Thursday, March 14, 2024

 Waiting
I dream sometimes of barely floating atop a dark black sea...praying for gentle waves to safely take this soul 
I don't know where or how...whether ever it will be 
I don't know if it will be today, tomorrow, or when my spirit passes 
But someday the waiting will end and perhaps I will be saved,
My life may be preserved...a drowning, praying captain safe from a dark black sea






Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Blackbird
I remember the summer of Tokyo time...between the gathering of darkness and a sun's rise.  I close my gaijin eyes and hear the rumble of walking lives...the ghosted  memory crowds from Shinjuku trains hurrying the blended mix of jazz and cinema samurais and swords and sullen Blackbirds singing into the dead of night. Oh, reimagined salarymen as Shoguns stumbling into red lanterned Izakayas to embrace Kirins and taste the grilled catch of the Japan sea. Where did I stand in all this loneliness? So far from home? Nippon handkerchiefs absorbed my sweaty brow. Two years in Tokyo time...the end. Back home to where I can drive my car. Roll down my window; feel the ocean breeze. Look to the east...and dream of samurai trains; remembering how much I wanted to come back to my town.  And now with the decades passing I wonder how I was ever there and if in the dead of night Blackbirds drink Tokyo beer and sing forever into a sun's long rise.



Friday, November 3, 2023

The Alley Men
I have an evening secret... 
Under a rhyming street light.
live alley men who come apart
Like broken parts, Like wheels that come unwheeled
Minds astir, crazy, unwell, mad city birds fly ahead
I have an evening secret, I stop at the alley and take a breath..
my mind a bit astir, but no broken parts, and the wheels still wheeled
the devil cries inside, compels me...
I roll bye in defiance of the sorcerer's mind
Not yet ready to walk inside the rhyming alley
To sing Psalms to an atheist's Spirit
Not yet ready to walk within an alley's tears and madness



Sunday, October 1, 2023

Space and Time
Do you know fallen sons who
fade away
into the silent movie of
whirring reels
of crazy minds 
of backlit flickers eliding space and time
backbeats and rhythm disappear
The band is gone
Projected words between quiet scenes
The band is gone...
Do you know clowning fathers who
cry alone
Eying final credits of their fallen sons...
who ride the whirring silence of space and time




Thursday, September 21, 2023

Veins
Each day from work my muscles are torn,
my eyes are weary like heavy weights
my belly is fat, but my stomach is empty...
just like the empty kitchen shelves 
and the blank cold air in my fridge...nothing there but sticky food stains and dead celery...
only a last waxy sleeve of salt crackers... a hollow plastic jar of peanut butter...almost as empty as a beer can... I'm too tired to go to the store...to go get takeout...junkies prey on old working men who walk slow and alone... the crackers will keep me going...the last swabs of Jiffy sticking to the roof of my mouth...even my lips are tired...68 and stocking shelves...the only reason they hire me is cuz labour is in short supply..."I don't want to end up like that old loser"...is what I overhear.. the part time high school kid says so...

Then don't drink so much...and don't treat your wife like she don't matter and she takes the kids 30 years ago and walk's out on you and your crappy apartment and minimum wage job....68 and stocking shelves...sitting on a tired couch, eating crackers and peanut butter looking at Peloton commercials on a 16 inch flat screen...barely able to lift the remote...barely able to fill the bathtub with warm spinning water...

I drop my old, fat body in a half-soapy mess of drowning thoughts...what happens if my arthritis gets worse...what then?...disability pension...not enough money for rent...no more money for booze...homeless

I guess I'm better off than the junkies...they prey on old men...I wonder what goes through their veins...if its painless...the needle tearing the skin and muscles...I wonder if they know its night when the opioids damage their brains...what is high?...what is low?...supposed to rain tomorrow...damp weather makes arthritis worse...the doctors say they don't know why...I wonder if junkies get arthritis...if their arms hurt in the rain...





Monday, March 13, 2023

Butt Gas
                                                             -I-
Sometimes snow streaks from a maddening sky....
Sometimes a maddening sky weaves streets of snow...
                                                                                     -1+1=2-  
 A crazy man...I exited my apartment...pushed by the bland hand of nothingness...nothing but the view of a whirling winter from a single room window...I wanted to touch the cold...I wanted falling snow to touch me...I needed to walk away my numbness...to restore my life like a colour photo retouched by memories...

A small table outside an out of business hamburger joint was empty. I sat there and faced the street...and talked to myself. I exhaled a jumble...a jangle of words that did not stay...that did not build sentences...only crazy random talk...Nothing cathartic...just moist human mouth steam billowing against the cold.

Then she appeared. I thought she was there...I thought she was real...I didn't see an apparition...Or did I?...a female vision in tattered white linen with a sunken shallow face atop a body of hard thinness...forlorn lips that got muted by life but were too sad to kiss...vulnerable, but not against the cold...oh, no...did I create her with my jangled, mangled mouth words...did I create a suffering ghost lady out of vowels and madness...?

"Love tore us apart!" She cried out, her right hand pointing to the sky, her eyes fixed on me. "We loved each other too much. Then he melted like a candle and died. I still hear his voice, see his face. I search inside a hopeless truth. He's gone."

I wanted to say sorry...loss is tough...I've known suffering, too...I hope I can help...but all I did was exhale crazy, jangled words...and she was gone...disappeared in between what I wanted to say...and what I couldn't...

I ambled back to my apartment. I opened a can of mixed beans, and ate them quickly with a plastic spoon. I lay under my covers and tried to sleep early for the night. With my knees pulled up near to my chest I erupted loud gas from my butt. I thought of her...the lady in linen...I could talk straight now...I wanted to say I was sorry I melted like wax...but I didn't die...I wanted to say I was sorry we both slipped into madness...I searching for streaks of snow... she searching for woven love that tore us apart.