I've disabled comments

Every single post on the blog got spammed. I'm probably not updating anymore, either.

Thanks.

Louie the Grifter

Louie is a con man
who always
tries to have
his way

Sleeping at the terminal for Phoenix, Arizona
casing rental homes in the new subdivision
Watching for an ambulance or a U-Haul van
taking down the numbers from a bathroom wall

"There ain't no shame in knowing things," Lou once said
as he was taping gauze onto his chin
"And theft is simply actin' on your knowledge"

He's a greasy son of a bitch with a ten-foot shadow
living off of rotten fruit from the market square
Louie, the crooked martyr, with love for whiskey and rye

Screaming in a parking lot in Memphis, Tennessee
crying in the lobby of a vacant hotel
Bleeding in the stairway of an old subway line
whistling in the trash heaps as he falls asleep

If Louie had
his way,
the world would
drown beneath him

Let me (take you)

I close the lid to the daytime land
And I seal away the worries of my everyday plans
The threats and the sins always hounding at me
So let me transcend my natural boundaries

Let me take you down to the city in my dreams
Sitting in the stream of the television screen
Between you and me and the underlying theme
Are purple colored people gathered in the mezzanine

And it would seem that they throw their life away
Disposable people getting overtime pay
The shoreline screams, well that is to say
I mean, like a dream just getting in the way

Let me rethink the premise of my rhyme
As I highlight a fly buzzing into my mind
I climb my tree, I’m all alone
I’m far too high for a freefalling zone

I stand in the fields and breathe the sweet air
Caramel skies kiss the evening flare
The meadowlark sleeps with peaceful care
And I take you down to my secret lair

I scream with my dreams as the people it seems
Well it’s been, I don’t see what they really mean
All these things are severely demeaned
As I hang from the corners of the crescent queen

In the green empty grounds of the village I live
In the busy blue streets of the city I built
In the Hawthorne fields where there is no loam
In the alleyway where we built our home

Burned into the eyes of the steeple at day
Molded by the skies into people of clay
Turned upside down by a winsome fear
As the mind turns clear of potential peers

Walden wails to the empty sea
Ishmael sails to see the symphony
As Emerson delivers the fool’s eulogy
Who are we to supersede the whimsy of infinity?

The sun makes love to the stars at dawn
The queen calls home her wayward pawn
Flora puts her hand on the heart of the fawn
As I graze on the fields in the strawberry pond

Scaffolding/tableau of the courted

She took the first train from Belgrade
and I knew then that she had left
to see if she could
make it to you
through the
rain

She had bought her umbrella while
in Vienna and as the station
faded from view her
fingers slid
across its
stem

She had hoped of being a hairdresser
working in Paris or Venice
buying golden lamps
to dress up
her dingy
life

She let her hair untangle from underneath
her scarf and it shook wild in
the flickering yellow light
her dreams were frayed and
dark as midnight

She smiled as she held her letter
hoping to escape me though
knowing you would just
abandon her at the
next station

Was
she
right?

She called it "a withered tapestry of damned souls aching for their release" (excerpt)

It was the end of time when cosmic light had dwindled
the rolling stink of Normandy left lingering in our
noses & having sold ourselves to history
found life in eight stages of denial,

Seventh Day Adventists saw the junkies
littered on the morning floor with
open faces burnt fingertips cracked
lips bloody refrigerators piano wire
dreams & pipes of war knowing they
were the hopeless midnight of
an unproductive day,

Octagonal hours had passed in
their hourglasses as
they cracked beneath
the pressure of the
interrogative when the
missives of the chimera
became the mantra of their
weeping mothers,

All at once the sum of human history had released its brief and brilliant flash into the void, a photograph of lost potential and a warning to the men of distant stars

Open letter of gratitude

Although I haven't responded directly to all the warm comments I've received over the past month, I'd like to personally thank anyone who has miraculously found this blog. Those of you who have taken the time to comment or follow the blog are especially appreciated.

Painforsakenhappenstance

Here you are in your sexless,
electric dreamscape,
aching for the rhythm
of the mother spirit;

Here you are in your sonic citadel,
bypassing the eardrum
and jamming your frequency;

Here you are in the kiss of Judas,
selling out your faith
for your pieces of silver;

Here you are within your wire tower of Babylon;
Where are you?