Autumn Falls.

What is worse, to live in fear
Or to utterly not care?
I have to live with anxiety and depression
Terror and tears
And frozen expressions
I'm not getting better, I'm getting worse
I'm not feeling any stronger when I'm alone
I have nowhere I feel at home
No one I can talk to when I need to most
Two or three people in the world with whom I'm close
I'm afraid of my own shadow and yet
Don't really care what happens to my body
The fire has gone out of everything, I'm cold
The last days of summer are a memory
And winter is upon me.

Shrink.

I want a lady, maybe
A shrink
With long long legs
A charcoal skirt
Glasses

Glasses, on the bridge
Of her nose
And she needn't be
A model or someone's
Jerking-off rose

I want a lady, trying
To help people honestly
And her power suit is powerless
Her energy ebbs limited
And now she will listen

To what I have to say
About love
And ledgerdemain
Makes her blush and all the same
She underlines my name

I want this lady, maybe
A shrink
With long legs and hair pinned
Begging to be free
To walk with me, to learn, to see

I love the beaches, it's true
Choice of dimensions: two
But I also love the forest
And the mountain and the living
Room with all the piles of laundry

Her glasses will come off some day
I'm waiting for my moment
Her charcoal skirt will follow sure
As Gideon blew his trumpet
His homemade ode to Jericho, his strumpet

And what I have to say
About love and life
Is neither trivial nor trickery nor right
But it will undermine her life
And I will help her recover

All beings should discover
A greater truth than reason
And all minds should encounter
Eternity in their season
And all full souls should bend

Their knees at the false holy alter
Of their own design
And cast away their shrink or podcast
Perched upon the vines
Which run through their lives divine

They are not divinity
I say there's no such thing
The people crave infinity
But they are foolish beings
The truth is just insanity

The burden-bearing of kings
And philosphers, yea
For they too know
Truth is bent like clay however
You decide for it to go

And I am on my firepit now
Adjusting the logs just so
And dreaming of my long legged girl
With glasses perched on nose
My mind toggling her clothes

So what brings you here, my love?
A tale so old and new
You've heard me speak a thousand times
But I don't think you knew
That deep inside the universe,

The words I said were true.

čerň hřebec.

The darkest mood
blacker than that espresso you sipped that
drove me crazy enough under the rainclouds
to tear your body in half
well, I wanted to, to see the inside of you
find out what made me so mad
so self-doubting, so hysterically in love.

He seeks me out now
like a war-bred stallion with ruby eyes
hellbent on one thing only
the way to beat monomania is to sidestep it neatly
so at the last second I spring from the path
into the long, safe, dewey grass
and his hooves make a complete mess of me.

Well, it doesn't always work.

(unknown credit)

The artist as humiliated martyr of nothing.

Taking my voice down, transfering sores.
He's off his meddies! I hear the roars.
But let you calm down now, it's not of that sort;
A mind like mine readies for any retort,
Casts any curative back to the start.
Cyclical thinking! Happy people, so smart.
Cognative narrative - let's play a game:
It's called never blinking, it plays the same
However you cast it; my mind slips free.
Mad hatter's party, under a tree.
But we're back in the past! The poem is thee.
And I am the artist, the con and the thief.

It's not made of words
Just live it
Say something if it needs to be said
Or shut it.

Prospect; Love; Possibilities.

All it takes to get me out of a depression is the prospect of a woman. For better or worse, I am a creature who lives and dies by love. My veins flows with it, my words all mold the air to it, my gaze reaches for it. When I talk to others, it is either despair or love that I am addressing. I have so much love to give. But I don't want to be used, hurt, made servile, emasculated. I want to be the man I am with no compromise, my gallant and spirited heart intact and fully engaged. And I want to love someone who can take it, and will love me back, and will enjoy every moment along the way. Romance never died. It just went and hid when the industrial revolution made its bid. But here I am now, waiting for someone to take my hand, waiting for the trust and the dignity that lies this way, praying we can make it across the hurdles of modern cynicism to the fertile fields beyond, where love greens the land, where I shall take your hand and dance a merry tune, lay you in the grass and kiss you till the noon, hold you all the while the sun completes its duties, and then truly: Take you in my arms at night to cast away the shadows that madly play so cruelly, and watch you like an angel sleeping, upon my breast, the sheets cool as april's breezing. I will greet you when we wake with the smile of no ordinary couple. For the world that is mine shall be yours, and we are free so the world is our playground, and all around us are possibilities. You take my breath away. I give it back, in the form of a kiss and touch on the cheek, your humble soldier of love dedicated to your happiness and freedom. With aims of my own, supporting yours, never a stone turned looking for love or understanding, it is all here in our eyes, in our words, in our clasped hands. I want to be your lover, your light, your shoulder of comfort, your man. And man and woman together make whole - tis only light from the morning sun that shows us our world, that reveals it in full.

