Monday, November 28, 2011

Memories

Remember when I sat on that
couch in Hyattesville, MD, I all
but owned the first floor and the
shower in the corner past the kitchen
with its black ants crawling up the
wall and getting wet by the hanging
shower head--crawling on my clothes,
sliding into the sink--those fucking ants,
I couldn't save them and they
followed me into that small green
tiled foggy cell;
Remember how I'd watch them
uneasily while undressing, like the slugs
slithering across my kitchen floor in
dead-winter, thinking, "What the fuck am
I doing here?"

What Dreams May Come

Opaque sky splitting heaven
and I sat on my back looking up
at the ceiling and imagining the time
we had left, that I can't count because
only you know the date, I left my hoodie
on and my shoes and I just watched the
darkness growing old, thinking is life
ever going to stop and why is the earth
cursed with the passage of time? I hated it.
I fell asleep and felt I was falling somewhere
too soon, do you think maybe after we lose here
we could meet again? I was hoping so when it
all seemed so unreal, but now it's heavy and my eyes
reflect the sun, my shoulders are sagging toward the
page, I cried that night and ignored the feel of the
tears running down my face, it was 5:37am

Sunday, November 20, 2011

I dunno

There's pulsing lights
that work to numb my brain and whit
watches me slowly drowsing, he's
slowly drowsing, into the night
only a touch in front of the morning
like all nights growing darker then suddenly
empty and bitterly engulfed by the sun;

I saw you hail a taxi
somewhere beyond my memory

I crashed, I'm disgusting, a sleeping wasted
soul on these hardwood floors
my mattress barely holds it's shape
tonight

tonight is never brightening night
Whit takes a long breath reflected
in the mirrored glare, re-situates himself
waits for my hand, often he's meowing our
heads off, but now he's in another space,

what am I thinking? eh--
I jump up, my chair squeaks
my chair is thinking these things
by itself, a glass is cleared
and the morning yellow fast approaches;

Saturday, November 19, 2011

I don't want a lot for Christmas

The radio is already like "Hey,
you piece of shit it's Christmas
get to buying those presents!" and Mariah
Carey is trying to tell me that there is
something more beyond what we see,
I don't know who to believe sometimes
but I do know that ABC family is not yet ready
to countdown those Debbie Macomber 25
days of Christmas programming when my mom will be
baking baking baking until we're all so tired of
cookies and she's crying watching an angel
save a father/son/mother/daughter relationship,
I mean, it ain't even Thanksgiving and I'm supposed to
imagine Rankin Bass claymation in the streets? I'll play
your music anyway, and my little statue of Jesus
is probably gonna cry because my uncle prays all
night but hates the Christmas tree, I guess he's
read Ezekial...shhhh that's a secret too; my secret,
and last night someone vandalized? vandalized the History
Channel Ancient Aliens Wiki...with a long grammatically
incorrect cryptic message about angels and extra-dimensional
beings and B101 was playing and I said to mike, "Jesus Christ,
I hope that mother fucker is right."

Thursday, November 17, 2011

with a glass

Gray skies on a Thursday look
exactly like they did when that storm
wouldn't leave us alone over Indiana,
and we traveled at the same speed east until
the mountains stopped one of us, but not
our car which was going 90 without traffic lights
or shitty Pennsylvania drivers, who shit on you
and hate to be passed and hate to let someone
in their lane because you may get to someplace
before them and they just couldn't take it,
casting hateful suspicious faces out their windows
scowling at the driving world they race against, and
I drink my orange juice
silently in the morning gloom,
scratching my head and
thinking about these things

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

cute little love poem

Sometimes sitting by your side
I become enamored with the world
but lose my sense of it, I walk away
without a thought or memory of
what I saw, what color were the trees,
what did you say to me as we tripped
over uneven sidewalks, how bright was
the afternoon sky, were there clouds to shade
our eyes? Sometimes leaving you
numbs me until I stare out moving windows
for 3 hours without a word, sometimes I wonder
if you feel it too, sometimes I pretend these
wheels are traveling back to you

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

One Long Road Poem- 1: Sunday

Outside Dayton, Ohio
on our first night and
black cats won't cross our path
even near old windmills abandoned and
broken down where we stopped to pee;
we passed Pittsburgh & Columbus in a
flash, I barely saw them at night but for yellow
bridges and lights; In Murraysville after
Raystown and Frankstown we stopped for
salty soup and no apple pie
or maybe Dutch apple pie; the waitress
small old (and I think wearing a red wig) mosseyed
along to check, she handed me a pie list, the place
was Dick's Diner and no other choices caught my eye
like Route 40 goes on forever in Ohio
cloudy than clear sky-- forget it, we're only in Ohio
with two entire states to kick our ass until St. Louis
where I'll drop a rose into the Mississippi for you,
my love because it'll travel all the way to the Gulf
of Mexico and then around the world floating in the salty Caribbean
blue waves; This hotel is fluorescent lights in bed
ready to wake up to tomorrow's filled with
Cincinnati chili stacked five layers high and
three states worth of miles;

