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.

Katy Bird

I was dragging a California King

Through the door

Where you used to live

I was wandering your hallways

I was in your room

It was empty

Without you

Empty Save the mirror

Broken shards

Disjointed and mounted

Haphazardly throwing

Reflections of green eyes

About the room

There were many of them

But none were the ones I wanted.

Fa.la.la.la.la

This evening

I went alone to a film.

Paid too much.

Didn't mind.

I enjoyed myself

On the way out

There was cluster of people

A family I presume

They were bundled in cloaks

Wrapped in scarves

And wrapped around each other

Beneath the humming glow of arc-sodium

In a bleak and dark parking lot

They embraced

Their joy glowed

Five entwined souls

Their love like fire

Beneath the same stars

I walked back to Lilly

Alone.

After the Fall

October was swirls of turmoil

beleaguered brush strokes of a bleak mind.

We dropped like leaves

floating

alone and desperate.

The weight of the clouds proving to onerous

to bear.

Walking down empty streets in swirling wind afternoons.

Just me and my shame.

Autumn leaves like fires on lawns.

I want to roll in flames.

I want to hold your hand

as my nose runs and my cheeks burn

I want to break through cold soil and lay down the roots I never had.

Sometimes

They put flagpoles up at the park.
Vast streamers at their apex.
Dancing colors in the wind.

And the wind here never stops.

They make a tableaux for the coming humanity.
Waves of families, and children
and lovers hand in hand.

Beneath sunshine and moonrise,
upon soft earth
and softer grass.

It will be, for a time,
and despite,
the cries of babes
and oppression of heat,
a place of temporary magic.
A place to slip
into shade
and find the lips
of someone you love.

I can see it all
and will see it all
from the window
of a moving automobile
as I go for groceries
or movies
or some other errand.

And I will be thankful,
with all my heart
for all I have
and all I have learned.

But sometimes,
Just sometimes
I really wish
I had a hand to hold.

August

Your crown's a flame.

A head on fire
O'er pale baby skin.

I lean back,
to see
the colors changing
in your eyes.

Silver inlaid with chestnut.

Lighting a world before your gaze.
As shadows pass upon
a tiny face.

I watch your head bob
a dance with no rhythm
with reaching limbs akimbo.

Sing a song of beaten seas
to see a smile
of brand new teeth.

They are few
these precious days
of
August
in
first bloom.

They pass
like water falling
on rock.
Floating
on air,
warm
and
light
from
a
newly
born
world.

Carr

It torments me still.

How you

are not here

anymore.

Feels like air

sucked out

of lungs.

Like being

socked,

as if

by

brick

to

face.

How I am.......

still here.

And you found your way into there.

A trapdoor in that garage.

A hidden exit at the bottom

of that noose.

and it kills me.

I feel

I can see

things

I never witnessed;

yet can not bear.

The face on your mother

when she found you.

Swinging.

My own tattered sobs

pouring tears

that

would not stop.

Viewed

(as if)

from above

(and)

amidst

the familiar faces,

in a familiar church,

darkened

by that old,

familiar derision.

I longed to burn them then.

Set them aflame.

Watch them dance

till their last breath

spilled out

of their ugly mouths

in a final

scream.

Today

I pray

I would want that

no more.

Not after all of this;

All that I now have seen

and all that I now believe;

but I can't be sure.

(not really)

It would be easy to say:

That they never loved you.

Not like I did.

Never sat beneath a mesquite tree

upon folded knees

in the dusty wind.

A pack of filched camels

and couple of stolen beers

tucked in our lips

and our laps.

You

listening

as I read

short stories

in the Abilene sun.

Never burnt

with the rage

and contempt

that fueled us both

in those lonely years.

In that lonely place

Never hated

with such singular frustration;

the world and all its misery.

It would be comforting

to believe:

That the gathering of those faces

in that place

to this day

was not a blasphemy.

But these things

feel like lies.

And tonight,

in a crowded room,

surrounded by loved ones,

and filled with wonder.

I felt the rounded out hole

that's been left in my heart

since the day I took the call.

Put my finger through its center.

Edged its' tip around the scar

of the wound.

I try to fill it with your face

back lit

in west Texas sunlight.

All steel blue eyes

shining

with vast intelligence;

and all the rage

that comes with it.

Your corkscrew muscles

and crooked grin

cocked sideways

in a transcendent

Fuck You.

Because

both of us

always

knew

that when the folks

of Fairway Oaks

said

"stay away from that kid."

It was us they meant.

And

I don't care for the why.

It's irrelevant.

Or otherwise obvious.

I want to know where.

Where are you now?

And

If it ever got easier

for you

there?

And if they let you know

in that place,

wherever it is,

that you never left me

and I never left you

in the where,

I am

now.