The Way James Dean Did

I’ve been sitting side-stage at burlesque shows,
smoke trailing off from my cigarette
which sits perched in my lips’ grip
with a filter that has been pinched
between forefinger and thumb,
the way James Dean did.

And I’ve been warding off advances
casually, a dismissive wave,
an uneasy stare that says
you’re not welcome here,
not yet.

I was sitting, gaining composure
through loosened inhibitions,
when she sifted through the curtains,
haloed by the spotlight,
the grand act saved for finale.

And I mistook her for you
though you look not the same.
It came within a
tilt, a movement of hands
into hair
Thoughtlessly, wordlessly.

But,
perhaps I mistook you for her, her
beauty similar to yours, your
postures the same, same
backs bending, as though you were
parallel.

Each curve along her frame, not
exact, but reminiscent of ones
my hands had run across
before, paths they had been
missing.

And I held her, not in hand,
but in eyes, locked on
contortions, captured in
contrasts with shadows.

The music reached towards
its zenith as she glanced
towards the sky, tasting
the air with a tongue of flame.

The light was filtered out
as her thighs wrapped around
her lone chair, cat calls and
applause growing ever steadily.

And with them, I clapped
for a misplaced adoration
put on display for the
brutes with whom I dwell.

I’ve Seen.

I’ve seen soldiers out in the back alley

Digging earth, digging graves

For fallen comrades

Who now lie beneath

Reconstructed dirt mixed with

The sweat and tears (mostly tears)

Of their brothers, the ones who still stand,

The ones who resent the dead

For their early escape

And though they love those that had passed,

They feel a hunger to switch places,

To be the ones prostrate, eyes closed,

Mouths closed, hands as still as a surgeon’s,

Entirely caressed by the mother that birthed them,

Nursed them,

Fed them,

Kept them sheltered,

And simply to lie among brothers

Blanketed by mother

With no bedtime story,

Simply lights out.

And I’ve seen poor city folk

Clamoring to leave their lives,

Carried away by motorbikes

Headed for the nearest forest,

Mountain, lake,

Anywhere not plagued by their brethren,

Anywhere with a hint, a promise of sorts,

That life can begin anew,

That you can be what you want to be,

Provided no one else is around,

And they trip over buildings and street corners

And traffic lights and garbage cans

And the homeless and the billboards

And the commercialization and the capitalism

And free market system teetering on collapse

And they’re tripped up and fallen,

Glancing upward for a guiding light,

But the city still pollutes their view,

Stars overcast by sky lines,

And their only hope, their only way out

Is to abandon one another

And live amongst the trees once again.

And I’ve seen children stripped

Of laughter, of innocence,

Who play with building blocks,

Making the only buildings they know to make,

Half-destroyed, burned out, vacant of life,

Only waiting for a wrecking ball that will not come,

And the children cry like prophets,

Their tear-soaked eyes vacant,

Like the eyes of a soldier who has

Seen life fade from the eyes

Of his brother, the boy

Birthed from the same mother

Playing with the same building blocks

That rose towards the sky

Knowing no limit

Until, at their apex,

They crumbled.

And I’ve seen old men

(This future, their doing)

Weeping for a generation of their sons and daughters,

Knowing they themselves are as old as humanity will ever get,

Each generation dying younger and younger,

And the old men both cling to and despise

Their old time religion,

Clinging for hope of redemption,

If not on this earth, then the next,

But despising the system they misconstrued,

Reinterpreted to incite violence,

To justify bigotry,

To allow themselves to hate those that are different

And bring them to war,

But only wars that are holy,

Forgiven by God,

Justified in their intent

To educate and inspire

Some way

Through bullets and bombs

Through shock, through awe,

Through (our) God’s greatness

To overcome the grip of (their) god’s teachings,

Incompatible with our own,

And the old men keep crying,

Because these holy wars

Were wholly wrong,

And for it,

Their sons, their daughters

Lie blown to bits,

Bone composed in ground

Their short lives bookended

By those of the elderly warlords

With misguided purposes

Who inch us all ever closer

To the redemption they seek.

And I’ve seen newspaper headlines

Meant for 3-D glasses

Made to draw your attention

To the sensationalism,

The excitement,

The fright

Of the end of humanity

And all the papers are dated,

Already old news,

Reporters no longer reporting,

Editors no longer editing,

Ink sitting stagnant, unused,

And when it starts raining,

The paper will truly be missed

when there are no temporary umbrellas,

And tales of a modern world

Will be neither drowned

Nor held on high

Only to be left discarded

In overflowing garbage cans

On which we all stumble.

And I’ve seen cities sink,

Overcome by nature,

As humanity has run its course

And those that remain scatter

Bugs beneath a kitchen light

Refugees from their own faults

Running from their lives where

They only cared to dream,

To fund what they hoped to be possible,

All the time forgetting

What was already there,

At least until it overwhelmed them once again,

Slowly,

One blade of grass,

One overreaching root,

One quickly coursing creek,

One petal of a flower

At a time.

