with no river to skate away on

i'm wishing i were even further gone

for whene'er in my mind there breaks a dawn

i smother it with flat black krylon

palm trees alight as evergreens

for in angeles nothing ever is as it seems

and so we'll kiss in between our dreams

and put away other eyes that gleamed

last Christmas there was joy in you

over all the doing that we'd do

in all the seeing that we'd seen

all the adventure you thought i'd bring

but it seems now that i've let you down

you've no interest in escorting me 'round town

i had trouble even getting you here

so i've little left for cause of cheer

but it seems to be the qualm we all fall in:

what is habit, what is genuine?

what happened to that love we shared

one year ago upon a poolside stair

when happiness hung in the air

and your interest piqued in being there - 

and if i could only go back now

i'd put forth more effort in committing to mem'ry how

your face looked and your voice changed

the first time you told me that you felt the same

because I simply can't remember that -

but if i could go anywhere,

that's where i'd be at.

"You're such a pinball, yeah, you know it's true. There's always something you go back running to ..."

I've been having the strangest most tumultuous dreams as of late. There's a big change coming, I can tell, and I believe most of its repercussions are unforeseen. 

I dreamt of the Land last night, of being back there with my grandparents and having the knowledge that I'd be back again and again, making the stop there while on the road or for the holidays. But they're not there anymore, no one is, and there's only that wilting rotting flower of a love from my youth to keep me connected to it - to tie me to that awful one-horse town. "The town's called Mariposa, but there ain't much here that flies ..." A ballad I wrote long ago when my distaste was piqued. But that place is no more alive than the dead butterfly's soul I stole before. Ah, spurned such as I, the parasitic papillion,  what makes me so different from a hated era or a dead insect lying in the street?

I'm moving out of the house where I've been living for a year and where I've made a new family of sorts, and although I'm rejoicing about my newfound freedom I am of course saddened by the shock I'll endure when the quiet has finally settled on my ringing ears. On another point, I've gotten used to the planes constantly going overhead and the train roaring nearby. I used to detest that sound of the trainhorn, back in those Orange Days on Lemon Street, where I dreamed so close to those tracks ... I hated it because it only reminded me of all the places I wanted to go and explore. It was fate's taunt, its beckoning - and now it only makes me nostalgic - 

those cold bluegreymorningsinhissockskissingmegoodbyewatchinghimdriveawaynotknowingthenexttimewhenwillthenexttimebeisthereanexttimewontyoucomedownpleasecomedownineedyoutonightnoicanttonightyouknowicantijustcantdothisanymoreletsfigureitoutwhenyoucomebackcantyoucomeback?

or

thechildofriversandrailroadtrackstheresatraintakingusawayfromherethatdragsmealongwithyoutowardssomewhereicannevergoyoullneverhavemethiscantbeimeandontgetmewronglexithinkyoureabeautifulgirlbutitseasytofallinlovewhenatrainsdraggingmearoundiamthekidwiththesharpknivesandswordswhereareyounow?

or

willyoucomepickmeuptonightandillgetinyourcarandwellgotomyplaceandgetrightinbedandgetrightbackoutandgotoyourmothershousetakeawalktotheliquorstoreandhurtourlungsandeachotherandfightandgetbackinbedagainandyouwontsleepoverbecauseyoureafraidofyourselfandyouwereafraidofmeandistillseethecurvesinyourshouldersandhearthatcursedtrainroarbyknowinghowfutileephemeraltemporarywrongthiswholethingisyouarentitandimnotitimnotwhatsmissingfromyourlifenowitssomuchbetterthiswaycantyoufeelitiwasnevermeanttobeamotherandcertainlynotyours

and

tiptoesoquietdontletherbewrongandilostmyfloweronthosetrackswhileyouwerecravingyourownnomorebottlesupontheseaalwaysbeautyimsosorryalongloveleftuncleanandsomanythingsleftundreamedusedtobeoneoftherottenonesandilikedyouforthatcursemeoutinfreeversewrapmeupandreversethismaywenotnestlesafelyinadarkeneddrawer?

but all those things are gone now. just single pages in my flipbook mind that i can't help but keep revisiting because all my annotations are so vital to me now. And there are so many more, more moments like that that i'm enduring now, that i'll have to write about later because that's my nature, and if i had to only revisit it again and again in my head i'm fairly certain i would start to believe these people and these things never existed at all. ignorance is bliss my friends, but my sentimentality is my mortality.

when we entered florida last summer there was a storm. huge black cumulus clouds like i've never seen. taller than any height i could fathom yet so close and foreboding. we camped near the water later and while it didn't rain, the wind was swirling around us. i like to call these instances snowglobe moments, because when it happens you know you'll revisit it again and again, it will remain timeless and perfect in your memory, and every time the wind rushes around your head you will be reminded of it. I am a basketcase packrat with too many of these moments stuck in my head, but this one was quite beautiful.

j. and i ventured away from the site along a path that looked ordinary by day, but in the moonlight and in our greatly inspired spirits they looked rather extraordinary. i explained to him my snowglobe mentality, although probably not using the same phraseology, and we walked down this glistening white road that had seemed like nothing so special only a few hours before. Arm in arm we walked and chatted, feeling the closest we might ever possible feel with each other, and as brother and sister and friends we shared this beautiful adventure that will live on amongst the others so difficult to top - even if it does only lie on an imaginary shelf in my reverie, but i bet you that when we feel far from each other and from other things perhaps, we shake it.

There are many planes to take, traintracks to cross, white roads to follow, and winds by which to be encompassed, and despite my fears and my ceaseless nostalgia, there is much more room on my shelves.