2: Monday

On Nevermore Rd with a
blueberry muffin in my empty
Ohio stomach, I lost my hat tumbling
to the gods of the road, I watched it blow
back to Dayton in middle America blue skies
that I saw all day through Indiana & Illinois
where there was nothing but those
amber waves of grain, golden fields of corn,
cattle grazing and an occasional silo breaking
the tumbling plains and the towns had names like
Terre Haute, Brazil, Effingham, when a lady in wool
skull cap said, "long way from home ant'cha?" because
I was, little towns along Route 40 called the National
Road, and it was the first cross country highway in
America, I think, and I was also thinking that
 there'd be nothing but the St. Louis arch
was something like vertigo and I couldn't believe
as my stomach turned that Dave was abducted by aliens
and I finally dipped my hands in the Mississippi and the baptism
I'd dreamt of for so long, long was silent
at night under the moon and only the sound
of the waves and Joe and Dave in my ears alone, we
had it all to ourselves.

Monday, November 14, 2011

3: Tuesday

Woke up in St. Louis
and took the Days Inn yellow brick road
to a nice old lady and biscuits and gravy,
we walked under the gargoyle fox, sat and tasted
ice cold beer from the tap completely free, after
the Budweiser factory I raised my arms with Brett Hull,
and on the Mississippi shore dwarfed by the arch
I tossed our message to the ancient currents of America,
we left Missouri in the gray rain and rolled over
Illinois amber fields and
Indiana amber fields and
Joe hoping for tornadoes, Dave
driving 24 hours, we almost ran out of gas somewhere
along Route 45 at eerie Mill Shoals population
250 dreaming nothing but nighttime grain silos
and no gas stations only vacant white walls bluish in the
dusk, until finally we crossed back over the Ohio River
into Louisville, Kentucky but we wanted to sleep outside
so we found Jefferson National Forest, 20 miles
south of the city on 891, Top Hill Road was winding horrifying
darkness, with slim lanes that barely left room for a car
coming the opposite way, and one turn looking like a road
but really it was a drop far far away, and we crawled up
the hill in that total darkness, where at the top a dog found
our car, and Joe said remember what Bukowski said
about the ghost dog because he was a ghost dog,
the ghost of old Kentucky wilderness,
in the end we decided to camp another night
and took keys from an old Indiana guy that lived
in the hotel office & Joe sneaking in unnoticed;

4: Wednesday

I'm somewhere in mountains
of Tennessee Big Ridge nearby Norris
Lake deep blue that isn't blue at all in the
night, sorry I didn't call baby, there's no
service this high in the Appalachians, today
we cut through Louisville, Frankfort, Lexington
and tomorrow the entire Shenandoah lies ahead,
under the full moon I apologize it's a beautifully
cool silent night with crickets singing for the coming
winter and me on a bench in the dark
writing to you, my love, it's November,
Dave and I will be sleeping in a tent and Joe
in his hammock ready, I'll drink some Port
I swear it, I'm a road bum trying to be a
Dharma bum, it's Wednesday turning to Thursday a
few stars above outside Knoxville, where we tried to
light a fire but the rain had soaked everything in the
last few days was a mortal enemy and failure is
darkness embers dying orange, are we impervious
to time? Is there time at all? in the wilderness it seems
there isn't, when was the last time I held your hand?
Felt our bodies together in the night? Dave got a text message
from an hour into the future, are we lost? I wonder with the
night Tennessee purple, you've never seen darkness
like this, will the clouds ever point our way home?
We are the road.

5: Thursday

Last night we fell in lakes together
obscured by the moonlight and haunting
trees, remember that dead forest and how
we left our pants and shoes in the mud,
wandering and singing in nature, in the woods of
Tennessee with no one within earshot, or miles,
just the coyotes who scoured our camp for
beef jerky and trail mix, tossing aside the coconut
shavings, we crawled up the backbone of Virginia
after a hearty southern breakfast and I waved
to a truck driving girl and she blushed so innocently
and where in the northeast suspicious highways could
you say that would happen? I finally saw the Shenandoah
in the drivers seat and although Joe hates the state you
have to admit that dandelion yellow sunset I saw in the
rearview was something you've never seen, where in
Staunton we had some homemade BBQ and just barreled on to
West Virginia, Maryland, and homey Pennsylvania except the
state park was closed so we cut down a tree (Dave pushed it over)
made a fire, ate some beans, spaghetti in meat sauce,
and curled up like caterpillars in our sleeping bags with Dave saying
he was gonna drive like that in the morning and Joe
wishing his hammock was hanging outside, and we dreamed
the night away in the car we'd driven 2,232 miles.