O what a hell I dreamed I’ve seen.

Yard Sale

Out in front of the house
sitting in the grass
are the things I
haven’t used in a while
or some I overused
or simply never used
mingling with the
things I can’t bare to look at
because they remind me
of events I’d rather not remember.
A dress
A necklace
innumerable things you never came back for
being perused by strangers.
I’m whoring my life’s memories,
in effect.
But times are tough.

Tired phrases

I never liked that tired phrase
about the “one that got away”
like the person is a fish that broke your line.

It’s almost a delusion,
that this was beyond your control,
because you were there,
and one would hope as equals,
and you probably pushed her to it
and she probably wanted it
to work just as you did
but you’re too caught up
in mind-games and self-loathing
to realize the truth
that she didn’t just get away,
she got the hell out of Dodge.

A letter.

Dear woman down the hall:

Hi.
We’ve never spoken,
not even for a moment,
and yet I can
almost imagine
how that conversation
would go.
And I always picture it ends splendidly
and you see me the way no one else does
and we end up together, happily ever after.
But I am dying, so we shall not.
All I wanted
was to say hello.

Words

Words streaming out
forming and clumping
together into heart-shaped structures
and they move through veins
interconnected
a flowing stream of my consciousness
linking my mouth and my ears
trickling into my brain
washing over my thoughts
and overtaking my mind.

Sarah Palin.

The wolf stared straight,
fangs slowly unveiled,
hunching, menacing,
growling, snarling,
claws sunk into snow,
fresh tracks marking its path,
an arrow straight line
led by nostrils
fueled by hunger
closer
and closer
each step, it drew nearer
and nearer to its prey,
a catch that suspected not a thing,
as the wolf slowly bore down on it.

Until, that is, a thunderous wind leapt from the sky
And a shot rang out from a bird’s eye view
And a helicopter hung mid-air,
a rifle drawn back inside,
And it was the ingenuity of man
that couldn’t help but malign nature’s plan.

Vigilante

Now, I’ve always felt like murderer is the wrong term.
I prefer to be known
as a vigilante, a protector,
because I never killed no one
that didn’t have it coming.

I’m personified karmic retribution, my friend.
The ones they call victims,
they were the real criminals,
and they did far worse than murder.

So I bombed their office building.
So what.
They were collecting on our palpable misfortune,
misfortune that they themselves created,
and, no, there were no innocents killed,
because if you were in that building,
you may as well have drawn a target on your own head
and not been surprised when your prayers were answered.

So, don’t call me a murderer, if you will.
I’m a protector of the downtrodden,
a Robin Hood of pain and misery,
but I steal them from the poor, and give them to the rich
because they have needed it so dearly,
a dose of humility,
and the longer you keep me locked up,
the less and less free we both are.

Moving & Shaking

Moving & shaking
& always distracted.
Moving & shaking
& always distracted.

These are the common symptoms
the doctor told me
and he wanted to put me on
speed to correct it.

And I said no.

Because maybe I’ve just
always been restless.
Because when I’m awake,
I’m a mover and a shaker
And when I’m asleep,
I’m a mover and a shaker
And in my dreams,
I’m a case of perpetual motion
And when I’m tossing and turning at night
And I wake her with the movement
And she asks me what’s the matter,
I will never have an answer.
It is just that even when I’m resting
I can’t ever stay still.

And maybe the reason
I’m always so distracted
is that there is so much to experience,
I can’t help but try to take it all in.
I just open my eyes too wide
trying to see not just what I’m writing
but what everyone around is writing
and reading
and feeling
and doing
And maybe I miss part of what you tell me
but that’s only because my ears are trying
to take in a roomful of conversations,
and sometimes you get pushed in a corner
and I don’t get to hear
what I wanted to hear
But a lot of the time
I hear more than I expected.

So, thank you, Doc,
but I think I’ll get
a second opinion
and a third
and a fourth
and a fifth
until I’ve gathered as many opinions
about myself
as I have about everyone else.

And I know you’re probably right, Doc,
because I am always distracted,
I guess I just think of it
as being fully open to life.
And maybe I am always
moving & shaking,
But its the movers and shakers
that get things done in this world.

I Know

I know what I am.
I’m a city of cells
stacked up on each other
forming in shape
the skinny mess of life
that stands before you.

Do you know who you are?
can you sit there
and say with certainty
that you know every bit of yourself
and that you never find yourself
surprised by your own actions
your own thoughts
because if that’s how we define
knowing one’s self
then I’m just as lost
as the meandering masses
because I can’t go a day
without behaving in a way
that I couldn’t have planned on
and I can’t go a minute
without having a thought that I wish
had never crossed my mind
and though I may know what I am
and though I may know what I’ve done
when it comes down to it
I really don’t know who I am at all.