I don’t know where I am the buzz scream manic beeping going going
going—two inches out and inside my head—my ears whimpering crying sad
forced to listen to hear the day begin so loud so loud they want to roll me
over…a tossed hand—disconnected—to silence the evil the bastard prodding
pushing alarm my eyes are slit there’s light coming in the ears know the game
is lost no hail Mary no comforting black nothing no more

game to play.

The bastard alarm stops mid catastrophe; a blanket of thick nothing lay
across me—a moment—silent echo’s bang against walls, dissipate and the
day sneaks past defenses past closed shades windows into barely finished
dreams of happiness happenstance…tall walking proud to be alive…but
its collapsing mist, falling away in the path of the day rolling inexorably a
tank, a big hole of a gun pointing shoving pushing me forward and awake

into light.

Eyes open flutter toward a ceiling too close too loud/bright…too much today
splashed upwards; seeping down coating me like fog on leaves on grass on
forgotten pieces of life arranged in broken rows across the idea of things I
used to know/believe/have held close to while mourning the loss of wanting,
the mystery of not having when “not having” means to be the essence of a
better life by subtraction and division toward an unavoidable lowest common

denominator.

At the wrong end of the day—starting—the end without runway without compromise
without recourse but to saddle up, to mount and go…looking behind at dreams
left unfinished incomplete milling around at an empty bed…the motion toward
upright begins halts hesitates relapses and struggles sideways into something
into movement sighing little motionless movement wait wait wait and leveraging
momentum the pendulum swings an internal weight shifts back and forth

up and down.

Standing; night now officially ended—dreams incommunicado now expatriates
standing on far shores watching battles drawn engaged without their need
knowing that on the way is daylight schedules deadlines clothing meetings music
traffic more and more and more all geared all pointed all ending up at places
predetermined places mapped places on a direct line between here and
there and ending again (and again) back where it started and ended:

in bed.

We are collections of simple shadows/of those
things we have done thought/felt/saw/heard…have
been…the assumed completeness of us blocks a
harsh light of a reality intent upon exposing us,
our/what we live to hide/what the internal idea of
us won’t admit…who we are

These shadows travel over our daily lives/at
once covering and uncovering them/sliding with
masked judgment past our failures/our unmade
beds/our missed opportunities and we only see
feel/hear what the shadow isn’t covering…now…
or now…or now.

We don’t know we are shadows/thinking we are
light/we are illuminating when the sad truth—the
mechanism within—is that reality is/can be
the only light…we see brightness where we aren’t
in the way…where (in our accidental movement)
we happen to not be.

Being a shadow isn’t bad/evil/dark/isn’t wrong or
not right; it just…is…like what it is supposed to
be/a thing/a movement/a minute of awareness to
catch the shift/the slide of dark silk across rough
hands/across the surface of our lives/not changing
but noting where meaning lives

Evolving/changing/growing and opening our eyes
will never banish the shadow/like breathing cannot
destroy air/like knowing today cannot erase yesterday
we are allowed…no…we can only recognize/watch
and enjoy and revolve around the profound idea
that we need to step out of our own way.

I remember

waking up in a warm soft sinking deep bed of dreams
still fresh still moving still available…I closed my night
eyes and opened the day; opened up to possibility and
opportunity knowing others don’t can’t won’t

see what I saw when

I dreamt that Afghanistan smelled cold smelled like death
like oppression…everything headed to sadness madness
and endless dreams going sour in wasted nights in mindless
days in time to find no innocence at all

when I try to

wake up wanting to save the world needing feeling
watching myself crave redemption asking why we are
where we are who we are what are we thinking doing
seeing having…when all there is are only the two…

innocence and guilt; but

dear innocence likes to think itself immune apart from
the crass and dirty, the languishing hope that one day
fear doesn’t win, ignorance doesn’t prevail, power
stays out of the equation and us them—we—survive

to be guilty of living while

in tattered dreams I see innocence as merely the
zero state…the starting point the thing that is always
before the after; always the sound a microsecond
prior to the gunshot the IED the smile the tears

that dampen our souls

but true innocence grants no favors no special place
waits for it (for us) for the world to remember what
it always knew…what it always forgets—first—when
forgetting is a means to an end

to finish what it has started while

the silent finger writing on the wall records minutes
hours days of lost innocence replicated guilt…history is
manmade is created without thought is rolled out without
fanfare; tick tick tick the slow fast rhythm compels us

to dance to the tune playing

only in our dreams…I think about why…about selfish me
about humanity if it is simply to relieve my pressure not
the salve the world needs wants…I don’t know but I do
know that without me you us there is no world

to agonize over to

compare the innocent to the guilty to the lived to the
dead; all moving slowly quickly toward an end without
history without possibility without opportunity deep beds
dreams and the idea that we have innocence at all

when living itself is not a zero state.

