Destined to die
I cry
The god I didn’t buy
The sun in the sky
The earth
My worth
Denied
Fated to decease
To be defeated
Unloved
And repeated
In another body
I’m anybody
Going to go
I don’t even know
When
The heart stops
The blood pops
Out the skin
Afraid to bleed
And be taken from those who need
Me
Hard facts
Nailed to the trap
Shot in the back
Or dead sleeping in a sack
I’m Into This
The deep focus and candour
The red lined with amber
The sheet so white it stung
With half a brain half a lung
I saunter
Love is nest, a tribe
With no one to live alone
Inside
And war is rich with pain
And death is bought
Again and again
The solid concentration and urge
To fill the page with every single purge
A passing fly
A wish
I’m into this
The Genius
The genius grew
He had but one tooth
Then two
Then a whole set
He was a prodigy
And he wrote
And drew
And played piano
One day you will be rich
Said his father
One day your name will be in lights
The genius grew
He built a machine
And rummaged through another genius’s library
And smoked cigarettes
He didn’t want a girlfriend
What could he talk to her about?
And he did not want to be rich or famous
He got too much attention as it was
His mother called him aloof
His father said he was wasting it
And he would put out his cigarette
And leave the room
The genius grew
“I can make that” he said once
About a new device
And he replicated it just to prove it
“I can do that” he said on seeing someones performance
And he would perform the whole performance from memory
His mother got angry
She said he ought to be earning more with his smarts
She said she couldn’t feed him anymore
So he moved out to a friends
But soon he got tired of his friend
And left wandering town to town
Living off his wits
To see if he could do it
And he could
The genius grew
He lived in a tent by the river
With animals
Ducks, dogs, racoons, skunks, cats
He would fish
Sometimes for men
Put out a pondering question to some passerby
And he would laugh as they thought him some quack or creepo
The genius grew
And published a book that no one read but everyone said was good
The publisher wanted to know why he was barefoot
His mother and father bothered him about money
“I’m alone” he cried but he talked to anyone about anything.
“I’m a dream” he said and he laughed that he was
He drew portraits of common people that could not afford to buy them
He played piano in a tavern but did not drink and would not accept money
The genius grew
At mid life the genius was weary
He had too many ideas
A drunk man bumped into him on the way home one night
They got into a heated conversation
And the drunk man attacked and knocked out his teeth
The genius saw red
He grabbed the drunk man in a fight and throttled him several times
The body went limp
The genius went to jail for murder
The genius grew
In prison he was almost killed
But he survived with his smarts
He grew hardened
And all that time in jail gave him a new interest
And crime was this interest
When he was released he hatched a plan
And robbed a bank
And moved away to an island that was beautiful
And happily lived many days on a beach
The genius grew
He drew tourists for fun
And when his parents died he never went to their funerals
He joined a band as a keyboard player
Sending shivers down spines
Fascinations grew dull and ideas flourished
He sent mathematics to a professor
Who flew out to where he was to discuss it
And the genius was no longer there
The genius grew
He sorted out his retirement
But began dying of a strange disease
Which he cured with certain nutrients
He painted a giant mural
He wrote several articles about aging
And one about love
But he never married
He died on a Saturday
And was cremated
His cabin was full of writing, drawings and musical recordings that he had done alone
And no one knew he was a genius
And he was forgotten
The Skies Alarm
Into the buildings into the arms
Of the men who live hard
They will do no harm
Into the dreams inside their hearts
Ripped from memory
A piece of their art
Into the consciousness
Deep in the psyche
Into the past recollections
Of violence and the like
Into the hearth into the fire
Golden or not
The men are all liars
Up from the pending
Up from the charm
Lift your eyes from the ground
Into the skies alarm
Under Red Skies
under red skies we wept
with dead lies we kept
in terrible lives we slept
under rickety shelters we prayed
the bodies across the lawn layed
and the heads on the sticks displayed
on a death sentence we spat
our hearts glowing with bellies fat
the circle of life and energy flat
under dreams we crept
with dead lies we kept
under red skies we wept.
