POEMS : 2013

2013-05-07

Before the abyss

We are all trapped here

Me in these orange shoes

You on this plane

Me between pages of a book

Like an old leaf found by a child

Or a feather given to a sweetheart

Before he went out to the battle

And found God in a bullet

Pounding thru the air

To the front part of his skull

We are trapped here

You with a flat tire

Me with the nozzle and the air

You drinking water in mexico

You in the wine glass of Paris

Me wearing that watch you gave me

Holding grace by the neck

And looking for relief in a shoeshine

I used to be a poet but gave that all up

To use my soul as a battering ram

To become a fire ant

Looking for wilderness before the sleeping/snoring nostril of time

And there I am trapped

As you are trapped

At the bakery

In front of the television

Exploring your loss

On a digital device made to lock secrets

And expose the rituals of the damned

For you to make fun

To help you to make fun

Of what they are

Of who you are

I visited my heroes grave

And he died young

But then we all die young (if you think about it)

Here in these traps

Where like prayer candles

We explore to the best of our ability

The will of the tiny flame

The will of the tiny flame we are

Spitting our fire at light

Against the air

Which gives us life

And the air which takes it away

The lips of our lover which comes to blow us away

The soldier falls

The feather waits

The dry leaf crumbles

The bullet goes thru the skull

And falls on the mud

The child cries

The plane lands

We are all the nucleus of nothing

Trapped on a planet that gives us a small reprieve

Before sending us to the abyss. 

---

2013-05-08

Windows

Windows

I am looking at you thru a window

And that’s as close I get

Your skin is glass

The things you say are panes to hold it in place

This shield between us

I tap at it

You bring your face up close

Look at me with one eye almost

Pressed against it

Then you pull away and we smile

And that’s as close as we get

Even your breath is glass

I feel it sleep on the back of my neck

But I am just dreaming

And the small stones you throw from the street outside

Only ever bounce off and never break thru

We all live in these tiny theaters of isolation

Neighbors in solitude is all your lovers can be.

2.

How lonely is the spider when he weaves his web

Or the lightning bolt that sings thru the sky to shock protected children in suburbia

How lonely is their father

Driving the mini van to their baseball game

Or their mother who is sneaking a cigarette in the parking lot of a grocery daydreaming of perfection in a kiss

As the turkey thaws in her trunk

Looking for his neck next to old shoe strings and a deflated ball of a game lost by everyone.

How lonely is the trunk

Or the steering wheel

Or the light holding the pulse of life together by some intergalactic slight of hand the creator performs for the atheist who lead the chaotic chant of fuck you

Aimed at the wings called oblivion

3.

Yes I am a savage

Wearing an alligator on my chest

His mouth around my neck

I stab his back

My heart

With your pen knife

You wrote

I went back to the cocoon

I was a butterfly but always wanted to become a spaceship

There is needles all around your feet

Let’s dance you say

And smile into your missing teeth

You bring your eye back in

And nearly touch my glass

I tap right at your pupil and you blink

Like a child

Threatened to be tricked by the hidden dynamics of darkness

(the things none of us touch but rather steep in)

I look away

And you are gone

There is nothing now but the fog of your breath

Slowing disappearing

Revealing a heart

That you wrote with your finger

After I gave up trying to touch you

---

2013-06-15

061513 Chicago

Waking up in Chicago 

A hotel near the airport 

It’s all we could afford on a Saturday night

Touring is a game about keeping costs down

Fledging indie musicians on the edge of the mainstream 

That’s a pretty big edge

And it can all seem like an illusion

I didn’t do much but watch Stevie ray Vaughn and Albert king you tube clips while playing along

Learning from the way they nuance tones and notes

The way they coax emotion by drifting in and out of tune 

I made up my mind then and there that this journey I’ve been on is a long road to the blues

Thru the singer songwriter ghetto 

Past rock n roll way

And into the kingdom of the blues

As my mad ID programs beats on my laptop

Electronic music igloos are places I can visit but my home is the kingdom of the blues

Maybe it’s cause I’m in Chicago 

Bit that’s what I got for you this morning

I slept like a lunatic

If lunatics sleep long and hard

I didn’t wake up til noon but I needed it

NYC was a cluster fuck of emotion and pressure

The folks came in as did the cousins and then a good deal of my friends

Debuting a new album that is rather wordy

But we played it all without a hitch and the gig was great and some said the best they’d seen from me

So it’s nice that I’m improving on my way to the kingdom

The kingdom of the blues 

There’s a song here

Im gonna write it

saluting the sun in Chicago

hope to see you there! 

