Imagine

All it took was one

simple song 

and moving my body

to a beat no one else

could hear

to change

the linen white of my ceiling

to the night sky.

Dreaming

Remember how we used to be young 

and stay up all night and dream of things to come

like a once-remembered song

in the moonlight a lalalong time ago

and how we were dreaming just now

dreaming like mannequins 

dream in a store window

breathless and timed out

as if they were in the middle

of something very important 

but too important to be ignored 

by those of us walking by

and we could be drawn into that world

that raging world of sand-blasted skin

colors and dervish thought, like a dream

we almost forgot out of the windows

and into the mire of thought

and thought and thought and a thought

I thought when I dream of you

is that I hope we get one night

to spend inspiring each other once again

and I hope that 4 AM comes way too soon

and I hope you leave on that plane

missing me and those nights we used to have

that happened again

because sometimes at 2 AM all I think about 

is the world in dreams, sometimes I dream awake

sometimes I leave all this world for a fake one

and I digest my food in a delirious state

and I track my romance like fresh-baked bread

warm and cuddly and soft

and good with something to spread on it

good with a little addition, a spiced gooseberry jam

or some kind of cheese made from goats or lambs

and how I dream those things into being

on nights when I can't be anything 

anymore but a dream of someone else

dreaming of you turning over

and telling me, "Wait, there's more."

Ginsberg

Sometimes beauty is in the eye
of the beholder.  My scratched arms
tell a story of conflict:

the cat and myself

squaring off in a test of manhood

brought about by day-old food

and pent-up loneliness,

from both sides.  He actually

went for my neck at one point

and I know I caught

him between the eyes

and then 

an uneasy truce pervaded

the apartment.  I gave him

new food, he came

and sat on my lap 

for a time.  I apologized.

He splayed out belly-up

and tried to play 

with my shoelaces

as they were tied to go.

I suppose the most 

beautiful part of the day 

was the entrance before he and I fought;

coming from the cold 

into a warm hallway 

that always smells like cinnamon

and opening the door

knowing I would have something

to talk to at the end of the day.  

My scratched arms

tell a story of conflict,

and we probably both needed it. 

Drowning in Autumn

The generous
are bar patrons willing to pay
friend's tabs.  They want a chance

to show that breaking bread
and sharing mead is tradition.
Most deals are inked in wine or beer
or clear snowy cocktails.

You could say we met
with the pouring of a beer
on my pants.  We left
with a beer in our stomachs

and salt-red cheeks,
like pretzels baking,
to keep us drinking.

A Self-Pitying Epilogue to a Long Day

Sometimes I think it might be easier

to give up and move to India.

At least my one hundred thirty dollars

would go somewhere there,

at least I might find something else to do

beside slave away in this 

insufferable city.  I feel like New York

is an experiment gone wrong,

and we artists come here

to try to turn this broken place

into a beautiful dream

of utopian art, but instead we struggle

and live heedless, headless lives

that end up tearing us apart.

So let’s move away to London,

to Paris, to Rome, find a home

in the simplest of places 

and live quietly out of suitcases

full of dirt, growing vegetables

that travel around with us

and keep the tags on our skirts

to return them when we get back,

with all the dust of the world

enveloped in their wrinkles and cracks,

making travelogues of our clothes

and a worn covered knapsack.

Let’s engage in political discourse,

in native rock’n’roll, lift vintage 

ideas out of our wounded souls

and disburse them amongst the locals,

leaving them with questions about who they are

and what they eat, and why they live

in the place they do, except

these are all questions 

we ask ourselves without exception

and can’t find the answer,

so we’re sampling everybody else’s

way of living and finding happiness

because New York can’t give you that,

it can’t give you happiness 

it can work you to the bone,

leave you feeling cold and alone

at the end of a long day,

when you have nothing to go back to

but your windowless, airtight room

and all of your dreams are an ocean away

living life the way you wish she would

when she was with you, 

but couldn’t, because you couldn’t

make her happy as she is when she plays.

So you write.

And your dreams exposit reality

in simplest words, turns of phrases

that conjure banality

and lost potentiality.

And you don’t write for the masses,

you write for yourself

and maybe that’s why you can’t find 

a market to dwell in, can’t find the courage

to share all this beauty

your head conjures from nothing,

can’t believe your thoughts

could be worth hearing

much less reading,

but maybe they are 

and maybe you should try

and learn why you love

putting words down

on paper so much.

Maybe that’s right

and New York is just a stop

on the way 

to make you realize

that life

is what you make it

and dreams are what you dream them

and the road is where you go,

not what you follow.

And ultimately,

all this suffering 

leads to learning

and leading a life 

that is worth something.

That is earned,

not conjured from nothing.