Sometimes the words fall out like confetti, like
rain on a spring morning…dampening the page
with meaning and emotion, littering the street
after the parade

Sometimes they refuse to jump, clench with
white knuckled resistance and laugh at my
cajoling my pleading my demanding yelling
screaming

Sometimes the meaning runs alongside like
a dog after his masters bike, not often
not regular like the mail the TV the war
that never stops

Sometimes there is loss inside them, there is
failure and sorrow and corners filled with
suspicion filled with ideas that not enough
was ever done

Sometimes joy breaks through the dutiful
depression the learned response to fear
before I learn to judge before I know to
watch without seeing

Sometimes the order just happens just
becomes something bigger than meant, a
depth unplanned…I cry a little…seeing
an edge of myself

Sometimes it’s badly disguised shit left
on the bike path I use to get them from
inside to outside from there to here from
empty to full

Sometimes no all times they are necessary
and insignificant and substantial and
irrelevant and they make me live love
every minute I am alive

Some feel the wetness/others the
chill/others the silent sense that
something is over/something is
gone/something has turned the
corner toward a difference a
change…a new way of
being/seeing/believing and it is…
it is again and again
but nothing is new/everything is
the same/subtly (so subtly)
different in effect it never changes
never says goodbye only like
going from this room to the
next/not outside/not away
forever and
ever
The next rain will be autumn with
coldness and longing/with a
nod to the sun now silent and
sullen/with a moment waiting
a miniature pause while mean
man winter stirs/sleeps on
dreaming that it is his turn/his
right to wreak havoc/give
us his attention…
summer’s last rain is not like
others/not fall/not spring…it
feels final/feels like goodbye
all wrapped and ready/all
bow-tied…left on a doorstep
we feel it different see it
different but all know that
summer has left
the building.

The sky broke today
pieces fell around me
like confetti like soft glass
cracked mirrors reflecting
myself back to me…I
saw my reaction how I
felt how the world moves
as different ideas rise
on waves of voices on
a cold front of dreams
falling down human
mountainsides
enveloping and covering
it was God it was Allah it
was a plutonium atom
losing an electron and
another and another I
sit in a broken place, in a
small minute of quiet
I look where the sky used
to be and it is empty
black
the air rushing toward
the deep hole where
hope used to live and
for an instant, my
breath squeezing its way
out of me completely, I
saw a peaceful serene
beautiful place and knew
it was only ever inside
me and holding holding
holding it there (like we
all do) it was me it was
you it was us who
broke the sky.

Why do we try so hard for
everything to be so easy
so simple it becomes
complicated; too difficult
to understand to own to
have to hold like the hand
in our hand the smile we
see the wind that soothes
the song that floats as we
wander through our lives

Why do we ask for things
we don’t want can’t use
aren’t able to understand
when what we do have
sits unused in our feelings
in our souls in our minds
while the sight we once
had the focus the vision
scatters before the wind of
want desire confusion

Trying and wanting are
signs of how lost we are
where we go when we
don’t know where to go

Why do we ask questions
that have no answers we
know have no answers yet
knocking on the door, we
tap on the window looking
for lights burning, for
occupation…we push
push push toward that
destination always knowing
always knowing

Why do we disbelieve what
we know is true, we know
can’t be anything else but
like gravity water pain death
facts tattooed on our lives
our dreams our today and
tomorrow…we look away
stare blindly at what is in
front if us never seeing what
we could see if we could see

Asking and disbelieving are
signs of how lost we are
where we go when we
don’t know where to go

Trying and wanting
asking and disbelieving
where we go when we
don’t know where to go

We have those moments, a sadness full
of lifetimes; of regret and casual pain, of
a weight on our shoulders our souls our
movements constrained and directed.

We look from a hurting inside…a vantage
point deep inside behind and under; we
only see little of what is possible and all
of what is not.

Time shifts into a creaky low gear a slow
grind toward an end we know well we think
we know so well have seen before again
and again and again.

The weight never shifts never releases us
from it’s gravity it’s relentless trajectory
down down down toward the bottom of
where we can’t see.

Something happens…in that blurry nothing
that empty space between seconds minutes
between spinning atoms of dark dislike
and deep despair.

We forget, for an instant, and stumble upon
happy…a day a year a second we don’t
feel the weight don’t feel the coming end
of where we can’t see.

Nothing physical has changed no formulae
disrupted no chemicals disturbed…all
systems go and operational yet yet yet
nothing is the same.

It lasts-it doesn’t-it is permanent-it is not
it is there and not there in equal amounts
all aligned along the edge of who we are
waiting to be put into place.

A sadness full of lifetimes; the same, the
mirror/the twin of a happiness waiting to
be stumbled upon…not replaced not
removed not rewound.

it is us…it is always always always us…the
weight feels heavy like lightness sets us
free and it is our thoughts our dreams our
ideas and always just us.