I'm waking up
as the sun is coming out
and I feel like saying
to hell with this,
I'm going back to sleep.

I'm having thoughts of
getting a job
and finishing this music
and writing poetry
and doing something worthwhile with my life.

be it as it may, these thoughts surge in me,
they electrify my will.
and I ask myself: how can I deny this motivation?
how can I withdraw from the grasp of my debasement?
how?

oh, muse, you are a tormenting motivator -
to take my soul in your hands,
to bring out in me the dignity and the humanity,
to cleanse the vanity and ignite the creativity...
and this could be a dream.

yes, a dream brought forth from my better mind,
breaking away from this alcohol abuse,
scratching and suffocating
from under the surface
of myself.

I could murder myself and hate myself and amuse myself
and think these thoughts of being cruel,
when so close as it is, outside this glass window I can see the morning sun
rising in pink streaks of light against the clouds,
and a peace of mind could be so reachable, to tease me -
it could trick me.

and then now, to roll my naked body over,
letting the sunlight color the room,
all of it a burning fondness, and to some extent piercing,
to realize that I am pitiful in the dark
wrapped here in desperate blankets,

and holding in my mind, just for a few more minutes:
this light is not so bad.

it shouldn't take much to tell you how I have been;
just a quick "hello" or a quick
"I love you"
before I get off the phone.
it shouldn't have to take 15 minutes to say goodbye as
you search for a reason
to keep me on the
phone.

this is too much,
and when you sit there breathing on the other end
I am forced to ask
"HELLO, ARE YOU THERE?"

why must you attack me for wanting to go?

what am I doing that is so wrong?

this cell phone has become a burden;
it has become a chain to your whims.

and even now
as I am trying to write
you are calling me,
wanting to know what I am doing
or who I am with.

tonight I am with myself,
and as mysterious as this must sound
I enjoy being without all of this technology.
this typewriter is silent to the touch:
no mechanical hum or electricity.
this room is open to the desert
with no TV or computer.

I like sitting here sometimes,
without the drone of the new world.

and btw, if I were with another girl,
my phone would have surely been
off.

I have written many poems
in myself
without words or
paper or
ink.
I have been
happy and
lost and
sad.
I have spent the afternoons trying to figure the clouds
and the nights waiting by candle light.
the poem will happen in you
it will build and
climax
and the words will become
the page of
your
life.

I am the poem
the singular poem
and now I sit here in this apartment
by myself
my wife and children and family now long removed
typing
hitting keys
trying to make sense of this
and
becoming the
singular poem
of
my
life.

the rain comes
the days come
and all I have are these memories
as I stare out this window
as I stare into the future of my life

and you said I was a terrible person
deep in the darkness

but I always imagined myself surrounded by golden light
above it all
like the clouds

becoming

becoming

becoming

the dream
the better person for all of you

but I am the poem now

and I must move on.

you stupid, arrogant people
who come to me
to convert me
to save my soul.

you tell me that the world will end soon
and that God will send me to hell
where I will burn and burn and burn.

you say that I have been deceived by Satan
and that my vices will keep me from an afterlife of pleasure
in a wonderful, holy kingdom.

you find a way to prove your faith
with facts of your making,
and all of your spiritual insight
is from a book that you deem as "true."

your religion is like every other religion;
you mock those who don't believe what you do
and damn to hell those who follow a different path than yours.

you are guilty of your own conceit
in your twisted desire to save the world by your own fashion.

now let me tell you something:

I have heard words that could hold the mind captive for a lifetime -
words that confuse and impress guilt,
that cause a man or a woman much emotional pain internally.
all of these words are desperate
and come from the selfish desire of wanting to be saved.
so,
when your end comes and you face that terrible darkness
we shall see who is right and who is wrong,
and we shall see
how far off from the truth we really all are.

when I was in college
we took a field trip east of the city about a half hour
away.
our teacher instructed us how to survive on the land,
what we could eat or couldn’t eat
and how to get water in an emergency.

we made our way through cholla, saguaro, mesquite and palo verde.
the terrain was sand and rock.
the sun burned on us,
and we walked a winding trail
around and up the small mountain that we were hiking.

there were maybe 30 of us,
and we arrived at a place where the water came out of
an area in the rocks.
the ground was smooth and piled with large boulders.
our teacher explained to us that this area was used by Native Americans
many many years ago.

