Decrepit convalescence
In a dingy house.

Death has waited patient decades -

Descends.
Seeps sickly in.
Sends greedy black tendrils over
Dusty floors, up each and every wall.

It sulks about scowling in the rooms -
Dims light.
Dampens mood.
Casts a funereal pall.

It hates a memory more than anything:
A beautiful day
Safe, and tucked away-
A smooth stone
Warm from fond and frequent touch
In a pocket near to mind.

It covets the good places.

Ghosts balk, unsettled, and step aside 
Where laughter meant
Safety once 

And safety meant home

Curled and lolling now, like a cat
On a patch of the house
Where the sun once cheerfully shone -
Death closes the blinds
Closes all windows.

i wrestle with the past i bend the present backwards i grab at ghost stones i batter my fists on my shadow's road i beat at the door that's been closed i wander down corridors alone i find abandoned places i leave them all over again i look for your name scratched in sand i wash in dead rivers running dust i complete the circle i twist and turn about i face a black bull in shadows of a barnyard i ride the memory of a horse to the back and forth to a graveyard

Seen

seen yourn picshur
u look gud black an wyte
i membur bakwerd
when u was coloring my lyfe
pink n orange an u smelt gud 2
now it seemz thers nowt much else I miss
mor than then orr mor than u

Wahhhhhhh

In the yard

weeds tickle my ankles
Pissing I forget them and look at stars
How many million years old we are!
I thought I was 27.

********************

It's dark, but
The 7-11s
Never turn off.
With the radio on
The cab sped away.

Evenings earlier I played guitar and sang with the sirens into the night.

A few stabbings went on at the bar;
I did not report them-
that's what the leader is for.
A few kids got run over but
Who gets the paper anymore?

In this dream she has a neon pink electric guitar and
Floats away backward into the dark;
The cord, the cable, the tether grows longer.
Neon dims, her figure wanes, not disappeared but smaller.
She strums but the tune is merely a name washed
Loud from my mouth.

Sound waves break; they chase after, float farther.
The name, once melody, rings hollow, ebbs silent.
Neon blinks out and I forget who I'm calling.
The memory, the tether, the cord at its longest
Goes slack; unplugged and lonesome, twists and drifts back;
Recoils from ink-black, starless, quiet.

the day folds over;
shadows flee the yard.
gold apollo's chariot,
our savior star
burns summer into shimmer street.
neighbor's home blisters, peels, bakes.
litters yellow flakes.

noon is noticed a few thousand times with
compound eyes and something
hops up into light,
throws its armored body,
its last insect idea
into the beak of a mockingbird.

the bird
gloats into a mimosa
singing a hungry prayer.
timid shadows return and
the mockingbird
peers from green stained-glass shade.

Words thrown about
Lost like skipping stones
I said
Love and cherish friendship and forever
Well I never well I never
Meant much at all
Except everything exceptional
Or all the words you never hear for all
The things you think you mean
Or how things aren't but ought to be