i’ve never gotten points for style. i’ve never gotten much but forgiveness, i guess, and that’s fine with me. don’t you know, i’ve got a lust for the road. it’s like a drug. one place is as good as the next because when you have no home, you have no memory. until you stop to find yourself in a place, you are numb. until you turn to greet the past, there’s no present, only the mindless, formless future. you can lose yourself in it’s possibilities, forget yourself entirely and live a fantasy of your own making, dream and nightmare alike at your fingertips. but you are always so alone, never a lover, only a dreamer.

For Prisoners (a failed attempt)

You are a storm, a sheet of water, blackened
Child of thunder, wrapped in fragments,
Broken promises and apathy.

Some men murmur only wounded words,
Cry only ashen tears and hate for all
Their questioning, all their answers.

I have sealed you up, brick by brick, in your
Despondency. I am your oaths and your dreams,
I am your sorrow and your screams.
I’ve abandoned your lips like the dusk,
In the dark, and forgotten both your age and your name.
I am your walls. I am your shame.
So where else do you turn when there’s no one left to blame?

I will embed my kisses on the bars of your bones.
I will give my words to the night of your lungs. I’ve turned my back
So many times I’m dizzy- and now I want to set
Things right between us again. What prayer will sooth your passing?
Truth does not bend under acid smoke, break or
Hate the dogs and the doors, with their metallic language.
You are not my making.

I am sorry that you have to bear the
Vengeance of my fall. I’m sorry that you scream in vain,
Sorry that you call. I’m sorry,
I just don’t care at all.

i could have found something for you. i could have crooked my arm and grabbed a coke from the cooler in the back seat, or a ham and cheese sandwich. instead i rolled up your window from the drivers side door, pretending not to hear you sing.

i could have worn your sweater. i could have worn your floor. i could have walked a thousand miles to knock upon your door. now your words are forgotten, shoved under a bed somewhere in a shoebox, to be dusted off by grandchildren.

i could have laughed. i could have laughed, i wanted to laugh, but didn’t. i pulled pity over my head in silence. will you forgive me? i am not what i seem and i’m sorry.

Keep

v.
1. to hold or maintain something in your possession
2. to maintain something or somebody in a particular place or condition
3. to store something in a place when it is not in use
4. to cause somebody or something to continue in a particular way or activity, or to continue in a particular way
5. to refrain from telling a secret or other information
6. to save something for later use or withhold something from use
7. to fulfill a promise or other verbal commitment
8. to observe a religious obligation
9. to create or maintain something as a written record
10. to remain in a particular condition
11. to follow a particular course or direction
12. to remain fresh or in a usable condition
13. to do something repeatedly or continue to do something
14. to be able to be postponed
15. to have something in stock in order to sell it
16. to make somebody wait or prevent somebody from going
17. to take care of a person or animal, providing what is required to live
18. to raise an animal for profit
19. to employ somebody, especially in a household
20. to maintain a business, house, or other establishment
21. to provide financially for a spouse or lover (dated)

n
1. food and lodging, or whatever somebody needs to live
2. a stronghold, or the innermost fortified part of a castle

Encarta® World English Dictionary

read the lines with care. don’t hurry… don’t skip to the end.
read slowly, there is no one behind you. hear the voice of
the letters with patience, let the sun illuminate them in your
mind. be kind to them and shelter them. let them batter down
your gates. read the lines with care; they were spoken. they
are begotten like your frame, in a moment, in the unseeming
fate of creation; they will not heed your coming. stand still
and let them thunder over you, soak your hair and rattle your
bones. lie on your chest and breath slowly. fall asleep in their
back seat, to the sound of them hushed and contemplative. whisper
them softly and find them your own and know that you are not their
maker. a stone for food, a kingdom for a word.

a bit of baseball nonesense… maybe, im not sure

I’m just about to make a very unwise decision. I’m about to blow off three hours of packing to watch a baseball game. Me? Watching baseball? I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I’ve finally understood opening day.
When I was nine or ten years old i played in the local little leauge. I LOVE the smells of spring and summer. There’s nothing in the world like birds singing at dusk and the smell of night aproaching, warm and soft, and being with friends in that moment. The game of baseball is perhaps the most sensual sport you can find. It’s akin to an Englishman taking a stroll through the countryside. People knock it because it’s not fast enough, not enough action. That’s exactly what makes it beautiful… getting the chance to let your senses overwhelm you for ninty-five percent of the game.
I never understood baseball because I got laughed off the team. I was a terrible athlete, there’s no denying it. I was more of a poet back then than i ever will be and i met the sport as a romantic, not a stoic. I would stand out in right field and look at the dandilions, birds, trees, the big kids playing in the next field, the parents on the sideline. More than once the ball went right by my feet without me even noticing and when i threw it back, more often than not, it would land ten feet short of my target and slowly roll toward a dissaproving teammate.
Since then I’ve filled out a little bit and i guess i would be considered athletic within my succeeding circles of friends, but those days of ham-handed foibles will always be a little painful, if not slightly charming. I don’t know, I guess baseball is almost a confession. I’m a failure, I’m an addict, I’m a thief and a liar, I’m lazy and I’m selfish, but I’m not too guilty to stop and take ‘er easy for a little while. Spring, change, love and baseball too, i guess. Opening day is like forgiveness, new, ya know? Whatever, just some thoughts.

This is my revolution, blood-soaked and trembling. I’ve been to the edge of my soul, oceans falling out into space, an ocean of time and a dark, misty sky; I’ve poured out myself at it’s border. Here the water falls in silence.

I’m slowly packing my life into boxes. Not my life. Neruda can come with me. My skeletons will have to ride piggy-back. My tin soldiers are staying behind. It’s so hard to leave these cities and monuments, my little civilization of textures.

I am coming to you leperous. How will you take me? I am coming to you with drunken rage, fists clenched and sorrow spilt down the front of my shirt. There will be blood in my trail and if you take me you will bear my scars forever.

I can feel the tide at my waist, at my hips like a lover. I can feel the call of the water dragging me out, pulling me on, past mountains and breakers, the deep water… past the blue and horizon… past the stars, white and warm, that fall so slowly.

This is not like the death of your mother, like your fathers tears and your silence. This is not like that long goodbye or the snow that christened our changing. This is the spring of our sorrow, the well of our hope; this water lives, red as the blood of the dawn.