I know he’s dead

But you deserve a lover

isn’t it lonely when you wipe the counter and the sunlight

dances with the dust motes

Where the tunnels are a midnight park
and the gray trains scream like haunted witches
Hunker down in a bittersweet one-eyed dragon bliss
And drool dead-eyed along tracks of electrified veins
Crawl into holes un-holed
Take a nice spin around that cold metal pole
Feel your soul un-souled and sold
Where Gil scot heron once silently screamed alone
But god damn, did that man have a soul!
Did his voice not echo truths along peoples roads?
Did his poetry not shout the truth to people without a comfortable home?
Do his words not exceed his physical state in the undying ebb and flow of an ocean of pure soul?

Clenched fists/raised fingers

gravitationally b-line

his digital hair

Full moon demon scratched

Explosive screams above trees

I buy a cliff bar

Play with life

Like Blondie under the Spanish spaghetti sun

Stare calmly, cool lidded

Like velvety Rick in the sandpaper dark

Fedoraed in a Moroccan park

Or hunker like Bonnie next to Clyde’s car

Lipsticked and dressed slick in Texas

60’s hipped  and Hollywood riched

through silent moves and gestures

infinite hectares of pain undone

Invisible ebony blankets hit the pause button
Coddling the body in restless rest

Pernicious slippers dress feet worn thin 

Cozying bodies in utter jest  

Pricey poison falls down and in

Rushing a slow beat and pounding the chests 

of seemingly pretentious gluttons 

Who are really just upset guests

(The vacation of the distressed)

Pillows surreptitiously whisper distractions 

Robbing the brain of its regulatory best

Screens steel the brain for big ol’ nuthins

While echoes of truths draw pangs and yearnings for ones inaccessibly distant nest

Tides of milky red 
Ooze out of my porous phone  

And through the aged toshiba pixels in my home 

And from the cracks in my works walls 

And out the small pimples on my pale dome

Tides of milky red fly

Out of the mouths of bearded babies that get hard from the sounds of their own voices
Tides of milky red drip

from the stupid spittle of blonde toupeed gargoyles that are making big choices

Tides of milky red shower

 the barren parking lots of night

Wetting and reddening the broken needles 

Painting the crushed cigarette butts

Washing the matted hair of beaten down bugged out tattooed skinny white girls screaming in the silent dark  While coming down the concrete catwalk to elope with themselves in a confused 2 am isolation horror show 

Take us all straight to Frank Sinatra Drive

Jive right quick a gasoline Conga line up I 95

Where the skies are white and the wind blows cold through distant mountains old

Where sages whisper empathetic truths into the waning western light

When you lay your body down, and sigh a sigh that’s almost manly if you’re a woman, but so sexy, or hyper manly if you’re a man, but so sweet, after eating ground beef, or just being tired regardless of eating the aforementioned ground beef, sometimes you clear your throat a bit with a guttural gurgle and then, immediately, you slowly breathe out of your noise a pine tree winter wind whoosh that frightens my skin.

You rest with such confident and selfish-in-a-good-way eyes that possess a supreme level of non-self awareness, which could be you simply not giving a fuck, that rattles my brain. 

You don’t even look at me with dog-eyed approval eyes, like I look at you in the morning when I have a stack of papers in my hand.

You don’t even turn around, like I do when I step on the leaves that crunch loudly.

You don’t even turn the locks three times (once to lock, twice to lock check, three because it’s the magic number, baby!)

You stare at your darkened eye lids in a rural basement, living life for yourself, while I crash into endless neon invisible mirrors on brick city sidewalks adorned with microscopes on each brick that have immense gravitational pulls.

The conversation of the street lights will pass as quickly as our words 

With green 

hellos

And 

pensive 

yellows 

The pink noise breaths of night will delicately fall and rise from mouths like mindful birds 

Drifting through the light cut dark

The occasional cop will slam through the wet lit asphalt 

Shouting red and blue 

While deer ease through the grass

Whispering brown and black

And automatic house lights that flicker on 

Will turn off when you are gone

Going all out to go nowhere 

Where venom drips slow
Going all in without air

Where blue and white corrode
And the red wrappered snickers ice cream bars

Cream guitars 

White interpersonal cigarettes 

Shiny New York cars

Fade into 

Black Lard 
We go all in it to come out of it 

Where the blue and white have shone

And the water sometimes flowed

For good boys of days old

The way you talk 

with a cold Schweppes in your sunlit hand is admirable 

You’re a contagion to the blind

With golden earrings lighting the aisle

Not even caring about the temperature and carbonation

just swinging it about

Pan 

Oven

Microwave 

Glass

Plate

Bowl

Whatever method 

Before arriving to the table 

Is so different at a restaurant than when one cooks and eats alone at home 

What will the platter look like?

Will it be as good as the text on the menu conveys it to be?

Will they dim the lights?

Oh, and when will it come out?

