nation
world
I promise you my friend we'll soon see all for what it is
and that sight, that thought excites me
turns my imagination towards the open possibilities of shared blood heart head and landscapes
in a sea of bodies melded
into a man

man
man
man

Tonight is the night we wash over the country-side...

2008-01-09T23:32:00.000-06:00

I've been hiding this one behind my teeth for a while
and only now does it escape
through my fingertips
and into keys into numbers onto screens into eyes out of heads
This is an experiment in forgetfulness
and you're merely a rat
But I forgive you, this time
With any luck at all, we'll explode, or catch fire
sweep down o'er the fruited planes
with a dull 'woosh'
Perhaps we'll pull back across like the tide
back and forth we'll wash this country clean
Did you forget yet?
You rat, you go on
sharpening your teeth
Forget your wits
Just push this aside
You don't need any more clutter anyway
Besides what good is a poem trapped and starving for days
that has to escape to survive, and when it does
dies

(Untitled)

2007-10-21T00:37:00.001-05:00

Oh infinite light!
Tell me thy secrets.

Life is Sad and Beautiful

2007-10-09T15:03:00.000-05:00

We run like the wind.
I feel the old, tattered, breeze,
sweeping in from the lake, carrying us along.
The plains hold us in their arms
as we slip lightly across their waving grass, rolling over and over.
Have you seen the crown? The golden wheat capping the hills?
Have you placed its splendor upon your brow?
Oh how we run with the wind.
We fly past all these things like a flood,
breaking through and over and around everything in our paths.
This is where we find relief.

purple lines make for speed and steady graves

2007-10-06T21:12:00.000-05:00

the purple line train is a fascinating creature unlike the others it can run express but this service is spotty and finicky and you have to catch it at just the right time or else you'll miss it and be suck riding the same rails and route on the slow and halting northern half of the red line and that's never good when you need to be somewhere in evanston in 25 minutes and it takes you 45 and you still have to switch to that damn purple line anyway to get where you're going so don't miss that purple train it will only make you late

but

when you do hit that express train oh boy does she sail yes indeed she zips past stops and halts with those poor people who are just standing and waiting for that old slow red to come around that we just buzzed by flying above and around the apartment building tops and stores and everything between rogers park and belmont that today you just really don't need time to see because you are in a hurry and need to be somewhere for business but usually just fun you could care less about them and still though you see them disappearing and wonder about them and what they are like but you feel safe and comfortable about those places because you know this time you can't explore them because no way is this purple cat gonna stop for you or them like that giant cemetery just south of the wilson stop that always seems so green and alive and is so enticing with its big stone wall and thousands of shiny grave markers and paths and even when the leaves are all dead and fallen and the trees are skeletons you want to stop there because it seems like such an inviting place for a stroll but you wonder if that isn't a little creepy and morbid to walk through a cemetery like a park for no good reason except for the walk and the unexplainable pull of the place itself thank goodness you're safe on this purple guardian that won't let you off near there for anything so you pass on by and that cemetery doesn't even seem like it's there when you're on old slow red so you never get off you're just haunted by its memory and the visions you have of it on the purple line

so

ride the purple line and maybe someday don't and try to look for that graveyard and get off and imagine you took that purple cat and punched the emergency stop right there and pried open the doors and leaped out and soared down over the walls and barbed wire and concrete past the trees skeleton or not and fluttered down and landed like a dove or a homing pigeon and smell the air and walk among the dead and be happy that they were alive once and that you are now

the end

(Untitled)

2007-05-14T01:35:00.000-05:00

Make,
no, take.
Take over.
Take control and make this
into something.
I've seen what you can do
and it's come in floods.
I've seen you wash things away
in destruction,
only to create them again.
Make a difference.
Take making and make it
new.
Right away.
Right now.

Moving water and the gulls . . .

2007-05-14T01:12:00.000-05:00

Four years of lying in the same place.
Under the same sun,
looking at the toy-sized city
poking its many metal fingers
up into the blue sky.
The same gulls are circling.
(I mean, even if they aren't,
they all look the same anyway.)
The same grass is here,
the same dirt.
Me.
Am I the same?
The sail boats are my favorites.
But today their sails are furled.
I close my eyes,
and they disappear under motor power.
This grass is alive,
and so green!
It feels good on my tired skin and bones,
and to be alive
on green grass and
under a blue sky,
cradled by a cool, east
wind.
The clouds change,
but they are still the same water condensed,
more or less,
defying gravity and floating in space.
I look at my hand
surrounded by the blowing grass,
and I know that there is a God.
The blades vibrating back and forth,
my smooth peach skin
tell me.
The wind in the trees whispers that it is so.
Otherwise, I should just sink down
into the earth,
never to return.

