Dear Reader,

I think there’s at least about a dozen of you
Semi sorta dedicated readers of residue scraped from the inside of my mind after too long spent cyber surfing
These extrapolations of thoughts rendered into ambiguously bold statements like:
“Of course she’s a lesbian”
Randomly entered at the next space provided after a clear and concise personal analysis of something relevant
Or at least I think it’s relevant
To whatever exactly I glean from publishing these pages of my daily routine, romantic collisions, work stress, general instability issues and my growing disillusionment with this whole reality thing
A fair portion of which were very inaccurately, yet carefully, typed in varying degrees of drunken stupor and extraordinarily colorful THC benders
And yet, dear readers, you still humor me
In sparse but wonderfully anonymous heartfelt comments posted sometimes just minutes after my last illustrious listing of,,, whatever the hell it may be
Like the most perfect and honest form of conversation
Where two parties with absolutely no connection past boredom and similar stopping points on the information superhighway can simply say to someone else
“wow… that sucks.”
Or: “hopefully she’s bi”
Which is all we’re really looking for anyway
We don’t want answers because there’s never a question asked in earnest
We’re bloggers
Meticulous archivists of our generation’s most wonderful failing:
Our brilliance
And complete lack of desire to utilize it to any significant benefit
So we turn to livejournal for that utterly impersonal pat on the back and virtual thumbs up
Myspace to inform our Friends with up to the minute status updates punctuated with smiley or sad faces
Or sometimes cocked slightly sideways with strange facial expressions faces that the genius Tom, or Rupert Murdoch, felt most perfectly defines the moods available in the easy to use dropdown menu
I still haven’t quite felt right to update mine with Ninja yet, but I’m waiting anxiously for it
In the meantime I’ll keep checking my online Friends listing to see if my ex girlfriends are around
Blocking friend requests from Rosalina who lives in Schenectedy who really, really wants me to join her and her naughty friends in their new online community
Just follow the link
To the other side of the monitor’s looking glass
And see what’s really underneath all that late night text posted in hopes that someone, anyone will just follow the same link you did and read it
It’s our own reflection staring back at us as we type the volumes of our lives out on empty entry fields
We’re all sitting in the biggest café ever
reading books, or magazines, or painting our nails, or playing with the straw in our cup and listening, waiting
for someone in our general vicinity to say something devastatingly interesting
or heart wrenchingly personal so you can validate a dwindling hope in humanity and know that there are still humans out there
but instead of tableside conversation we interact with strangers through post comment buttons
just follow the link
forward, reply or, in the worst case, block user
just follow the link
and find me
typing out the immediate inspiration of my ups and downs daily
maybe check out my photoblog
just, if only to say nothing more than “hi (dot dot dot)”
follow the link
and talk to me

haikus

1
Offer one more smile
Open up the sky with it
Make bright my dark days

2
want to be numb
stop nerve endings from feeling
too much fire in me

3
Words carry the soul
Your breath is the chariot
Let free your own voice

4
valentine’s haiku
hallmark made this holiday
so trite and empty

5
sometimes i find it's
easier to hurt out loud
than just in silence

6
i find more ways to
distract myself daily from
what i know too well

7
i want to gaze at
her for so long my eyes burn
like she was the sun

8
i burn like the sun
smoldering ashes of red
crimson; douse me, please

9
a small boy stares out
from inside my eyes watching
the world around me

10
i wish the wind would
take me elsewhere; soaring high
above this strange place

11
my radiator
blew up and spurt thick, grey smoke
while i smiled and ate

12
keys click away all
day; there is no stop to this
incessant tapping

comfortable

Poets don’t live life on the edge
We’ve already broken ourselves over the cold steel at the corners of our senses
Cut to ribbons lying in the refuse bin at the bottom
Our pens like needles threaded through with the bits of ourselves still
remaining
We make of our lives a patchwork
Sewn together from scraps and shown to the world
like the collected and roughly thrown together perfection we present
to open minds dangling over their own edges waiting to be felled upon
just waiting to cut deeply with no safety nets below to catch what falls torn
heaving the weighted pieces on scraped shoulders
never strong enough to carry the entire load, so some of Us gets left behind
to be returned to later
ink-laden needle in hand
puncturing tattered edges of torn heart trying to create some flimsy mural
of unburdened ideals
shattered against the steel of reality…
is what we make of it
so what does your world look like poet?
Mine’s a hand-me-down thriftstore cardigan suit jacket
Custom-tailored to fit like perfection
To fit like sacramental garments and funeral shroud
With holes in the elbows covered by mismatched patches:
Left side sun-bleached to nearly pink retro paisley,
Right side pinstripes skewed at the center and bending inwards
Breast pocket with a hole at the bottom
So I can never hold onto the 2 cents some poet spared me unwittingly
Tossed in to save for later
When my own thoughts come up short-changed
Frayed sleeves just a little too short to cover my wrists when arms reach out for a grasp onto something new
So I find it’s more becoming to keep my hands at my sides
holding onto what I know best:
Just me
missing a few buttons so no matter how tightly I wrap myself up
It’s always open to chill, biting winds ripping through the strained seams
Too hot to wear on these humid florida days
And never much cover on the coldest
But this suit jacket’s comfort comes not from style, but familiarity
Wrapping over my shoulders like the ever so tight embrace I yearn for in so many words whispered
When not worn I rest my jacket on a thick wooden hanger on the outside of my closet door
Like the slightly swaying profile of a close friend, ever vigilant, and waiting for conversation
Or the faceless adversary of countless problems always there
For those too stressful days when you just need some prick in a tacky suit to stand up to and shout unanswered expletives at
And through this all it still hangs there
on the hook of my closet door waiting
For when I need to wrap myself in my own personalized patchwork perspective
Clothe myself in the reality I create in words sewn together
Threaded through pentips to rework the broken dreams still shattered at my feet
So what does your reality look like poet?
What do you call it?
I call mine comfortable
Like childhood memories of a 5 year old me holding my favorite teddy bear
The one dad bought for me the day I was gifted into this world
Treading nervously onto the orange carpet of a new room in a new house
And after just a single step in I knew I had found my room and so,
Seated on the windowsill overlooking the street on which I’d soon spend so much of my childhood my teddy bear stayed
While I went and told my father I found “My Room”
Comfortable like a solitary drunk night spent stumbling down empty streets
Greeted only by a midnight breeze
grazing both cheeks with a slight kiss before being whisked away to leave the smile of a city on another
comfortable like the soft purring of my cat’s greeting each day i return home
where that same tarnished hook hangs on my closet door
holding my silent and weather-worn best friend, confidante, lover, enemy and family
just waiting to be slipped on
so what does your world look like, poet?
What do you call it, poet?
How do you wear your word-built world so you can stand tall comfortably despite the weather?
Me?
over the left arm, then the right
fit to the nape of the neck and adjust the collar
comfortable

