Peace and Rising

Weightless in a night,

I float like a cloud

Like a paper lantern released by a gentle breeze

Beneath me, a country road marked by lights,

Trees swaying along a mountain silhouette 

My arms spread like bible wings

Is this my death? I ask my weightless self

I feel peaceful

No mortal stress,

Only a solace, a reverence...

As a Romeo meets his Juliette

My soul like a cloud in the night

Is this my mortal death?

Or my new love rising?

As a Romeo meets his Juliette

As a Romeo meets his Juliette 

 

 

Bone Chill

The alley men lit up cigarettes,

one dressed in brown lit up an old cigar

They all exhaled clouds of smoke

Inside the mortal night, inside the winter stillness

the billows of burning tobacco lingered

Second hand smoke, like alley lives never went far

Billy lost his mind,

Johnny drank too much,

and old Ralph had a little bit of both 

Some men died in stillness and silence, blue veins and needles

A final euphoria before a lone death took them home

The alley men snuffed their cigarettes on the tar below

The one in brown snuffed his cigar against the cinder wall

Billy,

Johnny,

and Old Ralph

Never played a song

Never sang harmony

They couldn't whistle either,

Not when there was a chill in their bones

They circled a barrel stuffed with smoking cardboard and waited for a warmth by fire, like a saxophone

 

 

Half Chewed Aspirin and Nina

You idiot, you could of had a family.

You run through half-awake dreams,

Through the river garden of naked madness,

Your youth adds up to middle age

The total of one night stands

Year after year of your self-awakening in rumpled sheets;

The echo of empty beer bottles, half chewed aspirins; 

bitter unswallowed remnants behind your brown teeth

--wake up to what's her name?

You know they all have families now,

You checked online

The women who once loved you...but you used them, dumped them,

You idiot, you could of had a family

Taken the sons to baseball practice

Walked your daughter down the aisle

The one night stands are getting older and older,

they don't come to you so often

The echo of empty beer bottles 

There's no angel,

There's no angel

Just a sinnerman

 

 

Self Dialogue

It's five to four. For an hour I've been walking the street. I'm a kid, 17. Just a couple of months till I'm 19. Oops, I mean 18. This dope makes me funny in the head...smoked in my parents basement, with the windows open, of course. A cold wind made a cross breeze. My mom won't get home till six. She won't smell the reefer smoke. Some charity club she goes to every Tuesday. My dad the mechanic drinks beer at the bar with his friends after work. Talk about bald spots and beer bellies. Oh man, did I close the windows? Shit. I don't know. When I smoke alone I make stupid mistakes. It'll be freezing down there. May freeze the pipes in the toilet. Fuck. Sometimes this gettin' high makes you worry. Tomorrow I got an English exam. Reading that Romeo and Juliette. Boring Shakespeare shit. If I flunk my folks will kill me. Mellow, mellow dope. It ain't working. Too much self dialogue. Walking by my friend Tony's house. Her sister got me willing and hot up to her parent's room. But just as fast she changed her mind and rolled me out of bed. Nearly cracked my lower spine. Thought she liked funny guys. I know she likes weed. Whew. Smoking every day and watching cartoons on TV. Bugs Bunny is hip. Daa..D'ats all Folks. Freakin' self-dialogue in my head. Talkin' to me about Toons. I got the munchies. Maybe I'll go back to my friend Tony's. See if he's got some Cheetos and onion dip. Except his sister creeps me out now. Her mother looks at me angry. These adults, including my own mom, think I have no direction. Nah, nah...I got dope and a creating mind. And a plan when I turn 19. Go to L.A. with a van filled with dope. Write some toons. Just write from the dialogue  inside my head...there's an open window and a cross-breeze. Smoke shrouded in a dream. A laughing rabbit, and a cranky duck...waiting for a wonderful tune. Five to four. Time to go home.