To be the crazy poet angel means no thought
beyond the moment and this age of healthy
obsessivness, zero tolerance and glorified
dullness cannot digest that kind of blood.

Thank God no rehabilitation saved him,
no government imposed pennance on his time’
nor could the hands of hipness unwrap
the blue, white and red blazing flag from his heart.

- David Childers

* By kind permission of David Childers, whom I hope you all have had the good fortune of seeing live or at least hearing.     http://www.davidchilders.com/

breaking on the shore so many

rocks eaten by Kronos

nor is it too practiced prayer

benefiting no one.

Can you hear the word

moaned imploring a thousand years ago

somewhere in northern Germany?

“Hoffen… ”

Hope is the clash of seasons

warring to stabilize this thrashing

twirling ball where all of life

aims for eternity.

Hope is the rain

on bright new leaves

and the girl in the red dress

walking.

.

OK, listen up.

I don’t want to have to write this

Same goddamn poem again and again

There are other things to do

Of much greater

Unimportance.

I have pushed and pushed

Like a mother giving birth timelessly

To the same ugly breech born baby

Blue from lack of air

Tearing at my flesh

Over

And over.

Crept and cried at the door

Of experience

Rarely realizing that both sides

Were the same.

Awakened from fantastical dreams

But failed to harvest the crop

Letting weeds grow instead

Go to seed

Milkweed and mullein

The more beautiful to me

For their striving.

    If you want to know

    Man’s future

    Ask the crows.

As for me,

Society has no hold

Nor will I bow

To a king.

I reserve my allegiance

For those I have supped with

By the fire.

I have been out dancing

With the stars

In the far field.

To come back to the messy world

Of anxious inconsolable humanity

Requires a concentration

That evades me.

    I play

    Like a child

    With pretty stones.

What do you suggest

My fair friend?

I have helped the stranger

Hurt those I loved

Addressed the room

And hidden my face

While alone.

Sat at sumptuous tables,

The next night dined

On beans and bone.

Left lovers in the dark

For the solitude of sky,

Played at dice and darts

Against the grim angels themselves.

Listened to fools repeat themselves.

Sat at the feet of purported masters,

Smiled at the joke.

Some of us spoke to small folk

On the mountain.

So what would you have me do?

    The leaf will always fall

    Until the tree

    Is gone.

Please don’t misunderstand.

I hope to live

Until the spirit can’t be summoned

By a sunset or the moon

Or a woman’s round bottom

Or a whiff of skunk on the breeze at dusk.

These are no suicide notes.

Selfishly or not of course

Is all perspective,

Just another word for

Distance from the object

Affectioned or reviled.

No two orbits

The same.

The air is cold outside tonight

Only a few more days until spring

Wraps green arms around us all.

My father the sun

Accepts again our offerings,

Our faces raised,

Our throats exposed.

    Watching her sleep

    My heart and mind

    Made sad love.

But stop a moment and listen.

When I pass,

And I will pass,

I hope to walk away quickly with a wave

Over my shoulder

And no long goodbyes.

We had years for this

And for that,

Now we have only

What we have always claimed.

This moment.

There is to be no culmination

Of thought no

Do-over-wrought

Manifesto

No word-wracked

Xplanatations.

We will either see each other later

Or we won’t.

If you say yes, I will

Go along with you

And not even mention

The evidence.

    The fly on my sandwich

    Saw god’s face, multiplied,

    Yet like me, lived.

So listen.

Close your eyes,

Hold in breath,

Push your soul

Through the top of your head

And feel the silver pour.

Even now tears wet my face

But not for losses incurred

Nor my many failings of both

Flesh and spirit.

I have just wasted too much

Damned life with a pen

Or my dick in my hand.

To finally write a two-word poem.

    Ineffable.

    Unutterable.

deep into sleep, i see electric sheep leap, 

vaulting voltage, my dreamscape c.d.

a magnetic surge, the blood, voltaic,

varicose throughout my dense circuitry.

the drone and humming of my static rhythms 

drawl out the remote and muted void

with fine-tuned arithmetic algorithms 

to mask what my senses strive to avoid.

feedback advances the strangest of dances,

chattering teeth cast an electric mayhem, 

the cybernetic shimmy, fused of mind and matter

hardwired into my delicate brainstem

thus welded with organic computations, 

i print out a litany of mechanical sensations 

till my metal skin exudes a glorious radiation 

of bright colors and aural permutations

synonyms for calculated are ‘conscious’ and ‘premeditated’

our distant cousins, the ape, means to cut and paste, thus duplicated 

as intelligent mechanisms of information processing,

i swim upstream the river entropy towards my singular salvation.

and then i wake up.

these rhymes i cannot lose
unlike all my lovely pens
we trade glory for hyperbole
and miss the point in the end

who are you
who am i
somewhere i lost my mind
who are you
who am i
somewhere lost in time

a good morning sunshine
a simple walk on the beach
before we know it this is gone
the endless summer out of reach

confused i search for knowledge
study texts for some insight
chase icons for their wisdom
against the dying of the light

who are you
who am i
somewhere i lost my mind
who are you
who am i
somewhere i lost in time

so i live and i breathe
with the desire to carry on
listen to the wind cry
and hear that same old song

but maybe its the fine wine
in that secret place i keep
and i sup from the bottle
to prove i’m not asleep

who are you
who am i
somewhere lost in time
who are you
who am i
how about another time?