this life spent

suddenly the light is fading
trumpets serenade the revelers
in the street its as if the
clock had turned to candy and
the seconds seem like sugar burning
among the weeds

and in the harbor
are the vessels; an armada
belonging to the woman's next of kin
the cannons momentarily are silent
through the window the calliope
whistles a funeral tune

is this the story through the evening?
the loss is both sudden and constant
through these years
is this the memory of my honor
finding all these ancient
foot prints across the floor?

still I hear the music
in the foyer
still I see the moonlight
alive upon the sea
somewhere in the world
there is another story
looking for an honest
broker one that's not
as fake as me

alien predator

along the predatory canyon way
those martyred darlings prance
with candied derrieres displayed
my heart jumps like this cock
with visions of a painful entry
her breath caught in her throat
I can remember how wet she was
that night on scarritt red divan
and how she captured my fingers
in her asshole her tongue a
weapon in my mouth I'd bite
her threatening blood she'd
come at that and ride those
fingers hard I thought they'd
break so who was the predator
in this thorny valley she used
me ran away ran back to him
never knowing where to settle
perhaps not even now

More dream situations. I do see this in metaphorical terms. The woman is the alien here, and the predator, but so is the author. Use and using each other, not even slightly aware of where it might be taking us. This is in fact a good description of how things actually came about at that time, some thirty years ago. There is an interior metaphor then. A discussion of human mating and its emotional content.

taste this

the filament was thin and strong
but brittle and so the end came
with a flash of megawatts

yes the closet is full of old clothes
the colored threads unraveling
the scattered holes burnt with cigarettes
leaky ink pen stain

a stack of your magazines
accumulates dust—those hoary books
of poems no one ever read

the leaves fall the water in the basement
rises old flashlights bulbless without
batteries float in a box

this one girl she threw me out
this other girl left while I was at work
I managed to get away from that woman

later there were the mannequins,
the ghost stories the girls who weren't
quite in this life—just murmurs

from the occasional french kiss
to the fingers up her asshole the demon
lover who loved me as a demon thick with juice

funny how the house is burning now
the vampire's girlfriend is screaming
in the bedroom there goes that book of poems

and in this hand gleams the razor
of my dreams still hungry still hot with
someone else's blood

A desperate review of internal emotional violence, this time, some twenty years ago now. And now I am if not at peace then at least I am not at war. Her song still playing in my heart, the hours counted and recounted. The end is surely a knife waiting for its place in the action of the story. A dream reviewed.

your death at 58

58 steps to your death
the topography has changed now
tomorrow is a vessel
filled with your dust
or my anger these 58 stones
cast in that dessicated plain
tomorrow is a nocturne
playing fast and loose
with that which I thought
I knew these plans that
were not made these pleasures
that are not remembered
you walk carefully through
henderson you're now the
champion the wrath has come
to be your solace everything
I thought I knew you took
for granted as a lie
as another lie the 58th
lie of this great dramatic
wheelie your limbs suddenly
free in the air the canyon
below the pattern not there
the nocturne played out
this distinct memory of your
death in front of me
today
the day before


This is my 300th post to this blog. Thanks to those who have read some of these lines. I am grateful.

This poem refers to someone I once loved. That person no longer exists; who she is now is someone I do not know in any meanngful fashion. We all change, though I may claim to have some understanding of what she has become. This poem acts out of a consciousness that is flawed. Still there is truth extent in these statements, whether it is inside or outside of the piece itself. In a certain fashion, these words find her dead, finally. At least the woman I once knew.

JH detritus

This piece arises from the information that in the past two weeks someone from Henderson, Nevada has spent some serious time on this blog. I can only assume it is my old nemesis chick, Janne. And this poem asks the usual questions of her. However, I don't believe she is likely to see it because whoever is checking the site is doing it from what google lists when you put in her name. Google, being google, lists several items from this site, but they are items that also feature some mention of Marcia Jean Froelke Coburn, and Anastasia Sands, the character from Strange Sins. AS now refers to a porn star on the web, so I get a few hits on that basis. And Marcia Coburn is a serious Chicago journalist, well known and well published. Thus the many other pieces referring to this ancient history haven't been touched by this intruder. So I think the publishing of this poem falls on deaf ears here. I did talk with my friend who knew us both in those days and he truly was much kinder than I deserve. There is a great deal of waste in all this, but it has a kind of odd probitive value, also. JH is a lawyer these days, but I think if she has objections to anything she will let me know and I will do whatever I think is right. Truth is still the object, but I understand that what is truth for her is probably not truth for me.

shadowed

no standards set out
in the yard the runner
follows his shadow
to the valley's cleft
macadam man seen ever
taller on the fallen
leaves that sound is his
heart beating back
the silence

i rise i rise
the hours accumulate
sweat is my skin
oxygen in short supply
i rise on the hill
the bobbing figure
before me when
will he disappear?

A meditation on aging and my health, the shadow is that time the spirit lives, perhaps just beyond the end of the run. Who truly knows?