Interstate
I met a man who told me he had a father who ran scared from town to town. He'd take his kids in tow, a wife cryin' in the front seat, he'd race them down an interstate. The two lane blacktops are long gone, just like his father who died last year, finally a brave man in his death bed.

The man told me he tried hard to stay in one place. But he had his father's blood and he'd race in the streets; scared as he was, he'd take his boys and wife from town to town. His wife would cry sometimes. He would wipe her tears the best he could with the back of his hand touching her across a front seat. She'd turn away and sob: "You're just like your father, too afraid of one place."

I heard this story and promised myself I'd never long for the days of the two lane black top. That sometimes there are frightened and fast lives on an interstate. Like a million miles, a million stories, two boys in a backseat will never forget.

Action
I held the head of a dying man.
Watched the sunset of his eyes.
He lay in the cold alley between a bar and a church.
During the in between hours of night and day I would see the homeless, the mad, the drunkards, the crack heads. Often their lips too cold to call on an evening prayer.

I held the head of a dying man
Watched the sunset of his eyes.
I did not know his name. I smelt alcohol on his breath.
With my tired hands I would not let his fallen head touch the cold concrete.
Together we raised him in his death and rested him against the wall.
The morning voices of broken heart angels would sigh: Another soul vanishes --its promises never blessed between this bar and a church.

Hurting Lips
I drink black coffee and eat burnt toast, but it doesn't wash away the pain--deep down in my rib cage.

She's just a girl--just out of college, almost half my age.

Last night I fought him hard. Thought I could win her love; but he was as young as she and he beat me down like an ole' bag of bones. I got one eye blackened the other turned blue. My teeth knocked loose.

She's  just a girl
Oh just a girl
Hot coffee swells my throbbing lips
The back of my head hurts
A waitress says I'm too old to fight for someone so young. She's nice; eyes me for a second as she's done over the offering years.

But I can't help myself
--maybe I'm in a crazy suicidal dream stage

She's just a girl
Oh, just a girl
One eye's black, the other blue
I got pain on my hurting lips

Somebody hold me up!
The waitress pours more coffee and washes over me with her sugar eyes. Like a blinded fighter, I've taken a rest before my next round.

She's just a girl
Oh just a girl
I don't want to be your early morning remains
No, I don't want to be your remains

Who am I,
Who am I,
The waitress holds me up. Let's me lean on her woman's chest, and steadies me under a mauling starlight.

She's just a girl
Oh no, she's just a girl. 
Let me be with the forever one if I can just release her with my hurting lips. The waitress let's go and I turn to see kindness in her sweet eyes.

I know that once when she was young she was just a girl. Oh no, just a girl. With no heart for a man almost twice her age.

(Poem's inspiration comes from one of the Who's most underappreciated songs: 'Athena' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go6FYVw6tTo)

Awake
I woke up early. Across the way a carpenter was hammering nails into boards that made up a small house frame. Just as I was to speak to him-- tell him to respect my sleep, a robin landed on my window sill. The bird walked nimbly and then quickly took to the morning sky. I knew then that I had to rise before it was past my time. So I dressed in worker's clothes and held a hammer and took a couple of imaginary swings. I walked across the way and told the carpenter: "Here I am." He handed me a bag of nails and together we built a home where the robins would stay.

The Realist
With a wooden spoon I stirred burnt oatmeal.  Most of the large flakes had turned black and stuck against the bent aluminum pot. I cursed myself because it was the last of my food. Breakfast was the large meal that would keep me going until the afternoon.  By then I hoped to beg or steal for something to eat.

I was a realist. I knew that my near future was bleak. I knew that in two days it would be the end of the month and I would be tossed out from my apartment because it was the third month in a row I couldn’t come up with the rent. I knew that the last scoops of the unburned parts of the oatmeal could be my final unholy breakfast. I knew that I was banned from the food bank as I could be an out-of-control madman who caused a ruckus with staff and clients-- and I shouldn’t have taken a swing at the director because I thought he was calling me names when all he was doing was trying to calm me down. But there were those Christmas carols singing in my head; cursing me, threatening me, making me hear the voices of devils. The cops never should of beat me like they did, their night sticks cracking open my skull and their boots kicking me along my legs. They shouldn’t have let me bleed in the cell and make me clean up my own wet blood before they sent me out alone into the cold morning.

The weatherman said it was going to be below freezing and I had no place to sleep. No family, no friends, no homeless shelter worker to take me in. Once I had all of them, but I caused a ruckus in their lives too. I knew I was unemployable, because I had bad posture, bad clothes, bad teeth and I carried myself like some sort of distorted, twisted lunatic.

I hated everything. I hated my life. I was mad, like in crazy angry. So I hit myself with my wooden spoon. The hot oatmeal burned my face and the top of my head. But I wanted to hurt myself some more and more. So I hit myself again and again. And I poured the pot of scalding steaming oatmeal over me and I felt the stinging bubbling welts on my blistering skin. I placed my right hand over the red burning ring of the stove till I couldn’t bear the pain anymore.

Let the hospital take care of me. They bandage you up. They feed you there. If you don’t cause a ruckus they might find you a place to live where they can feed you. Maybe they can even stop the devil Christmas Carols singing in your head. Otherwise I’ll starve and freeze to death during the first days of winter, my last meal the remains of burnt oatmeal

Critical Thought
I left the left side of my brain in the middle of a quarrelsome night. We argued for hours on how it's logic was pressing me at the pressure points of my wanting life. So in an act of wildness I left that part of me behind. I heard it cry and wail. I heard its rendered accusations of betrayal and how it's synapses had fired the best thoughts of its life for me, the ingrate. I looked back with a smile to show I was not pained by its words, even though I feared greatly beneath my insouciant mask. For I had given that grey matter much as well, like my passiveness, my yearnings, dreams, and fantasies compressed into a fine point of logical oneness. Now I moved with trepidation in my heart. For being unshackled can be imprisoning as well: when the newness of choice can be like carbon steel bars of indecision. But I will take my chances with the right side of my brain. Let its music guide me, even if it is atonal. Let the abstraction of its twisted, broken lines colour me with joy. To the left side of my brain, I say: we will be better off apart. Give it time, critical thought will rein in your hurt, you will move on.

Follow
I stepped out from lightness and spoke into a poring rain. My head dropped back, my mouth agape, I asked why, but water filled my throat--and I felt as if I was dying--before a drowning voice silenced me.

Oh, why, why did you do this to me, I wondered of the falling sky. Why did You sink me before I could wade along the river's edge.

My clothes dripping, I went inside and called a friend and told him of what I had done. He said he had done the same. I knew then the downpour had answered us in all its driving mystery, and that I was saved somehow, but the question still remained: why the flood follows the drought and what reason is there to divine the falling rain?