---

2013-06-15 (2)

The Kingdom of the Blues

Thru the singer songwriter ghetto

And rock n roller way

The life that roads defeat you

But bring gifts that make you stay

In the capitol of country

Littered melodies to use

I’ll see you just inside

The kingdom of the blues

Robert Johnson’s shadows 

All play and sing in line 

From a sun that left us wanting 

As it left us all behind

With guitars and harps all broken 

Left for you to choose 

The best way to get in 

The kingdom of the blues

Howlin Wolf is dancing

Muddy Waters feet

They all assume we’re broken

On some forgotten street

And they are right until

They sing our heart the news

That all of us can stay 

In the kingdom of the Blues 

Stevie Ray and Jimi

along with Albert and rest 

Are having high times laughing 

About just who was the best

Some say it was Lightning

He paid so many dues

But now he is a king

In the kingdom of the blues 

Here they aren’t forgotten

The ones who sold their soul

To reach the hearts of others

Too fragile for the toll 

To reach the drunk in hiding

Beaten by the booze 

Which floods certain corners

In the kingdom of the blues

Etta James, Odetta

Ida Cox and Bessie Smith

Will help you find your way 

Out of the darker myth 

It takes a certain woman

And one that we all lose 

Somewhere in the kingdom

The kingdom of the blues

I wish you could meet me 

Where our ancestors remain

In fields of cotton raining

And the history of pain

In nights when we are lonely

With nothing left to use 

And just one candle glowing

In the kingdom of the blues 

If you hear me singing

The song is just for you

The one still locked in darkness

With no way to get thru 

This whole place is a church 

With instruments for pews 

And voices full of mercy 

In the kingdom of the blues

This whole place is a church 

And a love you cannot lose

A song made out of mercy

In the kingdom of the blues 

---

2013-07-11

Whats it like living in New York?

(this question posed to me in a written interview)

It’s like my big brother

or some odd grandparent I’ve never met but seen pictures of,

or like a parent that’s a best friend

a stern, but respectable father

a mother who’s proud, but whose love must always be won.

It’s like a deviant friend who pushes you into risky situations

or like an enemy reaching for a knife with your back turned.

And all over the streets

many ghosts of the many past lives

contained in the disco incarnations of anonymous celebration.

You can see former selves running everywhere

like clones with different faces and names

kids drunk and turning over garbage can,

lovers drunk and making out in a park

or street-fighting punks with Bic and safety pin tattoos.

The buildings, like ancestors and pinnacles of awareness,

looking over it all unmoved and unimpressed, having seen it all before

but with the titans of history cast in rolls you barely fill

as they barely filled those that came before.

Each generation is less eloquent than the one before

less romantic

less refined

or maybe that’s just my imagination.

But the Lower East Side has turned into a frat party from Thursday to Sunday night

so who knows?

But what’s it like living in New York City or Brooklyn?

It’s like being trapped in history going forward.

A river of culture where the only way out is thru and 

where it comes thru is the streets of this city

an unforgiving temple to the grace of creation and toughness of pushing thru.

There’s no place else to go

and no place else I’d rather be,

except maybe Mars,

but that’s here too.

Just before dawn

when the streets are empty and only the real freaks remain

as the nuclear sun shines red on uncovered shadows

whispering lines you can hear

from the dead who still have something to say.

Because this place is a ghost town, too,

but only if you’re tuned in to its frequency.

Because here

you become an old factory

a derelict building

an abandoned garage 

where homeless dreams come to sleep

and get born and consumed.

They are literally everywhere

and they come to life thru you

as if the city blooms thru you.

It’s voice is your voice.

You are its moving manifestation

an urban pilgrim

a beat warrior

a jazz runner

a living scholar of need and how it reaches thru you

to the sky of great art

to the ears that bleed song.

