02.8.013 Shouting into the Void (from a casita in Taos, NM)

I hope you realize that I still want you in my life. I want to continue building something with you; I still want you to be my friend. I don't know what you want because your silence gives me no indication. We had something good, and I'd rather the nature of it change than it disappear completely. I may regret this in the morning and every day after-- if and when no reply comes-- but you're worth the effort it takes to put myself out there. Putting myself out there is never easy, and I'm usually disappointed, but my desire to form a connection with you has always won over-- and for a long time, I wasn't disappointed in the least. I'd fight to keep it ongoing, but not if I'm just shouting in the dark. I hope all is well with you. I miss you.

07.9.013 Rock-Show Solace (to Harlan)

There are rhythms
I cannot attune to.  There
are rhymes I cannot feel;
beings of suffrage I cannot hear.

There are levels of actualization
(of the greater Self,
a selfless idiosyncrasy which delves
between the Blood
and the Bone-- the sweetwater, and sourstone)

which I cannot ever achieve, unless
(with my whole-heart; with ev'ry particle of my plastic Being)

I believe.

Lilliputian Self (Little Things in the Hero's Journey) 23.08.013

it's the littlest things, like
hearing her call him "David"
instead of "Dave."

it's the tiny things, like
the house I'm living in
being sold, along with my childhood.

it's the big things--
like my mother's tears,
and the way I know she must shake
as she tries to cry away
the reality of forever-lonesomeness
(self-afflicted, yet no less
painful; no less stricken).

it's the normal things--
like laundry, and lawn-cutting, and
the inevitable first frost
to signal Winter's onset--

that cause me to pause
and consider all that this life has
brought before my eyes;

all that I am, have been,
will be;

it's the normal things
that sometimes take me away from me.

these things pull me inside--
though I've fought the hero's fight,
and journeyed through valleys
and over the tallest of peaks

(combating the sun, shining in His
Zenith Pointe: radiating
stabbing waves of
carcinogenic engery down upon
[and through] me)

(fending off the moon's
perpetual stare: right through me,
and into Bone-- laying it all
bare [on the table], on
the manic monolithic plinth
of my frail psyche)

in search of the land
of milk, and of honey;

though here I stand, breathing
and always bleeding--
on the inside, or externally--

it's the little things.
it's the little things that weaken me.

11.5.013

i get high in the shower before bed.

i hear my father vacuuming at 10 PM,
when he would usually be passed out
on the couch, in front of a glowing screen.

he texts me at 10:25 that his on-again
off-again
(currently-off)
ex-girlfriend whose dogs we are watching

is coming to pick them up.
he thinks she is drunk.

(she has a problem hoarding and fostering animals she can't take care of, is jobless, and that's why we take care of her dogs-- and NOW she's drunk and on her way here.)

(to my home.)

(TO SPEND THE NIGHT.)

he sure can pick 'em.

hope the dogs like the floor you cleaned for them.
hope the second
enabled, drunk-driving woman in your life
likes the floor you vacuumed for her drunk ass.

Burberry Blues

brandy and lemon drops
guiding my dysthymia
as I sit, mired in your essence
(but my skin and its oils are not as yours,
and the memories come in course:
hemorrhage, clot, and so-forth);

i, too, am not you.

i waited a whole night for your replacement.
the neuron cluster-fires, pinprick blisses
coming to a head (eruption, erotic
maledictions whispered,
swift quiescence coming after)
promised to me
did not come.

these hopes, fantasies
and affect-less memories
have all abated.

in jars, i keep them:
like the coveted clover, numbered of four leaves;
like the child's butterfly, now sullen in glass-house solace, and without food;
like the mad-man's slips of paper (frenetic notes, filled with warnings to a future-self
who would never be there, and never was):

they have withered,
and grown brittle from too much sunlight,
and crumpled under Newton's weight,
and crumbled into dust.

as the dusted drops rake the palate,
so too does the brandy soothe
every tiny, burning cut.

te echo de menos, amor del pasado

17.5.013

there is an old darkness
pushing on me always, always.
there is an old darkness
that sits between me and everything.
there is an old sadness
that springs to life every time
i endeavor to attain happiness.

it's an age-old sickness
that keeps me from connecting.

i have an old friend
who will not let me go.
he keeps me here
out of fear, out of fear.

i need to tell this friend that i must go.
but he's the only friend who keeps returning;
he's the only friend who's stuck by;
the only one to check up on me,
from time to time

and with an ever-growing intensity.

i think i am married.