I spent the night
As an endless day,
Said goodnight and good morning
From the same chair
In the other room,
And the city came to life,
Before my eyes,
One by one,
Persons became people,
And people became crowds,
And silence became loud,
And I accepted,
I accepted the morning
and all that it meant remained un-done,
I accepted my state,
My place,
…for that moment,
that space,
that place in time,
and maybe,
just for a minute,
I felt o.k.
That place of so beyond exhaustion,
Beyond consciousness and self,
It takes pushing yourself to the deepest depths of exhaustion
Before you can surprise,
Make your most unexpected, most interesting moves.
Those are the times to roll the tape,
Those are the times to take notice,
When….
When…
I don’t know… when you’re ready for something new.
And just like it was
I found myself there again
Same walls
Same hum
Same smell, taste and fear of touching the walls
This place
Held me once
Against my will
Taking me in almost effortlessly, as I was powerless,
breaking
And unprepared
Swallowed me
Without chew or tooth
Taking me deep within
Without digestion or deliberateness
A natural progression
A simple passage of time
Compilation of circumstances
And I was lodged in its belly
Unsure
Afraid
Bewildered and amazed
This place
was unknown to me
And maybe the last of my days
This separate world
These dramas unfolding
Like hikers in the woods
Beating the elements
Or falling from their ropes
Slipping from the ice
This place is where no one should be
But all end up
Full of care and compassion
And broken pieces of mornings
Glued together vases
And taped-up glasses
A place of slippery floors
And no concept of day or night
A glamourless/lightless casino
where you gamble with body
spirit
hope and dream
Those colorless walls
Cautious breaths
Ordered windows and silent pockets
Those deepest gasps
Those unknown machines with their unknown noises
Coded speech
Result makers
With godly powers
Dictating spring or winter
breaking everyone
And yet,
...this time I walked away
Left behind the short of breath
The feverish
The broken-limbed, and broken-spirited
The long nights
The waiting
I walked away,
Just as I’d walked in
This time, I got away
Lottery-like
The lucky are undeserving, and all-deserving
It’s just that
It’s just today
It’s just THIS time
New numbers are daily drawn
New winners and losers
New reasons for celebration
And causes for concern
Today, I got away
Ticket in hand, held modestly above my head
And maybe I am grateful
or maybe I am un-emotional
Indifferent
Too numb to be unsure, to be anything but ‘not there’
Anything but…Away
Driving home
2:30 am
Once again I’m cutting away at
sleep
Time with others
Stillness
Pause
It seems that everyone
One by one has gone home
To sleep
To their others
To their stillness and their pause
And yet
I’m still here
Trucking
Pushing forward
But now, no one’s around to notice
And no one does
And it feels too much like drinking alone
Talking to myself to keep from going crazy
But who am I kidding
I’m talking to myself
Now there’s a man
Those eyes
They wander
Turn around
Look inside
And send these thoughts
These clear
Simple thoughts
That are so clear and so thoughtful
Through those lips that are so intent
On sharing
So intent on delivering the body's,
The minds chant...
And it is glory
Its is symphony
It is open chords
And lilac rhythms
Falling out of him
Like thoughts to the mouth
Now there’s a man
Now there’s a music
Now there’s a heart
That has beat
That has purpose
That wanders in every direction and finds its place
Everywhere
And nowhere
Now there’s a sound
That makes every part buckle
Buckle under the weight
Of its thickness
Now there’s a voice that cannot be turned anywhere but up
Now there’s a set of hands that needs to play
Needs to say
Needs to speak to us
Now there’s a voice, a lyric, a whole night, that does.
Now there’s a man
That gives and gives
Poses for no pictures
because they rob him of the present
And it
is all he has
Now there’s a man
A poet
A lover
An angel
A purpose
A compound
A brown, deep, eyed spirit
That touches and touches
Over and over
Now there’s a man
Those lyrics
That voice
That need
That need
Oh my god,
That need
Now there’s a man
What would this man have made of his death?
The water
The river
The undertow
he would have picked it
The perfect way to go
Washing out into the night
Now there’s a man that couldn’t have lived
Couldn’t have lived in this world now
It would have killed him
Or it never would have ended up like this
Had he been around to shape it
Shape a generation
Of wandering eyes
Looking
Desperately
Persistently for answers
For output
For input
For anything to keep communicating
But we lost him
And we did lose something
My World
And it holds me
Behind glass
Warm but un-hot
Incubated
And it holds me.
And I look
I see the people in my life
And they see me
They like me like that: behind this glass
Taking me in like a painting
and I them.
We Leave
Days pass
And we come back
Only to find thicker glass
Blurred vision
A new prescription in need
And not an eye doctor in sight
What then?
All the hammers are locked in tiny glass cases of their own
And no one dares break it
For fear of being scolded
Sent to the principals office
But I want to
I want to start this revolution
Fireflies filling the day
Hairnets on everyone but the cook
And all for a few words
Exchanged between people that knew each other only as well as they appear to now…
Which is almost not at all
If not for the familiar face
On this night
Just like every night
And every day
Afternoon
And moment
I abruptly find myself
Face to face
Its breath overwhelming
Face to face
With what it is that is you
What it is to be away from you
And it is enormous.
And it grows like calcium to a child
She wrote me a poem
In her little red book
And read it aloud
In a little red voice
Then tore out the page
And gave it to me
And I was red
