She watches the shadows consume the street, the
cars parked down 23rd eaten, one by one…doorways
and stoops disappearing in small bites, her stoop;
looking down 5 steps to the street, minutes away
from consumption, she sits holding knees against chest.

Today is no different from yesterday she thinks, it
is on a closed loop, repeating, a mobius strip, a twisted
inverted figure eight…she passes this spot a billion times
and foresees a billion more, each grinding off a small bit
of her dreams, her future….her life.

Darkness owns the street now as it did before as it will
again until the flip of the coin, the tilt of the earth, when the
precariousness of vanity drives her movements toward
retrospect and discovery, toward knowing versus
never feeling, never seeing, never…holding.

She has a problem and looking at a midnight street in
Chelsea, the enter of the city’s own vanity, from a point
of view only she can own…the common resolution is null
and void, it doesn’t fit, it’s a different size style season
color and beside…it’s not hers.

Her problem is of expectations and dreams and where
they collide in reality, of believing when believing is the
antithesis of choice, of decision and drama of massive
metaphysics telling telling TELLING her what is, what
isn’t; who is and who won’t.

Every choice is wrong because there is no right, there is
nothing on the other side different from this one, from
”normal” yet the advertising doesn’t lie…bigger better faster
leaner more more more until the frame is filled with want
and true desire is lost in dirty corners.

Sitting on a stoop, 5 steps to Chelsea, when darkness
erases the stain of the day, the trail of tears of fears of
an unforgiving mission to be with someone, to be someone’s…
someone…she waits for an answer unscheduled, untimed and
forever sitting in the shadows

Her problem is not someone, it is the version model type
class edition created without connection, linkage to here and
now…the collusion between wishing and wanting, of expectations
falling short…she wants to know now but doesn’t can’t won’t
is that (bereft of definition), the availability of happiness reaches

certainty.

Father’s Day just went past, I waved; said hello and goodbye at once
spent a moment inside my head thinking about the world, about
places and people far removed from me, from where I see feel hear
touch…smell…experience…

Felt the heat of an Afghanistan sun burning sand burning breezes, small
stones huddled against the camouflage hem of a soldiers pant leg, against
dirt and dry skin; an occasional fly wafting across sightless eyes, across
oceans and time a father cries.

Saw empty lots in the city with weeds spreading the faith, spread like
broken glass, spread like the outstretched arms of another lost son, another
soul left dangling between birth and death with prison and pain the only
future proposed by a single mother fighting an addiction.

Heard the shrill call of fanciful colored birds in lower canopy rain forest
trees, above cages where men are chained, humid days and wetter
nights waiting for a political end to an economic war while fathers
read lies in newspapers and close their eyes against tomorrow.

Smelled the burning of rubber as tires spun round on destroyed
Mercedes left as a present from another martyr, another lost soul, another
ink stain on newspaper meant to be something big and bold but, as
always, is just another dead son, daughter, mother…father

They say the future is written with the blood of those defending the past
and I can’t say yes or no but I see in my head…thinking about the world
that fathers will see sons and daughters die, will see the effects of
hatred, feel the gravity of death inexorably pulling them along

I see in my little world, my corner, my eye shut almost tight against the light
that when you look at the distance between father and son, father and daughter
when you feel the break of dawn in that small world of breathing and living
tomorrow thinking becomes unaffordable for today…

…and power and politics and sand and stones and chains and cages, trees and sun;
everything…means exactly nothing to a grieving father.

I was talking to Jesus through a hole in the floor, waiting for some
divine sense of ending, but all I got was interference on the cell
phone and no answer to the text I was sending.

Thinking that I was oblivious but not so obviously wrong, I waited
…but was just pretending, the sky disagreed and became very angry
as nighttime came descending

I don’t wish to be that person
I don’t want to live that life

I don’t want to have that feeling
I don’t want to live that life

I want to exist inside nature’s pornography, inside what’s called
the barrel of the gun…scheming and dreaming and watching
and waiting; looking backward and on the run

Somewhere I know there’s a person looking toward me, looking
back at what they’ve done…looking all the while like they
have it made; threads of gold falling from an indifferent sun

I don’t wish to be that person
I don’t want to live that life

I don’t want to have that feeling
I don’t want to live that life

It’s reckless dismemberment that has caused us to flinch, to decide
we have better times ahead, better times to believe in….yet we are
nowhere nearer to what we said.

