I have loved with all of the colors

I have ever known,

I have loved with each of the four

Winds that blow within a man's soul.

I have loved as ancient tombs,

As broken mournful stones

Hold ancient bodies

Silent in their vigil

And ever waiting

To feel the breath

Of departed passion

Singing through cracked teeth.

I have loved as storms

Flooding over mountains

Dark and brooding

And soon exploding

Full of fury rampant rage.

I have loved and been loved

In many, many ways.

Yet for them all, added

And and refracted with

Nostalgic eyes - Alone or

Totaled could make me stray.

I love you in a way which

Makes my hands wrinkle,

My legs weak and beg

In infirmity and age for

The aide of a cane. In

A way which makes my

Soul shrivel, in a way

Which makes me revel

In the thought of growing

Weak and watching your

Neck grow thin, your eyes wreathed

By the feet of fleeting crows,

Your soft hair brittle, gray.

I love you with the fertility

Of the cool damp earth,

The strength of an old

Rock carved with a pair of names.

I love you like a man

Loves a woman

When both are lowered

Side by side, into

Long waiting graves.

Xmas (Dead on the string)

I think with fury

At all the white windows

Breathy panes

Painted with winter

The frost fringe

Of glass doors spilling

Warm air and cold stares

Into the streets as people,

For once, for a day,

Pretend to care

About whose eyes they meet.

The vagabonds and vagrants

Panhandle and hustle,

Looking for change to make

Merry Christmas calls

To family's far away,

Their aunt in Atlanta.

Their dead and buried grandma.

As they settle in little

Scorched spoon dens

To let the warmth slide in.

We're all alone and not together

My family and my friends,

We drink sidled up to screens

Or half asleep in empty clubs

Waiting for the season to show

Us mercy, to just end.

All the little lights, Red, Blue

And green, just remind us

We're the one burnt and unlit,

Left dark and lone

Dead on the string.

Screaming At London (We will all be bound)

She said -on that big spired bridge,

Lungs frozen and full of that

Old Thames wind.

"I will not be bound!"

I am quiet

At her shoulder

Wrapped in scarves and smirks

Thinking she looks beautiful,

Screaming at London again.

I hear the hands turn

On that big old clock

Tying time in heavy knots

I want to tell her

"Oh but we are"

As we walk, skipping

Scree stones down Borough High.

We're here, held in thrall

Chained by the face

Of that force she so decries.

I keep my peace and pace

As the city swallows the night.

The Bear and The Bull

Don't tell me about no glass ceiling

Because as far as I can see

You were all just staring at stars

In a different time and place

Cause now we got glass walls

Where we stand outside with

Simple lives printed on fancy paper

Selling ourselves penny pauper

They say it's a cycle,

The ups and the downs

The gold and the rust

Gilded wrought iron-

Manacles, I see.

Well this ball and chain

It's my poverty

Just give me a shot sir

I can always work harder

Just wait and you'll see.

The bear and the bull

Drinking cognac in crystal

Looking through their floor

At a nation of fools

Pulling at their bootstraps.

Come Home (Winter is waiting)

Pictures of pretty girls in peacoats,

thinking of all the snow

I won't see.

Expensive cameras hanging around

Loosely scarfed necks.

Plumes of winter smoker's breath.

Skipping the season,

The slush and salt

Clinging to my boots,

Sand and sun

Stinging my skin.

And I wonder,

Will I be ok?

Or thrown

Into disaray-

Sweating in the

December sun.

Wreaths and candy cane poles,

All the Christmas lights I

Never appreciated.

My son building snowmen,

Looking for any hill

Steep enough to sled.

Skipping the season,

The circadian rhythm

Of a man from the north,

Deserted in the desert

Languages away.

And I wonder,

Will I stay?

Or be broken-

When you say,

Come home dear,

Winter is waiting.

Think Of Me (If you must cry)

Think of me,

When you're sitting beneath that old elm tree-

While my body rests in the roots

I promise son, I'm here with you.

My one last request,

That you don't let that song rest,

That you play me a tune

Better than I ever could do.

I'm sorry you got that guitar,

So young while I was so far,

But I promise child

I'm listening here in the roots.

If you must cry,

Then let that ground grow wet and then dry-

The earth will take your fallen tears

And carry that song to my resting ear.

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Well (And)

Well I still read your poems sometimes,

All curled and cursive

Feeling thin in my ragged hands.

And I still breathe

And I breathe the same,

Except when I exhale

It's your name that escapes.

Well I still remember

And you just forget.

Well you had all the love

And I only sentiments.

Well I still write you poems,

And you just leave epitaphs.