Red train, in part.

2007-05-14T00:48:00.000-05:00

It is red and it is
loud.
This train rushes:
Good thing, because I am
running late again.
And now I am left at
the mercy of this
Iron Horse.
This train is different than most here.
It visits the catacombs, flying through dark corridors,
blotting out,
the sun.
The middle of each ride's history is
shrouded in darkness.
It dives deep into the abyss,
then emerges again,
reborn.
Dim, spectral lights claw through the windows,
urging us not to tarry.
In places,
white patches of light
mock the sun, illuminating
sections of this dingy underworld.
This is the city's Styx,
and the boatman waits for no man.
Oh train, lead me
back into the sunlight and the day!
We ride through The Loop,
but there are times when it feels like
The Noose.
Choking with passengers,
its grip tightens around my throat,
and I am tired.

A bright day on the Green Line train.

2007-04-06T00:58:00.000-05:00

Dirty buildings slide by the windows
of the train.
The sun glows with a brightness
that reflects off of decrepit warehouses,
peeling paint, snow, and
new constructions cropping up across the landscape.
The train clatters, but it rocks with the gentleness
of my great-grandmother in her wooden chair.
I fight my falling eyelids and lolling head
so that I might take in
the world.
Everywhere is wet. Melting snow,
the last remains of a bitter winter,
clinging to the brown and muddy grass.
Unintelligible graffitos taunt me,
daring me to attempt a life I’ll never know.
Larger buildings rise up steadily.
They increase in number and density, as do
the people.
The train is moving from the capillaries
in the probing fingers of the Chicago Transit Authority,
to the widening veins, surging towards the pulsating heart of
the city.
The people below walk to and fro,
each with their own, separate, lives.
Through windows people sit and eat,
converse, chat, think.
Millions of words rise into the air.
Billions of thoughts pulse through little heads.
What do they mean? Where do they go?
They disappear into nothing,
into nonexistence.
And I go on by them,
small and unnoticed.

Clear day, brown train.

2007-04-06T00:44:00.000-05:00

The mighty, yet gentle roar
of the el train
soothes me in the brightness
of a cold, spring day.
Its air is warm, and its windows
sheild me from the crispness
of the outside world.
A hundred, two hundred, no more
skyscrapers
lift up on the horizon
and cut the clear blue
of the sky.
Whisps of clouds
gather in one corner of
the expanse,
huddling like misfits in a schoolyard,
to be banished at any moment
by their teacher, the sun.
Thank you for not banishing me,
oh sun.
I need your warmth
and your guidance.
We crawl along in the shadows,
faces changing,
metal clattering,
and always movement.
Movement and the shining sun.
Suppose for a moment,
you were in my place.
What would you think?
Would you fall asleep cradled
by steel and glass?
We pause above the water,
a murky brown below,
but glittering, glittering on,
and creeping, slow and steady
like the el,
from its home.
(The Mighty Lake.)
I love this city.
I love this city, with its concrete
in a world of abstraction.
Love, hate, kindness, goodness,
metal, stone, glass, electricity,
all these things I know,
and their worlds are seperate.
I might sleep,
but I never dream,
as the old song says.
And I roll along here,
suspended above the city.

It ought to be raining already.

2007-04-06T00:12:00.000-05:00

Dark clouds roll by
and I
watch them with a tiredness in my eyes
that forces me into
extended blinks.
When I open them again
the clouds are in a new position.
It's a dull greyness
that floods in through the gaping picture
window,
and wraps around me,
surrounding me.
It causes my head to loll.
I feel like the grey,
reflecting only a little light
that is reflected into me.
I move like the grey too,
though I sit here in this
low, green, cushioned chair,
reclining and drifting
and trying to think.
But still, I am moving slowly,
creeping along
like the clouds.
Swelling, growing, looming,
ready to burst.
Who will burst first?
Me or the clouds?
It's hard to say.
The wind that carries the grey
plays through the fingers
of skeleton trees,
wagging them like a scold,
saying:
"No, no, not yet."
So I will have to wait.
I will wait for the storm to break,
with the darkness looming grey
on the horizon.

I will destroy.

2007-04-06T00:08:00.000-05:00

I set my teeth,
and grit them
like a sword
grinding against a sword.
There are sparks,
and they sharpen one another.
My glare sharpens my teeth,
which sharpen my contempt,
and I become a boiling pot
of rage.
I am shaking, shaking,
and sinking
into despair.
My eyes flash and
my heart beats a flourish.
I will destroy.