6: Friday

In Pennsylvania state park closed
morning we woke up in our sleeping bags,
the car was dripping condensation and we 
had our final day ahead in Gettysburg
twelve miles to the east then Route 30
the rest of the way to Philadelphia, we toured 
the battlefield, the great open breathless green
country that God sent down just so a battle
would be fought there, one of the birth places of the 
America we'd seen first hand and so lovingly close
these last 6 days, in a roadside country stand selling 
apples we met David (another David not the musician 
with big white beard who apologized to Dave in St. Louis) 
but a third David with a long white beard himself (too,
though his was tied at the end) and he asked us our 
names, calling me Thomas even though I said Tom
and he wanted to know why we were interested in
battlefields, he was an old hippy soul but a good man,
he even gave us an apple each for the road, running up to 
our car as we left with the fruit cradled in his arms, they were
crisp and juicy, delicious, our third tour with free gifts (he showed
us his house filled with pottery) and we
were ready for the non-stop terrible drive home with traffic
jams that you apparently only find in Philadelphia
and I said to the road we left behind that I never wanted to 
quit going. 

7: Conclusion

The car was 49 hours old
but much older, with us sleeping
in it the night before, and the city looked strange,
stranger than when we left it in the morning
slowly spinning behind us 6 days ago,
America is high in the east but it lives
in the west, I know that for sure, like
I know a travelers life is for me, and so I
dedicate this long road poem to the spirit
of the American road, the jokes, the love, the nights
under cloudy skies, to the spirit that is
once a caring mother, a raging stallion and
a quiet river, the artery and life blood of the land, this
poem is also for the Dukes running free and mad
over routes going west and south and regretfully
east, may they blaze a trail from Mill Shoals to
the sea, I'm happy to be home just to realize
I don't ever wanna be home, I want the road
and running and loving and going, non-stop, so
c'mon boys let's sing again to the moon
in Tennessee mud, we'll never grow old,
or out of it, or fail, we're all an innocent
meandering idea, and I'll think of us
that way, on the road, laughing forever;
This is my truth.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Evening

It's time to write something pretty
about artificial light shining in my face,
unplug it like god will the sun on some
Mayan afternoon. It's a prophesy I am
sure I came up with and am about to
implement in my mind in the world
I'm still not sure is real on the eve
of leaving and returning--

I'll pack a picture of you
maybe in your bathing suit to remind
me what I've left behind on the road, remind
what's in front of me on the road, but
what do I need that's alright? alright,
what do I need that's real? Real, I'm
not sure yet...I'm not empty yet,
to be ready to fail and laugh and love--
I've got wheels under my feet
and that's just the way I hope it
always stays. Ignition.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

collage o' collage

It's the nature of space
to blip-blip-blip out existence, and
some asteroid is eventually gonna smoosh us
without the satellite laser to protect
the techno-biological-mind that
thinks for the masses and tucks our babies
in at night; that's a fairy tale though, because space
is only time that's infinitely empty, the truth is
under the stars closing in, the cold
stars that cut like diamonds through indigo
Philadelphia skies; you can't see them
my love, the stars, you'll have to imagine them 'cause
we're somewhere's else entirely,
somewhere in the pretty marsh
that exists after time, that isn't anything special
at all, that is as always was inevitably uncolored,
a shrinking iris, a beautiful smile.

Yep more while reading Endymion in the park

The trees are fall
and frost is winter
in the car I'm safe from all

A spider's abandoned web
sun's cold reflection
our silent thoughts are the past

No paper to capture
this mornings sunrise
only my weary eyes

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Suicide note

I was going to try
trying but it's hard with all
this aspartame bleeding me out

and if you wouldn't mind
I'd like a sip of water so
the fluoride can drown
my aggression, I could get up
but apathy is something treasured
in tents outside government buildings
fighting a power I don't understand
or you don't understand; it's not the 1960s
brother, power is diffuse and it moves
and watches and thinks before we do,

so pass me another brain lesion and
I'll take our sorrows like a shotgun to the
back of my fleshy 98 degree mouth
counting the fucking seconds flat