It was the names, the names flowing
falling, free-falling names coming at
me coming two at a time, three
sometimes; a daughter, a friend, a
husband, a wife…the street filled with
their echo’s, their stain hanging in
the air…a place I live a place now in
context, not a photo, internet video or
vague conspiracy but real sounds
ricocheting down concrete canyons
where dust and debris, where body
parts once flew in a single direction
where what was once a place of
benign unease of being happy to
an empty battlefield where the new
normal and fear moved in…ranks of
unidentified threats, credible incredible
all here and now…it was the names
the 2,819 vocalized agonized and in
some cases sermonized names that
soaked my skin…invaded my blood
fed a stream of tears rising from my
heart from my memories from my
realization…from the quiet place deep
inside where death lays waiting for
it’s time…it was the names that all
sounded normal, everyday and so very
much like mine that nudged that deep
place, that tweaked the cheek of that
silent shadow, that woke up what
should always sleep…

…it was the names.

Lay me down, lay me
over your fields, your
streams the landscape
of your love…let me be
a fog embraced drifting
holding your soft fertile
ground; I feel so much
more with your sun, your
moon and stars shining
motionless meaningful
in bright and darkened
skies…lay me down
in days and nights I will
be silky strange clouds
of your remembrance; 
emotion and rainstorms 
…I am your weather; to
hope and to hold and
surround you with the
warmth of a sun the quiet
of a moon..the joyful
motion of todays clouds
drifting into tomorrow’s
dreams…lay me down
across what you know
and feel; to be the effort
the motion the idea of you
and where you are when
you are with me.

London burns again
from disinterest from
lack of will…a generation
rising against the absence
of direction of ownership
of forced entitlement and
unadorned dependency
set with the idea of solving
today’s pain hurt tears
tomorrow

How can it be wrong
I be wrong when
the government pays
me to be who I am
a creation wholly
start to finish

London cries quietly but
in homes in towns in
places far from flames
far from the pain hurt tears
waiting for what never
comes…what is expected
to never happen…as
no one claims to know
to understand that
generation

How can it be wrong
they be wrong when
the government pays
them to be who they are
a creation wholly
start to finish

London passes laws to shield
the people passing laws
people hiding in wealth
in warm sanctuary waiting
for the fire that never
comes…the pain hurt tears
forever insulated
forever twice removed
and away away away
from them

How can it be wrong
anyone be wrong when
the government says
they are who they are
their creation wholly
start to finish

The wicked parts of us, the lack of depth, the depravity
and hatred we create defines describes our world
we are who we might be in the mirror, in the reflection of
the dreams we have of our lives…as they unfurl

Fear sinks through skin through our lives, we fear it all
without knowing that failure is only a different choice
a different path both bad better sad but just a fall
a flip of a coin every time we hear our own voice

Forget what we said about going home, about
where we should be when we should be anywhere
Forget the idea that we exist at all, that we’re
anything but bags of bones, blood, skin and hair

Move your mind to that other palace, that
place where the guardians of thought reside
Let them tell you and try to convince you that
in the end, this is what you will decide

Redefinition is the resolution the sane road the ride
toward the future…toward the next true feeling
never known never felt only because it had no name
and when named…it leaves us sad and reeling

Redefinition removes replaces resolves the issues
without changing the underlying reality we know
that will always exist regardless our understanding
regardless where we come to and where we go

Forget what we said about going home, about
where we should be when we should be anywhere
Forget the idea that we exist at all, that we’re
anything but bags of bones, blood, skin and hair

Move your mind to that other palace, that
place where the guardians of thought reside
Let them tell you and try to convince you that
in the end, this is what you will decide

Calling ourselves by different names, different decisions
made and found at the heart of who we are when
we are the people we have to want to should just be
when all we are is all of nothing…until the very end

Redefinition reborn redeemed
nothing like we ever seemed
Redefinition reassert respond
as we head to the thin beyond

Redefinition

Redeemed.

She had that look that smile that
air of noticeability as she held
the door, held her ground, held
me in contempt all while I’m thinking
the door is open and closed

It’s a weird reaction, this thing idea
this rolling landscape carpet of
time stretching invisibly in front
trailing shadows behind, the stamp
of impermanence now

The reaction is indelible and
continuing; all falling forward to
an end unseen unfelt unheard
but here and there…and here
until it is not…there

She knew the result before the
beginning before the trajectory
was engaged was initiated was
in freefell upwards and seemingly
unstoppable…but wasn’t

Watching as it ended as it began
to fade like spilled water on white
linen; dark but then slowly…not
until gone and she knew she knew
that starting is not enough

I am still where I was where, she was
now just waiting for the echo’s to go,
to stop agreeing with the universe
that open or closed, a door is always
a door

