Candlelight Nightsong

A little wild ray of light
from the dying summer moon
that runs blue through
splendid cities abandoned.
Each and every skull is
pierced with light and
slowly floating away.

As campers we find
our shadow s
leap ing
in the foliage
the golden river glowmurs
our feet outstretched
submerged
feeling the sand.

Angels divine
by the light of
their halo s
as lightning
dangerous ly
strikes.

Lips feel like
streetlights
our fingers
intertwined
like bountiful
bird s nesting-
careless divination
amongst the wild
starlight loveplay-
waiting for a
blueblossom
morning as the
stars all
meltfadeaway.

With dreamy candle eyes
we fall asleep as the
stars float above awake.
And new horizons always
have a face, and the
willows rustle in the
wingflight of a
mockingbird’s
nightsongs.

Night Meditation Poetry Experiment #01 06252012

Listening to
bluebird highwaysongs
tonight-

“Sometimes I get too
sad when drinking-
look at that star
through the hole
in the forest
canopy.”

“It’s the bottom star
in the Big Dipper- the
ladle part.”

“Groovy, I never knew
that at all.”

“Oh, I’m an expert on
the big dipper.”

My favorite picture:
me at ten years old
with the dogs dressed
in my best Pops
impression-
walking in the
wintersnow on
the farm.

Your favorite picture:
me and my sister as
children- dressed up
for some reason- you
love my sunglasses &
blue suit. I am standing
there with my sister
in the side yard.

“How old did I look in that picture?”

“Between eleven & thirteen.”

A new year of new rivers,
a woman jogging
gorgeously in pink-
for a moment she
was Athena- like
that four hundred
pound cyclist
that day between
flying discs, ducks,
and music.

And we beat the watermelonsun
like a drum- it’s ripe- let me
know if my Grandmother was
right.
Always
(every)
days- how many has it in been?
171.
Remember that night in
a parking lot in love
fire’s burning flame
wetsand
and
strawberry
afternoons?

Believe:
blue routes
skymusic
a hawk flying
over a field-
a crow sitting on
a wire eating
a candy bar-
he gets it-
tiger roses
and my
love.

What does fall say
to the ground?

The stranger at your front
door is nature-
a man of constant sorrow
or
a madman on the boat
in a storm.

With you it is always a
a burning torch kind of light-
and there are rats on the
flood, vampires, and
always honest men
imagining morning.

 

Overflowing Ashtrays Now vs. Burning of the Great Dismal Swamp Fire

for Mandy- this is another story in the night for you!

I am overflowing ashtrays now,
I am waiting on a phone call
to come tugging
down the line, and I am whistling there is only
one thing on my mind. All these strange
disappearances
in the night,
and the only one I miss is you- out there
somewhere- Do you know what this is all
about?

White lines are waiting in the night, some on
mirrors reflecting all tomorrows being the same
over and over and some you wake up to one on the
highway at five in the morning you, and all those
white lines are passing, and you have more
stories to tell her, and you can’t wait to whisper
tenderly- I’ve known pelagic depression, but
tonight, tonight it is dark and cold- I miss
you, and it feels right under a new moon.
I decided to go on back to falling down-
Opening up my eyes to everything.
Opening up my ears to the harmony.

The Great Dismal Swamp on fire in the night
I can smell it burning on the air
I am many miles away that night,
many miles away tonight.
It is dark, and there are those flames
to those who don’t know any better
hidden behind skyblue sunglasses-
extend the time limit!

It just sits there on the giant ashwood desk.
Is that a return address?
There’s enough energy everywhere to create
the Big Bang, when certain things align.

Some things are about money I think, and
then there was this person preaching about
the antlered man
and the great green earth mother, and I
said yeah, I understand, but I don’t think
that you do really.

Don’t think you can tomfool your way,
that’s all I was saying you can’t fool
your way through this, not this time,
not tonight, it is not that dark,
I can still see.

So what was I saying about my
alumunium heart, and sleeping
in the night, and do I answer
the phone? Light was flashing
somewhere in the night- and
I think if I was somewhere I would
be happy instead I’m stuck
on this great northern railroad
line tonight. I’ve seen visions in
a crstyal ball, I walked with a zombie,
I danced with a zombie the other night.

