the Destruction of word(s)

Things fall apart

When a friend leaves without enough notice
and you are left questions your role in the big pictures
and every night drinking is no longer about enjoyment
but a process to numb the bad stuff in life
part of mourning and part of the morning
when the structure your life was built around retains a crack
the foundation shakes and things never look the same
and inside the turmoil rots but you go on
out of responsibility not for any real reason
when the levies break and your last gasp for air is enough
every night the words are lost
and you stare at the empty keyboard
and a lump is in your throat
this is reality not a scheme
every moment you can stop and look back at
but right now is always the hardest
the way you thought the world would be
is far from the truth and that sets in
and makes everyone numb
numb to touch, numb to taste
there are people that suffer but I prolong
the process and push myself in a hole
to hide in the shadows with no one but my own mind
my mind betrays me and tells the world
but I am left shuttering from the gust in the alley
and this is the only place where you can be at a time like this
where the paradigms fall away
the lessons taught are often lessons failed
and the people you believed in hark back to just words
and failed phrases never transcribed or documented
you think are ready to leave but you can not
but to want to leave is enough sometimes
and who would have guessed this is how
this is a point to others we all need to fall
and my heart is still empty and that’s all it can be
there are days when everything seems black and white
and days when I drink and all I can do is drink to get by
and the drinking leads to mistakes
temporary lacks in judgment
everyone falls apart eventually




Any Advice Is Often Bad Advice

You can’t be a poet
until you lose the concept
you are a hero
just a natural force
and you write about the beauty and tragedy
of time and space
an ability to focus on forces
a poet’s voice
to dwell on selfish moments

I digress as I sit in my underwear
empty glasses filled with remnants
of margaritas some from tonight
some from another
the sweat collects around my head
my eyes red and my stare intense
as I type words
and I am lost not in forces but on wants
my wants my needs
left unrequited by the same demons
my digression into drunkenness

You can’t be a poet
and write like a drunk
its been done by others better than you
its been done by everyone by now
give it up and focus
or you will wind up in alley
mad and crazy like the others
and lost with your own words
no money in your pockets
but the bottle with hold like your only child

I would rather hold a bottle
than a cold woman
and every poem is honest
unlike the academic dribble that bubbles
from the rich white folks in new England
I write like people live
that is how poetry lived and breathed
not looked up in a chest only read on Sundays
in the New Yorker.






Last Year’s Poet

The chapbooks all lay across his room
music blares as he sits possessed
writing and wanting
trying to find another way to publish
these words he believes mean more to others
than to him to sell it all to one publisher after another.

Submit or die he whispers to himself
these words are hand crafted about the imagination
he keeps each letter from his favorite writers
that told how prophetic he was and how
he was like them when they were young
and when they could still write
not just fake it
like they fake it with their significant others
poets cannot make love
just observe and write
no time to really feel.

He feels numb
like its been faked all along
and he wanders
if that one book was all he had
was that all he could ever write
the rains falls on his head
and than he decides to focus
to write -- to edit -- to structure
that will clear this avalanche
he has suffered for many years
when he’s dead will anyone remember his book
or discuss his work
in modern poetry classrooms
probably regarded as a one hit wonder
or a great unread genius
when they see these words they will know
He was last year’s poet.








When Things Fall


she calls
blazing bold accusations
and whispers deadly kisses
yours truly
left scorched
stuck to the grill

WTF

i sang my song
and left the stage
yet she thinks she can enchant
what is undone
in mistrust and dishonest

WTF

she smokes to escape
and thinks its alright
but when the last puff dissipates
she lays alone
at midnight

WTF

from grace to dust
mistaken identity
but there is nothing here
for tested travelers
the train tracks call his name
in the whirling wind
nothing is ever the same

WTF

static unhappiness
whipped in wonderment
betrayed by my own words
inconsistent esteem bursts
remnants ring the alarm
as it reigns over