Crazy rocker

 

No great loss

 

Is there anything worth losing more than

Your mind?

It tricks and betrays

Prevaricates and dithers

When you really need it

It’s unavoidably delayed

When you want to make an impression

Suddenly it’s a ten-year-old in a china shop

It comes up with all the cleverest things to say

The very next day

And when you’re called upon to be brave

Your helpful mind lists all the various ways

That you could die

Horribly and (subset) humiliatingly

So I think I’ll lose my mind today

Give it the slip when it’s thinking about my stomach

I’m pretty sure I’ll be okay

I can try a life without self-inflicted anxiety for a bit

And if the separation works out

Maybe I’ll start seeing other minds

Now there’s a thought.

 

 

 

©2016

Two faces have I

 

Layers

 

I used to wear a mask that looked

A lot like me.

The same almost smile the same odd jawline

But the eyes were never me

Never showed the truth

The uncertainty

The fear

The mask was bullet proof

Shock resistant

Imbued with calm serenity

It looked a lot like me

But it wasn’t me

Those eyes

Those piercing, steely eyes

Betrayed nothing of the man behind

Then I met my missing part

And she gently pried the mask away

To reveal the fear was not for life or this world

Fear was the inner surface

Of the mask itself.

 

 

©2016

My confession

 

The matter

 

I suppose there’s some merit

In a bad poet’s efforts

To speak love to nihilism

I tried speaking truth to power

But power won’t return your calls

I’ve railed against the endless lies

But all I got was alienation

Under a thousand watchful eyes

In the end I was forced to conclude that

People prefer a comfortable lie

To an unpleasant truth

So I’m done with moving against the tide

Now I’m  for something instead

I’m for love

The love we make

And the love that makes us

To hell with nihilists, narcissists, and all other

Forms of emptiness

Give me the sharp slap of love

Across my face

That’s all that ever really mattered to me anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

©2016

Scary monsters

 

 

In the spaces between the gears

 

I see what it does to you

This grinding down life

The endlessly manducating jaws of existence

Unceasingly demanding more

Than you have left in you to give

The unrelenting expectations from those

Who take and take and never ever reciprocate

Until you begin to fear

They may have already taken the last piece of you

I see the lost despair behind your smile

The lonely echo of your isolation

Your struggle to simply be

To have one calm day

One tiny sliver of peace

Away from all the chaos in your head

And the white noise of a world that never retreats.

 

 

 

 

©2016

Life itself

 

 

Time and motion

 

A man can be worn away

In the constant rush of time

If he waits for his moment-

Tarries too long in his uncertainty

The sands passing by him-

Swirling around him

May reduce his body to dust and bones

He must keep moving-

Swimming ever forward

With the flow

The ceaseless flood of moments, days, and years

That will carry him inexorably

Towards his destiny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

©2016

The astronaut

 

 

 

Spaced man

 

There’s something that happens

Deep down in the soul

When everything you see and touch

Has nothing to do with her

She’s never seen this

Will never hold it

You can describe it

But no matter how clever your prose

It’s all second hand to her

And knowing she has no connection to it

Or anything else within your horizon

Makes it all so much less than

It’s meant to be

This must be what the astronauts feel

When they leave their loved ones behind

And fly out of the world.

 

 

 

 

Words and image are my own.

 

 

©2016

 

 

The fuse

 

 

 

I.E.D.

 

If you see me on the street

Please

Ask me about her

If you care at all

Give me the opportunity to speak her name

Out loud

To tell you how her eyes possess me and

How her hair feels between my fingers

Let me tell you about her laugh

Throaty and real as fresh baked bread

Give me just one chance to pour my love out to you

Bear witness

Be the ears of the world

A media of one

Just for a moment

Defuse the ticking package inside my head

Because

And let me be very clear on this point

If I don’t let some of this out

I will fucking explode.

 

 

 

 

 

Words and image are my own.

 

 

©2016

 

 

 

Can’t always get

 

 

Throw a thousand coins

Into the wishing well but

You’ll never own it.

 

 

 

 

 

©2016

Devil inside

 

 

Hit pause to play

 

 

Be still o foolish heart

You can’t out race my speeding brain where

Thoughts of her come in ceaseless batches

Brown paper wrapped dispatches from my liquid core

Runners from the front lines of obsession

Bearing missives of conquest and capitulation

You beat a mean tattoo

But my mind is a double espresso in staccato

My over caffeinated brain and it’s trip-hop, double-time,

Bebop, tango of infatuation knows exactly what I want

So cool your jets blood pump

You’re too damned emotional anyway

I want to focus on that thing she does

And you keep putting love in the way.

 

 

 

©2016

 

 

 

 

The Templars and the Saracens

 

 

 

Savings and loans

He sees it settle in along her shoulder line

A weight beyond gravity

Pressing her down into her chair

Anxious eyes traverse the planes of her face

A probe seeking signs of a happier life

His heart tumbles when he discovers her

Trapped upon a stone covered mesa

An isolated landscape inaccessible to the most intrepid

He would jump into fire for a just shot at rescue

But the shot will never come

There’s no magic bullet

This is the grinding machinery of life

The crushing wheel of monotonous routine

No one else can play the hero

Only she can save herself.

 

 

 

 

Words and image are my own.

 

©2016