Well, I still remember

Well the curve of your neck,

And pale freckled skin crinking

In the corners of your laugh.

And I'm still cut from hard lines,

All steel and jade

A man of means and demands.

Artsy Artsy (A song)

Never was much of a man

Like what you wanted,

Or said you did to all your

Friends when we first met.

I couldn't play guitar, didn't

Own a nice coat or scarf.

Didn't have much an eye for art

And couldn't tell you who

The Black Keys are.

Well artsy artsy you

Made me a scarf.

Artsy artsy you

Bought me records.

Artsy artsy you

Picked out that pea coat.

Never was much of a man

Like you said you need,

When you hung up the phone

And I knew you were leaving me.

Now I play the guitar until

All my fingers bleed. Look

Sharp in that new coat and

Soft gray scarf. Look at you,

Gave me everything I need

And cut me free.

Well artsy artsy me

Watching French films

Artsy artsy me

And all my wine

Artsy artsy me

Alone at the gallery.

Bella Vino (Rose in a wine bottle)

Our passion is a green glass maze,

All wine and whiskey,

Spent, drained and laying in the sweat

That runs down navel and neck.

Oh forgive me,

Forgive me,

Give me just one more drink.

Oh forgive me,

Forgive me,

If I'm a little clumsy.

Because I drink just so I can feel,

If I feel anything,

I've been lost for so long

In cheap bottles and beds.

Because I'm better at being bad,

Throw everyone away,

Being gone in the morning

Long before anyone's awake.

Oh just see,

Just see,

I don't mean to be.

Oh just see,

Just see,

Thoughts fight feelings.

You are delicate, silent and soft

Dolce' Bella Vino,

Glass I fear too fragile for my thick fingers,

So easily cracked in my alcoholic haste.

Life and it's demands call me away,

My grandmother's grave,

But I leave patient roses in wine bottles,

For you to find when you wake.

Everything Is Cheap (When you're with me)

Everything is cheap

When you're with me

The context of occasion

A formulated equation

To keep you crawling

Back for something more

I'm easy-

With my sideways laugh

My cheap well whiskey

Calloused hands hard

From quill and axe

Pressed into the soft

Flesh of your neck

Broken hearts

Grow hard men

All the same as

Split logs make

For strong hands.

Where I am iron

You are weak

Cunning in

indifference

I see your need.

Any bed you find

Beside another man

Soft and thin, his

Temporary hands

Your heart will crawl

Each Graceful Word (Hung from the gallows)

I still love you in a pitiful way

Like rain sputtering on broken sidewalks

Trying to seep it's way into cracks

I will try to make coffee dates, or movies

Where I will nervously try to place

My hand on top of yours

As you reach for creamer

As you shift in your seat

I will fish for clues as to which bed you awoke in

And to which you will fall asleep in tonight

Hoping and praying it is your own

While hoping and praying it will be mine

I still love you in a way which makes my tongue thick

Each graceful word hung from gallows

Swinging heavy in your light breeze

As I flip creamers

Shift in my seat

Your swift hand always just out of reach

Your bed long divorced of rustling sheets

Our bodies tangled fingers to feet

I will hold you too long in my arms when we leave

Tighten for a fraction of a second screaming-

"See how I am weak!"

My eyes on their knees pleading

I know you will not love me

Your arms alms, the length of generosity

I will awkwardly accept

Quietly begging, a coin in my tin cup

While you pass me by

I know you will not love me

For I am only the rain

While your desire is for the sea.

I'm twenty-three laying in bed smoking a very thin, tightly rolled joint and listening to Buddy Holly. It's after noon, but not much, and the light coming in from the window is thick and warm and falls across my chest and thighs like a blanket.

My mind is thin and tumbling with images of horn rimmed glasses, ex girlfriends and ex drug dealers. They're very much alike I think. It's all commerce of one form or another, and I'd be just as likely to call one or another for a night out.

I live in Detroit, a very poor, very violent part of Detroit. I like it here. I like being the only white person. I like the way my hands shake when I'm checking out at the grocery store and I know there are pairs and pairs of eyes on my back and sides, curious and resentful. I like the walk back, the hostile stares, sidelong glances eyeing up my short stature and bags laden with canned ravioli, soda cans and corn.

I like my neighbors who come over and bum cigarettes at two in the morning, and the way they smile when they realize it's menthol. I like Rosa, and her office stacked to the ceiling with ledgers of curling yellow paper and church pamphlets. I make sure to send her poinsettias every Christmas. She likes me because I pay my rent on time and says I look sharp in my pea coat.

