Goodnight, my love (a dirge)

Goodnight, my love
I'll miss you
your spirit in the skies
but I know you're with me
when I close my eyes

Goodnight, my love
and thank you
for the time you spent with me
looking in my eyes in the afternoon
with our child on my knee

Goodnight, my love
and God bless
O how I love you so
even if you lived a thousand years
you could never truly know

Goodnight, my love
and so long
so long and see you soon
I will meet you in the spring-time fields
when the blossoms bloom

when the blossoms bloom

Some disease

This must be some disease
to be someplace
to not feel anymore at home
to be perfectly content
and want to be elsewhere

that commonality
that fear of failure
thus lack of attempt

such a pretty night as this
and I am pensive
I am lost in self contempt

the girls here are all legs
and little else
I can't say that I mind
unless I'm wont for conversation

and when all you need
is a self-confidence boost
it's poor a thought to force one to listen
and pay one to respond

to write down the words
you wish to hear
and coach them on inflection

to not be able ever to love again
and then fall in love far too easily

to be fragile as glass
yet crumble like concrete

Why do you do it?

'Why do you do it?'
he asked...

'What?'

'It,' he said...
'Why do you do it?'

I thought...
not long, but long enough
like a referee making a call
processed, but not overdone

'Love,' I said...

he waited...

'Not so much love for what I do,
but love for who I do it for,'

he stared...

'Love for my friends,
Love for my future family,
Love for you...'

he smiled, but remained silent...

'I don't mean to sound unselfish,
but that is why,
I have no interest greater than my friends.
There is nothing I can do
longer than have a conversation.'

I work only to be able
to buy them dinner, to spoil them
not because they want me to
like they wouldn't smile
if I didn't pick up the check,

we could eat peanut-butter
sandwiches at two-fifty a week
and still share in the same laughter,
but I love to take them out,
to surprise them
I study so I can stay in school,
stay with them
I don't really have any other
interests besides my friends,
well interests, yes, but I mean loves...

even writing, as I write this down
is just a hobby, everything, is just a hobby
one I'm sure I will grow tired of,
but never could I grow tired of this,
sitting in your passanger seat
carrying on long conversation
that depress me greatly
but make me so much happier,
Love,' I said...

he nodded,
'Okay...good.' and started the car

I think I'll go away

I think I'll go away,
I told her,
but I cannot tell
if it's a forward charge
or a desperate retreat

she seemed taken aback,
I must give the illusion
that I am beyond happy
in my near perfect home

I think I'll go to the country,
I told her,
and write and read and paint and draw

she asked what I would do for money
What, my works won't sell, you think?
I tease her,
No, I said, I don't need it
any more than I have, that is

How will you eat? she inquired
Her tone logical
her role as the devil's advocate,
not giving an opinion, just knowing
that I've thought nothing through

I'll farm, or work at a local pub,
or teach at the university,
or act if it comes to that,
God willing it won't

We share in a chuckle,
I can see the pain
starting to leak into her eyes
as she slowly realizes how serious I am

she doesn't seem to know
that this is my asking
her to come with me,
or how easily she could convince me to stay

Crystal Night

My father was a butcher
a shop in our hometown

the torches lit the street
as the shadows washed the ground

I do not blame you, Hershel
or the words that Goebbels said
only Hate could break those windows
two-thousand people dead

My father was a butcher
they threw a brick through his shop

The glass collapsed in pieces
shattering my soul
although the wood went up in flames
my heart remained whole

My father held me close
my sister was not found
I swear I saw a crying ghost
as they burned our shul to the ground

If I never find my sister
my eyes may never close
in hopes that they will see her
her eyes in ragged clothes


I bit my lip and cursed
these hateful bitter thieves

My father was a butcher
but never such as these

Sit down little man

Sit down little man
and learn your place
put your weakened hand
back over your face

Cover your eyes
and enjoys these lies

Sit down little man
and learn your place

Though our love may last

Though our love may last
the life of a red round rose
we'll always have the past
dripping down the tip of your nose

You walk shotgun into a room
I turn on heel and walk out
you yell and curse and scream and loom
I claim to not know what you're talking about

We first touched lips
in that ragged pink pedal boat
Perhaps not quite our first kiss
I explained in my last desperate note

I said...

