The babe

The lost lay beads of smoking tears

a gift they grant is the suffering of life
their smile swell

Waking up to take care of crying babe

I'm on stairs leaning against the wall holding him, teetering

unsure how I got here

not on the stair

I am a father.

Waking in bed paralyzed

to next coming twenty years

a black shroud
shaped as sinister as newborn
skull

head hung on limp rooted neck
stands at the doorway

as an arch
lurched

leaning slightly like to burp

his future falling toward
me

I could not move to escape.

After All This

As heavy thoughts I am
here come to you laden
with dreams and fears
and not much else to say
standing by your bed
at the rail at the foot
in the dark dark night
I am phantom as lucid
dreams of me as sleep
paralysis thought nightmare
do I look like withered
old man horror spirit
weighed down? I feel
this image of the mirror
ticking in my vision
fire heat cold burning
vision nighttime dream
aged hands reaching out
to torture you forged beyond
our summer veil and knowing
I asked too much I silent scream
vanished oblivion obliterated
as if nothing gone remains
you are the same confused self
peering out into bedroom coal
black blurred shadows
I am nothing real after all.

I.01.I

thousand
fingers jam
on heated keys
play on like player
piano keyboard
letter stamped
nightmare visions

A lonely balcony
rotting wood panels
wind gust
by

hair tossed with
flower petal
fall

a scent of spring
whirl from
cascade hills down
mountain side above
clear and golden
meadow

haunted house

open view for miles

far as eyes

SEE

far as human thought

you are one thing
with me
upon me of
me

I am nothing that
ever was

only a stray thought

EXISTS

breaks dirt
rises from brown
hard soil

gasps into air

FLOATS

is word letter gray fog

BURNING

oil
lamp home stray
fire

for all mouths to

SEE

thousand
searching ears
touch finger tips
bathe toes in
cool turquoise
spring

CLEAN

humanity as one
hulking beast
but sure
calm steps lightly
on greenish
coils

a universal graveyard idea

a whiskey colored jar

SIP

pins and needles dancing
flesh

foxes cats burglars
birds of prey

the forest floor

a lonley planet
traveling through pinkish space
ahead of time

Some days

I'm a big ol' blank slate
with no words,
a terrible failure of a
poet with nothing to say,

I've been lying on the floor
drifting in and out,
sleeping 12 hours a day,
wondering why I can't write,

forcing myself up
every now and then
to vomit out some bile,
to click and save,

I tell myself to ignore it, that
it's a rough patch, that they come
and they go, I can't decide
between coffee or wine

I pour both

I drink neither

I go back to staring at the ceiling, I
try to keep my eyes open,
I fail

I'd rather dream about
all the writing I'm not doing,
I'd rather not think about it.

Written on March 12 (Kerouac's Birthday)

Sun's down when I wake up,
don't know how I feel about that
just yet, doesn't seem right, doesn't
seem like I should be pulling myself
out of sleeping bag, brushing teeth,
getting cool drink of water, now then
now getting dressed, here, holding on
to warm fabric, sometime in the night
i had removed my clothes, don't remember when,
forgot to write dream down, letting this
journal waste away mold away, hear this
written down, some horror story
gone come gone go, was sweating,
was fear? or--could have been any number
of things worth mentioning, not worth
caring about, it's all passing by regardless
all a dream, all no one ever remembers,
all going somewhere in search of the prize,
it'll be darker tomorrow, and the day after,
and the day
and the day