Urge and urge and urge

I'll sing myself

a song of myself

though I'm sure no one is listening.

And yes I've loafed long on grass

with televisions blaring.

On couches

wasted in my youth

cotton mouthed and giggling.

You can steal a glimpse still

of my head cocked weirdly

out a car window

cigarette pressed tight

in thin lipped

nirvana

as

lights and lights and lights

through darkness

blur into streaking tracers flying by on highways.

I've been down so many

and yet there are so many more.

I am still

Swoosh

the sharpest Wolfman blue,

Jack at ease

with his one leg swung haphazard

o'er the handle of an antique rocker.

And yet the man that penned it;

well......

we just don't speak anymore.

I know he's down the highway

They are all just down the highway.

Every labor loved

lost

labored

and lost again.

There is a red head in Houston

to whom I owe my soul

She gave me her's

but I balked at the bargain.

I've never liked the price.

There's a dancer out there on the highway

who once

bled from my wound

now scarred

now healed

now forgotten

My highway is silent

patently American

both endless and small

its' only traveler's me.

Behind the eyes

Between the ears

Forever trapped.

And though regret is a solemn dirge

the sweet harmony

still rings inside me

the way I still feel your body

like a jigsaw

against mine

betwixt sheets at the double tree.

Or your face

lit up backstage

as we played bullshit

with a fifty card deck

and I cocked my eyes

shuffled out that half-grin

and said you lie

like

a

girl

scout.

Oh God how sweet a life is

when it is each passing moment.

Each black and white roll

snapped off at an abandoned dog food

silo in Conroe.

Every joint we ever smoked

on the back porch

Every night we ruined carpet

in the glow effervescent light

softly hallucinating.

How I've loved the art of it all.

Every new face

Every infant hand

clasped about my fingers.

Each stop along the highway.

The tiny lies

and the giant ones.

How I worship hopeless love,

the kind you can have

but especially the one you never will.

How I loathe bondage

bred in violence or aggression

whether real, or self-inflicted.

I love the cat with its light up eyes

and the way babies seem to look right into you.

And the moon

praise God

the

moon.

I will sing myself Uncle Walt

In this tiny space where no one

waits

No one

watches

No one

sees

and

No one

hears.

This fruit will rot upon the vine

but it's solitude

will sweeten its' spirits.

I can sing belief

how you feel it

how you lose it

how you come to terms with what it really is.

I can sing joy

like freckles

in sunlight.

Like twirling in dancing

I can sing love

Like walking headlong into a screened glass door.

I still smile

my half smile

I still try

to be honest

to be useful

to be robust

to be humble

to be helpful

but mostly

to love.

I still feel it all.

Like a tangible weight

Like bricks on bricks

Like a fire inside

I still don't know if I'm alone in that.

Or just

alone in everything

trapped

behind green eyes

between ears

still

Loving you all

for being

so

much

so

in

every

moment

passing

down

a

highway

in

the

dark.