Confronting the Past

We think about love

in our mud-rusty blanket phase

and we come up with ultimatums:

Ultimately, for me to move on,

I had to cut off contact with you,

had to leave the sphere of life

you maintained and spread

my wings to fly away.  

I cannot imagine it happening

any other way, cannot imagine

life as it could have been,

but it could have been different

and I’m so happy it’s not.

I’d be somewhere, unhappy

because I was not an artist,

I was a lover with a chained wrist,

a writer without pens

mired in a bog of could-have-beens,

because now I’m in New York,

living life dreamily and writing

all these words to make up 

for any hurt you might have caused me.

Because I did hurt, 

and that is why I left,

I needed a change,

a nut in my brain tightened

and I stopped paying

attention to you, stepped

out of your world-sphere

and into dreams 

made of Katmandu

and Australian women

with pretty smiles

and blonde hair

and it was enough 

to distract me,

at least for a while.

I changed so much,

found out the world was bigger,

found out I was smaller

and found, upon coming back,

that my life needed more

and I needed to pay better attention

to all of it and use my dreams

as fuel to get somewhere

and I did.  I’m now somewhere,

doing something

and so are you,

but reading those old thoughts

brought me back to a time

when it all was as simple

as the next best line

I could give you 

to make you feel 

beautiful.  Life isn’t like that

anymore, it’s more complex,

and more rewarding,

but something about first love

leaves me wishing I could

always be back in that first moment,

that agony of pain in my chest

like rain on a sunflower,

dripping from me 

and lighting up my world

with summer and winter

all at the same time,

two juxtaposing limitless forces

combining to rhyme

themselves over and over again.

I’m embarrassed to be who I was

back then, but it taught me 

that I need to fight my battles

with my pen and dream up stories

that make people laugh and cry

and feel something close

to what it was I felt

when I first saw you

and my throat closed up,

my hands were sweating,

my heart was beating faster

than a mouse faced with a sleeping 

cat, and I saw your face

and said THAT is what I want.

And I never got it,

which is maybe why every 

relationship I’ve had has sprung

out of another ending,

maybe I’m just pretending

they are all you and that’s what

I want.  But I don’t think that’s true.

I wanted the picture of you

I kept in my head, because in the end

I never really got to know you

the way he did, and I’ve found out

since there is more to a relationship

than almost kissing on the lips

and talking in cold streetlights

well into the night. It takes 

more than that to make two people

one.  And I love my woman now,

she is radiant and golden

and has taught me about the world

in ways I never dreamed 

and complicated my ideals

and set me up to become

greater than I can imagine,

but I think part of me

will always be that small boy

inhaling love in a small high school

auditorium at fourteen years old.

I never want to lose that,

and that part of me will always be there,

always ready to find beauty

in the first morning hours

when she wakes up,

turns over and stretches

into a tea-cup, wearing

old big t-shirts and glasses,

laughing and yawning

as she sips english breakfast

and tries to tell me 

I’m ridiculous 

for bringing beauty 

out this early.  But

I’ve found it again,

this spark to write down

details of life,

feeling words the way

a warm fire feels 

on a frosty evening;

finding beauty 

in demagoguery 

and hegemony,

passing consonants

to and fro,

assonations

and alliterations 

rambling high and low.

But what I’m most grateful for

is a chance to re-visit

the pure passionate self

that created so much art

so fearlessly and with such wealth

of talent and courage

that I envy him his point-of-view.

There was only one way 

to see things and he saw it

clear as day, saw the world

change and move

around one stationary object:

Love.  

And a part of him

still does. 

The Third Time I Was in Love

I believed in you once

when we were younger,

when I could hear 

the sound of your laughter 

coming from across the way

and I’d speak to you tenderly,

quietly, unabashedly, as I might

if I were a lover.

I believed in you.  

You were a real being, 

of flesh and blood,

of secrets and scars, 

scary real-life secrets 

told only in cars at night

right before I dropped you off 

at your home, right before 

you broke up with your boyfriend 

and I slipped in.  

And we danced and sang, 

but I was angry

and I was young, 

and the only way

we could relate 

ended up being fighting 

and the only way I could love you 

was to slap you in the face

and laugh, thinking 

I was doing you a favor,

while in fact I was reinforcing 

every archetypal struggle

you put a face on and called lover:  

that you amounted to little more 

than a plaything to screw over

and over again, till this fantasy

drove you to other happy-inducing ends.  

Every boy has to grow up

and be a man eventually, 

and dabbling in dark lust

lets these candid emanations 

of our natures grow to dust gently,

and I’m sorry you were used by more of us 

than was never necessary.  

So teach me the girl

from across the way isn’t gone

with a smile and a kiss

like a high note at the end of a song

and maybe one day 

we’ll meet up and you’ll be ok.  

Till then, I’m sorry 

I helped you turn out this way.