Those Old Crickets

We look intently back on the paths we’ve walked.

You on yours and I on mine.

Sometimes intersecting, sometimes near,

But more often than not the journeys have drifted to the poles,

Scurrying apart as the gravity of,

Space and time and ego,

Brought brevity to our shared experience.

But here we are.

Now.

Now. An ever expanding moment in creation.

And as the crickets chirp,

The me who was, is not the me who is,

And the pain and the wounds won’t hold me,

And the hurt and the regret won’t hold you,

And we live and we laugh,

And we bathe in the chorus of the insects,

As their wings breathe life into our humble bones,

Our irreverent lungs,

Our beating, pulsing hearts,

That bleed loss, love, and redemption.

What’s given cannot be taken,

We share these shoes, these shores, these shackles,

And we won’t be shaken.

The creatures of the grass,

They squeak, peep and twitter as we bravely move forward.

Together.

Those old crickets chirp.

And we move forward.

Those old crickets chirp and we old souls walk,

Beneath the leaves and moss and the never ending night sky.

Never hoping,

Never daring,

To look back.

Before You, There Was No Me

I’ve made a recent discovery that has shaken me to the core.

It’s as if my soul is a mattress and the universe a child,

Eagerly jumping on me for the first time,

Relishing every bounce, every shake, every vibration,

Evoking in me all beautiful emotions capable of being felt by a human,

Sensations that I cannot begin to name,

Feelings that history has not yet deemed capable of description,

Let alone designation.

The breakthrough is simply this:

Before you, there was no me.

This is not meaningless symbolism,

Or existential metaphor that attempts to articulate a half realized truth.

As surely as the deer will liberate it’s burdened head from it’s crown of bones,

As surely as the glorious sun will grow weary as the days become old,

As surely as the heart in my chest beats only to the rhythm of yours,

Surely I tell you:

Before you, there was no me.

The feeble fragments of my wild, aimless being tried to find a home,

Like a blind albatross, migrating west,

Pointlessly yearning for the warmth of destiny,

But the clouds, and the mountains, and the bottles, and the ash,

They held me captive,

Incarcerating me for twenty four years,

With promises of totality and providence,

But no matter how many hills were climbed,

Or valleys crossed,

Or flags raised on global soil,

The fullness of my uniqueness could not be realized on it’s own.

Surely I tell you:

Before you, there was no me.

Now we share life, and life shares us.

We are perfectly imperfect, you and I,

Calm or storm, meadow or desert.

A wholeness discovered once in a lifetime,

A new breath, a new tune, a new element yet to be discovered by man.

Because of you I’ve found completion,

Because of you I’ve found purpose, calling, strength, and peace.

Because of you I’ve found life.

Because of you, I’m unbroken.

And no natural law on earth or in the heavens can move me.

Now that I’ve found you, I know who I am.

Surely I tell you:

Before you there was no me.

Surely I tell you:

We will walk steadfast,

Arm in arm,

Hand in hand,

To the edge of eternity.

One Too Many

I often wonder what it would be like

to raise a child on bourbon alone.

Forsaking the nipple,

With its preconceived human experience,

Sinister,

In it’s ploy to create like-mindedness,

Oneness,

Conformity.

The breast is a goddamm communist,

Red in every aspect of it’s productivity,

Man doesn’t need to blacklist the human body

To uncover it’s allegiances.

To raise a child on bourbon alone.

It seems natural anyway,

If you think about it,

The bourbon barrel is a womb,

Dark and damp,

The wooden uterus lined

With all sorts of

Mystical growth,

And magical processes,

The corn and mash gestating to

Form new life,

Too supernatural in nature

To fully comprehend.

God made bourbon same as He made women.

Seems right anyway.

It could be the greatest

advance in medicine to

ever occur.

Children reared on the bottle,

Not the plastic kind,

Of course,

It could turn the universe

Right side up.

Hell, we could raise a generation of

Boys and girls with

Morals and fortitude,

And Sainthood in their bones.

To raise a child on Bourbon alone.

It seems so simple now,

The antidote to all sickness,

The solution to all evil,

The salvation of ----

I know.

I know, Lucille, I can hear you!

Guess I’ll put this lowball down,

Take out the trash,

And wonder on it some more. 

Simple.

"A Meditation on LOVE and quite possibly FALLING to my untimely death."

I think you know this already but,

I overcomplicate love.

It’s the scientific mind exploring the vast reaches of the inner galaxy.

Needing definition,

In every alien thought, every gravitational opinion,

And every minute, molecular feeling.