I think about killing myself often. There's an old building next to mine, twenty stories tall and boarded up. I will learn much later in my life that it was where black performers would stay during the thirties and forties since they were not allowed downtown. The history is thick around me, but I am twenty three and self absorbed and do not see it. I drunkenly stumble home past Motown Records often, and never realize the significance of the place. I just think it looks funny with it's white walls and gaudy blue trim.

I don't know why I think about dying, or why one fall afternoon I'm hanging off of the side of that tall building next door. My fingers hold my weight easily, they are short and thick, strong fingers. I flex them, my chest and thighs pressed against the slant of the roof, my feet hundreds of feet above overgrown lot, long abandoned and uncared for. I am dirty and tired from prying open boarded windows and ascending ruined stairways. I think about the fall, and the sliding first, like when I was a kid. I wonder when the last time I enjoyed a slide was.

I pull myself up and sit on the edge, I can see Canada. It's getting dim, orange and sickly red and the wind is much colder than on the ground. I sit there and smoke opium from a pop-can pipe and it is dense and sweet and feels like pretentiousness as it curls from my nostrils and around the collar of my sharp pea coat. The city is ugly, and I am beautiful -a gorgeous stone grotesque just waiting to topple.

Arguments behind my eyes, so much to do. One voice says "go to the library already damn you, you're just wasting time- you have work to do". Another, "stay and write, it's seeping out of you, this story's been a long time coming; don't lose it!" The last, "Movement is once a year, it's not worth missing, you can make up whatever you miss, except living".

I am wasting time. I do have work to do. I am missing out on life. I am loosing the story.

Crippled by my indecisiveness.

When The Dust Settled (an old cowboy song)

When the dust settled,

And the stampede faded away,
I was left alone in the draw,
Watching the sunlight fade.

It's long and harsh,
This forlorn land.
There's little in the way
Of homesteader mercy,
And what a man has,
He takes with his two hands.

When the dust settled,
And she was lowered in her grave,
I was left alone on the plains,
Shivering by my campfire, alone, afraid.

You know how good guys,
Become bad men?
How brittle, bright red hearts
Become old and gray?
It's because of love, dove;
The love of a woman like you.

When the dust settled,
As the folk went and as they came,
I was left alone in the city,
Holding only my old hat, and my new shame.

It's colder at night,
I guess you could say,
When you've got a hard bed,
Ancient, endless horizons;
All misguided gullies
And absent plains.

When the dust settled,
And I saw it was settled in vain,
I was left alone in this world,
With only my mistakes.

When the dust settled,
And the aching bone dawn came,
I was reborn in the morning,
Hard and cold, but fully awake. .

Oh So Simple (Just try to pretend)

I'm oh so simple,
Uh huh, her.
I'm oh so simple,
Uh, huh, him.
I'm oh so simple,
Step into the other
Room for a minute
With me.

I really like you
Right now, for
A minute, we could
Be friends. I really
Love you right now,
For a minute, we
Could just dance.
I really want you
Right now, for
A minute we could
Just try to pretend.

I'm oh so simple,
Simply a man.
I'm oh so simple,
Simply seeking hands.
I'm oh so simple,
With simple demands.

When The Voices Are Gone (you might find yourself all alone)

Where are you godhead?

My forty-six and two?
Where are you edge of
Progress; upon which I
Sat so many winter nights,
Legs dangling down
Into the abyss of unreason?

Chemical muse, my gentle
Shoulder top devil, urging
me on; you are gone too?

Delusion, my sweet obsession,
Have you abandoned this
Despetate man too?

Where are you infinite fold
Path that spirals in the clarity
Of my warped mind's eye?

Love of love, do you wait for
Me, calling longingly and whispering
Of such beautiful tragedies?

My belligerence, do you still
Linger here in the jaded core
Of my greatest epiphanies?

Where are you transcendence?
My shiva, brhaman, vishnu?
Where are you end of
Madness; the noble aspiration
Of selfish ambition I made
This all into?

This Is The Hole (where my soul used to go)

This is the hole
Where my soul
Used to go;
I assure you
I'm empty,
More Empty
Than you will
Ever know.

Once I had
Faith, Once
I Had hope,
Now all I
Have is this
Gaping hole.

I've become less,
Oh yes, I have.
I take my solace
In random hands.
I have no meaning,
I have no control,
I am just a hole
Where a soul
Used to go.

Languid (ravenous)

You were languid,
Stretched longingly
Across the table spread;
A grand buffet.
For all the fangs,
The toothy maws
And hairy paws
Of civilized discourse.

What we discuss,
Stays between us.
What we discuss,
Is a matter of trust.
What we discuss,
Is our disgust.

