Lament for a Warm May Spokane Night

In the tradition of Throwback Thursday, here's a poem I wrote in May 1993 while living in Spokane. It's not good, it's pretty terrible in fact, but I was 19 and messed up and it brings back those evenings. So close I can almost touch them. I can remember writing this one; amazing as there is much I cannot remember of those days. What I most remember is how, regardless of my personal misery, playing with language and images was such a pure joy.

shot through bloodshot red marijuana eyes
viewing from a pebble soup Spokane sidewalk
coming home from a tiring day
a mild headache, 
     a memory of a night spent entwined with my lover weeks ago
weathered old businessmen in shriner hats stare at me strangely
asking who am i to be walking down this ghost street
the architecture full of stone dust
all gargoyles frown mysteriously
catholic cathedral proudly displaying its ugly evil
     across the street
cut in half by black meat cars
trees that have grown up breathing polluted air
     looking like cigarette-scarred lungs
oh child innocent spring night memory
a full moon extra cop cars (tainted)
     flashing! blowing! wigging out, the 
          unsuspecting children of the hallowed Spokane night
jungle rhythms cut headache into strips of hazy consciousness
a tribute to Ginsberg, yeah, this betrays his influence
but the death skull platitudes are all mine
down the street two beasts w/only one bright eye--Cyclops!--
     creep towards me
          spooky
i laugh as a soft mad child
safe in my headache nirvana.

Ten Songs From Another World

I wrote these ten pieces in 2009. I always imagined each accompanied by a painting, but I have zero artistic talent and no one has offered to partner with me. (I'm intrigued by the idea of collaboration, having always worked exclusively by myself.) Perhaps they are destined to be only words, after all. I like all of them but the tenth one is my favorite. Enjoy. And apologies for the uneven formatting; Blogger is a pain in the ass and I'm done fighting it for the day. I wish you could see my original document.


Clean Kills

My father told me: it must always be a clean kill. Sloppy work is not accepted under any circumstances. And when you are finished, you clean all your tools and put them back in the proper place. The cooks call it mise en place. Everything properly set up, each component occupies the space necessary, and there is enough space left over to perform the work in a quick, thorough and decisive manner. The final result must be of the highest quality. Always use your own knife. To use another's would be an ethical violation of the most degrading sort, put on display for all to see. These are the things my father taught me, and I learned the lessons well. He did not let go of life until I demonstrated I’d learned. When I was finished, I kept the eyes, because I needed someone to watch over me.

Step 2

Have you ever conjured a three-headed dog? It happens only by complete accident. Most likely you were distracted, talking to your brother over beer gone warm in the afternoon sun. Though it made annoying little yips, you probably wouldn’t have noticed the creature had you not tripped over it. Unlike you, there was nothing befuddled in its eyes--six of them: one pair green, another black, and the third a pus-like shade of yellow. It sat on the grass that you mowed yesterday and stared at you as if it had every right to be there. 

The only thing you could think to say was “Get off my lawn” but that sounded all wrong when it came out, it wasn’t what you meant, wasn’t even the best you could do. Your brain was hazy with the beer. Oh, old man. Your brother, who you’d forgotten about, informed you that the dog wasn’t listening. On this point, you had to agree, and so you let him stay.

I Will Go There, Take Me Home

Fourteen prayers: sun, dust, acorn, spider and ten more not named. History buried deep in the cool earth, covered by penance. Rotting wood, discarded magazines, you are as dust, as the things left unsaid. Fourteen prayers, each separate but said in order they form a greater whole. A cosmic weave, a tapestry of dark filaments shrouding you like a cloak of black stars. A chainlike series of cells.  

Metal corrodes but dirt is always soft. Soft, wet and cool.

the boys of summer

The kind of night when you listen The Boys of Summer over and over. And I fucking hate Don Henley. But that song. Brilliant. To those of a certain age, the most brilliant. The sound of the 80s, beneath all the coked-out fever dreams and anger. A long line of melancholy and regret. Realization of all that is gone and all that barely was. When he pleads that he'll love you even after the boys of summer are gone, there's a desperation that is so real, you know that if that love was real it only was for a moment and now it's just a ghost, another memory that won't leave him alone. And that echoing guitar in the break, crying like a seagull fading into memory. Another reminder of all that is gone. Echoes, echoes.

The sadness is always there, lurking. Some nights you can't put it down with beer or words or hugging your daughters. It sits on your shoulder and sends songs into your head. Scrambling  up these words and crawling off to bed, hoping sleep drowns it out. In a house of bodies, ghosts.

You can't look back, you can never look back. But you will.