March 2023

My Best Life
Lost in memory
Hit the nail on the head
Someone always finds me

Doyle’s words haunting
So, maybe this is my best life
Maybe this is as good as it gets

The world crumbling, sinking
Deep down in the mud, dribbling
Shiny petrol rainbows, breeding

The next hideous thing
Sprouting orange and red feathers,
Suddenly brilliant, wings in glide; so,

Maybe it wasn’t so hideous
Maybe I made it so

I knew it was a biblical name
I will tell it like it is
Shame is the killer of alcoholics

Second to booze
“Give a friendly push”
I couldn’t possibly be smarter than you

Because I’m far too unhappy in the crowded room

Pace and Pray

Pace and pray, pace and pray
For a familiar face
May I feel complete
May I discard the arbitrary
Criteria of a life worth lived
The void cares not for such judgements
Why should I?

Two Balloons
Two balloons, red and blue,
Resting on the ceiling of your bed tent
Hued soft and fuzzy with
Christmas lights

I rock you back and forth after bath and
Tell the story of your birth like a gospel,
Like I was still there
Like arthritic flare

We’ll try a different way next time
It’s not your fault, I swear
It’s not your fault, I swear
We’ll try a better way next time, but

It was never your fault
Today, we practice “love yourself”
We both said it as though compelled for our lives, but
We said it, and live another day

“Don’t go”
“Stay here”
Life’s short, only glimpses of
Two balloons, red and blue

“Love you all the time, too”

Explain Life From Death
I tore down some of the white-flower weed
At least, I think it was a weed
Its roots clung and I halted,
Horrified at my action toward something

That seemed so at home, so
Permanent

I repotted your cactus and
I think it might live
Hard to predict your friends at the end
Perhaps I will live

El Rancho tonight, then
Karaoke
Kissed Ilana goodbye and
Apologized

Yelled again today, but how we
Laughed and unballed the fist
Formed around our cloudy skulls, and
I want to get this right but

Still leave at night

I want to know what to say,
But the cable is frayed and sparking
Soldier up, solder up,
You gotta connect for some reason

The current stopped caring
I am aching, full of garbage
I forgot the bin on trash day again
Accumulating, belts jamming,

“We can’t process this!”

Watch another undermedicated
Train jump the track, and
My lungs are on fire
These are the end times

I’ll have a mushroom and swiss
It looked warm today, and it looked
Twelve noon with a view, but
It was 40 and 3

With a view, at least
Small moments of joy
You say, “so lucky”

The view of the chalkboard from the couch said:
“PRACTICE SLOW DOWN”
And I think I did for 10 seconds

Don’t know, head an excited voice excitedly drone
Jazz piano
How the thoughts are the cathedral pedal of
Jazz piano

Dad says he hears the rhythm of crickets, and
Cricket listens to the sound of
The winds and the lamps
How asynchronously synced

How enlightened, tuned in to
Radio static, hearing music in the
Microscopic moments of silence, realizing
Every work of art is a portrait, and

Negative space is not wasted space
Mind, body, and motion are not separate selves
To take a slice and examine one
Is to explain life from death

Looking at the corners and
Seeing how they turn
So lucky

Heavy

I am getting suspicious again, paranoid or
Genuinely confused, left guessing at your
Vague gestures; though, it’s possible that
I’m looking way too hard into it.

I sensed you with the hair on my neck and
Twist of my gut; senses your demand but
Couldn’t guess at what.

I know that you hate me
Couldn’t guess at why this time
Shouldn’t guess at why…

I feel light and free of my
Noisy body; light and free as
A cloud of kerosene
Trying to stay out of the heat.

I know that you hate me.
Even I believed in me
Once; couldn’t guess at why.

One day, I clocked into work and
Out of my skin, and I
Never really fit in again.
I forgot how to feel

Heavy.

When did I get so heavy,
Cynical, and suspicious, ready to burst in
Bloom or flame? They gotta know.
They gotta know something; why don’t they
Come out and say it?

Bloom or flame.

Oh, how heavy my head,
All these eyes pressured and
Begging me for relief.
Lost in that space that feels like
Death, but not dying.

My body as though held up by strings
Too spent to feel much of anything;
Tapping stores of rage when out of patience;
Trying so hard to carry everything.

It’s no comfort that it’s temporary
When its relief is the same.
Trying to sort out if zebras are colored
Black or white, but I’m still in the game.

Deal me in. I have just my
Pocket change, but I’m all in.
Gotta do something, so
I’m all in.

Powder keg, primed and ready again.

Daydream

Sweet fun
We watched the fire
Smolder later
Lives in constant flux

Sweet fun, oh child!
When you’re acting wild
Big old smile

We watched the fire smolder
All white

You were off at Mom’s
I forgot why
We dismembered the honeysuckle bush

Toxic to the lawn, but
Nest to the cardinal
I didn’t look at the bird

Sweet fun

I Felt The Happy Slip Away

How I love you both, so
Afraid to speak it, so
Afraid to let you go.

I will always love you so.
So I say, just to prove it,
I will never love again.
Fade away in love or in pain.

I am hopeless in this place.
Joyous at my decay, so
Afraid to let it go.

I told Jay how to grieve
I told Joe to love himself
I told myself to die, and
Sang the sun to sleep.

It often fades.
Greens glittered gold,
I knew all of the answers
Last week.

Out with the Jack and Rose
Greens glittered gold.
Standing on a rock,
Dreaming of the moon.

Fell off of me-
Full mudslide
At the other end of the pool cue-
I felt the happy slip away