For our broken towers
Building babel upon
Babylon lost in the sands
Of asphalt tomorrows
And concrete realities;
Our grand central epiphanies,
Our abused formalities,
And ravenous tendencies.

When The City Sleeps (i'm all the more alone)

Empty eyes drifting out from a dark alley' stretch,

I wander on the pavement, taking solace in my steps.
And one for one, each for each, I'm further left alone,
With more dark thoughts of departed lovers to roam.

I find cold comfort in familiar peaks, each belonging to
Half empty buildings, my city belonging to each.
Down past Penobscot, Cadillac Center, Renaissance
And past the plaza too, is my old haunt, my mayhew.

In the drifts and gales of swirling December snow,
I lean against the rail, over the river and into the glow;
Of another city, who is loved dearly by another man,
Windsor loitering listlessly, the same as I am.

I know a thousand people, their faces, their names
And for each of them, I feel little but a distant disdain.
I've lost more people than most have ever known,
And for it I feel quite cold, and all the more alone.

Cast The Angels Out (passion plays hemolck)

Cast the angels out of her eyes,

The lover's breath from her lungs
As they heave and fall, furious
In the seething cimmerian rise.

Cast the angels out -
Of those sapphires hanging
Like stars in the night
Of this lurid bedside.

Take her grace and beauty,
Her stuttered attempts at
Noble vanity which leave
Longing lips cleft in sigh.

Cast the angels out of her eyes -
When the heart dwells within Eden
Before dawn has even broken
Passion plays hemlock to the wise.

I Expect To See Opium (Engulfed in my needs)

Booted feet on familiar concrete
Every crack holds histories
And every building breaking
The sky into a menagerie
Of blue-gray patches like
Stained glass windows hung
In rattling panes shaken
By the stiff wind of rainy days-
Holds slipping memories.

I have grown older, old it seems
Walking through the parking lot
Plains and these urban valleys that
Were once the edges of the earth
Laying in wait like a virgin brought
To my bed, ready to be conquered,
Engulfed in my need and made,
Somehow, a little more complete -
But this a different season of life.

Where I expect to see opium
smoke spilling from my teeth in
ribbons and streams a man walks his
Dog, and smiles and nods while I
Stare at his loafers, a little confused;
And the alley, a few blocks down,
I used as a bathroom stumbling from
The Detroiter to Locos more times
Than I had hoped, is now home
To some transient I do not know.

This is not my city, and this can not
Be my skin, stretched so loosely
And hung by such excess flesh; this
Is not my life, coherent and contained
Within the constraints of a nine to five,
A beloved son, child support paid on time
(or almost so), bill upon bill while I'm too
Busy with this and that to miss being high-
I'm more of a ghost than flesh and blood man.

From time to time I'm greeted with those
Old faces in these strange old places
Contorted in forms I scarcely recognize
With their sun graced complexions,
Rounder waists and small, beady eyes
And I wonder if their thoughts circle
Like a mirror making rounds at the table
-Just who we've become?

I wonder if they shake their heads in passing
All the places where all of what we knew happened
And, as I, hope they make it to bed early tonight.

It Was Good I Guess

It was good I guess,

Nothing much, but with

No one to impress.

Fun for a moment,

Fit to entertain,

But it feels just fine

As we fade away.

I'd tell you not to be sad, if for

A second I thought you were.

Truth is, we're all just fleeting

Figures walking in and out the door.

Everything is temporary, even

Mountains fall apart.

Not all ends come in flaming form,

Mushroom clouds are for special occasions.

This, darling, is just the changing

Of the capricious seasons.

Think of me what you will - good or ill

But I've been around a time or two,

Long enough to not need reasons.

We Were Random (and now I am gone)

We were random,
Nonsensical and unsorted -
Tossed together by
Happenstance and hunger,
Chewing each other
While other's tastes
Still lingered on bitter lips.

But you were still,
Crushed by my kiss.
Held down in my bed,
By rough hands
Covered in soft skin.
Left to smolder,
As I lit a fire,
For another.

I'm a callous man,
Sharp teeth behind
An easy smile.
I've got no apologies,
And don't want forgiveness,
It's just who I am.
Don't be so sad.

Four letter words
Are all profanities,
Each and every one.
So don't dare speak
Them to me, you'll
Only ridicule yourself
For such blasphemy.

My arrogance is obvious,
If you care to see;
But I know you don't
So we'll just call it misogyny.
So I take my leave,
Pull my pants from my feet,
Say goodnight gracefully,
While it's still pretty.

I wasn't always this way,
Quite the opposite really;
Once I was aching,
To feel something truly.
Someday you'll see
Just what I mean,
When your heart is hollow,
But you know it's better
Than being heavy.