And time grabbed me hard by the collar,
and said, “Get out of here real soon, you
were never on Noah’s ark.” And I awoke
sweaty and groggy, and is the dream
broken- please just extend the time
limit- take of your sky-blue sunglasses.

And Heaven sent me a message that it
was well after closing time in the night,
and I should go or things could get weird.
Vengence vile and violent, and weird energies
in the night, and he was just an old bone daddy
rolling his bones in my face, first.

There’s this river I’ve never heard-
never swam in its current- I’ve done a study
over a thousand evenings, and I’m 99% percent
certain of what hell is- I’ve been there before-
it is always cloudy and full of smoke in the dark-
but I’ve been given the keys to a new city passed
to me in a sweet kiss, from tongue to tongue,
and after a thousand years I’ve just been
waiting to get that close to you- there’s enough
energy here to create a second Big Bang- this is the
only way I know to stop that endless white
line from coming, tugging on down the line,
and I’ve been a gambler,
and I am ready to fade away into the night-
be in a different place-
the only place I want to be
is with you in the early winter
dark, it is cold outside, baby.

I am smoking my dreams away tonight
while I remember the Dismal Swamp
burning under the moon, and stars, a
fire glows in the night- I remember the
smoke, and then I close my eyes and
think of your winter promises. Hold on,
I am going to spin some records on- you
pour a  few drinks, and I’ll move in real
close, as it is oh, so cold outside and I
hear those lonely train whistles- they
are in my ears too- just one more
cigarette, what do you say?

I’ve been waiting a thousand years for
a yes.

Three in the A.M.

It is just about that time of night
when you begin to lose your way
in the darkness and become like soft
mad dancing rain hitting the pavement,
just waiting for the dawn to burn you up.

It is just about that time of morning
when a cigarette burning in the night
is the only light between you and sanity.
As you fumble with the pack you think
of Christ, and then wish you had a match.

It is just about that time of night
when you wake up in a cold, cold
sweat and realize how truly alone
you sometimes usually are.
You stretch out like a cold metal
clanging against the sheets.

Yeah, it is three in the A.M.
and Goddamn
if it just never
quits!

Lucifer Shakes Me in the Night

for Roky Erickson

That damned thing
known but unknown
precariously
strange like
kicking flashing
lights in the dark.

Careful study of
the space between
the notes leads
me to discovering
where the pyramid
meets the eye.

I am beyond the
immediate familiar
now, and I’ve got
ghosts as I stare
at a straight line
that vanishes on
occasion.

Carcasses of chickens
and the empty vanity
of games of chance
played against two
headed dogs of heaven
that surround us
everyday. I crush
some pennies,
and I stumble ever
onward.

I think of demons as
I head out thirteen
across the night. I
think of the lies
above my head shining
down on me, fickle
twinkling lies.

Tunnel dark thoughts of
subterfuge and phone
lines that have been
necessarily abandoned
in this cold age of
frozen technology.
I do not worship this
cybernetic ecology.

I have no other place
to be- red lights, green
signs, Christmas
underground for years and
years walking with a
zombie tonight. Serpent
kisses made of wax
licking my brain.

I have the fortitude
of Samson just prior
to the shears, the
strength of Heracles
right before the seven
labors- mine mine mind
finding comfortable
lodgings in the ruins
of the night/morning.
All rooms seem too
large when you are
alone.

Yes, years have gone
by tonight, and yet
they melt away so
quickly I do not
think anyone has
noticed not even
the Goddess of the
eaves nor the fairies
of the doorway. Frozen
notes stuck in my
throat I begin to choke.

Nothing in this big
round world is worse
than looking down
at your loneliness
in the dark of night-
with no idea how to
get to you. My heart
palpitating now.

There are things that
can never be seen, but
have been foretold by
old men with piano key
teeth who study such
things endlessly in
rooms with no windows
in mountains alone.

Where prognosticators
succeed maps fail me,
utterly
and
completely. I leave
this city of bridges
on the wrong route in
the dark. I reorganize
the space around me.
Neon signs once
on fire to never
burn again can not
light my way tonight.

