JUST ANOTHER LENGTHY EPIC ON THE FORTUNES OF LOVE WRITTEN BY A REFUGEE FROM SOME KIND OF URBAN REALITY
OR
I'M JUST AN OLD DOG HOWLING AT THE MOON WITHOUT YOU BABY.


Love, you either have it, want it, or still haven't
figured out just what it means to you.
Not lust,
not that "I've got to get laid or surely I'll die"
feeling that we all get,
but love.
Yeah, that word that destroys empires, sends you
screaming for the nearest saloon,
that stuff that makes you go just a little
more crazy in the head.

If you can't define it, you don't have it,
if you figure that you can understand it,
then you're neck deep in bullshit.
Every time that you think that you've found it,
it just sort of slides away,
you find that grabbing smoke is easier.

You can't eat, you can't sleep, or remember just
what you're doing or supposed to be doing,
and yeah, if you're saying
"I've been there a few times myself",
the answer is no,
you don't get any smarter after the third or
the fourth or even the tenth time,
and being a horses ass just comes more naturally
to some people, and by the way,
this applies to both males and females,
there is no discrimination when it comes to
being a world class jerk in love.

Love,
the question mark, the riddle,
the Unholy Grail, or the Ultimate Quest,
it is everything, and it is also nothing,
without it we despair, with it we soar,
then all too often
crash back to earth in a fall unequaled.
It is underrated, it is overrated,
and on a good day, a really special day,
for one illusionary moment, one instant of insight,
you almost get the message,
then, faster than a bolt of lightning
eclipsing the summers day,
it's gone,
but that's love too.
A wind most capricious, staggering, bedeviling,
a roller coaster ride through the amusement park of life.
Love,
so much written, sung, praised, cursed,
yet we know it less and less,
so what to just go with it, wherever it goes,
at best, you'll be totally confused, do,
at worst,
well,
it just might kill you,
but without its passion coursing through you,
without it singing in your blood,
without its evasive breath of hope,
you can never be,
never be really alive.




UPON WAKING FROM NIGHTMARE.....

Face of night caresses dreams
with mute lips of sable,
turned back, revealing
sharp gleam of bone,
a single drop of falling
light.

Bed clothes tumbled back,
outline of weary flesh
in a signature of sweat,
clock ticks in somber eulogy
as a match is struck, touched
to cigarette.

Alone in the darkness of a room
sculpted in unknown
pain, vanquished love, the
City teeming in emptiness,
below the waters of hungry
sleep.

What has sounded the tolling bell,
shaken my naked shoulder
with chilled skeletal fingers,
disturbing a fitful hour of
rest taken in grudging need,
what indeed has sounded,
what indeed.....












ZEN MORNING ON THE SHORE WITH WAVES.....

Water breaks, grey as the day with a force
of a salty fist on the capstan wheel,
body chills, sudden shock on pallid flesh,
first surf of April, six a.m.,
the hour rolls empty on this shore,
breathing the cool tendrils of the dark.
Long hours of work now behind, tired routine
now tossed off like shoes, like shirt,
as foam cleanses sweat,
infuses a whisper of calm
from within the coiled maelstrom.
Morning passes, the students, the tourists, have
come, though the grey still hangs on.
Departing the shore in search of coffee,
a drink devoid of salt,
and some time now to quietly reflect,
to pass the afternoon,
await the coming of night,
as sleeps hushed death does then approach.

LACKING GUINESS STOUT BLUES….

Here it is 17 March and there is no stout, no whiskey, no porter,
Just anthems of old Eire playing on the stereo while I sit and thirst,
It’s giving me a case of the blues instead of celebrating the green,
Drank a pot of coffee strong enough to sober anyone, now if only I were drunk,
It’s enough to break your heart this condition most pathetic,
I remember nights in saloons when the roar of my poetry nailed down the floor,
And I drank Tullamore Dew from the bottle until the dawn came creeping,
With comrades whose friendships I thought would never die but
Ultimately even they were lost in the shifting sands of times vagaries;

There was a time at seven thousand feet where I went to hide from
The world but the world found me out and there was days and nights
Where the booze flowed like a river of tears across beds of lust, of passion,
Women came and went, and one shockingly handsome state trooper whom
I loved in the shadows with kisses and bourbon and dreams that could not
Be except in ripples of illusion that blended with slivovitz and hopes lost,
Then that chapter closed like a great iron door and I traveled south to
The border country of burnt desert and scrub where I tried to study but
Again love sought me out and he and I played like young lovers at the party
Of life, with dinners, movies, dancing, and long nights of unbridled carnal
Pleasures that had no ending nor beginning merely was until spent sleep
Found us out and nestled us in dreams tinged with ouzo and sweet kisses;


Now it is the 17th of March and the memories choke me deep and the longing
For a drink as deep as a raging river tears through my soul and leaves me sad,
Lost among the detris of my memory and my dreams and my fallen hopes…….

YET ONE MORE BONGO SYMPHONY……

Lost in the chorale of empty streets filled with echo memories,
Can you dig the sound of naught, the utter cool of lost dreams
Harmonizing with the spirit of places been and now far gone,
Sounds of bongos dissonant, fingers snapping in the darkness,
Rhythms of days gone by, then the memory of future yesterdays
Played out like a skein unwinding into a moebius strip of fabric;

Notes ring out somewhere on the edges of consciousness,
Playing a symphony that was almost too far out,
Filling the ancient concert hall setting in the country of dreams,
With an audience of wandering hungry souls wreathed
In the smoke of audacious hallucinations tinged blue and
Framed in visions of the Mad Hatters very own tea party;

It all seems to come together in a land not on any map,
In a city painted with illusions of a life that cannot be attained,
And they scuttle to and fro amidst the garbage and the trash,
Seeking somewhere warm and dry to get some refuge from the storm,
Lost in the heart of a nation that all to often forgets the poverty
Bound, those on the fringe are for whom this symphony is written;

It may never be complete, this work of tortured beauty,
Yet the coda, the allegro non troppo can go near anywhere
For it only matters if the music is unheard, so listen to the madness
Of the chords rising, falling, reaching the crescendo of subway trains
In collision with the darkness that springs infernal with a roar,
As passengers move like insects in and out of stations without names…..