The city whistles a tune

from steam coming thru the manholes in the street.

It’s beats are jackhammers digging up the pavement 

making bike paths

and two-ways where there were one-ways

opening up the flow

in and out of your head

and in your head

nothing but buildings

populated by organizers of insanity

or thought police.

Voices of your ancestors,

people you never knew,

coming unglued in your dream

turning into rats and running into heaps of garbage as you walk by

holding hands with your future

romancing your past

walking here again alone.

The streets love it when you do that-

when it’s just you and the city

making plans for where to go next.

Living in New York,

like a marriage to the mob;

once you’re in

I mean, really in

you can never get out. 

---

2013-07-13

Dinosaur Salmon 

We all just want

to collapse like a lung on this side of nowhere.

To be forgotten and ostracized 

but then redeemed by the models of the world.

Our faces hurt in touches of beauty lost

like snowmen melting in show biz culture

coming in for a landing in tarmacs of fire.

We all just want an escape route laid out for us

with fur coats jumping in rows of diamond jumping ropes

endless fucking in champion rain

and the rock and roll star hierarchy pinnacle pointing like a pyramid to the top of you. 

We all just want

to swim in blood to be unknown mercy in the dance of those that came before

in the music of surrender 

a note to remember. 

Can we not be that? 

One note sung by a mountain 

one note sung by a giant salmon (dinosaur size) 

swimming up stream so the others don’t have to. 

Salmon Jesus,

the savior of fish. 

We all just want

to eat his body

to bite the pink flesh and swallow

to make sex and survival one

to be hung up no more

but free. 

To set madness free,

theirs and ours. 

Let the lunacy dance on the moon.

Hide it in caves of cheese

and set a thousand rats free on the skull of Hercules. 

Let him recount his failure for eternity. We all just want red dice and snake eyes

blue prints and mob scenes

bus visions and the hope of the homeless

the mad decaying kind

which gets cold and hot at the same time as we bloom into something 

even God didn’t see coming. 

---

2013-07-13 (2)

The Dream Called Eternity

The nuns are crack whores 

The preachers are beggars

The street is a church in the kingdom of the lost

I’m just passing thru

And not much of it touches me

It’s a show for me I guess

But I don’t own it

I remain detatched

I see jesus

He’s raping a widow in the corner

He’s stabbing a leper with a snake

He’s mugging a child with sadness in his eyes

He’s saving us all again 

By being the worst among us

I see jesus and think to run

But make myself look

2

I saw him defeated and weeping

He lost his mother

He had no brother

He was made of sticks

He was burning

He was fire. And then he was smoke

And cinders

And finally ash. 

And then he was an eagle. 

And then a cactus

And then a tree

And then I opened my eyes

And he was inside of me

In my heart

His finger poking out 

Until it burst in my chest 

Like a balloon

Or a pinata for the celebration of my soul

And then I was defeated

And weeping 

I had no mother

No brother

I looked up

And saw that you were looking at me 

I became sticks

And started to burn

3

Who here can be saved

And what am I saving them for

Or who? 

Who counts the souls lost in rotting bodies? 

And who believes in a God that abandoned us to ourselves? 

How can we save ourselves in the folly and cruelty of this place? 

How can we be redeemed and why should we care to be? 

What motivates faith but the need to surrender a will that’s driving you mad? 

And if that’s all there is then what choice do any of us have? 

We face oblivion starving, 

How is it heroic to say a prayer? 

We face infinity without an answer, 

How is it victory to say I don’t believe? 

