September Trials and the Misdemeanors of Family

When I get around to finding you

among the empty automobiles and vacant buildings,

the groves that will surely shrivel and die-

I might have a bottle of beer with me

to chase the memories of yesterday

that refuse to join the sky.

I used to look forward to seeing you,

the way you held my hand

and spoke to me about making

something of myself.

Now I sit down in my usual place

and I watch words become pictures inside my head,

 the last image of the ceiling before the lights go out,

a glimpse of the neighbor next door in skimpy panties

calling her dog from the back porch.

Once in awhile things turn into something

gentle reminders that the moments matter,

the beginning and the ending of what we think and how we struggle

to change the unchangeable, 

how we put together little pictures from broken memories 

hope of doing more 

or doing less 

than yesterday.  

September 30th, 2000

..and you were gone.

journal entry full of silences

This started out as something else, another journal entry full of silences, words to capture the unrelenting, this unimaginable falling down quiet.  Then I realized putting this here is sorta fruitless, like fig trees and pomelos sliding thin branches full of Autumn, destined for mud and wintry skies, lost in pie plates and conversations so very nearly soon to be forgotten. 

If I write about the exquisite depravity you might think it insufferable, if I write about the debauchery of pain to ruin your face from ever smiling again, you're certain to call it the exaggerations of far away malingerers, too busy with your prejudice to right your wrongs, too busy with your sense of superiority to be willing to acknowledge there is no excuse for a defense comprised of lies and abuse.  

You cannot escape punishment yourself with something less permanent, however awkward, however necessary the slaughter of the innocent.    

Central San Joaquin Valley Remembering Those Roadside Confessionals of Doubt

I should just plan on writing every time I get to thinking: I miss the nothing that comes from roadside confessionals, having been once or twice in my life consumed by knowing, fingering the change between my pocket and thigh, knowing it comes at all hours of the day and night, sometimes not at all except for the escape ship clause and last minute prayers - sometimes you're the victim of circumstances and other times you're the cause.

I'm the owner of a dead Chevy Nova I've been hauling around since Florida left a lasting mark on over, strained attempts don't win they just get in the way of tangled sins, after the fall it was all down hill, no matter where you end up you've got someplace to call home.  All they say when they say it at all is the first place grin is so close to losing you might as well love it instead, doomed before ever getting to begin.

There are hours inside that might try if not for my guts, swollen rivers rock hard shores that give my mouth the perfect air to cut deep grooves in desert air lips, fine lines and cracked bleeding is the despair of powder-red-ruche stings from those central San Joaquin valley remembering, my desperate roadside confessionals of doubt.

Through air and every thought there is, time consumes the sanctity of dreaming, no moon or midnight believing there's healing in believing anything you can prove. Maybe the like is like that old man Friday, that dead man with bulging cheeks of dirty ditch water thirst, maybe his fear made me afraid not the one last time he got to steal from familiar strangers.  

I should think, splayed prying eyes to pick apart like black mouth cauls at the ready, scavengers perched in hard black plastic wood veneer, "looky that, where'd it go?" the voice squawks, light reflecting stares no room for friends or family time.  It's in the dust of remembering that my mind gets to settling, those famous plastic ferns and fake flower bouquets that need someone to fill up the cemetery holes, the cover up for the being empty cup where dreams go down to sleep and memories take us back just like that.

I should just plan on writing every time I get to thinking I miss the nothing that comes from roadside confessing.  I'd be better off every once or twice a life, to let go, get consumed in knowing change ain't nothing at all, no hours of the day or night can make them, shaken; sometimes you escape and sometimes you are a victim the circumstances of alone.

Nicotine and Coffee Stains the Fingers

Nicotine and coffee stains the finger..

teeth discolor the view of Sunday morning 

excuses, the subtle urges to have or pretend to feel

urges to know edges begin and end, 

urges to alter sin

otherwise we're lost

capable the view of the supercilious sound 

this macabre sense of nature with no real understanding of tomorrow 

boundaries resound inside and outside the room,

ovaries for my discontent, 

Luteoma my illness, analogous to sin.

I have no real desire to quit or to salvage my shattered shell, 

brief and sooner, now or later 

sounds and imagery tell me 

everyone and nothing means success and failure

the greatest feat is to believe in the hereafter, 

however fleeting the salvation of knowing 

what happens after this, doing for the self, 

masturbating the mind before someone else can.

I’m just like you in that regard, 

a player of players, a mask that serves a single purpose 

doing to get the day going, night moves toward order.  

words ahead of the lost way people forget why 

they are here, 

children are less critical and that is good 

older people are more critical and that too is good.

Afraid of fitting in and not fitting in 

when 

none of this could possibly matter 

the end is near and dreams aren’t 

predictions, specifically simple slices of things 

how seldom distract but always adhere 

these moments of years.

Nicotine and coffee stains the fingers as teeth discolor
Sunday morning excuses
buttered subtle urges to have

urges to believe 

urges to understand the consequences, 

the greatest hereafter, however fleeting the salvation of knowing what happens after this, 

these boundaries 

inside and outside 

analogous to fingertips.

Assuming -  sometime in March 1999