Elixir of the Insomniac

Three glowy symbols
on an old maytag oven
tell me that it is one 1:00.
I walk into the kitchen alone,
the tiled floor cold after
the comforts of bed.
I spend three minutes looking
in the medicine cabinet searching
for God knows what until I give up;
opting again for "old fashion" medicine.
Light fires briefly like a beacon
as the freezer door opens long
enough for me to get ice into my cup.
I lovingly pour the supposed
antidote into my plastic
goblet with a crackle as
the ice quakes apart.
I add a hint of blue
labeled sugar water
so that that I feel
maybe less pathetic.
drink. drink.
Drink til' the ice chills my gums.
Maybe now I'll be able to sleep.

I wrote this poem a couple years ago and I still feel the same way. :-)  (This poem is meant to go with "Brighter Sundays", my recent instrumental)

As She Lay Asleep

and as she lay asleep

i sit and watch, await

and as she lay asleep

i wonder what she dreams

and how i can achieve it for

my love who lay asleep

in the bed that i have made

in the room that knows her name

her shoes upon the floor

her keys still in the door

and as she lay asleep

her lips they curve so slightly

into a grin that i can keep

and i feel i just might weep

for the warmth i have found

in the middle of a chilled night

with her as she lay asleep

her eyes still peirce me

even with the lids closed

and her hair falls upon me

like a gently woven web

and i am caught inside

her body moves in waves

as she breathes and i feel

myself slowly floating out to sea

with her as she lay asleep

her legs intersect mine

our arms are all entwined

our lips breifly collide

and we both go back to sleep.

Remodeling

You feel foreign in this place;
These six perpendicular planes
are where I would come to die.
We have here a box of memories, forgotten songs
ringing and repeating a thousand
terrifying refrains.

This room took from me Mellissa
and gave to me Nick Drake
This room consumed Elizabeth
and recited "The Rain King"
But I escaped to find you
rising from the lake
and we returned to this room
and decided to repaint-

With colors and with trumpets
With beaches and with trees
With texture and with motion
Snares and tambourines.

And for the first time in years
I feel I can write along to a marching beat
and I with each blistered step I
thank the Lord for the pain beneath my feet
Cause I don't know what is coming
I don't know my way
but we'll keep the pace
and no matter how far we
trek on and beyond,
we'll be holding on to
our place.

See...I'm not always depressing. Hope you enjoyed it!

Sandwhich

I like sitting in parked cars
letting the raindrops paint the windsheild
like Monet made just for me.

And I like being expressionistic
using each splatter-pat-pat as a snare
and the accelerating winds as my organ.

Because I've always liked that deep
moaning sound running patterns back and
forth up the church walls
until finally escaping out the high, colored
windows making its way back
up to heaven.

And I like to pen pensive ponderings
about God and take notes on nature
and notice where life is less than harmonic.

I like taking oversized bites of self-
indulgence and I savor every last taste,
chewing much longer than necessary until
I am sure that every drop of juice has been
consumed and all that remains is that gritty
part, like when you fall face first at the beach
and partake in a mouthful of warm sand with hints
of crustacean.

On those I occassions I like to sit up,
look out at the water, and imagine-
some Dutch boy billions of miles away
with his own mouthful of sand-
and I wonder if his is any sweeter than mine.

DISCLAIMER: This is an old poem. I wrote it two years ago and yes, I have moved on. I post it merely to laugh at how bitter I was AT THAT TIME. Oh, and this poem goes great with a glass of Scotch.

The Feeling of You

I don't know how i'd react if i never saw you face again.

Would i move from the wasteland?

Would i never see light?

I've forgotten what it feels like to love you.

I never loved you less.

Yet i drill myself in the hating of you in a defense of an attack that you will never launch.

You don't care enough about me to even hurt me.

And that hurts me most of all.

You never treated me right.
You are selfish, inconsiderate, ambiguous, and stubborn.

You are still the most beautiful girl i've ever seen.

I miss you but i don't know whom i miss.

I don't know you.

But who else but you has the wings to fly into my window?

Who else but you can still make me blush?

You scare me. I live in constant fear of you.

Sometimes i feel, i feel...

I don't know what i feel, i don't know what else to call it but you.

I feel you.

And the feeling of you makes me feel less than human.

The feeling of you makes me feel like the dark spot on your timeline.

The feeling of you reminds me that i was, at one point in my miserable life

  Worth something.

I resent you more for that than anything else.

I let you know me. You knew my most vicious.

You understood the truth because i was a helpless in the grip you put me in.

You squeezed the truths of the world out of me, love and lust and hate and spirit and jealousy and need

And as i felt my bones break my mouth opened to the heavens and i screamed out your name.

You gently kissed my forehead and let me go.

My structure shattered, i fell to the floor and begged your forgiveness for not standing upright.

You are dystrophy but your smile clears your name.

And when you dawn it i can't see you and i forget me

When that smile comes upon your face, i know at that very moment what love dwells in my soul.

I point the pistol to my head and let you win again.

Then comes darkness. The feeling of you.

So if i never heard your name nor saw your face nor remembered for even an instant what kissing you was like....i don't know what i would do.

Would i be released or would i be restrained?

Maybe i would lose all that i had

Maybe i would get back all that you stole from me in the night while i lay afloat in a lover's dream

A fantasy that you kissed with a poison tongue that never tasted so sweet.