We are terribly small things 

But we are like seeds

And within us lives the infinite 

We mean nothing and are already gone forever

But within us

The dream called eternity

---

2013-07-13 (3)

Even As The World Comes Crashing Down

When I went home

Many buildings were broken down

Where I bought my first guitar

The window shattered

Bricks of graffiti 

I saw old dreams wander past me drunk and homeless

When I went home

It’s not right to say there was no home

But home had changed

My parents were still there

Yet they never woke me up for the parade

I drove thru the night

From Red Hook to Akron

Eight hours in a van alone Time to reflect on the woman who was giving me a hard time

Time to contemplate insanity 

And retell stories to myself as I tuned in old blues songs and swerved over wet highways

I was there in time for the parade but

I took a nap and they never woke me up

It didn’t matter

I survived long enough to come back home

To see it dying

To see it changed

I am lucky for that

And even my father and I 

Having an easy rapport

We drove around on the fifth looking for a car wash

And we never found one that was open or big enough

So we just took the van home and swept it out

Cleaned out the old garbage

Renewed it’s purpose 

Helped it come and stay alive

In this decaying place

I took a picture of my folks

Walking with umbrellas in the light rain

The light breaking thru trees in the distance

The ecstasy of love coming thru

That we are here 

To see this

Our happiness and bliss and survival unified

Even as the world comes crashing down 

---

2013-07-15

Filled With The Magic Of You

Sometimes I go to your thing on Wednesday night

You hold court there

In beer-soaked song

Friends and acquaintances from all walks of life 

Come thru and 

Its become a New York thing

A West Village thing

A scene

Filled with the magic of you

The easy way you sing

And invite us in

We could all take a lesson from you

But then again you’re not so much a master or a saint as you are

An angel of the night

With the key to surrender 

Floating just above you

And I wonder if you notice it there

Once I thought I saw you reach for it but I can’t be sure

Tho the next day you had a purple bruise covering your back

So something had changed

Maybe decay had set in

Or maybe you were just being born

But anyway, your thing on Wednesday night

I always come for you

Did I tell you I love your songs? 

And the way you sing

A drunken whine, euphoric and needy

Assured and content 

Fixed, but searching in a basement down the stairs from the West Village hustle

You, a preacher to the damned, 

Who thought they were coming to save you 

2

I want to do great honor to this life

Don’t you? 

It’s such a tiny and precious thing 

How can God see it from the stars?

Our tiny dramas. 

Or going to get coffee

Our bliss

The care we cast on one another

Our betrayal 

How we’ve been betrayed

But isn’t that our drive?

Isn’t that for who we sing?

For the nameless opportunity we are granted here?

To sing because we can

To stretch my mind to liberate truth 

To find myself and inspire 

It’s all so useless 

But then nihilism is even more useless 

And you can deny the existence of God but you cannot deny the opportunity we are given at every moment to become God 

Or a fully realized vision/version of the cosmos exploding into itself

I heard on a podcast that there were many Big Bangs

And many universes outside of this one and that in fact everything that is possible is happening 

Somewhere we are kings

Somewhere else we are gods looking over ourselves 

Judging and damming ourselves, offering salvation for anyone that could believe in us

3

Remember when we wrote that song about smoking meth in a Red Roof Inn while smoking meth in a Red Roof Inn? 

Things like that make sobriety a regrettable thing

For as dark and deranged and dangerous as that might be

Are we not seeking one more chance to be kids?

Free in the unhinged grope of laughter, feeling like time has no place

And dreams are things that rain from red roofs and crawl on dirty carpets 

Where a thousand feet scatter to find the drug of surrender

4

And after all

Love and nothing else

Rock and roll

The Rolling Stones 

Your feet stink

But baby, you’re my best friend. 

---

2013-07-25

Training Day

(this ones old)

On a Southwest flight to Portland

It’s a free for all

The junkies with a baby let it wail

I’m wearing a vest made out of goose feathers and nectarines 

Still wearing the noose from last night’s failed attempt 

But no one noticed the locket with your picture in it

Or the fact that my belt is a goldfish swimming in a race around my waste

Ant bones and mother’s milk toothpaste

On the side of everyone’s mouth 

Southwest 

We are the cheapskates in the skies

We fly thru discount clouds 

And lay ourselves in the cruddy aisles

Invisible men stand on my back

My brain is made of chewing gum

You’re blowing a bubble in me now

How do I taste?

Like raspberry and jalapeño? 

Or like camel toe regret? 

I’ve been bitten by the bug

And now I want to slave with you

Let’s fly this baby upside down and come in for a drunken landing

Heroes of the final night sky

The world is ending

This is the final jab of Christ

He wants his fish back

And he’s got a message for you

He says, 

“Just do it” 

2

We are coming in for a landing

We are coming here for a caning

Who signed us up for this pursuit? 

