Off to my shift at the mirage
Its feigned oasis has been dry since my arrival
And looks like it always was
The thirsty come to drink
Fistfuls of sand falling from cupped hands
Some think it a ruse
That we hoard what’s left for ourselves
Behind locked doors and hidden closets
That a lack of persuasion is all that bars them from paradise
Others trudge along, futility in their steps
Aware that if paradise existed
It has been scorched irreparably
Yet we continue
When I imagined what it would
be like to be a writer,
I saw myself hunched over a
typewriter with bourbon on the
rocks sweating a ring onto my desk.
I could smell the ink on my fingers
and feel the burn of alcohol in my gut
and hear the keys clapping, a standing ovation
for the poor sad boy who wrote wings onto
his back and flew away from the red mud county.
But it's quiet here.
I sit alone at my desk and I reach into my guts
and I grab fistfuls of blood and viscera
and the keys don't move
I choke up the rage my father left in me
and the keys don't move
I cut out the fear my mother so lovingly placed
and the keys don't move
I drag out every black eye, bloody nose, and split lip I ever earned, every fight I lost, every single argument I had, every sunset I was a brother beneath, every truck cab I ever fell in love in and
THE KEYS DO NOT MOVE
There's a Polaroid from sixty or so years ago...
It's of a man and a boy in the foreground.
The great Niagara Falls just beyond.
A thin rail in between them and the rapids.
Black water violently rushing over the brink.
There was great scarcity for the man...
scarcity of money
scarcity of security
scarcity of light
scarcity of love.
but he always held on tightly to his cub.
With fistfuls of hard labor
and a thimble of fair luck...
The burlap of time softened
to rough cotton puffs.
For his entire life, the man held the boy tightly.
With the black brink of a fall always in sight.
Honey Locust Trees, perched precariously on
Ledges lost amid ruptured chasms of evil
Ant hills, protruding fistfuls of grapefruit-sized
Giant ants suffering remnants within sight of
Chernobyl, in the Ukraine forbidden zone;
Seemingly immune to the poisonous pods;
Literally dripping heavy ants clinging to juicy,
Waxy seeds as they climb and fall over each
Other feasting on spandrel sins denied by silver
Palaces adorned with backroom deals and
Shady hats glittering with guava-glazed
Toasted pecans, spun with rain-soaked
Clumps of blue spirulina hungrily engulfed
By the living dead...
Enrobed
In
Pock-marked
Palladium
Johnny was a lover of God's country
who roamed cherished land because he was free.
A skilled outdoorsman with backcountry charms,
he donned a burlap sack with holes for arms.
To wear rugged shoes was quite a blessing,
for barefoot he'd trek, soles without dressing.
He wore a useful pot upon his head,
books have depicted, historians said.
He was kind and gentle to all God's life,
though he was childless and had no wife.
He escaped wild beasts, slept under stars,
and had tales to tell along with scars.
As an optimist with fistfuls of seed,
he ceased moments to meet a future need.
Crisp and delicious, he loved apples' taste,
pocketing precious seed to sow in haste.
Imaging orchards graceful and wild,
he planted new life with faith of a child.
With settlers he'd barter for basic needs
blessing them with the product of his seeds.
From Pennsylvania to Iowa's ground,
Johnny's living legacy can be found.
1/20/2021
For those missing summer don't forget that a few leaves too many covering the storm drain can make any street into a lake. So come meet me downtown, you'll know me by my fistfuls of foliage.
One can’t touch
The same water twice
Only once can one
breathe the same air…
Some things are such
Beyond any price
E’en beyond empty promise
Of wishful prayer…
One cannot see
The Heavens but once
For It changes
before one’s eyes
As do the faces
Of those that we love
As do truth
and as do lies…
Change is the only constant
It’s the only permanent thing
All else is no more than memory…
Reality that’s taken wing…
Should we try to hold on
To things no longer there
That have no more substance
Than fistfuls of air…
But It’s in man’s character
Tho’ to me it seems strange
To ignore the very nature
…The constant of change…
Let free-fall guide your vertigo
As adrenalin rushes into waterfalls
Eyes and skin tight like water up the nose
Bubbles bursting with lightning strikes then
Soggy silence in turquoise splendour
Watery eyes fade quiet lights and adrenal fatigue
Sinking depths into cooler blues, as bubbles float on silky notes
Downward spirals into salty dreams of broken coral then
Springboard from the sandy bottom
Scuttling to the top chasing lazy bubbles
Choking on the light grabbing fistfuls of madness
Bursting lungs with rusty air as
Blood pounds loud through skin and salt
Whilst pulled from the brink of eternity
To dripping smiles and screaming tears
Yet upright again, you head to the edge
Step free from your guide...