home

babbling idiot prosleytizers and drunken overly-forward 20 somethings
homeless sputtering words to a friend long lost, or who was maybe never there in the first place
strange, dark alleys holding what no god wants to claim knowledge of
lonely streets and desolate avenues
passerby with poured on smiles worn in double dosage in order to appear more convincing
wandering unfamiliar staggered pathways with strangers on arm close enough to be best friendship
city of lost love, lavish lust and lackluster lullabies of car horns and sirens, wind whistling through unfinished condo towers
and the cumulative sigh of a city restless
and in the midst of it all i still search madly for more of my self

random

do i pour myself out onto pages for your benefit,
or my own?
is this some semblence of cynicism dressed up in detailed regalia to get an applause
or an actual outlet of expression?
so many questions and not nearly enough answers spoken from the voice inside me to finish the statements listed along text entry fields previously left empty until i reached deep into the pit of myself to fill them
this piece,
this particular punctuation of pain pressed into layers of skin like tattoos delivered by a sadist sociopath is not for me;
this is for you
this is me making up for lost time,
making up for lost breath
spent wasted on the excrements of my various distractions,
this is not profound,
simply pitiful.
simply placing words on pages to try and fill the empty space left inside of me
beyond metaphor of melted pens and burned pages
this is not the normal heat i exude
this is me doing something i hate to admit
writing for writing's sake
and stopping here won't halt the fact that this treason was commited in the first place
saying so much without saying what needs stating
i speak too much
without writing what i feel to back it up
can't stand behind the words i display to you
yet ask you to read them dolefully anyway
without question
my outlook is without question
as there are no means of defining my choices
just words
left over like day old pizza
moldy, forgotten beyond crushed cans and littered cigarette butts
what sort of legacy is this for me to leave?

untitled

disconnect, disassociate, dissolve
every bit of what once was me
let it drip down fingers still twitching as the last coils of self slip past the pentip
and onto the page
i think i forgot how to cry somewhere in the catharsis
so i'll let these thoughts seep through ink
feelings through punching keyboard keys
unlocking some semblence of explanation beyond simple metaphor
if you, dear reader, fail to understand it, don't fret;
neither do i
pouring sentiments for a lost sense of understanding
listing in dripping statements the abstract that inches its way across my thoughts every waking moment
and lingers past the closing of eyelids and system standby of slumber
pervading subconscious and painting it in garish tones i couldn't ignore if i wanted to
and so that's why this shit tends to be so very oddball
i could blame it on the drugs:
nicotine intake level is at an all-time high this year
THC reading is off the chart and still climbing
there's too much blood in my alcohol stream so you better make it a double bartender
doctor, therapist, lover and nemesis
prescribe me a glassfull of momentary distraction
i need this
continued existence subsisting on substance
not just the stuff of my own experiential reflections
but the refined variety available from street corner to liquor store countertop
disconnect, disassociate, dissolve
reduce myself to thought only
a whisper of a thought carried away on a cloud of smoke
a mere memory of a thought of a poem once uttered
too quiet to be remembered verbatim
but the intent remains past the poet's expiration
so i hope that,
in whatever this newfound me might accomplish throughout the tenure of my expressive rantings,
you will remember me
smiling,
despite my
disconnect and disassociation with reality
and the dissolving of self i still stutter through

Desert Rose

Think of me as a pause between point a and b
A minor hiccup in plans
A popped tire on the tourbus of your life
just when you needed to step out for a cigarette
so stand with me for just a moment longer
pursed lips blowing smoke rings to the wind
smiling in the face of fate
closing our eyes to the fact that this stop along your journey is a short one
but you have another minute, at least, so let’s smoke another
talk with me
late night hazy giggling conversations over flat, warm whiskey and soda
we forgot about
early morning fingers twisted in my hair
and our lips meeting
parting
tasting of one another all we can in the short time shared together
I want to remember this every way that I can
Trace fingers along the length of your lithe frame so my skin can recall the route taken to make you sigh into my shoulder
Plant a hundred kisses from your knees to your neck along supple landscape
like a memory of me might grow from them
Blooming flowers reaching up to your ears and whispering
When those Arizona nights might be too cold
And my arms surround empty space in my st pete apartment
I’d like to think you might miss this sudden weekend
This unexpected detour
Because I know I will
When swans fly west for soothing winds blowing over desert sands
I’ll still be sitting here
Smoking cigarettes under banyon trees overlooking the bay
And wondering how far across the horizon I’ll have to stare
Before I can see my desert rose again