Sit On The Sidelines (not a compliment)

I sit on the sidelines,
Watching with rolling eyes,
Your absurd masquerade -
Your silly little lives.

I raise my eyebrows
As you saunter by;
They are the things that
Lie above my eyes,
Which something made
you decided were wortless,
So replaced them with
Badly drawn lines.

This isn't a metaphor,
I hope that's not a suprise.

You're such a sad thing,
Such a wretched sight.
Still dressing up in costumes,
Like thirteen at thirty-five.
You're such a stange creature,
Not unique in the least,
More common than dust
But so desperate to be
Prom queen in dim lights,
A lead role in the scene.

It's really just absurd,
And a little obscene -
But I guess your proud of that;
It's not a compliment.

There's nothing special about
You or your life, and I'm not
Saying there is about me
Nor mine. the difference between
The two is that it's as simple
to see as any stop sign;
I can see it clearly,
I guess you're just blind.

Whales Swin In The Water (A song)

Stop in and sit down beside er'
She's always so pretty at night.
Lone at the bar nursing a drink
She's always been tryin to fight.

And when she speaks it's only to me
but the words are more for her.
Tell er just one drink and then
I gotta leave, the road is callin me.

Whales swim in the water,
Wolves hunt in the woods,
What's true is true hon,
You got no self control.

So park yourself right here with me
And we'll pour one down so we can see
What's at the bottom of those glasses
Or if it's just more whiskey.

Whales they swim in the water,
And wolves they hunt in the woods,
What's true is true darlin,
You ain't got no where to go.

You know,
You ain't got nowhere to go.
You know,
So drink with me.

Born In The City (A Song)

Burn all your bridges

Into blackened ash
Let go of your sentiments, child
They'll only hold you back

All the roads you've walked
Well they were all lies (weren't they?)
You were born in the city
But it's the country where you'll die
Make your peace with one foot in the grave
It's not fickle, it's just fair
And doesn't care about you
Let's not call it fate (ok?)

Burn all your bridges
Into blackened ash
Let go of your admonishments, son
They'll light up friendships fast

All the sight's we've seen
Didn't really amount to anything (did they?)
You fell in love with the city
But it's a farm you call your heart home
Make your peace with the fading lights
You can't stay lost forever
Where ever would you be
Without some certainty?

Where would you be?
Burn all your bridges
Into blackened ash
Don't let ghosts follow you
Out from your past.

Cause they will.

In My father's Car (I see him as old)

In my father's car

Driving somewhere,
Where I forget;
I see him as old.
The mortality spreading
Like spiderwebs
Out from heavy eyes
And running to his cheek.
I know he thinks of death.
Not in any discrenable way,
But in his knotty hands
Which his eyes linger upon
Too often as he drives.
I think of him, cold
And lifeless laid out in a
Casket wrought by my hands
In mourning; it's a promise
He mentions more than
A younger man would.

I see death, and I am afraid.
It's slender hand upon my shoulder
And my heart curls around
Thoughts of my father. That
Day which will come, that day
Which grows closer every time
I see his hands upon that wheel,
Knottier than the last. I think,
"will I be able to count back to
this visit, the number of times
I spent with him".
I do not want my father to die.

Thin Love (the remnants of the women i've known)

The remnants of women I’ve known

Oh, how they come

And they go,

All the women I’ve known

Who leave little behind;

Little but trinkets,

Semiprecious possessions

For me to find in time.

I take each to task of memory

Roll them in errant hands

Long divorced from

Acquainted flesh

And cherry lips,

Bleeding roses down

Alabaster, finely sculpted necks

Rooted in the heart of

Absent, once beating breasts.

Oh, the women I’ve known,

How they come and go;

More unique in what they leave

Than in what they bring.

More the same for my thin love;

Less the river, more the stream

Less the ocean, but perhaps the sea

-Deep in a center mostly unexplored

Shallow around the edges,

Rimed by pleasant breezy beach.

Left in the sand, a brush I do not own

Or laying in the corner a book I do not know.

Each a moment left behind

A remnant half remembered

A name and a face I can never

Quite place nearly as well as the

Pointless things, the shoes she usually wore.

But I am not sad, no never that

When I wake to find another slipping

Past my loose fingers towards my open door.

For when she leaves there will be something

She leaves, beside my bed or in her, their, drawer;

Beside the chair where the two usually sat, across from a

Painting given to me by Precious, or perhaps something

As simple as a fallen barrette; whatever is left,

I will keep for a time, cherished and appreciated

And in my own way sacred and enshrined,

A talisman to figment desire for a receded

Much loved feature; eyes, or scent or taste or lips;

To all the thin loves which never grow thick.