There is so much mystery and surprise

It’s almost magical when your delusional removed hungry body is anticipating digestion and taste

The vessel to bring the meal circles around the room, taking care of other people

Water is poured

Other steaming meals are delivered

Mysterious and cryptic checks are signed

Hellos

Goodbyes

Do you ever miss your waiter or waitress?

If you do, the feeling of the food arriving is much greater than if you didn’t 

When you see their smiling face 

Chipper gait

It’s a relief

It’s addicting 

But At home 

You are the vessel 

You are the commander of the process

The veil is broken

You don’t go looking for yourself 

You don’t ask yourself for anything 

You don’t see your chipper gait 

You might not even have a chipper gait 

Without the mystery 

It might just be another meal 

Simply from a 

Pan 

Oven

Microwave 

Glass

Plate

Bowl

Whatever method 

Before arriving to the table 

*It breaks into my heart 
a moral thief 

Stealing sorrow 

And murdering grief*

It comes in waves

Gshh 

pause 

gshh 

Repeat 

And although I never ask for it 

It tumbles under me 

like mountain scree 

Interrupting my long climb

Setting me back a bit

Challenging my patience 

But Cultivating challenge 

Which I’m grateful for 

Sun-blind,

go west at 5 

Where orange Baby Lizards bustle and jive 

And Sweet Old Jews wither and die 

But before that, you’ll see them try
(They are truly 16, vying for guys)
So Kiss them on their cheeks if you go by

Because we all have weighted lids 

that cover truth, 

that cover needs,

that cover comfort,

that cover acceptance, to pry

I can confirm that the contents of honesty and truth and love and loss and regret and interpersonal connection deeply shine 

When you give to and receive from those under a fluorescent sky

When the radiator behind the
Rolling Stones postered door hummed heat 

And our plaid pajamas and brown wool socks were covered by comforters and the glow of yearly tv specials that were birthed from the screen like familiar babies 

And the sky was half blue half the moon 

from the tree branch dividing our window view 

And our dad was dying in the other room

You told me you saw 7 reindeer 

To go with him

To go home 

To be gone too soon 

There was a Waxing crescent and a Virginian milky blue sky translucence 

While taking my son from 

his home his mom his friends and New York 

And the Worlds Light was too high

 So We settled for streamed ceiling fluorescence 

And enjoyed the trains inner sanctum Incandescence

Strictly Ticket holder acceptance 

Tangled in each other and the trees and the true Virginian dark and the southern pull to his new home

And man, the way his eyes shone

At The prospect of a moving breakfast 

Shiny eggs and bacon and seemingly mountainous orange juice while trees flower laced train tracks grazing cattle and farm workers and a sky in its most royal attire: sprinkled with cumulus regalia,  blew past our car and we blew past them 

And when the train came to an unexpected halt in the deeply darkened woods of South Carolina 

And only little strips of his tiny face showed from scattered light 

And his thick black hair melded with the dark and although barely visible, swayed left then right then left then right then left then right  in quick movements under the humming ventilation system 

And his now dark iPad screen showed me my own face barely visible but content

I could see myself and a mother among us quietly answering our children’s silent words in smiles 

Beneath the glory of a pinkorangebluesilvermagenta fundip dusted sky, the truck slams through the deserted twilight streets illumined by twisted neon green orbs that authoritatively dictate above the silky half and half cream colored, crossed, and strong legs of suburban mothers who sit along the main drag gabbing.

A thousand dollars. A thousand stares. A thousand fucking times down this sick road where my head pounds from too much sugar and hotdogs and the toxic glowingly phosphorescent frozen-to-the-package sludge that warms and glides through my torso into the disaster pit of my pale war-torn horrible diet affected stomach. And I know it’ll come out guns blazing in the morning, when I’m cold, ready to stare up at me and say, “what gives!” And there is no languor whatsoever, which would be so nice 
The dying dog under the hood ululates its sick cries down the highway and begs to have the key pulled from the synaptic ignition to its motor brain and the demon in the wheel screeches on tight turns throughout roads giving bullshit gift baskets of OCD accident scares and every-bump-is-death-crazy paranoia 
So I scream loudly again and again down 

the pavement in this smorgasbord 

Slicing through the crisp yellow divides

Trying to beat the inconvenient turning of the earth so I can maybe see the light in the sky untarnished and unboxed

On cold nights when I’m lost and damned to rot in confusion
Ostracized and bleary eyed 

Slam jam me with thousands of blankets of understanding and freckle faced love that pours out of every word and body nuance 

I’ll return the favor with a big smile and a bigger bite into your delicious Polish chocolate 

“Pier 11 Ferry to Belford”

Brooklyn bridge sun

Throws yellow grace at Jersey City towers

Steve, Tom, and I 

look through yellow sunglasses

Ripping through untouched waters

“Sea Bright to Asbury Park”

Everything the same 

Then,

Mansions 

Sweeping walls to block the opulence 

Or to block the unwanted 

Mansions sweeping mansions

They must have snipers 

-Reality check-

Through the Asbury Park Boardwalk tunnel

Impassioned carousel music keyboardist

Cigarette dangling

Hair dangling

Teeth dangling

Life dangling 

Talent raging 

With a huge smile 

And we smile back

“Asbury Park to Seaside”

Picture with B&B proprietor, George 

His sincere excited grin like my nephews

Swiss army backpack has to go 
Giant welts on my back, oh!