To Nicola.

I don't hope I scarred you, I just hope I loved you and you felt it. I don't hope you were humbled or felt badly how you treated me or how immature you feel you acted, if by chance you do. I don't care that you were sometimes cruel (you no doubt think I was too), and I don't wish in any way to say, when you've approached my age, "I told you so." Everyone has their own life to live, their own time to learn and change. I hope I contributed something positive to your life, that is all. I've loved you from early on and I always will, as a human being. I don't wish you any bad days or black moods. I hope you find hope, love, and happiness - truly, from the entirety of my heart. If this is my gift to the earth, to be for once completely selfless, then let it be so. My intentions were pure, to this day I know that and can say it truly without blinking my eyes. To you, I never lied.

The Lord has seen fit to grant me breath
For this I am to thank Him though it ends in death
Returned to his fold I will bask serene in His honor
But only if I can escape all the horror
And if I dip my head in some water

Actually He has given me two lives
That have not much to do with one another
One frantically creates, romantically dreams
The other just screams
Aloud if it's alowed to or quiet in my brain

I never want to be born again.

Mom, you're always so kind when I'm scarred
The circumpolar star, surpassing by far
The role you were given, I love who you are;

Sheila, even though we are black and white
And I see as shadows what to you is most light
I'm indebted forever to your selflessness despite;

Susannah, you never really speak to me
Your mouth seems sure but your mind isn't free
And your heart is the most hidden of the three;

Taunya, you liked playing mother to me
Though it ground you to pieces and hazes what you see
When I show you in radiance all I can be;

Debbie, you were so easy to please
Such a nice girl, giggled, then started to tease
When it didn't work out, you changed like the breeze;

Nicola, you were the brightest of all
From the middle of April to the middle of fall
And the hole in my heart has left no feeling at all
For I craved you most, my doll;

Jessica, I don't even know who you are
A sister of mercy or an imploding star
But instinct tells me something I'll keep to my chest
Until we have spoken more, I shall not divest
May your dreams stay unbroken. I wish you the best-
See you on Monday next.

ONE OF THE RARE STATUS UPDATES of this blog (I used to try to keep it purely artistic and not address "the world" directly)... I apologize for the disappointing nature of some of the poems lately, and the sporadic visuals. The truth is I've been incredibly depressed and have tended to drop below even the line of "inspirational depression" if there is such a thing, to the point where I don't even use my computer more than a few minutes a day. I have written some pretty basic "I feel like crap" poems that are not really meant to be anything other than my way of journaling, so if the artsy-fartsy quality of the site has taken a dive lately, at least you know the reason. Thanks.

p.s. If you must appreciate something and cannot leave my site, I suggest you go back and stare at the (large) version of the "golden hair" painting a few entries back. I wish I could've painted it. It's lovely and masterful at the same time. I love the brush strokes, the perfect shades, and the highlights exactly where they should be. Also it reminds me, together with the poem preceding it, of my own "goldenhair" who has broken my heart to little pieces, but whom I still find enchanting.

Sonoma Skies

Her Kind.
(Anne Sexton)

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
a woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

Anne Sexton (photo by Rollie McKenna)

I NEED AN ILLUSTRATOR. Well, this isn't quite a classified ad, but I was just musing over how I need someone who can fill my artistic gaps (drawing, painting) and who would collaborate with me on this site, on a possible upcoming book (shh!), and just in general. Photography is another skill which is always welcomed, as is, for that matter, writing. There's no rule against talent overlap, but lately I've been finding myself long on text and light on illustration, such that to keep the site visually interesting I've had to go to outside sources and credit them, which is ok but it does depersonalize things a bit.

