Attractive and Playful Ghosts

It gets harder and harder for me to make phone calls
Non daily social interaction is difficult
It has nothing to do with those others
those who I would call
those who I think about calling
but don't.
It has everything to do with
my mental state
and I'm not talking about depression
or something like that.
In a way its positive,
it feels positive.
I'm pulled, away from some things
and drifting ever closer to
something central.
Several times a day I wish
I could focus my thoughts
on certain topics,
but I have to bend them back to work
and the people around me.
I can't give them up
or they won't give up on me,
either way,
they plague me like
attractive and playful ghosts.
I want to go and live with them;
not forever
not even for that long
a year
maybe two.
And when I come back
when I reemerge
I can make those phone calls
and assure my loved ones that
my feelings and thoughts were never far away from them
I just had to go somewhere,
a small journey.
I'm not sure how long I will wait,
as long as I can I guess.
From the outside I will
have merely reduced my social
circle to my wife and daughter
and maybe an occasional visit
with a local friend.
From the outside I will look far away
or maybe withered and drawn
but it will just be the stress of the work
the travel
the playful and unrelenting
thoughts that tease at me
and pull at me.
Resistance,
is difficult when I truly want
to receive what they have for me.
There is nothing supernatural here,
I just don't have the words to express
what I struggle with
on a daily basis.
It wears on me.
I hope it makes me stronger,
so that all the resisting
and waiting will give me
the strength and patience I will
need when I finally and fully engage.
I just hope its worth it,
that what I bring back will
help others forgive me for the length
of the journey, and for not being
there during the long deployment.
I worry that no one will understand me
when I return and what I have will
sit on a shelf
and wait for someone
who is ready
to find it.
That would be an unkind fate,
but my fate is my nature,
so my worry changes nothing.
Even now, after saying all this,
I can just let my mind drift a bit and
I'm there
with the lights of thought
the puzzles that haven't been worked
and the warmth in my
chest that says
its good.

I am Temporary - Huh...

I feel mortal today.
Not old,
but aging.
I don't mind;
no negative vibe here,
just an encouragement
to focus
and minimize
wasted time,
and even more, to enjoy
the people around me
as much as possible.
I wish it was all
as clearly laid out
in my head, as I'm making it sound,
but really, these
are passing thoughts
and feelings.
Moments.
I'm just trying to capture one
before its gone
and I again forget
how fundamentally mortal I am.

Excerpt from "Craceytown"

I remember you there at those conversations. You took my breath away. Night of nights. So I killed them all away from you. So what? What next? I don’t owe what you don’t owe. Milkman said leave me. I said, no.
Why is that your new thing? Brag away from me. I need to sit a while. Right now. Himself is gone, leaving the cold flooded homebrand. To the light, he sings. To the light. Ain’t that the shit to beat it all. I’m yellinm’ children.
I can throw and hit a little.


Found the six polished rocks in the grass. Waiting for Dad. Mom don’t want to not know where he is. He worries her. We wait and wait. Dad’s still not done with his work. The new lady boss has him cleaning extra classrooms. Mom waits and worries, and prays Dad will come back to work tomorrow. Six Polished rocks, one of which was petrified glorious wound wood, made it easy that day to let my mind go the better. Better you and much better me.

Six pound fourteen schneebleys.

Black rat back, you bastard.
And then homeward boun’ we were, off to ride the roller to church. Hear Dad rock the bass on the way. I might listen, might not. Figure figure. Figure.

Left a gift by the door of your mystery. Left it there—elephants alone. Two. Didn’t care—home or not. I was not the worrisome warrior anymore. I can still see the drip. Still see the misunderstood motion for love. Motion love—motion of love. Bring over to Higgenbothemgall corner and watch ballbanyon from the lookerland hello seats. I’m from that plateau and have hid there among the bears and everbeasts. I hiked for glory—plateaued for pain. But you can’t listen anymore. Went the wind wild west, you say. And I’ve harmed.

Maybe you didn’t ask. Maybe it was I all along wanting the image broken. Yes passive. Would should could, might perhaps if why care? Line over the double ee. See. Shined on the wicked sided walleyed mishmosh of the others. The zoo keeper’s hungry grizzly contemplating that leap over the moat to the rush of loud lucsious children to eat. I saw and warned him. He didn’t jump.

And the fine fire built here within me, thank you.

It’s walked a path ground down to nearly the core of me. The center gleaming bright but the details around the edge stomped soft to bits. Truth to tell the more you tell the more the more. Round and round the center right.
And all my little soldiers turned it into a sales numbers game. How many would it take?
How many outlaws would we take on return to Craceytown?

The bouncing lady in big dark sunglasses barreling down a road that hugged the edge of a deep-sided canal. Blipped that bump and turned that lump upside down in the water. Seatbealt drowned her. Rush the children away and help them forget they watched her die—centered at the fence in silence, helpless to the wicked mess—def and isolated. Mate the memory to…la dee da. Incandescent blue tubes over TV’s uncle teacher, and we all laughed at the ads differently, embarrassed that we did. The beard and his trivia. Sports and all the rich little tits—I pop my jaw and impact wisdom teeth. Made ‘em want to shake me awake. Made ‘em work.

You pass the bills I can’t pass back. You yell and yell and stir the neighbors’ cats. But I can’t pass back. And here’s where’s it’s authorized. And have a nice day. And goodbye.

Throw out the friend’s brother for trying to touch mine. I’d kill and might have once neffortlessly.
I’m a legal drug dealer. See kids, I ask physicians to push and peddle my pretty pills twice daily for the rest of their lives. So bad? So sad. Never mind crossed combs and mirrors or piles of shave cream. Nevermind. I understand. Lipstick lounge.

As I said, the sound of death was wild. Right of my life. Next time. Won’t be a side of guilt I waited to tell you might fall off the table. Make more sense she says. You’re losing them. I’ve lost them but I have a plan I say. You’ll see it’ll grow like an erection and retract even slower. You’ll see.
Here we go.
So there we were, angry, old, rejected, forbidden, and left to wander. There in a fellowship doorbelless laundryhouse for coldboys.

Let It Rain

The dogs pout when it rains.
I like the rain, muscles relax,
first time in months;
what else can I do but
stay inside,
write,
drink,
smoke,
and listen to music:
I have no choice when it rains.
I value the freedom of that loss:
let it rain.

The dogs hate it, and look at me
like I could, and should
stop it.
They want to go outside,
and run
and bark
and feel themselves.
I understand this, but
I am a pharaoh unto them,
and my self is of greater value.
To these I am a sun god, incarnate.
They can not comprehend me
and so heap their
wishes upon me,
in deep want of evidence.
I’ve never made it start
or stop raining
but I have acted in ways
beyond them,
and so they expect me to be capable
of everything beyond them:
Capable of fulfilling their
wishes and wants
and assuming
that I have not already ordered
all things under my authority
so that they suit and please
my will.

I have.
I am pleased.
Let it rain.