I touched the rocks
and ran my hand across the drawings on the stones.
I did not understand any of it.

I have wondered over the years if what I am writing about
is important enough to be drawn for
future generations to see.
and yet, I have realized that this is not why I write.
my writings could be set on fire,
but at least I would have gotten it out of me.

the Native Americans were expressing something important enough
to be drawn on those rock walls.
and even if the Earth opened up and swallowed the whole place
the moments that they lived
and created
would live on
and continue in some way
or another.

when we left
I stared out the bus window at the terrain that sped by.
some of us were there for a grade, and some of us were there because
we didn’t know any better.
what I took with me from this experience
was a lifetime of stories that I didn’t understand,
but it has helped me understand
a bit more about myself
now.

it’s not enough that
a poem is written or a
song is
recorded
or a story is told.
what I have learned is that
what is ultimately important is the method that it comes out or
the journey that was taken
to create
it.

now listen here,
as I have written
poetry
music
stories
life.
this life
it will break you
and your desire to do all of this
will destroy you.
you see,
I do all of this
because there is a fire inside of me
a voice
that breaks through
the mundane
listless life.
I am crazy and
angry
and to the point.

and it is not enough that you can just write it.
it must break you as you hit the keys.
you must debate whether to share the truth
or let it slowly die in you.
you must drink and hold your gut
as the words develop
and your creation
unfolds.

listen,
you can create and scheme and
sell it all to the masses,
but what is truly done here
is what happens as you travel through the hell
in you.
this art, you may think that you can tame it or
send it out for the
perusal of others.
but I leave this poem here for you
against the odds of your suffering self
to put it out there
your life
as you have lived it
as only
you can
tell
it.

I have been swallowing vodka like a fish
and sitting here at 4am
staring at the TV
and this guy is on there
open bible on the desk
telling me how
Jesus will save me
if...

lately I have been playing video games like
some sort of
zombie
and sleeping during the day when I can.

I bought this book on the science of meditation
and I thumbed through it noting
the relevance
and the
lack of it.

I’ve read the bible
cover to cover
and studied it for years
and this guy on the TV
has his own interpretations
and facts
to prove how he is going to help save
me.

hell,
this is just living;
this is just fucking
living.

and there are people so lost and
there are people so right and
there are people asleep.
and all of my studying of the bible
and all of my understanding
and lack of it,
I am just living
like

you

you

you

so do you care what I have to say?
have I amused you?
entertained you?

I have learned that
knowing doesn’t justify anything and
learning doesn’t make you a master of
anything.
the only thing that you can be a master of in this life is
yourself.

and I am typing this out of me to
disarm my atom bomb
to get to the core of me
to save me to
master
me.

now this guy on the TV has more facts to prove his
interpretations
of his truth of the
bible.
and I am happy for him
and others
because this is just living
and that is why we are here:
to
live

and I am just here
in my own way
disarming my atom bomb
and trying to
fucking
live.

when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life
in 2000
I was living without a job
or any money.
with my free time
I would sit outside and write in little notebooks
and watch the clouds blow in and then move away.
this got boring
and even the occasional drink
would not help pass the time.
I felt lonely
and depressed
and trapped.
each day became a struggle to get through
and eventually
my days began to run
together.

one day
a storm blew through
and the leaves of a mulberry tree
got scattered across the top of the water of
my pool.

it was summer,
and on this particular day,
the sun burned through the open sky.
I began skimming the pool
and took each leaf out.
the work was slow and tedious
but I stayed steady.
there was a sort of peace about it.
time slowed down for me.
lost loves parted in the waves
and the angst of my youth
was quieted like the single candle.
before I knew it
I had finished the job.

by then
the sun was beginning to set
and I was enjoying a cup of chamomile tea,
attempting to relax to the onset of the night.
the sky was orange and burned through the few clouds
that had moved into the western horizon.
I watched and waited for something profound to happen.

little did I know
that I would return to that pool many times
to clean it
to clear my head.
I liked the water - it calmed me,
and it has taken me years to realize
that this profound moment that I had been waiting for
while sitting and waiting
had actually happened
while I was cleaning my pool
so many
years
ago.

so much anger in this world
in my life
at my job
on the road when I drive.

and I am wondering what a person has to do
to emotionally
cope
with the
bitterness
the cruelty
the aggression
and the hostility.

