There is a void in the middle of my chest
A spot longing to be covered and filled
with you.
You’ll find it close to the thump of
Palpitating muscle stationed above
My ribcage.
The beats go out and on
To beckon you,
A song searching with
A ballad serving as
A melody with notes reaching far.
But not far enough I’m afraid.
You can’t hear the cadence of
Feel the movement against my skin.
I’ll sit here cuddled up
In this dim office chair,
Grasping my arms to my core
Trying to hold some feeling
To keep the tingling memory from fleeing.
Trembling with fear and
dearly uncertain.
22.5.10
18.5.10
The Surrealists of Soul
Oh, the smell of the Great American Garage Sale.
The scent of the Salvation Armies and Good Wills, antique stores,
Grandma’s basement and secondhand “boutiques”
The molecules of dust and time filling the air
Into my nostrils,
Telling my brain where I am.
It’s the odor of history and pride.
An war medal all rusty from where it hung for 37 years above the tool bench.
The guitar from the ages when Jimi was the king of those strings, whose owner only wanted to play like that god of rock.
Shelves of book s with their pages deteriorating from fingers,
Thousands of fingers that touched the binding and felt the words.
A tea cup brought from China before the fall of the empire.
Why did I come to look and sift through all this?
This stuff.
Junk.
I didn’t know Grandpa Steve or Uncle Robert of the rock and roll.
I didn’t write those books, but they are now part of my library
And I drink tea from China each afternoon.
This is the crap that keeps America going
The fuel from our houses and crawl spaces.
The blood and sweat that mixes with the dirt that settles on the ancient embroidered Christmas tree skirt that comes out once a year.
The pain that once got them through
Now pushes us
That’s why we collect and keep.
We gather
To tell ourselves that those piles around us have meaning.
To show that though we don’t have much
Much money
Much character or
Much future
Well, we’ve got much stuff.
We fill our attics and
Kitchens and backyard sheds
With things to define out
History and our space.
The colors and flecks of metal and skin
Accumulate behind doors and behind our
Faces
We’ve got some of those too.
The antique shops in the strip malls through the American mid-west
Sell pictures
So we can have faces for the stuff we’ve got
To know who it came from and to
Make up stories about how it came to us.
It’s entertainment for purpose
To find where we came from
But really, all we’ve done is hide
Behind the material
Behind the doors.
Unsure of how we got here
Clueless about where we’re going.
The scent of the Salvation Armies and Good Wills, antique stores,
Grandma’s basement and secondhand “boutiques”
The molecules of dust and time filling the air
Into my nostrils,
Telling my brain where I am.
It’s the odor of history and pride.
An war medal all rusty from where it hung for 37 years above the tool bench.
The guitar from the ages when Jimi was the king of those strings, whose owner only wanted to play like that god of rock.
Shelves of book s with their pages deteriorating from fingers,
Thousands of fingers that touched the binding and felt the words.
A tea cup brought from China before the fall of the empire.
Why did I come to look and sift through all this?
This stuff.
Junk.
I didn’t know Grandpa Steve or Uncle Robert of the rock and roll.
I didn’t write those books, but they are now part of my library
And I drink tea from China each afternoon.
This is the crap that keeps America going
The fuel from our houses and crawl spaces.
The blood and sweat that mixes with the dirt that settles on the ancient embroidered Christmas tree skirt that comes out once a year.
The pain that once got them through
Now pushes us
That’s why we collect and keep.
We gather
To tell ourselves that those piles around us have meaning.
To show that though we don’t have much
Much money
Much character or
Much future
Well, we’ve got much stuff.
We fill our attics and
Kitchens and backyard sheds
With things to define out
History and our space.
The colors and flecks of metal and skin
Accumulate behind doors and behind our
Faces
We’ve got some of those too.
The antique shops in the strip malls through the American mid-west
Sell pictures
So we can have faces for the stuff we’ve got
To know who it came from and to
Make up stories about how it came to us.
It’s entertainment for purpose
To find where we came from
But really, all we’ve done is hide
Behind the material
Behind the doors.
Unsure of how we got here
Clueless about where we’re going.
16.5.10
beat
Sometimes, when I get like this
I just have to speak to
Write it down and
Walk it out.
They flow in and through and out
Around and from
My soul and being to
Tongue and meaning
Marching out of the gates of white teeth in my closing door of mouth.
Moving and passing.
Like the trees that go past on this
Treadmill of trail.
My arms propel the leaves and branches past.
This dirt beneath a repetition of
Things that were and
Up ahead the unveiling branches
Illuminate the things to come.
The cars and roads and tracks that take us and
Break us.
Beyond what were to a new and
Transformed you.
A hand past my face looks like the same
Holding up your heart that you tried
So hard to glue in place
Though they kept pulling and tearing it
Out to hit your you.
This dirt full of dust
Made of the men who came out of such ground.
To teach you and me the things
We'll learn to be.
As we go in and out and by and down
The slopes to the river
Where we can sit and enjoy
Joy.
To be clothed in the peace of joy
Found on the trail of this pain;.
It may seem like monotonous minuted of movement
Like the branches and green only slide
Past and your effort is a little pointless
But no.
yes.
You are going.
This heart will soon stay attached.
I just have to speak to
Write it down and
Walk it out.
They flow in and through and out
Around and from
My soul and being to
Tongue and meaning
Marching out of the gates of white teeth in my closing door of mouth.
Moving and passing.
Like the trees that go past on this
Treadmill of trail.
My arms propel the leaves and branches past.
This dirt beneath a repetition of
Things that were and
Up ahead the unveiling branches
Illuminate the things to come.
The cars and roads and tracks that take us and
Break us.
Beyond what were to a new and
Transformed you.
A hand past my face looks like the same
Holding up your heart that you tried
So hard to glue in place
Though they kept pulling and tearing it
Out to hit your you.
This dirt full of dust
Made of the men who came out of such ground.
To teach you and me the things
We'll learn to be.
As we go in and out and by and down
The slopes to the river
Where we can sit and enjoy
Joy.
To be clothed in the peace of joy
Found on the trail of this pain;.
It may seem like monotonous minuted of movement
Like the branches and green only slide
Past and your effort is a little pointless
But no.
yes.
You are going.
This heart will soon stay attached.
12.5.10
Rock On
A boy at the library
Facing shelves and shelves of books
Books
books
boookS
Reading and browsing
Title after title.
He turns
Off the record.
I wrote a folk song about Irving Berlin
A little jazz rock
Bee bop
Different than your pop rock or thump thump
Boom pow.
June blues about who's Who.
In the library
with the beep beep
creak creeeeak
More books and songs and
He's still there
Browsing and reading
Title after title.
But I know that off the record secret.
An un-produced cut
Song he wrote
just between us
The secrets of folk in the library.
Facing shelves and shelves of books
Books
books
boookS
Reading and browsing
Title after title.
He turns
Off the record.
I wrote a folk song about Irving Berlin
A little jazz rock
Bee bop
Different than your pop rock or thump thump
Boom pow.
June blues about who's Who.
In the library
with the beep beep
creak creeeeak
More books and songs and
He's still there
Browsing and reading
Title after title.
But I know that off the record secret.
An un-produced cut
Song he wrote
just between us
The secrets of folk in the library.
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