So i ask you this fair love of mine:

Why do i miss you so fucking much?

Andrew

I notice I am sweating before I notice the noise,

roaring like a train made of tissue paper.

My eyes unsheathe:

Darkness. I feel the back of my t-shirt dampening as

the heat embraces me, suffocating me.

Then a familiar voice: "Tony? Tony, are you okay?

Tony, what are you doing all tangled up in the comforter?"

And I am at once liberated.

The air in the room is crisp for a summer night in

South Florida. The train is louder now, too.

Still the darkness, save for the reflections of my

grandmother's flashlight on the assorted posters of

Michael Jackson and Kermit the Frog.

"Are you alright?" she repeats, shouting now to

be heard over the maelstrom raging in the backyard

just behind my head…in my sleep

I'd forgotten it would come tonight.

Wheeling around to look out the window, I see

not a window but a rectangle of the purest blue

where once a window was. Putting on my

glasses and moving closer I see in such

abundance the rain drops colliding against the pane

like little paintbrushes to give this serene hue-

This strangely sublime interlude is interrupted by a

dark figure floating past  like a stripped nude bird

about the size of my uncle's geo.

"There goes another one of our trees"

says my grandmother behind me.

Another of our trees!?

I pictured myself as a tree: floating by another window

with another little boy watching-

hopelessly letting my limbs follow the winds

having given up resistance a jillion miles back,

waiting wild-eyed,  anxious for my fate.

My grandmother, sensing this (as grandmas

always do), put her arms around my shoulders;

silently affirming me that I was well anchored

to the earth.

I followed her out into

the living room where the rest of

my family lay half asleep. My mother

invites me to lay next to her and Dad

gives me a roughing of the hair that I

have always hated and loved at the same time.

I ease my way back into sleep to the crackling

sound of the radio broadcast weather update,

the summary of which is: it is raining. it is windy.

I stole another glance at the blue washed windows

and thought "it is a lot more complicated than that.

Much more complicated, much more beautiful and dangerous than

rain and wind". But as I strained my eight year old brain so

bursting with imagination to give the storm due respect,

I was stumped to think of much else.

It is raining. It is windy.

And that says it all.

The Spector

Late lobby nights of wasted life.

Black stirring straws still warm

From coffee long forgotten.

Faded blue-green pin stripes on

A coat thrown over a stiff-backed chair.

I am indigoed with laptop light

and embalmed in subtle ambiance:

a constant reminder of this cold and gray

spector lurking in the chair behind me, staring

over my shoulder whispering, “you’re nothing” .

My ear twitches with the ice in his breathe and

I am alone. Always to feel alone and empty

like a clinging-clanging flask let drop to

the tile floor as I drag my rechedness into bed.

No matter the warmth I get from my lover’s body,

No matter the hands all out to catch me and

hold me steady; they can do nothing to rid

me of this hollow ghost. This shattering

window pain of doubt and self-loathing.

The glass falls upon my flesh, ripping it from me

and I feel the heat of my own kinetic blood

falling down my cheeks, painting me in my

self-pity, somewhere between garnet

and black. Yes, this spector speaks to me of

loneliness.

The “WOMP-keek” of the automatic doors

seizes my sweater between the shoulder blades

 and yanks me back to my seat, away from my

wanderings of mind.

This is the first poem I've ever written about my family, so be indulgent. It still as a lot of work. Anyway, enough with the qualifying, make with poeting!

Grandpa Who?

The last time we spoke…

Let me rephrase that:

The last time I spoke to you

You responded with some

Random assortment of sounds

That one might recognize as words,

But they seemed to me as empty as an

Abondoned dial tone.

You were somewhere else.

I would smile, you would nod

And all the while I felt as though

I were speaking to a scratched out

Photograph.

I can’t blame you, I understand

The need to defend your mother

But know that her and I are adults

 And we can handle our own problems.

That shouldn’t interfere with us, you and I.

Why does nobody answer the phone?

Did I tell you that I have cancer?

These despicable yarns of pain have

Thread themselves all down my

Spine. And sometimes I only

See in reds and greys.

I need love too, you know.

Just because I broke your mother’s heart

Does not mean we cannot still be friends.

I made one mistake and I lost a son;

How is your uncle, come to mention it?

He was always a bit of a fuck up, anyway.

I will not have that ungrateful bitch of a mother of your’s

Take my grandchildren away from me, too.

I am sorry, I did not mean that. I

Sometimes get a little too excited maybe. Let us

Start again:

Hello Tony, it is Grandpa Bill,

What do you want for Christmas?

I've recently started writing poetry again. Hopefully this will make my lyric writing come much easier like it used to, so I thought I would start by posting some poetry. Here we go!

“Electrical Hum”

This electrical hum

Is insistent, piercing, numbing.

But all the while the beat is steady

Repeated, reflected, and refracted in

Such a way that I almost forget the

Disonance of the world outside earshot

And I am held up by the lower frequencies

Vibrating my sternum, keeping me balanced

Until the pulse stops-

And can no longer hold me.

So I begin the next set of rhythms with a wail

And a strum but I’m never satisfied

With the whiteness of my noise and the gusts

Of wind that force themselves into my voice

Pop goes another bottle cap with such a harsh

Percussion that I know I’ll never be able to

Perfectly replicate.

I’m through. Let Van or Declan or Mingus wrestle

With my misbegotten tin pan chords,

I’m going to bed.