Driving through sides
of the city with giant
chunks ripped out by
jagged teeth. The
highway rises like
burning flames
higher and higher-
leaving me far
far
below.

Circling-
missing turns
discovering
hollow faces
of electric
fiends painted
on cement with
orange glowing
tips.

I discover a free spot
on the borderland
between:
the present
and the future,
the here
and the now and
I’ve had enough.

I park for the lack
of anything better
to do, and I drink
down the
moon to the left
of me- finally in
the night I am real.
Far away from
the morning that will
surely come and burn me
right up. Until then
I’ll sit here with this
buzz in my head and
wait for that suicide
clock to work-
maybe it never will.

And I Will Run Into the Night

And I will run into the night
siren songs and echoes welcome
my dark, dark flight. Crashing
through sidewalk puddles,
just rolling on.

Yeah, what could stop this
dark Hyperion, always naked
behind a painted lie, always
moving in a relatively
straight line.

Going to the edge of the world
that old Cristobal couldn’t
seem to find with those
shifting eyes. That’s where
I really want to be.

Your crystal ball
necromancy and strange
desires keep you standing
in line, and I will keep
rolling on my feet.

An Open Handed Prayer

I sit here tonight with
open hands trying to
catch whatever
happiness
might fall my way.

Tonight, I hurt.
I’m coming down.
It’s coming down
not a physical thing
at all,
but feelings
if you care
about distinctions.

Yeah, tonight set me
right back on my heels.
I hear things banging in
the windoutside- God
always takes care of
himself first- I lost my
appetite
thinking
drinking
about that
and this
luminous life consuming
the holy sweet blood
of Christ, but
it really means nothing
to me.

The beat to the music
sweet and rough
none-of-them-lovely
no-faces-six-a.m.-alive
in the night
cool and fresh.

I go to the window
lifting my cup to
trembling lips
staring through eyelids
wanting to close
the tent of careful
wisdom
down to drown out
the sun
again and again
over and over
amen.

Carscatbelly & Sousa Night Marches

This poem has been removed from the blog as it was accepted for publication in the very first issue of Nain Rouge– a groovy journal of art, poetry, and prose- so read it there. Peace.

Caveat Lector

He laughed at sixty-five towards her heart.
Her eyes flashed call me again
There was a coolness cut close to the line-
a delusion for a walking man-
like deadly jelly she undressed him
lightning had come forlorn, weary, even.

This drunken binge and two women
with their faces against his face
between them time slowed sidewise, and
caught a whimper, growing weak,
nerve endings and life on other planets.

He had followed her to take the nightwalk as
the counterman turned shifting from the token
payment of everything and everyone, words
of pride of that great Earth.

He remembered what the salesman said:
“In love, always let the window fall back.”

He thought of the joy of living in this cardboard
covered ghostboat, adrift just off the shore
as the starlight shone in her eyes
and much of their time was spent.

Her lips were the light purple of bruises and
they covered him- on those lips
again the heaviest reverential act, the
worship of the names of those who control
you.

“Damn you! You’re making it murder.”
She screamed in a farewell shot.

She lay panting beneath him shattered
like a partially human circus toy.

“Thousands of persons have died that did not exist.”
He whispered in her ear, and wondered if
she understood their joy.

“Leave me with strangers, may I love again?”
She posed the single question as she crawled
off the bed pulling on her shadow thing coat.

 

Walking Streets Before Dawn

The horizon is made up
of wires and weeds.
It is a slow dawn
befuddled i just walk
on
and
on.

At every intersection
I try
to meet others with
their down cast eyes.
The sun soon will
draw colors
in the
air.

My dreams have gotten
me this far, but no
further. I confess my
poverty to the
hungry dawn
that will soon eat
up the
moon.

I stand at this corner
of memory looking
up and
down
this street.
This corner the only
witness to my ever
having passed by
here.

The street lamps
soon will flicker
and fade out they
are no longer
needed, and I
feel a certain
kind of kinship
with
them.

I begin to whistle
a formless tune
walking by fresh
milk just delivered.
I will soon,
very soon now,
greet another
lonely
dawn.