Soot

Cold winter nights warmed by the sweat of summer days
That lingers on my cloths, but mostly in my hair
The musty smell of soot and oily blackness from the pipe
Has stained my fingers and my face
Fire cooled, stainless steel filtered, wood juice
I rub it through my hair completely satisfied and watch it drip
Onto the stove
Like vapor-rub it opens up my nose and settles in my chest
I contemplate the joy no cubicle could bring

What it brings

October comes and brings with it
Thoughts of pennents, plasticed windows;
Thrill of moment, thoughts of winter;
Popping viens and whithered wallet;
Stress on screen and worry at home.

Quiet Man (part3)

His eyes are still
But moving back
And seeing things as they once were,
His daughter young again.
The lack of years show in her eyes,
Unbridled joy and happiness
Flow from her hands onto his skin,
Her arms wrapped 'round
His neck so tight he'd hardly breath
If breath were on his mind,
But all he knows is what she knows
The joy of "daddy's home!"

Quiet Man (part2)

The ring on his left hand
Has been their for a while.
A simple band of gold
Shines like it's never gone
A day without a little work
To keep it in its prime.
A smile here and there
Escapes his lips while on
The phone still polishing his ring
With kind soft words of love.
Contentment's on the other end
Still polishing her ring.

Quiet Man

His form is slightly gaunt.
His hair is all but gone.
His eyes are grey, but still
Give off a spark of blue.
His hands are brown with age,
And spots show now on top
Of muscles in decline.
A flanel shirt hangs by
His desk and keeps him warm
When things get cold, but in
His eyes, his greying eyes,
You see that spark of blue.

Tell the Dirty Jokes (r2)

(the tax collector prays out loud)

Too articulate
For the simple minded fool
You all sit and fart

Ideas covered
In the wrapping paper of
Academia,
Expelling noxious
Symphonies as your haughty
Neck holes suck the air.

Damn it! Speak it through
As it really is in life.
Spare me pretentious
White-washed lyric lies,
The fantacy of "polite,"
And sit in the mud.

Do not be too big
To dance in the sty of man.
Tell the dirty jokes;
Drink a few wrong things;
And never forget ladies
Need a warm bed too.

Sleep (part3)

Dry bones from dust, and flesh from bones,
The sinews come, and sockets form,
The carriages of carrion are now forming
My soulless shell.

It is pulled from the grasping ground,
Most unwillingly it hovers
For a moment, only slightly
Hesitating, masquerading
As a puppet of the earthen.

Far from sealing the Casket of my Soul, you revive me.

Pulling me directly from her,
Muscles twitching from the effort,
Breaking bones in my own fingers
To loose the grasp I have on death.

Begin the sweet seduction of my wandered soul.
Entice the life back to this form.
Let joy, forgotten, move within
My fallen members with delight.

Pissing on the wall

It reaches out with shiny wings,
That yellow arch of social grace
Which hits the wall and scatters light,
Showers the ears with joyous song
Played by the middle finger who
Resents the clothes we wear for cover,
We are ashamed/afraid of it.

If only we could come to terms,
Social graces and the finger,
To find a way to learn with joy,
With moderation and a zeal,
What God design the pleasures for;
Not just for writing on the wall.

Look me in the eyes

(a quick study in octosylabic line)

Yesterday,
I chased away a preacher man.
I 'd heard him speak his piece of mind
and it was time for him to go.

He'd cornered three young men and talked
at length about their place with God
and how their church was false and how
their elders should be pressed and pushed,
questioned for the truth denied them.

“Your monks have no idea where
the path of true salvation lies,”
he said with upmost piety.

He then pulled out some pamphlet tracks,
collected in a plastic box,
with tabs and colored pencil marks,
showing him all the answers plain-
passing them on without a glance.

Here is the one on Jesus Christ-
you know his name but not the man.
Here is the one on sinfull lust-
you know the feelings that you have.
Here's the one that is the best-
it shows the blood and guts and gore
you may have seen in Mell's new flick-
he says without a glance,
handing them up to open hands.

I could not take it anymore
and tapped him on the shoulder once-
almost as if to say hello,
but not enough to cause alarm.

“Do you attend here?” I said straight
and looked him in the eyes to see
if what I had seen as pridefull
sin was simply over-zelous talk.

“I'm here now,” he said with a grin
and quickly turned his head
back to his box of colored tabs,
his figures never sitting still.

“Are you a membere here?” I said
to his back in a sterner way.
This time he paused and never looked-
just said his piece, matter-a-fact,

“I attend many churches here
in the city,” and continued
never breaking in his serman
to the boys who were polite.

“I think these guys are busy now,"
I said in a darker tone that
implied that he should leave...
"Their youth leader can, I'm sure'
guide them where they need to go'
without your help or idle talk.”

He never paused, but took his pack
and started to get up.
He turned his heal and left the church
without a single word.

I wonder why he would not stop
to talk to me, but simply hit
the younger ones who would not fight
or do the things he said
like question him and wonder why
he would not look them in the eye?

But not tonight...

The first few weeks when no one sleeps,
The next few months when days are long,
The many years when they're not long enough,
Are all mixed in here, in the moment of this song,
From inside, on the top, and in between
Of every broken line.
~

Tonight, the hours
Tick on by as slowly as
My daughter's crying seems to ebb.
Her notes are piercing in
The native accuracy to my heart,
But now my heart is warmer, toughened, by her cry.
For sure,
Her voice is stronger
than I was.

There is no surer touch
Than that of a father
Who knows his daughter well.
There is no shakier touch
Than that of a dad
Who's just found out he is one.