Kill me if you will, Tear me apart,
Rip open the cords,
That hold closed my heart.
Grab my love by fistfuls,
Take away its air,
Drown me in the river,
If you must then it is fair.
Stab me, twist the knife please,
Choke me, make me bleed.
You can hurt me,
You can scare me,
But I can't go away.
She broke your heart,
Ripped you apart,
But I love you anyway.
And all the memories,
Of dancing in the dark,
Hold me enraptured in my dreams.
I will live in the past,
It's my reward - its my punishment,
For leaving you with these feelings.
For not being enough,
For loving you,
This is what I deserve.
But as long as I can help you,
As long as I can help you heal,
Im in for the long haul,
Even if you cant feel.
It’s days like this that my mind returns to Raleigh
The pitch, sandy futon, and our intertwined deviant legs
Pushing for a fix
I for one goal, you for another
I would be more aware by the end of the night
of the smoothness of your forehead, and your full Latin lips
While you would know my hips
and fistfuls of my golden hair
We would each know the fire on our tongues
and the familiar feeling of a heavy mind, tossing and turning
chest to chest
I loved you, but was surprised to find your hands rough
and your lips untempered
Like a child, you indulged in me
without the mind for what I am, or the culture to know better
Though still, you press and carry me
under the door frame, to the floor
and as we rest, night continues to sink, like theatre canvas
And We are disposed to move
With your golden skin, you lie
As your fingers trace circles in my skin
I thought that you loved me too...
But when my mind returns to Raleigh
My thoughts return to you
and your cold bed, our swimming heads
and how at dawn, you dropped me off
My bitten skin looking redder in the tail lights
It was a simple night,
she suppressed her own mindset
plunging self-shackled feet into their thoughts,
their eyes,
their thought processes, hoping to retain
some semblance of solace in the familiar cold.
-Reality is an infectious disease-
What she allowed herself to notice,
swimming reluctantly through the back of her mind
made her breath ice, searing
winter-stains on the autumn-edge of her lip.
Love shook the decent little girl
scraping by her parent’s esteem and
dreaming in the dark reaches of her existence
of a liberty that wouldn’t leave her screaming
on her knees for God to banish all the monsters
from her closet, and the putrescence
of the memories that colored the back of her eyelids.
Love took her by the hollow of her bruised chin
and melted her into an above
where stars lingered like fistfuls of berries in
explosions of stratosphere, almost tangling with her hair.
She felt the world and all her dreams
slip quietly through her fingers,
so she held his that-much tighter
and left the ocean-echoes in the shell of herself
behind.
-she won’t care if they ever wake up-
Rejected
Defected
A hopeless case
Lost, drifting
Vanished without a trace
Sorrowing, woeful
Mired in despair
Anguished
Frustrated
Tearing out fistfuls of her hair
Lonely, yearning
Trapped in solitude
Hoping for a pitying hand
To raise her up and help her stand
Desperate, on edge
Whirling this way and that
Frantic, caged
Like a hissing wild cat
Untamed, undisciplined
An unbroken horse
No kindness, no softness
Her spirit so unyielding and coarse
Is there any hope for her now?
To whom can she turn?
Who would want this rebel child...?
Who can lure her in from the wilds?
Perhaps there is nothing left for this witch
But the muzzle of a gun,
Pressed to her cheek,
The squeeze of a trigger
So obliging and meek
And the crack of the bullet
Splintering her skull
The closing eyes
The graceful fall
And then...
The bloody bittersweet end of it all
O untamed heart
feasting on fistfuls
of steamy moist desire
When you are there,
In the mist
That salty barrier that swallows our kisses
I can only see half of your dreams
Those smiles are certainly,
memories I know I should be making
As quick as I can
Before you go.
But like a spider, I weave only so fast…
Only so fast before I know,
That I have gathered all that I need,
All I need before you go
Back into the distant grey tides
When I am here,
With nothing but sand to hold my weight of worries.
Fistfuls of worry and love.
You ought to know…
I love you, even when you go…
Even more so when you go…
how desperate
the disparate
the they that are
seperate
and hypocrite
whose bassett eyes
have weary arms
and longest hours nocturnal
are gardeners of distraction
without traction
how wary
are those weary
whose clock hands
dig and bury
with blistered palms
with seeping eyes and open arms
brandish brimstone in fistfuls
trod God and shout skyward
how sad for a mite to incite
refuse to be
might with insight
how sad to be man
with no compass
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