No papers on myself

 

A rock to the head

The flash of white

 

A percentage of epiphany

Something you know

always knew

 

A corner bitten off

The dawning of the first

Real

Morning of your life

 

So what are you

On the train

Walking to the job

All smiles and fakery

No hate or love

Just

Just…

 

You know

You always did

To live inbetween

Happy and nervous but still

Home

Neither here nor there

But now

 

Locked into this role

A post holding up

The weakest links

The man above

The ones below

Really who gives enough

Of a fuck

 

So here we are but

For how long

How long before we can bring it all

Crashing down

 

We are well versed in that

Bring it to me and I can kill it

Not a night’s sleep lost

 

So what are you

Now

Today

Tomorrow

When you’re awaken at 60

 

And how do you make it so

All those around you

Those for whom you truly care

Will even remember

What you were

After you’re finally

Gone?

Love is no drug

Drugs are truthful

Making you spit teeth and cry freedom

Drugs open flowers and crush hearts

Under the weight of dying stars

 

Drugs are feared by man

And woman

Yet are under our control

As we are disabused

 

A drug is the bark on a tree

The hair on a street dog’s back

It is ocean water and lightning strike

 

Love

Is no drug.

 

 

 

Bright out there/dark in here

 

You a fighter?

He barely heard her voice over the music coming from across the bar

A small and ancient box spewing out tinny pop radio

God am I in the wrong place

He thought for the 3^rd time that afternoon

 

No, why

He finally asked the woman

She had been sat there when he walked in and

Likely still would be after he left

If he actually got out of there alive

 

You have that look. I’ve seen it a lot. I know

She slid her hands over her cigarettes and lighter

Dragging them along with the heavy bottom glass of bourbon

And shifted from her seat onto the stool right next to his

 

What do you know? I ain’t a fighter. Not big enough.

Had maybe three my entire life.

Outside the sun had begun its descent, on the hottest day of that summer

A black McGraw Electric fan was just about making it around

The blades ticking along in unison as her red lips moved

A shitty breeze was better than none at all

As she continued to dig in

 

So what, you a runner? Nah you’re no runner.

Your eyes are tired. Black. That’s because you fight. All the time.

That why you’re in here – all day, alone?

 

He took a last sip and stood up to get out, the clicks inside his back

Betraying both his age and his purpose.

 

Your jacket, she gestured. It had fallen under the bar stool and

Was lying in what he could only hope was old, dried booze.

 

That’s piss.

She said, laughing

Yeah

 

Yeah

I know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dreams of the Atlantic

 

 

How many uninformed

Uneducated and desperate

How many willing but

Unable are

Waiting on the red letter

 

How many starving or

Almost starving await

The hard KNOCK on the door

 

How many on the outskirts

Outsider yet artist

Introvert yet intelligent

Swatting flies with a year old

Copy of the New Yorker

Or

Glancing as an aside

Towards the black & white brains

Within the pages of the Atlantic

 

Wishing

Hoping

Dreading to be included

Be part of the club

Lauded, envied

Pretending to understand

Every single page of comment

And culture

The world above so

Unlike below

 

We curl up in bed and type this shit

Watching coffins drop

Seeing pixelated blood over pixelated body

Not hearing gun shots only

Because we had the windows closed that night

 

No art here

Sorry

No academic retreat or book festival

To exclaim aloud our perspective on

Every single

underlying injustice

    sorry

 

Rather

Just one more

Outsider

Introvert

Swatting flies

Glancing

Towards black & white brains

Wishing

Hoping

Dreading to be included

Be part of the club

Lauded

Envied and

Pretending to understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stalled

 

I have not written in months

Because the world has become a joke

When the world fails

Poetry fails

All great art fails

Becoming only a knee jerk reaction

To some ironic sorrow

 

As the sky now remains an undecided yellow

Not winter nor yet spring

Just keeping you guessing

A ubiquitous distraction

 

And so it is best to fall back and

Pause within a moment

To recall and retain an old anger

Or sadness or what

Little humour there is left inside you

And to bottle them

Cork them tightly and wait

 

Fall back to old routine

War films

Coffee

Wasting days and nights with nothing

Wasting your life as you lie over and over

That there is so much life to spare

 

Refrain from meaningful human engagement

Yes and no and thank you

Now and then and

Only enough to ensure you are

Not looked upon to be a fool or insane

 

Eventually the masses will settle

Real life becoming sunflower soon after

Poking its bright yellow head from cracks in cement

Then you may start up once again

To reflect and inform and express real life

On the page or on the canvas or in dusty black

Vinyl grooves

 

But you must wait

Relax

Drink bad liquor

Watch bad tv

Sing

Take long baths

But do not write or paint

Or even think about any of them

Out there  

Until the rest of the world is ready

to catch up.

 

 

 

 

 

Broken things

I superglued the handle of the shower brush

The veneers had split but it was still useable

 

I wrapped some tape around the handle

To hold it down in place until the glue dried

 

Throughout this she was looking at me

Like I was crazy

It was not a new look

 

‘…just buy a new one?’

That seemed obvious

 

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it

I think sometimes that I come from a place

 

Where a fear rules every single cell

Of my body

 

And a pure survival kicks in

And the adrenaline kicks in

 

I removed the tape

The handle looked pretty good

 

Not perfect but no need to just

Throw the thing out

 

I had bought myself a few more weeks

Of sanity

 

Maybe not what you consider sane

But as close as I can get in my day to day

 

I try to tell myself that not all broken things

Are beyond repair.