To Boston, then Space, and home again.

strange stars
hanging from liquid silver beams
stratus clouds perpendicular as telephone wires
transmitting confessions from beyond
in their unnoticed buzzings
every drop of gutterwater synonymous with the nightbirds chirping
and in time
the train against the tracks
a soundbowl whirring its purrs
in a swirl above my head
destined from its remote origin
i should be writhing
i should be writing
the wind is in unison with the freeway
cars are machines in their rightful place in the dark leafy streets
and every cigarette butt you're about to put out
is a microscopic giant of a volcanic mount
that actually does exist somewhere in hell.
but his elusiveness annoys you
so you must do away with him at once
sending all those sultry smoky
cloud banshees back to their
cages within your blood stream
boiling and hollow

the colors weep, for reasons
you cannot ascertain
no matter how much you try to reconcile with the objects
upon which they are resting -
as the water evaporates
back up through the tiny tubes sustaining the stars dripping wet
with tears back in the sky

but anyway, the glass was quite
clear and direct with you in the first place
regarding its contents.

my affinity for snowglobes had left me with a strong desire to create one of my own. After obtaining all the proper materials, mostly gifted to me, I set out to create one of my dreascapes with my hands to preserve, like so many of my tragic dreams and beloved memories encased in swirling snow, untouchable and unchanged.

for the next week i spent hours upon hours pouring myself tedious and passionately over the various tasks and steps necessaryin order to complete the miniature structure. one night was dedicated to scupting the tree, the criss-cross'd arrows, spiral staircase nowhere place, where i grieve my fate and admire the grandeur of the underworld with my persuasive pumpkin friends. the next day, 6 hours of my life were devoted to the painting of the figurine. i lovingly labored over each root, each jack-o-lantern face, the colors of my guitar leaning up against the dead gray life of my lovely stair-tree. in this way it continued for days until my miniature unimportant dark illustration was realized. it was sealed, shiny, and snowed-on before it was thrust into (I thought, the certainty and somewhat permanence of) the water and glass and glitter and glycerine. Upon its completion I reveled in my accomplishment for only a moment before i began to clean the outside of the globe from the sealant glue i used to prevent leakage from it. it slipped from my wet hands almost immediately and cracked in a moment on the countertop.

my trying to prevent the accident left me with a bloody piece of glass embedded in my right hand and other tiny shards strewn about my workspace. i pulled the glass out as my heart sank, it seemed a sign to me that i shouldn't try to preserve anything, cause shit doesn't work like that.

the blood reminded me that if you try to kick through a fuckin window, you're gonna get cut.

because of the way blood ebbs and flows
it helps me to know where the water goes
reminds me of drifty nights drinking wine
aiding our bodies to aid our minds in passing time.
dark windy weather in warm earthy colors
sitting at coffee with my closest brothers
a smoke and an hour breathe in and out
before the attempts to sort the madness about

you were a songbird and i was a dreamer
alike enough to know we were both believers
it was never up to me to get you to see
and i shouldn't have wanted more
            than your belief in me

but broken hearts lead to tireless tragedy
and there was enough of it around for me to persist desperately
i found a dream that i knew could never come to be
and the rest of those beautiful things followed its lead violently

i kissed a Wolf because he failed to show his jagged teeth,
and his sadness wore its way into me

i kissed Chaos becuase the Wolf's teeth glared bright and sharp.

i kissed You because of the way your silly mouth
grazed your silver harp.

I kissed the Devil because he boasted his awful ugly glory.

I kissed a Peter Pan for a neverending story.

And I kissed Death to let a life begin,
to stop her unwashed anguish,
to catalyze the darkest dream within.
I kissed her nightly until my eyes went white
so as not to see a sun so bright
after such a heavenly unearthly veil 

and it might all be wrong,
so mote it be
but those kisses left such a harbor in me ...

it leaves want for a kiss of past familiarity
that if such a kiss were to depart would cause
      the utmost irregularity.

that lost thing burns me through
until through the other side is you
with your stature so small and voice so far away
that there is no sign of any other way
but me seeing through the reverse of myself 
       so far behind
a pure and impossible fantastical scheme
that lingers in my music's mind

but without this death, in hand, it's true - 
there mightn't be that hole that never leads to you

a Quiet kiss that makes me calm
"helps my sad world move along"
but those other kisses haunt me so
that I have no want for them to go.

i am under the impression that i am disallowed
from making any further vows
for the words meant for comforting explanation
are miscontrued for selfish declaration.

of all the saddest woes is this:
the desecration of that fucking kiss.
the death-marked gardenia's coiled curve
as it wilts to rot in the ending earth
and all the burning that forsakes the fire
all the yearning trespassing the lover's lyre -

it's all too true and all too sad
visions lie awake to drive one mad
it cries in pain for massive rift
that fell between two lover's lips.

don't you know, don't i know, didn't you know, didn't i know?

no more criss-cross'd arrows, no more bottles upon the sea
with tiny ships that once carried antiqued love notes
straight to the shore in me.
now our bleeding hearts writhe in tree trunks, or strive to hang upon a hook
keyholes burned upon the flesh is flesh is fleshisflesh ...
like a lock on a leatherbound book
where all pages are white and empty, although a story stays inside,
for between the seemingly blank tender leaves
our silent tragic epic lies.
are we not the unsung heroes?
are we not a desert's shell?
are we not fallen angels written in a volume
entombed in the ice of hell?
yet i'd choose to remain in the City of Dis
for the ages to ponder the truth in that kiss.