My shakes have lessened since
The first few weeks when
Holy terror locked my muscles
Past the point of mental break,
So scared I was that she would fall
And hit the floor, a thud, a whimper, nothing more,
Or lean her head back like a whip
And crack her neck and cease to breath.
I'd lie awake and watched her chest
Heave back and forth, slowly deep,
And place my hand upon her chest
To feel the lie
My eyes had told me.

Her eyes, a slated gray,
Had seemed too large
For the frail frame
That wrapped around them.

Her fingers, translucent threw
The light that washed her face
Of every color, but the ones I saw,
grasped out and grabbed me by the hand,
though I had hardly felt a thing.

I brought them home.
Her mother's courage brought us
Safely by those next ordeals
That were close at hand.

But now I know
She's made of tougher stuff
And so am I
We breath, we live, we'll die,
But not tonight.

~not fini

Sing in my ears.

(his song)

When will tomorrow get here
When today floats heavy on the sweat

Sitting on my chest
And pounding in my head
Fears of death
And your life without me

Sing in my ears
And tell me shallow
Touch me deep
Of love

I go insane
And space and time are drawn
Slightly out of step
With one another
In the wiring of my mind
I try to follow
Confusing beats

Your eyes, your heart
My head, my pain
Make too much sense

For a boy, now a dad

Telling his wife, “I’m okay.”
Assuring tomorrow
(but today?)

Love is here
Skin to skin
You rub me
Rhythmically in circles
Down my back

I turn
Your eyes
They tell me silent things
You cannot hide
Your fear of my fear
You know me
Deeply

Knowing more of us than you let on

(Seven years ago we --- Five years ago we ---
Two years ago we ---)

Mumbled, drowsy, half-
Awake to what (?)
I need
You

Sing to me
Hope for tomorrow because
Today it floats heavy on my sweat

Now.

Now it’s time to grow up,
But who’d ‘a thought that meant bills?
The windows leak my money to the street.
A sheet of plastic cures my blues.

Lord! Grow’n up seemed such a treat
When I was yet to drive,
Bricks were tied to my feet.
The roads the were short and narrow.

But now the drive is in the dark
And I come home, the lights turned off.
Can’t keep them burning
Money, now in short supply.

Thought He Remembered it True

(be carefull who remembers)

A husband is glad to be finally rid
Of a wife who is glad to be finally rid,
Of a life that he chose to be part of.

He skips and he sings as he walks down the road,
Care free enjoyment of nothing at all,
Nothing to guide him and nothing to be,
No place to go to and no where to lie,
A marvelous heaven, displayed like a hell,
Is stretched out before him and wonderfully bare.

He must have been crazy to leave such a life.
His dinner was ready, right promptly at six,
In the morning while we were asleep.
He worked in a place, at the top of his field,
At the peak of his form, he gathered up pieces
Of people that nobody wanted.

He moved far away, just a mile or two,
And suddenly found no one home.
His walls were now full of the things he could do,
But he sat and remembered, remembered it through
Clear to the bone and back up the flesh.
He thought he remembered it true.

So he packed up his bags and moved closer to town.
Cleveland, the city it shined.
He bought a new house, dressed it up like a home,
And promptly decided to call
All the people he knew, had a grand ‘ol time,
In a house full of nothing to do.

He frolicked and played in his new found wealth
Bought at the price of his life,
But he always looked back at the happy days
When they were still husband and wife.

Rabbits.

Rabbit liver was the best.
Its stronger taste was from
the iron and the other stuff
that passed on through its spongy purple meat.

At least that’s what our mother said,
And she would know,
and so
we ate it all.

Every morsel, every bite,
of rabbit that we ate,
we knew where it had come from.

Dad had shown us how to take
a rabbit from the cage,
none of them had names,
and tie its feet
up to the nail that was hammered in the wall.

Next you’d stretch its neck and whack away,
a good strong shot into the spin,
and watch it twitch awhile till it stopped
and then you’d slit its throat
and let the blood run out in streams
and splatter on the driveway,
blacktop,
by the hose and faucet.

Dad would take his knife
and carve it up the middle,
the rabbit, calm and never moving.
He would reach in
and pull out
gobs of stringy stuff,
red and pink and squishy warm.

He’d let us try it too
and show us all the wonders
of the insides of an animal
who’d only recently stopped breathing.

The gall bladder, which was never missed
and never broken,
green and small and foul smelling,
was thrown away into the trash
can first.

Its rancid taste
was bitter bad and ruined all the meat.

We marveled at its power to destroy
the joy
that we had killed an animal to produce.

He’d take a handful of the fur and, with a yank, would start
to peel off the clothing of our dinner,
strip it bare,
and then
dissect the choicest parts of that night’s curry.

Hot and spicy it would tingle
as it passed our lips and mingled,
made us thankful for the fact we were not
rabbits.

Sleep (part1)

You evade me now, cruel mistress of my sanity.
I can smell you, see you, taste you, but I cannot feel you.
You seem to whisper in my ear and in my mind you’re near,
But when I reach for you, you are not there, a mist in dream.

How I long to be in your willing arms, in your warm grasp.
Your delicate and tender legs that once enfolded me,
Your sweet face that, in the deep, glows with sweet serenity,
Are in my recent memory, but now am pained to see.

Reassuring me, with sweet and soothing words, you lulled me.

Alas, I am in constant agony. My strength is broke.
A counterfeit has grabbed me from your side, your warm embrace.
She will not let me go, nor let me go to be with you.
I am undone and powerless to come to you again.

Bring me back into possession of my-self dear lady.
Restore me to your bed; that I might be with you and yours.
Come loose the bonds and chains of consciousness that have me tied.
Come touch me with your hand and free me from all earthly cares.