Inland detour

New backpack from army navy surplus 

Big ass camo 

we find our way to 

Point pleasant’s people and cigarette caked Boardwalk  

The sun casting powerful rays all over 

“Route 35 Mania”

Shark fin flippers for torpedo powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr -breathe- errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr -breathe- errrrrrrrrrrrrr (drawn out for goofy comedic effect)
(said in an old man voice): 

uhhhhhhhh help meeeeeeeeeeee no water the sun the heat our legs our feet the sun the heat nail clippers are what I need please please please nail clippers are what I need give them to me!

Water from a hose on the highway was never so tasty

Seaside sand graced, we

Boardwalk cheesteaks ate, expensive not free

Mozzarella sticks and fries, tasty!

Sleeping on toms construction zone house deck, yes please 

“Seaside to Motel”

Stop at rite aid 

Cover up cuts and blisters 

Break, eat almonds, drink water

Stop at rite aid 

Cover up cuts and blisters 

Break, eat dried fruit, drink water

Stop at general store 

Cover up cuts and blisters 

Break, eat almonds, drink water

Stop at rite aid 

Cover up cuts and blisters 

Break, eat almonds, drink water

Sun block in my eyes

Toms legs fried 

McDonald’s bathroom flushing will surely fix my eyes 

B
  R

      E

          A

              K

Into 
           P

     I

    E

                  C

             E

                              S 

And über to a motel 

Where 

Everything’s closed

Out of water and we can’t even find somewhere to buy it 

There’s a nuclear power plant nearby 

Let’s just order a pizza pie

And not buy drinks

But be dumb and not think 

So order water and something else from dominos 

Chocolate lava discomfort follows 

And getting really choked up by 

the ending of Finding Nemo 

“Motel to New York”

Was Route 35 mania
Then Route 9 depression 

Now GSP North Blues

And Immense Blister Horror

But godammit we walked 70 something miles 

And it was wonderful

To see strangers seem familiar

Thousands of rubbernecking friendly smiles

Our Good Ol BoyWho art in a jacked up truck  

Hallowed be thy 35s 

Thy women: taken to a cornfield

Thy will: be done

As it is played in adult bars, purportedly, in a middle school dance too

Give us this day our daily catfish and ice cold beer

And forgive those who think of something original 

And lead us not into downtown 

But into copulation under the guise of hackneyed repurposed studio beats and not-even-subtly sexual lyrics that shower young minds

Amen!

I want to tell you I know what it’s like

To feel dumb and worthless
and 

make mistakes ripe
But don’t you know there’s golden wisdom 

under 

the skin?

Watching little league 

behind a tough Italian

Scary 

Big

Huge

Divine presence

Facade

Nice

Family friend, I guess 

Figures

Just a guy with 

gold chain and cross 

Warm dark 

brown eyes

Slicked back jet black hair

Thick hands 

HowyoudoinTighthandshakelookineye

Track jacket

Track pants

Like my dad

And all the other old souls 

Spinning away from the sun

Unfolding bones

With weary magic

Look closely and see

On an island staircase 

Underneath burnt skin 

And stinging winds

tired faces that walk

And token bus token surprises

That Chug chug chug by hibiscus sprinkled hills

Opening and closing

Rising and falling 

In morning glory time

Because of the angel breath of  10 pm evergreens tangled in streetlight

that sit next to large purple stuccos in darkness

surrounded by thousands of woodchips

And sitting with my one-eyed cat

his quiet disabled divinity in soft black

Or walking with pendulum arms that we let swing wildly behind the middle school

to savor every bit of cold strawberry ice cream

laced with rich chocolate sauce that stains pants

(but who cares when you’re under a blanket of stars and the orange cream New York City pollution light glow?)

And lovingly,

The generous southwestern hug of the sun

and her overwhelming Jewish mother ‘optimist in adversity’ consolations

that grow to be a bothersome pain in the neck

but soon after are greatly missed

And strangely,

Wide Eyes

above loose motorcycle shirts

baggy blue jeans

and dirty white reeboks

agape and starry

on

the uncomfortable strip of 42nd between 7th and 8th’s dollars cents and nonsense galore

And curiously,

the workings of a notion because…

We all pass

The homeless men that cops chide

That the Union Guys learn to hate too

And the Subterranean Queen who gives cheap favors

For some sad lonely dudes

But a slow 180 to freedom

From dark moon tar

Will bring meadows soaked in sun

Nimbus sprinkled skies

And the easy repose of an hour bus ride