Was it really so bad being a porpoise in turpentine? 

Or a firefly in the belly of a ghost? 

Or a gnat in the god head mound inching closer to destruction in grilled cheese?

The teeth of swingers, like coins falling thru your skull, from the top of the Empire State Building

We are coming in for a branding 

We are the dead and defeated trying to sing for Baton Rouge

3

Here on Southwest 

We pick our own seats 

It’s disgusting if you think about it

In my chest is a cow’s heart

I’m swimming in rivers of milk 

As the sneezes on this devastating flight

Are like a symphony of sickness singing the Beethoven in my pants into a coma

Over my friends shoulder I watch the Brian Jonestown Massacre doc

Antonio wearing white and kicking in the head of angels

The fat dude behind me coughs like a timpani drum into the back of my head

And I guess there is really nothing to regret

Except for everything 

---

2013-07-25 (2)

unfinished song

Your beauty is eternal 

Like fire made of grace

The expression of the rose

All across your face

Love in broken shadows

Dance for you and me

Bumping in the light

We search for ecstasy 

A moment of surrender

Put down the heavy cross

Put down the pain of heroes

Put down the things you’ve lost

Pick up the will of mercy

And sing another song

To the ones who’ve been like you

Nowhere to belong 

---

2013-07-25 (3)

Bad '80s radio

Bad '80s radio on in the East Village bodega

Or is it good? 

It’s Madonna

And there are 15 DX7 keyboard layers

Along with a Linn drum machine

At this point it’s classic

That’s what time does to everything

It surrounds it with magic

It becomes framed by life disappearing

All the ‘80s ghosts are now dancing here at Gracefully 

I rode over the Manhattan Bridge in spite of the gray skies

I had to escape my bed

It was a trap of thick dreams

Hands from the unconscious were holding me there

Giving me mad dreams

One even about how sad the feud between Liam and Noel is

And I never knew I felt that way

But we all need an oasis 

Anyway this poem isn’t about shit

Except what they all are about

And that’s that life is a magic zoo

And no other city nails it like New York

And I want you to know that I drank a small coffee

And a whole bottle of Perrier 

And I also want you to know that for me 

Life is an ecstasy

Full of DX7 robots and hot chicks walking thru the Village

And also to say

I love ya and hope it’s good for you too 

---

2013-07-25 

Joey Ramone

No art is perfect 

And you can make fun of anyone

For trying anything

The more someone puts themselves out there

The easier the target

But those are also our heroes

Joey Ramone

The freaks

The ones who didn’t fit

But made the world fit around them

They were easy targets

All of them

And they felt the weight and pain of that

And they felt its elevation too

And when they were gone

They left the world changed

Their spirit so great

It stuck around

Still changing how we thought about things 

---

2013-07-28

gods and rodents

At first they love you

You occupy heroic status with them

And they let you know

To them

You are close to a god

A king

A saint 

A servant of the righteous

The best kind of being

Their savior almost

And It’s compelling.

As embarrassing as it is to admit

You take it in

Maybe they see something know one else does

Maybe they see the truth

Sure, you can see that there is something a bit off about them

But against the barrage of extreme flattery, it’s easy to dismiss

Deep mental illness for a quirky personality 

Magical even

And that’s the trip about mental illness

It is it is close to magical at times

They are locked into compelling vision

They see truth in a certain way that others don’t

And that’s great when the truth they see in you is epic unhinged heroism mixed with a pure heart of genius and love

But what happens is

Over time 

You let them down

Could be something you wore

Something you said

A song they didn’t like

Your image- to them- begins to crumble 

And in their mind you descend to a depth directly proportionate to the heights of the pedestal on which you were mounted

And even that would be ok

If they just wandered off and and wrote you off as a charlatan never to be seen or heard from again

But this isn’t the case

Or hasn’t been in my experience

Thru the wonders of social media, you can track each other

And you can see the change

Their posts get more and more freaky

It becomes more obvious that the person is unhinged

Maybe even dangerous

And then comes the attack

A comment burped up from the pit of despair 

Their disappointment in you and what you’ve done

Another disillusionment in a world full of them

And I’d like to say that that has no effect, as obviously the person or people in question suffer from mental illness