It’s total disregard for our safety, these elitist versions of who we are
when we’re dead, it’s the moment of inflection and of choice…
of people who will not believe what they’ve read

I don’t wish to be that person
I don’t want to live that life

I don’t want to have that feeling
I don’t want to live that life

But its the life I have and the dreams I have and the needs I have
and the schemes I have and the deeds I have and the me I am
…its the life I have and the dreams I have and the needs I have
and the schemes I have and the deeds I have and
the me
I am

It isn’t easy…opening eyes shut for so long, closed against the pain
of realization, enlightenment, dreams of tomorrow’s gone on forever
of mindless following, of accepting these restrictions so effortlessly…so
easy and freely giving over ourselves to mediocrity to the bland ticking of
society’s simple clock simpleminded measures of winning and losing…

It is damn hard…jumping toward an edge unseen an ocean far below with
infrequent waves of joy of happiness of trying to find the right one, the
perfect…anything…always always always knowing that perfect exists between
our ears only, between here and now there is nothing but nothing and tomorrow
doesn’t exist today; not what we see hear feel smell touch and taste.

Once we heard…the “secret” was inner fulfillment like something bought at
the local 7-11, packaged and marketed on channel 4 on that website with lol
cats laughing, squirrels on surfboards, a viral message of hope and
dreams wrapped in hallmark’s finest, wrapped in the smell of pungent
sameness, simple compliance…

The difficulty is…there are many things to believe when we believe that believing is the
thing that gets us from here to there, from us to them, from me to you…from
the inside to the outside but but but is it is less believing as is it being we
think, we see in our inner eye squinting against the hypocrisy of our emotions
against the glare of our own sad imperfections.

We want to scream
We want to dream
We want to want again
We want to stand apart
We want to start
We want to be a friend

The end result…something anti-existential, something lost on whim and madness
on the backs of thoughtfulness, on the swing shift and on and on…we reach
for the shelf we see with cupboard door closed, the thing that already matches
a squirrel on a surfboard…the tick tock of society…winning and losing…
what is outside of us.

It will end…this dream this life this rolling rocking trip toward the other end of living
and who we are once we get there is who we were when we left so many lifetimes ago, so
many different people we went through; had as our own smiles our own shy selfishness
and in the end…ha ha (the end)…we’ve added a few pounds to what we started with and
we lay down and say hello to the beginning of something else.

The words fall apart in my mouth; cracking from the edges in, from
lack of foresight, from a limited view, from me to…everything
a perspective only I can see…it frames me, my life my world

This may be the hardest part; the micro second between now and
tomorrow…everything changes–everything moves—onward & toward
an end far off (so close it’s next to nothing) as if it was never there

It started with simple velocity, an arc toward/across a coffee cup
and blinking ignorance of what didn’t fit, what wasn’t there, what
wasn’t seen but thought of…put there in a dream, a moment away

A conversation amplified by distance, by minutes of innocent fatigue
of waiting for response, filling in the silent holes with happiness smiles
many tomorrow’s lined up in play clothes; bright and positive

Rinse and repeat; the dinners the movies the times the absences the
missing minutes between wanting and getting, the low hum of “lonely”
where expected silence should have been deafening.

She says the hardest words, a picture filled in by tears, by emotion
toward a closed door, toward the end, again and again…and I watch
all fade into a memory I can’t believe, I feel hear look at it go/by/away

Two not meant; just imaginations…pushed to that line, just
moved by words by thoughts and actions where endings were brought
together and released as a conversation, a point, a motive

Listening to the rain I hear myself so simple so quiet so damn
away from here away from me and away she says she says
but it all falls down like so many times before…like inside it falls

I’m no superman not someone above the fray
not different from you, from you or you
I’m just trying to stand up and find my way
without really knowing what I need to do

I’m no conquering hero not like some I know
dead & dying in Afghanistan or Iraq
today I’m a method actor in a bad reality show
but them, I know, are never coming back