Podcasters
On the page I let the words spin
Grow a bald spot and tough skin
I stood a spot far off and watched
The coffee shop where we met to talk
In hesitation I took my pill
She talked a bunch about Dr Phil
And I sat and listened with a smile
Thinking it silly all the while
We split a burger and paid half each
Met again at Starbucks the next week
I was a poet who lived in a small room
I got up for the sun and stayed up for the moon
Cigarettes and coffee and rap songs
Cannabis filling the green bong
I had a beard and a bit of belly
Showered infrequent and was kind of smelly
I wrote poems every morning
Had a prescription for wellies which I was snorting
I went for walks and smoked my pipe
Watched a diaper for months it got real ripe
She was a writer with a file of writing
A screenwriter into teeth whitening
Growing plants and petting the cat
A lazy boy chair is where she sat
She drank her beer and went to sleep
Heard voices that came from the deep
And when she woke she was allowed
To hear every voice and she was corralled
Into a corner and she screamed at them
About them she couldn’t give a damn
At Starbucks I met her and we sat down
I was high on kratom and wearing a frown
She did the talking and we parted amicably
And started doing art while watching TV
We talked about mental health and how it goes
And then started a podcast radio show
We got some alcohol and sat at a screen
Played some songs and said what they mean
We joked and laughed and hit the pause
Topics ranging from Elvis to Santa Claus
We remained friends and now are together
We probably will be that way forever
Probably die in each others arm
But I hope neither of us comes to harm
And as we moved from podcasts to other art
We grew as artists lighting the dark
And she went into social justice for the hurt
And continued to do screenplay work
I wrote songs, cartoons and wrote
And she wrote a feature film that didn’t float
An Afterlife
The sky was orange with pain
Not but my skin did remain
And upwards to the sky I knife
Through the atmosphere to an afterlife
My bleeding corpse I am not
Spun to visions I am caught
Like a dream it seems I am so quizzical
Not a body to see cus I am invisible
And into a heaven I stroll
Carrying that days cannabis bowl
In housecoat and socks
I smoke some hash rocks
And before me there is a giant door
And sitting there is my Lord
I fall on my knees and begin to cry
”How was I to know I died
How was I to know when high
When out of my gourd and out of my mind
How was I to know the man I drowned
And the police investigated I was never found
How was I to do something other
Than to harm another
Or to smoke these herbs
And wear no shirt
How was I, a half atheist, to know
That a door was at the end where I go?”
The Lord was polite and looked past me even
As if behind him did not exist heaven
And sighed a sigh of eternal boredom
Of another soul to be a sorting
And when he spoke such a time had passed
In such silence that I didn’t trust this ass
Who sat before the Door Of Time
Getting inside was all that was on my mind
He said “don’t be so ungrateful you made it here
Stay awhile and even have this beer
There is nothing at all you need anymore fear”
What was he a joke or clown
I grabbed the beer and drank it down
I said “how do I get through this massive door
I’ve done nothing to go to a hell for
And heaven must be behind there
And heaven is the subject I want to hear
Am I allowed am I good enough
To waltz right in and bring my stuff
And sit in a heaven completely anew
Let me through why don’t you”
And he gave a laugh and looked at me straight
“Where you think you are you certainly ain’t
And this door here contains nothing besides
A few of us who have recently died
And weed alone doesn’t account for the lacing
Of drugs in your drink
Cus this street is Hastings”.
A Better Sparrow
In the middle of earth
In a class unknown
In a family long dead
In a time barely gone
In a city of lights
In park of trees
I take a break
And lie in the leaves
In a dream unaccomplished
And a reality unseen
In a echo chamber of doubts
I was in since a teen
In a cage of grief
Shot like fish in a barrel
I took the time to be
A better sparrow
In a country of drugs
And a grave for our efforts
In a shield of knowledge
That could do no better
In a violent mistrust
Of everything told
In a precipice of hatred
As I grow very old
Roaming free like a bug
To buzz in your eyes
Filled with such want
In face of all of your lies
Cupid dead
Shot with his own arrow
I took the time to be
A better sparrow
In a whirlwind of jealousy
Greed and such vice
A cold exterior
And a heart of ice
In a tornado of love
In a earthquake of inspiration
I dig my own grave
For my final vacation
Singing higher than heavens
Clearer than God
Calling all the normals
To look how I’m odd
All the way to the core
All the way to the marrow
I took the time to be
A better sparrow
Beautiful Grave
The light shone down from a sun above
And every good person glowed with love
A settling quiet hit the earth
As everyone realized life’s worth
A dream realized a good feeling saved
Dying in peace in a beautiful grave
High above the trees echoing in the clouds
Into the atmosphere no plane is allowed
An emptiness empties and sucks up the world
And even a strapping lad whimpers like a girl
Rapture comes and goes in waves
As the corpses fill a beautiful grave
Almost ecstatic eyes lit with pride
Another great soul has smashed and died
For the earth for the world for all of the people
For the good of mankind and every kind of steeple
Dancing in barns, high at a rave
Till it’s time to retire in a beautiful grave
Kings and paupers and middle class folks
Caught in the wheel caught in the spokes
Climbing to become with riches meaning nothing
An afterlife bought and the seller was bluffing
Not even intelligent and hardly brave
As they saunter along into a beautiful grave
Landing deep in the ocean or up on the moon
Technological advance brings ignorant dooms
And filtered by lies so the truth is not so
Filled with such pride that one cannot let go
Until down in a crest and up in a wave
Until every last person is in a beautiful grave
Night Writer
Late at night
I used to steal out with pen and paper
And write until the dawn
Your so tired
They would say
You’re a drag
She would say
I’m lethargic, I would think
When there was a Denny’s
And I could drink coffee all night
I used to order buffalo wings
And 30 coffees
And I would write
I would write and write and write
What did I write?
How can I say, it was so various, so ambitious
So not now
Where I sit
In my hands
Like the end of a long road of self-criticism
To punch myself once in the head
For my impudence
For my traits
For my love of madness and chaos
And deep in the day
The sun shining I would fall ill
At work
At home
Inside
So tired I creep
Task to task
Then when they all go to bed and even I go to bed
When the night is empty
There is nothing to do but sleep
But out I go
Into my car
To Denny’s to write.
ohellino 