The Nightly Rhyme

midnight bellows

a fog horn sounds from the ocean;
once towboats on the Mississippi,
the midnight bellows from a lifetime ago
are now a seaworthy incarnate.
twenty-five blocks and the distance from shore
is farther than a backyard, street and rail line,
yet I can hear them both easily well.

again, another call to home.
another call back to the void,
“we’ll see you soon,” they say.
and they mean it.
the ships can’t help but cry
to the fools stuck on shore,
unknowing, needlessly wanting more - and more horns!
the ironclad hurrahs!
breaking the din of Dead City,
whisking away wax paper veils that
keep us up late, lying awake,
thinking about the sailor in the Pacific
with blue salt tears in his eyes.
a sailor never sleeps in silence.

and neither do we.

when light lingers

when light lingers like fingers in the socket
we might take more of the dark.
five-finger discount-for-trade:
the intangibility of hope,
of heart. 

liquid courage

I reject the celebration and mock the congregation.
this hope lingers like a finger in the socket.

it ain’t liquid courage when it’s watered-down rage.
 

sin

we’re sick of life because we love living
the one right in front of us,
next to the sinning.

defense

In my defense I’ve been the 
same as I have been for much 
longer than I can
forget about..it.

these bones been crooked for some
time and I don’t know
if they will even hold
up and through the fight.. 

I go to bed with the safety
off inside my head
just in case it goes unsaid
like it often did.

letter to martinelli bicardi

martinelli bicardi,

burial songs get lost in translation;
persuasion has no place here.
sharp consonant nothings fit nowhere 
but here,
with smoking, screaming somethings
screaming at nobody. 

everyone listens to what has to be said
for fear
the misknowledge of ignorance
would destroy them in the fray.
instead,
for here/now, 
between sticks and twigs,
the innocent bricks,

those stones of love and demise,
keep us awake at night,
dreaming of import.

a fog on the blackout.
the lighthouse is burned
from the bottom, down.
we crash into the shore.
these rocks, they turn to flames…

we’ll end up in the caves,
we thought. we keep it to our caves,
and make it through the night.
but there’s another day,
tomorrow and tomorrow.
every day, forever.

I wash a blue collar.

I’ve lived out a life in my sleep.
you said I’d dream, you said I’d dream.

instead I’ll die.
love and demise. 

muni ride

too many scraps
just enough traps
to maybe catch hell.

catch fire now
burn it all down
don’t care for you or yerself
don’t dare to be safe, sane or swell.
fuck all.

in-group favoritism meets
out-group barbarism.
the farther the schism
the happier I could be.
yer stepping on toes,
y’know,
and crushing my spirit
with every hail.
with every ale,
I get another.

stop reading my shoulder.
nothing’s there.
keeps getting colder.
bolder the pen scribes.
you might read me now
easy or at least a little better.
I’ll shout (at you)
when I run out of ink.
trust me when I say
I don’t care what you think.
so think about it harder.

the farther you are
the faster I’m better.
get off, get off.
where do you get off the bus?
go by yerself.
need help?
then suffer.

nothing to share or give to the world but a cold hard stare with those looks that you hurl into the alleyway in the high-noon night. the shots you called for, the shots I delivered, in the back-alley showdown that some call a brawl. some call it murder. I call it a fight. this passage is a right.

bar scribe, pt. II

vascular tarnish tendered to relish yesterday’s particulars in no sort of order or hierarchy of priority - except “fuck you” is first - save for the kings of modernity and madness. the queen’s hold my sadness for granted, mistakes of false recollections from another time. those jaded memories of some other mind hidden behind kindness and a mask of fragility. the mobility and sensibility of not-giving-a-fuck is lost here. yer rigidity and misgivings, to me, feel like bequeathed heirlooms of secrecy you’ll never pull out of the arbor that harbors sentiments of prerequisite calculations and determinants invaluable to any body who comes into view but you, who, like everyone else in this bar, has nowhere else to go. hell. keep it to yerself.

bar scribe

these were written in an foul mood, behind a pint glass, in a bar full of suits.

save a dollar and spend some time
drinking to holler at the people
who rent out space in my mind.

I write in a bar by myself in the dark
I wait in a bar cuz I need help for my heart
centerpiece flame with no one to blame
but the air of indignants and pretentiousness
meant to miss all of it at once.
this poison is oxygen.
this poison is laughter.
this poison is fire.
this poison is ink that runs drier.
my poison is sitting in the back by herself
in the dark looking for help
from no one but the breeze.

half pint left, stretched out thin over
half hour spent; my candle has six flames
and can’t quit catch the wind to give it a rest.
put me out, put me out. let me get out.

yer all too loud. I can’t hear the shitty juke. 

Glassmaker (Mason Scars)

The lines on my face don’t come from age;
They come from worry.
The mask for my rage
Is a mason jar for the rainy days.

In a place deep inside where I keep and I hide
All of my fury.
It never breaks.
And if it does like it does, then I’m sorry.
‘Cuz if it does like it has, then I’ll worry,

And make some more lines on my face
Not from rage but from anger.
It’s not too late to admit
That what I am now is what you rejected then.

And those lines you created are my lines to cross.
It seems its never my gain but always yer loss.
It all feels the same
When today’s just another rainy day.

I live with your lines on my face
And for that I am stoic.
This jar that I keep in my chest
Is about to burst open.
The lids screwed on tight but
Tonight I fear it is broken.

The lines that don’t fade in the sand
Are the ones I don’t cross and make me a man
And show themselves up in my jar
Next to all my other mason scars.

Under whiskey moonlight,
You hit the same nerve twice
And made me a jar.
Just after midnight,
You hit the same nerve twice
And made my mason jar

Out of all those mason scars.
You’re a glassmaker at heart
But you broke mine.

You’re a glassmaker.
But where do I keep all these mason scars? 

anythings

rocking forward
rolling backward
holding on to yer Nothings
and giving you mine.
these Somethings,
my Only
Anythings of consequence
and clarity,
say anything,
mean nothing.

burn the haystack;
find the needle.

you want specifics:
realistically,
yer only what you can do;
what you did has been done.
you beg for recognition
but yer attitude deserves none.
I’d could call you out by name
but it wouldn’t mean a thing;
the simple truth is this:
we’re all but one in the same.

this old Truth is conjecture
for those like you.
we all wish we were better
but I love to hate you.

cripple

this incessant insect-uous feeling
creeping up my spine into my brain
has got me doubled over
fighting, mentally
hiding from everyone
emotionally.

I am not afraid of these bugs
or these half-hearted hugs
and hold-steady shrugs.

I’m just trying to hide.