I’m no poet with words of wisdom and strength
just someone who has a simple point of view
sometimes its meaningful…but then again
its just a simple thing that I sometimes do

I can write of death and courage and the brave
but it’s ink on paper, pixels on the screen
I have never had to contemplate my own grave
dead and dying is something I’ve never seen

There are no words that can be spoken
to heal the bodies that have been broken
there is no place that we can hide
when what we fear is from deep inside

      but tomorrow we can make different

Sometimes wounds are hidden behind blank eyes
stained and scarred on a soul…on a heart
I’m no more qualified to calm those cries
or…to even know where I should start

Today those wounds kill as well as any do…I know
but never seen, they seem to be ignored
still an actor, still a stage; all for show
sadness the only emotion I can afford

There are no words that can be spoken
to heal the minds that have been broken
there is no place that we can hide
when what we fear is from deep inside

     but tomorrow we can make different

The past is often the greatest wound of all
likely the one no one can escape from
bright pain that breaches an inner wall
living under the stare of a cold bleak sun

Claws of memory, teeth of tears and pain
we think it undefeatable, always beyond our abilities
try to shove it back behind the wall, again and again
our fears…we can’t see the forest for the trees

One day we will look beyond the past’s scaly shadow
toward a future where the sun is not cold and bleak
we’ll stand and we’ll shout and we won’t be cattle
happiness will be the only reason we weep

There are no words that can be spoken
to heal the minds and bodies that have been broken
there is no place that we can hide
when what we fear is from deep inside
there is no place that we can hide
when what we fear is from deep inside

     but tomorrow will be different

I’m no superman not someone above the fray
not different from you, from you or you
I’m just trying to stand up and find my way
without really knowing what I need to do

I’m no conquering hero not like some I know
dead & dying in Afghanistan or Iraq
today I’m a method actor in a bad reality show
but them, I know, are never coming back

I’m no poet with words of wisdom and strength
just someone who has a simple point of view
sometimes its meaningful…but then again
its just a simple thing that I sometimes do

I can write of death and courage and the brave
but it’s ink on paper, pixels on the screen
I have never had to contemplate my own grave
dead and dying is something I’ve never seen

There are no words that can be spoken
to heal the bodies that have been broken
there is no place that we can hide
when what we fear is from deep inside

      but tomorrow we can make different

Sometimes wounds are hidden behind blank eyes
stained and scarred on a soul…on a heart
I’m no more qualified to calm those cries
or…to even know where I should start

Today those wounds kill as well as any do…I know
but never seen, they seem to be ignored
still an actor, still a stage; all for show
sadness the only emotion I can afford

There are no words that can be spoken
to heal the minds that have been broken
there is no place that we can hide
when what we fear is from deep inside

     but tomorrow we can make different

The past is often the greatest wound of all
likely the one no one can escape from
bright pain that breaches an inner wall
living under the stare of a cold bleak sun

Claws of memory, teeth of tears and pain
we think it undefeatable, always beyond our abilities
try to shove it back behind the wall, again and again
our fears…we can’t see the forest for the trees

One day we will look beyond the past’s scaly shadow
toward a future where the sun is not cold and bleak
we’ll stand and we’ll shout and we won’t be cattle
happiness will be the only reason we weep

There are no words that can be spoken
to heal the minds and bodies that have been broken
there is no place that we can hide
when what we fear is from deep inside
there is no place that we can hide
when what we fear is from deep inside

     but tomorrow will be different

It’s a fine line that we walk tiptoe stampede otherwise ignore
when we want/need to decide…feeling/running toward the score
when we seek to mate, combine, debate; we date create are late
for knowing less, knowing more…resigned to this endless fate

I heard “Anyone who knows you knows they don’t know you”

Over, over inside my head, my ears burning, my brow with slick sweat
with concern, with the low brim of a hat, with numbers and emotional debt
I look into corners; dark and dim memories of who I am when I am me
but as much as I look as much as I stare, I never see the one I see

I heard “Anyone who knows you knows they don’t know you”