She is a small improbable flower
opening, absorbing the warmth of the day
in this, the earliest hour
she is wondering what words she will say

It is a moment lost then found
as the digital clock rolls over and over again
these are no tears from a clown;
but the sad, sad reflection on a longtime friend

The one she loves, has loved forever
the closest she’s been to another on this earth
now waiting for the bonds to sever
dreaming, staring at the opposite end of birth

She loses the chill of morning
the sun tries to spread a smile across the sky
eyes closed, lids slightly warming
a tear escapes from the corner of her eye

She thinks on yesterday’s living
things that happened and things that didn’t
things that she should be giving
and the painful things that she just couldn’t

Fear becomes anger and distrust
of a world and life that could hurt a loved one
she feels her happiness corrode, turn to rust
like clouds scuttling in to choke off the sun

Today is different she wants to think
didn’t that come to mind this time yesterday?
like pebbles in water, she starts to sink
unlike herself; becoming more and more afraid

But she knows, like life, the day is this way
first morning then midday then afternoon then night
there is usually not much left to say
as it all cycles through sometimes just in spite

Tomorrow she is a small improbable flower
opening, absorbing the warmth of the day
in that, the earliest of hours
she will be wondering what words she will say

The truth lay bleeding at my feet, an
effortless casualty of the conversation
meant for another, a different outcome
a different end game but when the
verbal nuclear warhead goes off, the
effect is of leveling…decimating and
destroying the semblance of sanity, of
agreement and compatibility.

I can wait for the settling, the inevitable
aftermath, the détente that must ensue
but I won’t can’t will not see the facts
for the falsity of thinking believing
having seeing that what I have is not
what I want that the motions I go through
are little…but dreams and vague
notions of love and life.

A genocide of words…of conversation
lost on ears thinking for themselves and 
hearing things unsaid unmeant but
directed attributed to the idea that what
we are becomes what we mean as a
normal way of seeing us being us…yet
it isn’t us can’t ever be us for we are not
our words

Arguments erupt amid the lost idea of
civilization as a contract a promise that
what I do depends on what you her him
they do but with the caveat the clause
the overriding condition that we think
before speaking…understand that
transmission is our responsibility and
reception theirs.

I just found the hole in us
where our love leaked out
where the container we
thought was forever was
secure was solid and
complete was not anything
but an idea wish dream
that we put together in a
second a flash of wanting
needing each other while
ignoring the daily evidence
that the pressure of living
being having our spheres
mingle touch rotate and
orbit within and inside the
envelope box package
we call ourselves, the list
of strengths and defects,
the listing of who’s and
what’s…it is an erosion
force; small grindings, tiny
movements molecular level
irritations that occur
constantly without that
tensile strength structure,
made and created with
thought and feeling…the
corners crumble, the seams
weaken and an atomic bond
lets loose, another another
another and then, its a hole
where love drips out, slowly
slowly slowly never noticed
seen felt dreamed until it
is gone.

The length of her body, set
and aligned to parallel, to
the idea of friction and
inertia, movement toward
the smooth animation of ‘yes’
of knowing and wanting
needing agreeing with
fingers and tongue, lips and
eyes that a precept of
tomorrow is to understand
and embrace the epitome
of today

What would I give up, what
thing/scene/feeling
would I forgo, would I lose
willingly let fall away let
disintegrate rust dissolve
into the nothing it came from
…to have her here with me
again and again, beside me
a part indivisible, a moment
attached warm under white
linen, under her flesh and
her soul

I know because of knowing
experiencing, having and
think what, who, where if
not her, if without her I
dreamt, wanted, thought
and discovered…would
the same song be playing,
an echo of sorrow, a
place missed without first
visited; would I feel loss
looking at a future without
her skin, soul, touch.

It’s an avalanche; the cascading falling
feelings toward madness, toward what
we think is madness…a serious leak now,
reality seeping out at the seams…all for
thinking that what we have is forever,
is indelible, is stained on our souls

it isn’t
and
never was

Funny how small creatures imagine big
futures, believe endless fantasies built
by flawed men with absent credibility, with
nothing more than what anyone else has;
ideas only, facts few, charisma and
promises that can’t be fulfilled

not now
and
not ever

We stand at the center of ourselves and
always have…although we agree that
standing with others; people friends family
tribe town city state country is a good thing
is worth the loss of us (as us) we can’t
escape our inner self, our voice

speaking now
and
for always

The end state, the trick the means to the
end is to be that voice that someone/single
specific/special/unique and agree, agree
and agree again that we are the same just
different, just a variant of everyone…just
enough to quiet the madness that

they are
and
will be

In a manufactured reality, in a plastic world
of promises and conversation all directed
at hiding the unnaturalness of being coherent
units groups tribes towns cities states and
countries; we suffer the avalanche let it flow
over and around us while we remain as one

now
and
forever