I knew someone who was perfect for this role. The offer's still there, of course. But it's also open to anyone who wants to contribute and get a credit and some feedback from my measly audience (I like to think I have a readership of thousands, all of whom lurk and never post. Then again, I'm on pills.) If someone were to ever come along who became of "creative partner" status, or course, it would go beyond individual credit and that person would become a co-author of the site.

I just feel like this thing needs to grow in a different direction and I need help bringing visualization to my words. It's also sort of a dangling fishhook for an artist who might be willing to collaborate with my on a book of poems and illustrations that I have been slowly planning to put together over the months.

I don't drink anymore
Haven't done "street" drugs in a long time
I take pills the doctors give me
To keep me in line
To help me keep my mind
And all around me I see lovers' arms entwined
As they march away in twos like the zoos of Noah
NOAA tells me a storm is headed my way
I want to let it wash me away
But there are people in the way
A mom and a sister, and an ex and two misters
And maybe three other girls that I know, so young
Their hearts would split in two if I should go, so glum
So now I shall write me a villanelle
A ghazal, renga and a triolet
A sonnet like a modern gazelle
Flying aflame through the trees so spent
And the cheetah chasing behind me
I've seen the worst he can do to me, friend
Don't stoop down to remind me
Just stay a pace behind me.

frozen with fear
I just lie here
don't want to look outside
don't want to look inside
wish I could talk to someone but
the phone is across the room
wish I could be with someone but
planet earth is empty
for me right now
there is one person I can think of
or maybe two or three
who could make me feel better
just by holding me
telling me they're not gonna leave
until I'm feeling better
and not even then,
not ever.

Plunge and emerge
a sick game I don't want to play
my ride for today

Elevate and plummet
in sight of the summit
I dive back down

Into the blackest pool
and drugs can only numb my skin
inside my heart, it still gets in.

"Golden Hair" by Dan Schultz

Poem V from "Chamber Music"
(James Joyce)

Lean out of the window,
Goldenhair,
I hear you singing
A merry air.

My book was closed;
I read no more,
Watching the fire dance
On the floor.

I have left my book,
I have left my room
For I heard you singing
Through the gloom,
Singing and singing
A merry air.
Lean out of the window,
Goldenhair.

I ain't been on no magazine covers
Buddy, I don't know what you're talking about
I'm just trying to get to my gate in the terminal
Don't need no weirdos stalking about

Look, I'm just trying to get to my hotel
Which is located within your beautiful country
I ain't no terrorist nor pedophile
And I ain't packing no dope or guns on me

Hey now, I just want to meet your daughter
Who invited me here to meet with me
I believe she is old enough to make those decisions
So can you stand the fuck out my way, pretty please?

Shit, I haven't been this humiliated, dog
Since I was a snot-nosed little kid
I just got kicked in the nuts for three straight days
For something I never even did

All you border patrol hicks and idiot fathers
I hope you're proud of what you've done
You've separated two people eager to meet one another
And scared one with your "warnings," you scum

I hope people like you all lose your jobs
And march down to hell to get some work for real
And on a mountain of flowers somewhere up above
My love and I will dance in the flowering fields.

on a post-spectacular, sullen day
languished morning bereft of sun
I was left and now I'm done
it was fun but now it's gone

there's no way to recreate those feelings
best just to leave them in the past
form feelings for now
that is the part I always stumble on

that is the part I must be an expert on
leaving the bad behind and finding good
without selling my soul in the processs
I need to stay positive and still have a conscience.

How can a person view herself as mature and yet not contact a person she had willingly arranged to meet and who hasn't heard from her now in over 2 weeks? Doesn't she know he worries about her? Doesn't she know he has emotions like she does, and that he is confused and hurt by what has gone on? Can't she put herself in the mind of another for just that long? All I want is a sign, some resolution. Paranoia is absurd at this point if that is keeping you from contacting me. If you can't trust me enough to chat at this point or at least email than you are the one with problems. Reflex in this case: So, I have problems, so what? The 'what' is you need to trust people in your life or I worry for you. You could be so much freer. You're a prisoner of your own delusions half the time, just like you accuse me of. I just want to say hello, I don't want to fight, I want to know what happened on your side so we can bury it and let it be. I've got enough going on over here I'm not gonna obsess about you or jump off some building. It would be nice to close the case though, or whatever you want. I won't hold any grudges, I know what it's like to be confused and afraid. BELIEVE ME.

"old" picture