magen

changing throughout the years,
you now smoke cigarettes and sometimes, 
when you're out you light a stub, burn your nose, 
but even that will not make a difference and
then you sit here with whatever is killing you.
you think of the human faces with real nice lives, beautiful woman in
their arms with some elusive chance.
they have something you don't, and when you feel it, it becomes so
great that you become ill and you feel dead like them or dying.


yet several years ago there was once Magen. . .


in light of new love she has since forgotten,
changed throughout the years and I do not know her,
not out of chance but out of choice.
to see her brown eyes, her stature,
would be akin to a greater knife then suicide.


and I remember,
the many nights cuddled on a wicker rocking chair,
her hair falling into mine,
her smiling heart no less then pure
and my selfishness consumed by fear.


I needed to grow,
her mother said she needed to bloom like a rose. 


you were my first love and I will never forget you or your scent or your embrace
burned hot in my memory. I will remember the small things like Sugar Bay Ray
as he galloped in a field of pasture or the way we laid together in schools,
corridors and hallways. . .


but you are gone now and you sleep gently in my dreams,
never again knowing a love like yours as I awake,
take note of the indifference of the of the flower weeping
in the morning fog and at last,
all is as it should be.

my heart is swallowed in the san francisco bay

I think of you,
and the thought of you
leaving
makes me sad

you've made me happy
for as long as you've been here,

and I will always love you for
your mind and all that you are which
is an art like love,
one that can only be shared
between two people

but as I sit here
nursing
my thoughts of you like
delicate flowers,
I wont let the words
get in the way anymore of
what I've wanted to say,

so even if it's unrequited,
I've learned from you what it is to
love and accept gracefully and it feels good,
almsot peaceful
knowing I've never felt so pure.

miles

Miles Davis taught me how to listen

to music.

how a man can change and grow

through the century and.

keep on moving, keep on moving,

to achieve the impossible ART we must

change

grow through the centuries

and keep on moving.

Picasso changed,

and when you see a painting you

hear a pop song, the pop song is a cartoon.

for him, each woman was an era. 

but what I liked best was when he took that young girl at 18,

"My name is Pablo Picasso!

... and you and I, we will make great things together!"

He was 31.

Miles Davis only knew how to take a

woman into his room,

and there was always the H.

there was always the H...

moon

there have been moments of glory

moments of great discovery;

anvils dropped like mountains into

chasm's

slumped before this computer

attempting to compose the impossible

words

hell,

like an elephant reading a mag

in an abortion clinic.

struggling to open this bottle of belgium beer,

I have broken the bottle opener.

I see the moon in the sky,

seemingly ask it for help but instead

use a lighter.

it works.

moon moon,

moon in the sky,

how I wish to pull you towards

me with a lasso,

watch you for a while,

then deliver you onto the sky

how many more

boys with dark-narrowed eyes

will you take into the night?

of rachel

there is a pain sometimes and

I can't understand it.

and when I see something like a red truck

parked on a lawn,

I want to paint it knowing I can

when others have said I could not;

like the teachers of my past,

my own father,

myself.

and when I hear the birds sing,

I hear the sounds but nothing more and

then I think of her, Rachel, and

how I could never fall
for anything less

not anymore,

not now.

she brought me Peggy Lee

when I know of Jazz,

she told me she loved Fitzgerald,

when I know Armstrong is king,

and when she brought me Patti Smith, I

brought her Bukowski

when we shared a night of The Smiths

I brought her much and little,

when I know I could give her much more,

but when I see her eyes,

I see who she is and

maybe she knows,

and I know,

that she must be alone

and I am alone

alone together because we know

it's strength,

but as my heart aches

I know this is nothing new.

I feel it as I watch this red truck,

when I hear the birds sing, and sometimes,

when I'm by her side as the heavy waves come

she is the one that I love,
the one who is near and far,
like the tide that comes and goes,
a heart once opened
now closed

what should of been

listen, I now forgive all the woman who have
been with me and then left me
in order to find someone else to fuck,
to smoke with, to drink with or maybe just to
talk to.

I realize now that often I am dull
and that most of the time we simply weren't interested
in the same thing and/or things.

but I must tell you now that back then it was
difficult for me to forgive or under-
stand; I remember many nights of macho
hell
just looking at the walls
or an unmade bed
or a paper bag of Jack in the Box on the floor; the
minutes strangled inside my head;
and there was always female shit scattered about:
clothes on the bed, shoes on the floor, lipstick on
the dresser, a hairbrush in the bathroom ...

and then there was my precious ego, never being able
to understand how any of you could prefer
someone else to me.
there were many nights walking to and fro across
the room, refusing to accept, doubled over,
thinking: "shit, shit, shit..."

and trying to forget, going to parties,
looking, seldom finding, and when finding playing
a role I didn't really like, just hoping for
some kind of cheap vengeance
instead of accepting what should have been accepted
gracefully.

I understand that
I never would have met any of you
if you hadn't left someone else for me or been discarded
by someone else-
so here's to the good nights along with the bad:
at our best we experienced as much joy as any
one
and I thank all of you for giving me your
best;
you live in my heart and if there's a heaven
somewhere
someday you'll all be there
as
the great white shark continues to circle endlessly
in captivity
with stunned eyes, with dumb stunned
eyes.

euology

all is beautiful.

they killed the man who took
the lives of many on
September the 11th

I say a dead man
is better than a live one,
and so does Brahms as he sings to
me through the smoke
on this virginal night of May

but
today they killed the
killer and
Hitler,
who died only a day before
in 1945,
will join him in the ranks
of the infernal
underworld

let only the sharks be witness
to his sinking
corpse

light my fire

I believe in earning one's own way
but I also believe in the unexpected
gift
and it is a wondrous thing
when a woman who has read your writing
(or parts of it, anyway)
offers herself to you
out of nowhere
out of the blue
a total
stranger.

such an offer
must be taken
gracefully

the hands
the fingers
the hair
the smell
the light.

one would like to be strong enough
to turn them away

those butterflies.

I believe in earning one's own way
but I also believe in the unexpected gift.

I have no shame,

we deserve one
another

those butterflies
who flutter to my tiny
flame
and
me.

gentle song like red pinot

oh and I remember, "lets paint at the
jazz club," she said, where the wine is free and served
under age, "look, water!" in the corner,
no, no,
here,
lets drink this wine instead
"ok lets"
so here comes the man at the piano as the
drummer begins,
we drink our wine and the waitress smiles,
brings us another.
they begin to play a song,
as the people walk by looking through the large windows.