I let lou reed's voice just

settle in, cold and silty like

a cloud and my stare goes soft.

my fingers still work the

keyboard even with no focus

and I am typing from a

daydream somewhere

inside the tornado. I do not

know the way back, and sand

is all I can see for miles and miles

moving like the ocean at a

heartbeat like pace in full moon.

long way home

All I saw was lights on the fence,

bouncing up and down and spread

out in small intervals like morse

code letters but with no real pattern

to be found. Just before I heard the

subway doors close in the station below,

I could smell it. I knew that in the next

few steps around some dark alley corner

it would be there, some five foot tall, seven

foot wide piece of someone still dripping

with colors not found in nature. A crime

with no victim, given birth by a generation

with nothing to do, too much time on our hands.

That smell always takes me to other places,

places where my breath would show in the air.

Places where the sounds of trains comforted

me and rocked me to sleep late in the night.

In an effort to search I broke my path up

into steps, zigzagging across town like someone

trying to get lost, or maybe lose something else.

This was the first time that I had walked home alone

in what felt like years, the air beside me absent of

laughter and dialogue, I had to fight the urge to

talk to myself. The words biting the inside of my

mouth begging me to find someone to introduce

them to. But in my current state, I was in no shape

to speak to strangers

So I sang to myself instead.

where do you run

when everything has lost its name

and the things that used

to be familiar aren't anymore

and when you reach for

things they aren't there

the gaps widen

and the terms have changed.

I'm drunk and stumbling
and these words are not
what I should be writing down
in this frame of mind.

you're sincerely welcome

the city makes

a humming sound

and answers my

questions honestly

under its sleepy tones

as the windows

smile with their hands

waving in the wind

like flags from open panes;

and the sounds

of the cars

coming to a complete

halt as if all life

was extinguished is not

a welcome home

but an apology.

we have dialog here

like two guitars

whose voices dont match

we make ugly noises

that splinter in on themselves

like a double negative

and you're sincerely welcome.

I woke up this morning

and remembered everything;

the wrinkles in the paper

that were wrapped

around the words

like a blanket, keeping

them tightly packed

in between the lines

like yours always were

left to be interpreted by

the darker and slower

parts of the brain.

the clock by the bed reads

noon and my eyes feel

like 3:17 am in the room

with no windows where

we sleep every night.

where the door is always ajar

and the machines never

get turned off, leaving the

hum to be heard from

bathroom to hallway,

hallway to door, door

to bed. Always asking

if this is alright, in the

wake of whats left

of the dream we were having.

5 am is the hardest

place that I have

ever weathered,

whether alone or

not I find myself

concentrating on the

cracks in the hands

at her side, caught

in the streetlight

on the fire escape,

two steps down

from where her

last kiss found me;

lost in lungs full of

smoke and mouths

full of smiling teeth

all with their own agenda.

follow the line from here to there

and you will find out what its like

in the hours spent telling stories

like your favorite book, lost in the

spines on the shelf to be found at

a very convenient time later only

to be sat down and forgotten again.

every day the hole opens up a little more

and I climb a little further down

with a light behind my eyes

hiding like a smile, but darker;

she spoke soft and intent

and without pretense

keeping the words in

front of her so as not

to lose her place in

the conversation. and

when they ran out

she just kept going

her purpose finding itself

after a few sentences like

walking on familiar ground

during the new moon.

in the dark corner I blow

smoke rings at the shaft

of light that falls out of

my kitchen window to

break on the alley below

spelling out someone elses

words before dissipating

and finding their way back

to where they came from;

the doorways blocked

keeping us from the places

we aren't meant to go. In

my dreams the signs say

keep away in a fashion that

I am not accustomed to,

the sense of dread setting in.

there are days when I wake up in the post of pressing times and spend the hours looking for my place like a transient; my eyes scanning the places where skin meets skin, tracking the scent of something lost then found and lost again.

im sleepy and

the suns breath is

hot on my neck.

there are days still

where i wish i had

never met the sun.

down the street

from where I grew up

i saw my first blood moon

and the concrete there

keeps all my recorded histories

like a library of my days.

sometimes you smile

and sometimes you dont.

i live for the days you do.

