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

no fear just wonderment

no fear
just wonderment
taking it back to when things were sprouting up by the second
and keeping your eyes always twittering back and forth
waiting for the next wild thing to shoot up out of the horizon
and turn your world inside out
a new bug
a color of leaf you'd never seen
a blazing wildfire
howling forests at night
the ocean power
and nature struggle, without regard for you
but in front of your eyes, to the sides of your head
you, small
but feeling like a giant walking around the land
the Heavens looking down on you
and you looking down from the Heavens
your heaven
not knowing Hell
still bright as a new star, crackling to life upon the backdrop of the night
and burning across the morning for eternity

Gray

Blistering evening, take me
the still California evening
carrying all the souls to their happiness or gloom
it is a gray night and I am locked into it with everybody else
for now
I remember feeling like this before
I don't remember when exactly
just remember feeling this way
both happy and sad
in between depression
and hope for the future
floating
somewhere on the plane between
living
and dying
gray evening, don't go dark on me just yet
I need to see in order to feel