as a flower is beheaded by a child he is one too

all else is closing in now like the crush of the blue mountains.
when the faces are having it all, those friends
who are in love in their baskets of light.
it's then that you can drive into yourself, your own light
through the venetian blinds where the rose blooms, blossoms, and
dies.
I am here because I choose to be in my search for light,
but am often in darkness; draw blood in spite of wry madness,
or sit as still as the planets pissed at the sun.
you can scream but nobody can hear you.
the earthquakes have not killed enough, the meteors, the fires,
the murderers, and the plagues have failed too.
the stink of light is everywhere and
too much for the delicate thunder of words

because it should of been here about 2 months ago

when you leave for san francisco
you will leave me with
perks of a wallflower
new york sounds and this patti smith
singing "Birdland" into my radio.
I'm listening to her right now as I think
of you, thinking of how happy you will be in those
San Francisco streets you told me about.

everything is inept everywhere

everything is inept everywhere,
see torn butterflies
bad verse
no love,
no man is wise enough to stay
wise,
cool hollow of dim pities
where blood stank
is soft now
and not precious,
we are struck through
mixed with kittens and tigers
some life and
no life
at all;
no army lasts, no night, no day.
wallpaper flowers now
without sun-
they may last longer then even my
dimmest concern, and
properly so- yet
why am I so
sad?

like flies they come

come home,
under my thumb
on repeat
by the rolling stones,
heineken,
and the cigarettes are rolled,
and their are green leaves to be smoked.
the full moon's waiting.

some things are better not to be said, I think.
when you're looking at then moon
feeling no less awful then say-
half a million people
around the world,
you say fuck it,
it's better not to suffer
in silence

I'm going to
take another drink,
and when the nights are bad,
I'll do it again.

the nights are wild
like this,
but I somehow find
magic in small places,
and if you understood how good it felt
then maybe
you would try it too.

but they wonder if I'm
trying to write.
what they don't understand
is that this is an automatic thing,
like sitting upon the ivory
throne
and letting it all go.

what they don't understand
is that when I'm done with a poem,
I finish it and move on
to the next.
It's always the next.

I don't edit,
and sometimes
say nothing at all,
but drink and look into
the senseless moon
and wait.

I move into the night like a serpent,

I sink my teeth into the words like the body of christ,

but there are no cigarettes to smoke, those little slivers of death . . .

I am with Mendelssohn tonight, the melody is slow and easy,

something like the blood of kings on velvet robes

never empty

my beast comes in the afternoon
he gnaws at my gut
he paws my head
he growls
spits out part of me

my best comes in the afternoon
while other people are taking pictures
while other people are laughing
my beast comes in the afternoon
across a dirty kitchen floor
leering at me

while other people are employed at jobs
that stop their thinking
my beast allows me to think
about him,
about the graveyards and fear
and stale flowers and decay
and the stink of ruined thunder.

my beast will not let me be
he comes to me in the afternoon
and gnaws and claws
and I tell him
as I double over, hands gripping my gut,
jesus, how will I ever explain you to
them? they think I am a coward
but they are the cowards because they refuse to
feel, their bravery is the bravery of
snails.

my beast is not interested in my unhappy
theory- he rips, chews, spits out
another piece of
me.

I walk out the door and he follows me
down the street and
into my car.
we pass lovely laughing girls
on the streets
and the sun opens and closes like an oyster
swallowing my beast for a moment
as I cross at a green light
pretending that I have escaped,
pretending that I am far more meaningful
than the parted legs of their being
pretending that the beast is gone forever
and that the torn parts of me are
still there
under a black shirt and blue jeans
as all the faces become walls
and all the walls have become impossible.

goodnight words of the night

there have been many nights
in front of this
machine,
composing the
impossible words as
Brahms thundered through my walls

I have been alone,
with the music of the dead
but where
I belong

Van Gogh taught me of his struggle,
and how he never
found love,
but instead the sight
at the end of the barrel
of the gun.

and then there was
Miles Davis,
my father of music,
and of all that I know

but there have been many nights
alone,
giving you my soul
and all that I have left
to be forgotten,

in a world so
indifferent,

I write only for
myself,
and what's left
at the end
of the light

sometime long ago

these dark lonely nights,
I begin to feel like
the Chinese poet
Li Po:
drinking wine and writing
poems
writing poems and drinking
wine

all the while
aware of the strict limitations
that come with
being
human

then
accepting that

the wine and the poems
gently
intermixing:

yup, there is a peaceable place
to be found
in this unending
war
we call life

where
things
such as
light, shadow, sound
objects

become
gently
and meaningfully
fascinating.

Li Po,
that drunk mother fucker
on his wine,
knew very well that
just to know
one thing well
was
best.

in the morning

when the sun comes up in the morning
I awaken to
that lovely golden light
and
I'm usually alone
and sometimes (but not always) wonder why the most
beautiful woman in the world isn't sleeping there next to
me?
I deserve her, I think, I deserve
her.

then I get up,
go to the bathroom
splash water on my face

look into the
mirror

shudder a bit
in disbelief...

then

go sit down on
the ivory
throne

let it all
go

except for the
reality,

which

no amount
of
efficient
modern
plumbing
can

whirl
away.

I remember you Bud, as Bud walked in

It's fucking true,
Brahms, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn,
Coltrane, Miles, Dizzy,
Bud Powell,
and those officers
who beat you from your genius.

It's True:
pain and suffering
helps to create
what we call
Art.

given the choice
I'd never choose
this damned
pain
and suffering
for myself
but somehow it finds
me

i'm turning into a monster

you remember the burning fire.

nothing to smoke,
nothing to eat.

you scrape together dimes
for a meal or a smoke,
but tonight
it's a drink instead.

there is no love,
you can forget about that...

but what you can remember
is the burning fire,
and the dream of the hand-gun
in your hand as you eliminate all of those
who have rejected man after man
after man...

there will be no greater justice then this,
and when their lives are gone
their will be nothing else
for Death to take away,

no more panties under the bed,
hairpins,
hairspray,
no more eyeliner or lip gloss
or tampons,
no more text messages or
facebook updates,

but their dead bones
beneath the earth of those creatures
we once considered
"delicate"

I do this for you,
and for all the others who have suffered
like me or are suffering.

their is no misogyny,
but this is a man who once tried-

I want relief.

I live in my own world as you do your own,
so if you felt the way I did,
you would feel the same way too.

It's just too bad it has to be this way,
because I never dreamed
of taking anyone's life,

but now I have to.

and I will.

we spent many nights in hell together,
but the ones you spent alone
forever haunt me

how you were capable of such
endurance was not because of
money, love, or
woman

but because you had something
to fight for,

o.k.
so maybe the money helps,

but then,
what then if you have nothing to fight for?

need some sleep man