The immeasurable scares the hell out of me,

Like those dreams where I’m falling,

Plummeting stomach first into infinity,

And my damn wings won’t work.

Love.

Maybe it’s simple.

Maybe it’s as simple as how,

Even the most expensive coffee tastes lifeless and bland,

Until I drink it with you.

Or how when you taste whiskey and cigarettes on my lips,

You don’t pull away.

Or how washing dishes has become my favorite past time,

Because it means we just ate your latest culinary experiment,

And my belly is full,

And my dogs aren’t barking,

And I got to hear all about your life blooming,

In my work day’s absence.

Love.

            Maybe it’s simple.

Maybe it’s as simple as when,

We drove from Mobile to Los Angeles,

Two thousand miles on endless concrete,

Over desert sand,

Rolling pasture,

And sticky bayou,

Both of us too stubborn to stop,

Until our empty stomachs raised their white flags.

You pointed to shapes in the clouds,

And uncovered beauty that my eyes ignored,

Imagining adventure in every sleepy town,

Squealing in excitement with every roaming livestock,

And trying desperately to keep your phone steady,

As you took pictures of vagabond sunsets

In search of their own zip codes.

Love.

            Maybe it’s simple.

Maybe it’s as simple as when,

You cradled my head in your arms,

Sitting on top of your lavender-scented bed spread,

As I wept for my best friend Jon,

Who died much too cruelly,

And much too young,

My tears washing away any shred of bravery,

Any semblance of strength,

Any pretence of understanding the cold darkness in my heart.

You never met him,

But you stroked my hair until I feel asleep,

Honoring him until the keening trailed off into,

A still moment of shared life.

Love.

            Maybe it’s simple.

Maybe its as simple as when,

I didn’t write,

Unintentionally digging deep into your scar,

And you responded in kind.

The powder keg goes off and we burn together,

As I hate you and you hate me,

And you’ve smashed every plate on the ground,

And I’ve crushed every knuckle on the wall,

Stopping only to realize the wholeness of our brokenness.

Then with the wounds open,

We heal.

We mend the brokenness to realize our wholeness.

And the lights in the night sky seem to burn even brighter than before.

Love.

            Maybe it’s simple.

Maybe it is as simple as,

When I met your brother,

Who sees the world differently than anyone else.

His special heart shaped by his special needs,

Rocking back and forth,

Smiling with glee,

As he laughed at the world’s jokes,

That we’ve somehow all missed.

And as you fed him Cheetos,

Wiping orange spit from his mouth,

And playing with his hair,

I saw the green in your eyes glow with pride,

Like the sun bouncing off a field of grass,

Transforming into a warm emerald blanket,

That seemed to envelop all three of us.

Love.

Maybe it really is that simple.

So this is me, flipping that switch,

Cutting that cord,

Crushing that cricket.

This is me throwing a pipe bomb at my brain,

Into the part that needs to:

Reason, reckon, delineate, and define.

This is me swan diving into infinity,

Plummeting heart first,

And hoping beyond all hope,

That my fucking wings work.

All I know is from now on,

With you,

I’m keeping love simple.

Hollywood Burning

i saw metal and glass turn into a sea of smoldering glowing seething grey

as if a cauldron had been tipped over

not by magic

fate

it bubbled and surged past the

cinemas boutiques and russian tattooed brothels

devouring chunks of cement

hand prints stars vomit and cigarettes

turning our cultures first born into a pockmarked

orphan

i saw the palm tree guardians of flashing celluloid turn to ash

raining down in a flurry of

baptism

falling on the shoulders of

the suits the sex the music the apron the immigrant

a knighthood of

equality

of beauty

and everyone looked up

up

up

i saw the clouds turn violet and violent as the wind bellowed through

canyons towers mansions and cardboard castles

a voice in the storm asking for its

son

barely decipherable

wholly untouchable

cutting through the core the heart the mind

a dog like frequency

for human

souls

i saw the world stop turning as the aged moon finally caught the agile sun

and all eyes looked up

up

up

every knee crashing to the

pavement

the concrete the dirt the carpet the dust

as heads bowed

and the letter L plummeted off the

hollywood sign

White Knuckle Boxing

My city breeds

White knuckles

Five by five they march

From the

Highest pedigree

To the

Lowest strain

They smell fear

And multiply

Like rabbits

Fists closed so tight

They become

Purple orange

Swollen

Drained

Suffocated

Crowned with

Pale militia

Waiting to shatter teeth

To throw the first punch

And this city smiles

Best believe

A shark’s

Grin

Lined with broken glass

Commercial #1641

there's shag carpet beneath my feet

the color of kentucky hay.

