Once More, With Feeling

i
pray
for
the
accident
to
happen
again

just
like
you.

-10/7/09

sky of the times

In Alexandria...

...at times I was almost provoked to shout,

"For the love of God, stop this mania for unhappiness or it will bring us to disaster. You are extinguishing our lives before we even get a chance to live them!"

-Lawrence Durrell, Justine

my neighborhood

now and end

then.

i was entirely
too young
to have
a sense of humor
back

then.

i have pictures
to prove
my humorlessness
and too many witnesses
to count.

then.

between a boy and a man
paying for movies
in hand fulls
of change.

then.

the passage
the trial
the fight
the rage
exploding and
unexplained.

then.

i survived
somehow
luck
pure luck
without
allowing myself
a moment
of forgiveness
or laughter.

then.

but now
all i do is laugh
and forgive

you and me

from this old desk
into eternity.

then.

finally
when it comes
for me

now
fearless

dancing
with the fire

until my

end.

-Philadelphia, 2/09

Ice In A Heat Wave

memory, fantasy, dream...reality. so much reality. it tires me. call the soldiers back. order the retreat. memory, dream, fantasy...what's the difference reality always waits. sit in a chair journey through these states. ugliness, the truth, the swallowing, the following, the inconsistency, the mediocrity, the moments of loyalty, the paint mildewed now peeling off the door, that imperfection you can't ignore. those you tried to love, those you could never hate. fragments that build the whole, the hole drifting over your soul. to hibernate so you can perform, to shine yourself up and let your toe nails grow long, scratch your loves ankles while she sleeps. amazing what a good night and days sleep will do, how it can heal you, how you can stare in a mirror but never really see who you are. people want love, but that doesn't mean it's right, there's that lie of safety in flight, but delusion too, the collusion in the book of your people. i just don't like those who fear the world "intellectual" but want you anyway, i swear i'll fight the people who put my name in their mouth, but those who are scared to be alone i feel you pain, those alone in room after room i feel you fear. it's the only place free you can be, really roam, alone, finally return home, remember you're not trapped

you'refreeyou'refree,
fuck all of them
i'm you and you're me...

6/06

The New World

-8/03, Margate, New Jersey