everyone is right
in their position.
everything is justified
for a
belief
or a
good reason.

the hungry fool and
the police officer
shooting and killing a man:

everything can be drawn and explained.

what I am telling you
is this:

here there is ranting.

here there is raving.

here there are the words of a bitter,
angry man.

here there is asdfjklsdkjlsdfksdjksdfajklsdfjklsf
asdlksdfjklsdfjklsdfjs
kljlskadfjklsdfl

and here there is
just             typing.

why? because I must sit here and type it out of me.

lets start with an easy poem:

        tonight, I hate that moon...
        that full moon
        breaking into my room...

it is poem after poem
after every god damn poem.

and all I can do is jack myself off
between these lines
and take sips of vodka
as the late hours progress.

I am sure that there is a girl out there
getting raped tonight
or a family dying in a car accident
by a drunk driver
and in the morning people will try to make sense
of this
or that
and blame each other.

at least I have this
here
and I can atone for it all,
glass after glass
and line after line,
in the judgment of myself.

I see the clock
and it is late
and I see
and I see
and I see

that

when the hour of my life is upon me
I will not be sorry for

or regret

this lifestyle that I
have lived.

how about you?

written about pain and indifference
and demons and
loss,
but today as I reflect through this open window,
the sun is out,
the clouds come and go,
the birds sing in the trees
and the wet green grass
jumps with life.

it would seem that there will always be another day.
the sun will come again
and life will birth
and grow.

but me, well, I have become stagnant.

I have become stale.

I ache in the desire to live and live and
live.

and through this window
I see that much life is living
where I am
not.

for me, another day
is a slow death:
I must wake, dress,
and move on to my place of business
where my soul will suffocate and die,
where lines are drawn, erased, and then redrawn.
and at the end of my day
I come back to this
and shit
and flush
and wonder about butterflies and
rainy days
and old comic strips.

much of my life will be forgotten,
and maybe only a small portion of it will appear
as a paragraph
in the obituaries.
but this life today outside this window
has kept me
as other things have not.

death, life, both are moving forward
with the eternal question mark inside of me.
and today I think I will stick with the latter
as I hit these typewriter keys,
as the wind makes its way through this
open
window.

I don't care what you think about me anymore.
I have heard from mutual friends what you have said about me
in your disgust
and your disapproval;
you took our private words to them.

I needed you
to listen
to console
to understand
and I believed that you could.

we grew up together
traded secrets for years
and I was there through your bad years.
I was there through long phone conversations.

and when I went to your apartment
after we had a chance meeting
after we had begun to drift apart
we talked of grand things like poetry
and art.
you had black and white pictures all over your walls
and magnetic words stuck to your fridge.

I was hurting then
and I told you about my demons
and how they bothered me sometimes at night.
you listened and seemed
to care.

and as time went on
you disappeared.

I was at a friend's house recently
and he told me what you had been telling people
about my demons and
about how crazy I am
for being who I am.

anger and
betrayal broke me apart -
and you out there
under a pale moon sipping wine and laughing through it all.

this tree house that we used to play in
is still here,
dusty,
but I wonder sometimes
what dark place
you
have taken yours.

did you forget about
burning incense
after work
and meditating
and exploring spirituality?

the sun still sets each day
and new clouds move in.

and where are you?

drinking again?

falling into some sort of
oblivion?

what has happened
to you?
what terrible fate has
befallen your heart?

you used to sit
and wait for it.
you used to be patient.

now you drink and
forget and
fall asleep.

was it her?

was it the build-up of pain?

was it your demons?

what have you become
now?

the clouds still come.
the clouds get dark.
the rain falls
and the clouds leave.
and you stay
inside your dark room:
single 60 watt bulb
typewriter
computer
endless drunken boredom.

you have wasted too much now.

don't you remember the good times
when you could sit and wait
for it?

did the job kill you?

now you lay there
and watch the ceiling fan spin.
you let the anxiety flood your veins
while the sun sets
and rises
and sets.

what sadness do you hold that 
keeps you so reclusive?

don't you realize what you've given up
and lost
to become you
now?

dusty pages of poetry
and the frustrating desire to keep writing
are a poor excuse for all of this.
but you keep writing
and you keep writing

and you will
as you pass from job to job
apartment to house to apartment
bottle to bottle

all because you must

all because you must keep
writing.