But just as their pedestal is somewhat compelling, so is their judgment of you as a fraud 

For in their way

They have uncovered a truth about us all

We are all gods and rodents

All wrapped in one

Heroes heading to hell

Flung around in the shit of existing 

It’s hard not to get any of it on you or even in you 

---

2013-07-28 (2)

plastic meat and robot chips

A note to you, dear reader,

These are works of fiction

None of this happened or is happening

Even if it happened, it didn’t happen

We are wooden horses on a carousel 

We are bumper cars

In the nudity of night

In the left field of a falling light

None of this happened

None of this is real

Now I am free to say anything

Also, anything that points to a belief

Or a belief system

Is also nothing more than an illusion 

For you see, dear reader,

I don’t believe anything or not believe anything

Those matters are for better men than me

I’m an empty vessel 

Marked “Eternity”

I’m made of plastic meat and robot chips 

Don’t confuse me with human

Don’t stack any cards of belief of experience here

I have no belief or experience

I’m simply letting dreams fly around

And jotting down interesting things I see

Leave the wars and the revolution to the others

I’m a bird on the horizon

I’m a flower wilting in the corner

I’m a rat going into a crevice

I’m ice cream on the hand of a child

I’m a beggar looking for mercy in the eyes of a snake

My only hope is to write it down and be left alone

Don’t mistake me for a person

I’m a football flying thru the air

I’m a fire in a trashcan in an abandoned parking lot

I’m a beer on the bar of some dive on Hollywood Blvd.

I’m the loveless monster you see in the mirror 

I’m big foot baby

Don’t expect me to surrender

Let me be free to jot down the perverted murders in my dreamz

None of this is real 

---

2013-07-28 (3)

mountain bird’s retirement dream

I could never understand why someone would retire

Until retirement called me

When the thought of no longer doing what had been the central part of my life

Filled me with joy and liberation rather than dread

I knew it was time

To really consider

A life just living

No pursuit of nothing

I can go beyond the rat race just by deciding to

I can give up

Surrender

With so much life left

Be driven by nothing

Be free

Is this dream real?

Even with its thought

I feel freer now

Just to discuss the possibility

With myself feels like a break through

In a sense, I feel I’ve done it all

And in another way, I feel like it’s never really been out of the shadows

But that’s ok too

Maybe there is victory where failure loomed

Maybe I can sneak out the back door

Instead of facing the firing squad out the front

I still love music

And I love making it

I’m an optimist and so I could keep striving forever but where does it say

That a life in pursuit is the only life there is?

Maybe I’ve given enough

And all that’s left to give is to give up

Maybe that’s victory

Reaching for sanity

Reaching for surrender

Who knows what I would do or could do with my time and my mind?

I could paint but

The life of an artist is no better

Perhaps no life is good

Sitting on a mountain top lusting for God

For surrender in meditation

A dancer in New Orleans

An insurance salesman in Ohio

A lawyer in Alaska

I could still go to college

Or maybe escape to India or Africa

Assume another name

Call myself Mountain Bird and start a cult

Or else sell meth in Jersey

Or be one of those guys who wears a trench coat and has hundreds of stolen watches

and chains just inside

Or maybe move to Buffalo and become a regular in the flea market circuit

Or join a circus as a tall man

Or learn a trade like carpentry or shoe cobbling

Become a pimp or tennis coach

Or a high school math teacher

Or just go back to cooking in a diner, which is what I did before all this hoopla

Of chasing stars and dreams all over this nation and many others

I had my taste and it was good

I got further than most

And not as far as many others

But I’m proud of what I’ve put out there and I can hold my head high

As I go look for a life doing something simple

And off the grid

Disappearing into the wilderness

Of this giant-sized life 

---

2013-07-28 (4)

ghetto preachers and razor blade legs

It’s hard to get the things we want

Ain’t it, Alex? 

