Lost and Found in the Afterlife
I own a T-shirt with bullet holes. I picked it up at a Thrift Store.
It's not easy wearing a dead man's clothes.
There is one hole in the heart, the other in the chest bone.
I hope to go to heaven, then I'll return the dead man's shirt. Wave down a punk saint, ask if they know a Dead Cool Cat who prays for his old clothes.
If he's down in hell, I estimate I can find him just as well.
An afterlife, who's to know? An eternal journey? Or the walk of a nothing man?
For now it's summertime. An air conditioned shirt with bullet holes suits me fine. It matches my blue jeans ripped and torn at the knees.

Sunrise
Some days I get so tired
When I sleep even my dreams grow weary
the torment
the wisdom of the inner me
the great telling fades as it starts
So too do brilliant colours bleed into grey
And when I awake my bones ache
On this cold morning I do not light a fire
The minutes precious at the alter of a working life
I am too tired, still
My eyes water as if the smoke has risen
As if the torment is gone
As if I awaken under a sunrise

Tell
I watch the young run and jump through autumn leaves
In all my years, I am those leaves
Red and golden, as they rustle by a cold wind
I watch the young trundle in joy through deep snow
Soon I will be that snow
After the spring
Their summer
The last autumn of our lives
The winter foretells us beneath a graying sky--it is time

Haunting
Have you ever had a dream of the dead coming back as the dying?
Their old white skin; their breathing in and out, in and out
This ghost dies once more
I ask: will it come in and out as a haunting sorrow, this dream?

Gold
When my dreams fell to the ground like loose change,
I bent down to pick up the broken pennies and dimes
But I thought:
"Nah, leave them for someone else."
"Someone whose heart succumbs to a fool's gold."
I felt richer for being poorer, but sadder just the same
I was leaving behind an allure that lost its shine
A young man, I feared, at this place would find his misfortune
I lamented how sidewalks, dreams, and loose change take you in
But I was hungry with no place to sleep and the old sky looked like rain.

Dark
I was drunk when I walked the night with staggering steps. An empty bottle swung loosely in my right hand. The street lights burst like dying stars. It was pitch black. I licked my upper lip and pulled down the peak of my cap. With a drunkard's wind-up I tossed my bottle and heard it break loudly against something I could not see. Sirens began to wail. In the distance I saw red flashing lights and heard the rush of vehicles. "They must be after me," I thought. I made my way through the darkness, staggering and falling. That night I was scared as I hid in my bed. Maybe they would blame me for the failure of the lights, as some blame me for this godless world.

By morning, the power had turned on the radio. The newsman said a electric grid burned out and left the Eastern Seaboard in darkness. There was much rioting and looting, numerous people were killed in the blind violence. I took a broom and dustpan and found the broken bottle. Quietly I swept its shards into the pan. I would hide the evidence in case the news was wrong, and my pitch left us in blackness.

Ends
I've got a tattoo of a highway atop my right shoulder. The broken white lines meet my skin. When I feel tired at work I'll rub my shirt across from where the tattoo begins to where it ends. People ask me why I do that so often. I tell them I injured my shoulder when I was young and my fingers help the pain. Sometimes I wonder if there are secrets and lies in all of us, if a highway touches all our skin. I wish, too, that each of had a tattoo we could lay down--and drive to where dreams come true.