shifting my navy vans makes me think of

where i've been and

where i'm now.

an old godard film plays on silent to my right and left,

the subtitles yellow as a

chain smoker’s fingernail.

the avant-garde art sneers at

my pathetic, amateur endeavors.

it feels like a cave in here.

cold and dark.

moist with eager hopes

and common dreams.

i'm sticky with sweat.

not from nerves;

fear said it's sweet fair well long months ago.

experience told my nerves to fuck off and

i haven't seen them since.

no, i sweat because my parking meter hides from sight

and it beeps in my brain.

the little red light haunts my imagination

and my 7th sense tells me

this won't end well.

not well indeed.

Purple Teeth

there’s that age old

question.

it haunts me,

tricks me, and giggles at me,

as i stare blankly into my

bare, undressed,

indecent,

cupboard.

since the nativity of that first

grape.

the conception

of that foremost

bottle.

the gunshot pop

of that first pockmarked cork.

the question was

birthed.

the sour, charming juice that cultivates

debate and sleep.

sustaining 

both the lonely woman and the

esoteric poet.

proof of the messianic and lifeblood of

the artist. 

the elitist scraping for prestige

and

the homeless searching to put

fire in his belly.

the question

remains.

i scratch my scalp. my eyes jump back and

forth.

forth and back.

my legs are sore. my brain is heavy. my

feet hurt from the day’s

lengthy waltz. i danced

my employer’s steps far too long today

it feels.

the question.

it’s that grind that

answers; the

tuesday

grind.

it’s a red kind of night. it’s gotta be red

after a day like

this.

yeah, it’s a red kind of night.

Snowballs and Whores On Sunset Boulevard

my tank is empty like a

confessional on monday. i hate the thought of stopping but my

left brain is kicking my head real hard.

real damn hard.

there’s a chevron on sunset and crescent heights,

you know the one.

its actually on the laurel canyon side,

but the thought of that windy snake of a road

annoys the hell out of me.

so shut it.

i havn’t had dinner and its well past

midnight.

so with the gas i grab a bag of hostess snowballs. twinkie’s red headed

stepchild.

slip the cashier seven dollars and say,

“the rest on pump 5.”

i just need to get

home. plus my wallet seems to be anorexic

as of late.

while my toyota greedily gulps down the

unleaded cocktail,

i pause,

to look at this strange deserted corner lit by the incandescent glow

of a smiling mcdonald’s sign across

the street. the wind howls. a car drives by.

the pump handle clicks a click at me but i’ve already opened my

feast. first things are always

first and with a shrug i bring the sugar mound

to my lips.

“lookin for a good night hun?”

just like that my meal is interrupted.

“i’m sorry?”

i quickly glance towards the voice and it belongs to

a woman.

i knew i shouldn’t have chose the pump closest to the sidewalk

and that syphilis contracted bench.

“what you sorry for sugar?”

she has hair like a broom, skin like coffee, and

is wearing a dress

four sizes

too small which

encourages rolls of flesh to try to escape their fabric prison. Its

some sort of animal print. leopard or cheetah

i think.

she smiles at me. a sort of sad, accepting smile.

she has

a gold tooth that nods and tips its hat at me. and a

piercing on her upper lip.

“don’t know.”

i shrug.

“you don’t want nothing do you?”

her smile fades as the breeze whistles by,

catching the words

from her mouth.

i looked down, thinking: this city thrives on

rejection. it’s lifeblood.

and i,

am no different than these cowards

and thieves.

“i’m starving. you?”

i reach into my plastic bag and offer her my second

snowball.

there’s that smile again. there’s that

tooth

waving at me.

we stand there looking out on

sunset boulevard

as the wind howls and the cars

grumble, and the

bums bum. wiping pink coconut and sugar off

our lips.

Melodic Deliverance

There’s a lullaby that sweeps across the desert within,

And each note played is peace,

Peace,

Peace.

Every bar sung is tranquil and sweet,

And as fingers tap on the keys of grace,

The ghosts inside wither and die.

There’s a ballad that floods the city within.

And each note played is love,

Love,

Love.

Every lyric is powerful and deep,

And as two voices unite in truthful harmony,

The giants inside shriek and shrink.

There’s an anthem that charges across the forest within,

And each note played is hope,

Hope,

Hope.

Every string plucked is electric and charged,

And as horns trumpet resounding triumph,

The wolves inside bow their heads and weep.

Sing with me now.

Close your eyes,

Tight,

Until you see glowing spots.

And sing with me.