We can work thru our masterpieces 

We can crawl out of hell into some dream of acceptance 

We can lift our obsessions out of damaged mental receptors

And glue them to wax

For the world to pawn and deal with 

A ticket for love 

The birth of bliss

What is a dream but an avenue of salvation?

And they tell us how we should all dream big

But what they forget to mention is

A dream is a dangerous thing

You need a dream to get thru

But a dream can kill you

And rock and roll is the salvation of fools

Ghetto preachers

Slinging the hash of power chord crashes

And razor blade legs spreading in red pleather graffiti light

She’s inviting you in

She’s wanting you to walk her home

She’s trying to be like you

She’s trying to relate

If I could talk to you now Alex, I’d say

Thanks for showing me how strong I’ve been to survive any of this

(and I’ve survived plenty) 

And I’d also say

Thanks for the songs

And sorry that they never really sang for you

Or maybe they did

But well

I guess they didn’t get you to where you needed to go

Or maybe they did

Who knows? 

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2013-11-26

American Music Awards

Some dreams are simply not made to come true.

I remember being a kid

watching TV upstairs in my parents’ room,

throwing myself game-winning –

Super Bowl-winning –

touchdown passes in the end zone of their bed.

I would toss the ball

and then leap for it,

diving thru the air and catching it for touchdowns every time.

I must’ve won a thousand Super Bowls this way.

I was a kid living in a painful world and susceptible to living in fantasies.

My imagination knew no bounds.

So when the American Music Awards would come on,

I went straight into that world.

I would accept my award alongside The Oak Ridge Boys, who seemed to be undefeatable,

or whatever pop stars won ‘em all–

Michael Jackson 

Mariah Carey 

Sting 

These were the low-rent Grammys and I swore or prayed to whatever God was listening that I would make it there,

as I threw myself touchdown passes in a small bedroom in Akron.

But some dreams aren’t meant to come true

and today in the gym,

I saw an ad for the American Music Awards. 

Lady Gaga and Katy Perry looked to be the new queens of it

The fucking Oak Ridge Boys are probably still winning those damn things.

I’m lifting weights now and not really throwing touchdowns. 

Not sure if it’s failure or growth, but I feel far away from award shows and the need to be in them. 

Somewhere, a boy just fumbled the ball at the one yard line

and Kenny Rogers counted his money at the table.

My parents still sleep on that same bed in that same bedroom in Akron

and I still catch the footballs I throw myself every time,

only now those passes don’t appear anywhere

but in the vortex of my mind.

Somewhere in another dimension, me and The Oak Ridge Boys are singing a song together, standing on a pile of trophies in the junkyard of celebrity.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll make it there yet, but for now

I’m glad I don’t give a shit.

Touchdown!

---

2013-11-26 (2)

Punching boredom in the gut 

Breakless

You told me I should call an album Breakless

Or was it Unbreakable? 

Or was it Brake Less? 

No, it was Breakless. 

I used that word/non-word

(is it even a word?) 

And you said, “You should call an album that,

a rock and roll album.” 

You said,

"Joe Arthur Breakless, how tough is that?"

I asked Jenni,

“Do you like this?”

She right away did not

but I did.

It came from you

and it’s weird, odd, tough, punk, detached, wrong, right, irreverent, reverent, silly and serious just like you.

Joe Arthur Breakless

Not Joseph? I wanted to ask but didn’t. 

You always called me Joe, 

which I liked.

It was as if you always wanted the essence of things 

without the fluff.

Why be a Joseph when you can be a Joe? 

And like a moon orbiting a planet, it was hard not to always just agree with you.

When I asked you for a band name,

you suggested Cooz

without missing a beat.

Cooz.

The best and worst band name ever.

I ran it by a few folks who were almost always horrified by it.

I never said it came from you

and it always made me smile,

your audacity in everything you did.

A real Cooz.

I had never even heard that word before.

I had to look it up. 

Another word down to the essence.

I asked you one time 

what you thought of so and so’s book.

(it was a book everyone loved) 

“Between you and me?” you asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“I don’t like it much.

Too much fluff,

too much poetry speak.”

For you poetry was simple, tough language,

not a series of adjectives describing a bridge going into worlds unknown,

but rather a breakless cooz

punching boredom in the gut.


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