somedays i mumble to you

while you sleep

about the dreams I have

where you still love me.

i keep putting these words up and out there

on the screen in little snippets and verses

but i dont think they truly convey what

i feel may be the hardest time ive ever had

in my entire life. I am an absolute wreck. And

I have so many people I need to be strong for

and am finding it hard to be strong just for

myself. i feel like a structure with no

cornerstone and a center of gravity

that shifts slightly every single day. I don't

want to be that pitiful guy trust me, I'm not

crying for help or attention. if someone close to

me would just put my face in their hands and

look me in the eyes and tell me that things

will change and get better, it would probably

do me a world of good.

every six seconds.

all seven traffic lights

in front of me turn green

in quick succession like

hanging dominoes

on a blue table

and the rain on my windshield

spells things out in other languages

a changing map of braille

wiped clean and rewritten

every six seconds.

the conversations rotate around subjects

that i feel neither comfortable or

necessary in the post of the day

and behind the clouds

the sun hides as if it did not

want us to witness it disappear.

wrap my hands in cold

and cloth; let them tell

their own story.

three paths gone

two blocks found blind.

somethings you just arent.

I'll be the grave. 

No one alive here

is ever truly safe.

in the cold space

keeping their shape

is the place where

the dead truly lay.

heat

from all sides like the

breath of a lover in heat

i can feel it sleeping in

the bricks with its eyes 

on the sky, opening up

and showing itself as empty

no clouds and no sun

its feet settled into something

with a little too much

give for comfort; i reached

into the corners looking

around for a familiar surface

and found yesterdays 

alibi crying and crying

into the leaves leaving

darker streaks of green

in patterns only discernable

by the prophets bloodline.

slowly now.

i sling my fists 

like fools gold 

and hold the 

heartache in 

high esteem, 

somewhere soon

the machine 

will beep and 

three words 

in the sentence 

will die of shock.

there are languages 

set in crystal cutting 

clean the sense of 

urgency; so when 

she smiled her 

dialect was well understood.

"in the sleeping past something waits; and its stories will smell like wet paper when told leaving the nightmares around your bed like traps."

swaying, swaying.

and the white shell sang

mostly to itself

its lungs full of my air

and its veins full of 

my lovers blood, asleep

in the sway of things.

the quiet ghosts of tide

and moon stood with 

their eyes closed 

in close reach of the song

avatar smiling with the shell

at his feet humming along.

he told me the talent

was in their bones

and in the marrow

like a copper conductor

the rosary beads bent

over his knuckles like

scars or lips parted

in confessional kisses

and when the song was over

so was the conversation.

More fridge poetry

I thought that was the night

or is it you too?

often where we have

fought off the sunshine on the floor

suddenly; you must smile the uncharted smile

that your eyes told you to.

I watched the fool

talking the eager language

each word dropped on her body

like a desperate kiss

in that hard airport tongue

some goodbyes, are never meant

to be spoken out loud...

jargon.

i want to play with the roots that

grow languorously from the tips

of your fingers.

sleeping during the day

in a heat wave

and in need of shade.

cut off is how it feels

sometimes; in the distance

sleeping off the shock

of our close contact dialects.

fair is fair

the language that we made up

is getting lost

in the noise around our feet

and my hands are tired from

explaining everything

in the calm conversational

tones that we

are used to using

the cold spell has frozen

our lips and where we used

to take turns smiling

now we just take turns

forgetting to speak.

"the bricks keep the cold in."

she said, quietly shivering

under the quilt that was supposed

to keep us both warm.

her explanation was simple

but she knew it made sense

in the way that everything

she said made sense to her.

if i had the words to explain

to her everything that I felt

she needed to know, I would

have taken her cloudy breath

and given her life and a smile.

Conversations with Avatar

There There child, said avatar;

when you sleep the sleep

of the dead, the world does not

exist. The weeks days lose their

own count, and tomorrows never come

to those who wait. Breathe Breathe child,

said avatar; his thick accent sweeping

the words around in his throat

like a broom, grey eyes far away 

from the todays lesson. Wake Wake

child, avatar said; the wrinkles

climbing his forehead like a ladder

smiling in a way that was meant to

say somedays really are worth living.