I said the light ahead was dim
you said no, it's as bright as it has ever been

I said that life didn't offer much
you kissed my lip, that taste, that touch

I said I didn't quite understand
you said nothing as you took my hand

Even in my dreams I write

Even in my dreams I write

Walking down my new street
with my parents
on our way to dinner

They are college age
and I the awkward third wheel

My father jokes and pushes my mom
Just a step out of her path
She flirts back and pushes him

The same situation plays out
They are now their true age
This time I watch my mother's eyes
as they fill with disdain
for this still young man
she builds her bottled-strength
hoping to hurt under the guise of a flirt

Even in my dreams I write
myself dying slowly on some solid ground
my conscious drifting inside of my mind
into my heart where it settles on a scene...

I am revived by a team of medics
as my friend squeezes my hand
and asks me what Death is like

I say:
But instead of a tiger dying inside of me
I saw a Silver elephant rejoicing

O how easily we crumble
Like the crumbs of a cracker!

The things I dream
and the things I've seen
to my Memory are the same

Who is truly to say
What is real...
or what we feel...

Box white donut

This powdered box-white donut tastes
like a beach-side motel in the spring
Even with my door wide open
I can't hear those birdies sing

It's now been one year in this apartment
in this self-destructive town
I would leave but I fit in here
another pitch to make the sound...

Of millions of hearts yearning
Of millions of backs breaking

To make another dollar
To pay another bill

So they can forget their bodies hurting
So they can enjoy the time they kill

What will Life bring next?

What will life bring next?

What Messiah will round
the crowded corner
stand upon the slippery soap box
and call me untame?

What Greek goddess
will lay down her robe
and descend from her cloud
and elate and enlighten me?

What hooded lackie of Death
will stalk the many stories
of so-called starving artists?

What benign cancer
will plague my thoughts
and make me feel guilt
for not being fatal?

What historical figure
will step forth and
demand my audience,
of which I have none?

What paper brown novel
or literary text
will wash before my pale face
in the hopes of living for the first time
in half a century?

What will life bring next?

And what will I bring life in return?
What have I to give such a suitor?
What jumbled thoughts,
seemingly less organized each day
will life take as a compliment?
What index will I make
with what will life take from me?
Just a boy even at this age
too pious and centered to care for life
as well as life may care for me
Just a boy even at this age
too broken and tired to believe life's lies
or to tell it's Truths from reality
Just a boy even at this age
who only took from Buddha
that life is suffering
Just a boy who smiled and said
he'd make the most of it
but lived very little, but lived very well
the best and worst he remembers
however equal or dispersed
but most of life, fair lady, he will forget
what life brings to him, he will cherish and regret

Beware false prophets, the prophet said.

How many more cigarettes

How many more cigarettes
Must I smoke to call myself a writer
How many more days of being drunk
How many more hours at my typewriter

How many more mistresses
Must I have to call myself an artist
How many more nudes must I draw
How many more Greats must I list

How many more poems
Must I write to call myself a poet
How many more nights must I pretend to cry
How many more broken hearts will show it

How many more miles
Must I run to call myself an athlete
How many more gasps for breath
How many more swollen sweaty feet

How many more books
Must I read to call myself an intellectual
How many more glares must I give
How many scoffs must I make to make it actual

How many more enemies
Must I have to call myself an actor
How many more bridges must I burn
How many auditions will they factor

How many more stanzas
Must I write to call this poem complete...

The answer to any and all is always


none

If I don't wake tomorrow

If I don't wake tomorrow
If I've drunk too much at my expense
If I don't wake tomorrow
The night a long and dark suspense

If I don't wake tomorrow
My feet cold inside my bed
If I don't wake tomorrow
My mind lost inside my head

If I don't wake tomorrow
If I've slept past the morning bell
If I don't wake tomorrow
My sad calm face a poker tell

If I don't wake tomorrow
If I do not stir after a hurried nudge
If I don't wake tomorrow
If my fickle heart refuse to budge

If I don't wake tomorrow
If I stay inside of my sick sleep
If I don't wake tomorrow
If I've dug my grave inside my sheets



If I don't wake tomorrow
Understand my deepest sorrow
If I don't ever see you again
Understand you were my friend

Though your eyes may still do weep
Avoid to join my brittle sleep