In distant past reforms of consciousness, in reams of paper written on
about things that make sense, that don’t, that are all…eventually gone
I see again, not again, maybe now, I see someone who looks the same
someone I used to call myself, used to be myself, used to play the game

I heard “Anyone who knows you knows that they don’t know you”

It’s easy in this life to point the blame toward something stronger
absolving me of the weight of life as I try to live that much longer
looking for a core of understanding, for the part of me that speaks
just a few turns of a screw, a little twist here, a couple of tweaks

I heard “Anyone who knows you knows they don’t know you”

And I think on that, watch my own words paint a picture so incomplete
so roiled with lack of confidence, stained by simple human deceit
it becomes a mantra, call to arms, my reason for opening my eyes
I want to stand there, in trust and dignity, as the last of me dies

I heard “Anyone who knows you knows they don’t know you”
I cried for an instant, for an eon, marveling at how it’s so true

I will pick up the thread, the line, the map toward someplace not me
toward the target, seen from heights, toward one day who I might be
I think I can’t, no I can’t, stop I can’t but in the end; I will, I do and I can
it is as simple as, is as safe as, is as complicated as; I am just a man

Sitting on the floor with my back to
the world, I was thinking…the view from
my side of these eyes, and the view
from your side, and you, and you, and…I
imagined that I look at the world, and what
I see can only be in relation to who I am, to
memories I know.

Is that revelatory? Or simply an idiot
sitting on the floor…

What is an apple when I look at one today, hold
one in my hand?  A trillion processes
between fingers and eyes and dendrites, neurons
axons…all firing and spitting chemical
reactions, stirring the pot, recreating the
memory of an apple in my head…from
many yesterday apples.

What if I’ve never seen a yesterday apple, heard
of one, eaten one…ever?

Without that 3D image filed, that collection of
matching memories, things I
know; what am I holding but a round thing,
maybe red, maybe green, a dimple like
on either end…a small stick maybe in
one dimple and could be shiny, could be bruised
but how do I know.

What if I’ve never felt your love, never
knew it’s beauty, it’s touch, its…

What do I think when it is suddenly there, out of no
where, out of the blue (or maybe not) but there
there there and the dendrites neurons axons go
into motion movement toward creating the space
inside, three dimensions of memory…and…
nothing; vague semblances of thoughts, ideas
shifting scenes of people not you.

I learn and adapt and build those future
memories; imagining it looking back to now…

Sitting still with my back to the world I think that
what I don’t know I am doing when I don’t
know can’t relate is to create that knowing, make
that space, align those three dimensions…direct
dendrites neurons axons…toward building that inside
toward remembering the today that
I think about tomorrow.

And I will know by knowing you, by
believing in those future memories.

On the field of battle cold smoke and ash lying still on
faces lost to history…sightless eyes staring upwards,
thoughtless and uncaring now and forever, they wait with
stranded minutes, hours, days…for the meaning to
sink in to appear to rise and be seen to become
the “why” so many have searched for.

Cause and country walk the lonely landscape; listening
and breathing; small, silent gasps of the fetid air, the
clench of death around hearts in spasm, in nostrils, in
souls, in…time this will be forgotten; lucid madmen
will again litter the land with broken ideas, unworkable
schemes; power strength standing and control.

The dead and dying are faceless and everyone as they
lay in state, in shame, in fact as the evidence accumulates
as time rushes to bury, to confuse and to lose all that
we’ve learned about ourselves, about what it means to
believe in cause and country; a reason for being
above our own small spot in the dirt.

We owe them, the dead and dying, we owe them their
grace their bravery their will their stamina their…belief
of bigger things ideas choices and something that lingers
past death…coalesces congregates and connects us all
in a common bond a common motion toward a
common and welcoming end.

For “what” is regardless; the sacrifice as it was done on
behalf of what we believe in…not what I believe…not
what they believe…we as a whole, a thing going onward
without them; we owe we entrust and we need to grieve
for the ideas lost, the memories never made, the minutes
used for denying them the rest of their lives.

They fought for us, our today and tomorrow, they died
with our dreams in their eyes, they sacrificed what
we couldn’t can’t won’t but they are us; always
always always us on the fields in the air on the sea
and in our souls–in memoriam–they are
forever us.