but what is that spirit

so, this is what I'm in for
every night for the rest of my short life
talking at the windows of the cities
that don't talk back, and worse
demand to be continuously talked to
I have nothing more to say to glass
just a spirit within me that wants to break through
through the panes of world, man, everyday living
it really isn't that easy getting on with people
the whole world is out of the whole mind that we see displayed
that is quite a mind, we eat that mind up
and I want to be of another mind
the one that floats
and listens
and is still
and can sway at night and drink, and think how it wants to
freedom of spirit
but what is that spirit
won't find it in the drink, or the city night, or the chats
but will find it when still and ready to find
I know it won't be like the other ones and that makes me glad
and almost proud
like a father with a special child
proud that the spirit is different and weird and transcendental and hated and magnificent
that is success in the world
and that is what the world weirdly calls the goal
the dream
the end of the road
if at the end of the road I find scorn
but I find the sunrise
give me death in utter, serene happiness of a life that was lived
and was scorned

the soul screams

lions of the night
roaring down the highway of lovely forgotten green early morning
the night lions that people ignore and turn in comfortable
nope, have to wake up healthy and alive
but it is at night that the soul screams
and yanks at heaven for the answer
tell me what I am supposed to do, Lord
just don't let me fall asleep without knowing
or worse
caring
you know me
I'd much rather drink, and ache, and blabber, and toil through the night
listening
than go to sleep
happy with myself
this night is no different from the others
it has its lions and its demons and its angels
and I never would have known that
had I gone to bed at a decent hour
like the rest

not one and not the other

one more tumbling mind-fuck into a drunk night
my stomach hurts
I often think that something is amiss in my body
liver? But I don't know what side that's on
the stomach itself? Can a boy drink himself dead at 26 through the stomach?
there are strange rumblings and pains
but still I drink
my fear is that I truly will become like the men I grew up in admiration of
the ones that wrote well and died with the drink in their bellies
sometimes I fear it so much that I'll die because (in fact) I don't even have a gal bladder anymore
but it doesn't stop me
and I push on towards either
good writing
or
painful death
God have mercy,
let it be both together
not one and not the other

racing up the coast

racing up the coast
laughing
spirits come out and teeth are smiling at the day
he swims in the ocean
dunes rise up and roll around our souls
tossed around the surf, the whole big liquid bowl in God's dishwasher
the sand in hair and kites on the eyes above windblown hair
on lines, tethers to the heart and tugging our very own strings
twirling things on the salty sky
squinting to the sun squinting back at us
pats our shoulders
always the coast in our minds, even in sleep
out windows of life
window sills of eternal happiness
painted love white
there with the potted plants and little shovels
time eternal
gazing through morning mist and howling night
forever racing out over the coast

home is where we belong

let every moment be walking out of the cities
get thee to a high place and contemplate the star-studded valleys
the lights can be beautiful, it just takes getting far enough away from them
the glimmering violence
the silent sex
the whoosh over the hills that is cars out to kill each other
but up here it is the hum of forward and backward movement
the forest of the mind
the sparkle in eyes of your gone youth
oh, sadness
and farewell to that gone youth
what the next step is can't be known
with youth, patience
now, growing old
not knowing is time
and time is money
evil, sour money
let money be not the thing you aspire to be
money from the pit
to the pit money will return
never be money
never be mean
Mother was right
there is a whole world out there
but home is where we belong

Softness

When softness takes hold, let it take hold
softness is one of those things that must not be taken for granted
granted you know it when you feel it
to some softness is a curse
and the hardness of life, a comfort zone
oh well, everybody is meant to find their own way and get by however they can
all to do is try
and all to do is love
with love we are lifted and lazily drifting along
like seeds on a breeze
some of us land in the soil
some of us land in the rocks
the rooftops
the sidewalks
wherever we land, as long as we catch up with the breeze again
to feel flight and forever softness
of cool mountain and ocean air
and to let softness be your life
until the end

Balcony

Let me tell you about sitting on the balcony in the rain as it come down around the world
showering our hearts, wetting our minds to breath and masking our inherited sin and madness
of the night out there maybe the madness natural because the trees are mad
the river is surely mad
I can't hear that river through the rain, but know it kneels and lays out on the valley out there
under the bridge
madmen made the bridge and I drive over it, so I must be mad there with them
and I swim in the river even swim in the rain
I hear the showers of our loneliness
loud, like the showers of our togetherness
family, and alone
both envelope the balcony
and both are madness
then where is sense?
but all these trees make sense, and the waters
though horizontal or vertical
sense can be drawn out of the river
lifted through the trees into the sky
and cover the yard outside the balcony
with sense, each drop making sense when it lands