as if there aren’t enough walls
they’re never going to get it, are they jimmy?
no, it’s not that they don’t want to
it just makes them secure
but i really thought she might understand…
maybe she does, in her own way
but you know how it is with family
you take the medicine so that THEY can feel better
diablo laughs and i’m like of course
what made me think that i could change something
so thoroughly engraved between the lines on a chart
thicker than gone with the wind
the difference
in what i see and how i feel
is so random sometimes
and the painted stars on the lonesome moon
finds me searching your words
looking for that one thing
that i really meant
to open up my mind
for what i’ll never know
it happens sometimes
when the night creeps in
on a slow afternoon
it doesn’t matter
and you don’t see me
drowning in the hopeless
of what you would believe
and you have no idea how much my soul
bleeds for the truth
i’d like to think
in a world that’s done killing me i paid my dues
but it hits me sometimes
that no
we’re never through
and if you really think that i need to be tamed
from what drips out of a bottle on a cold bathroom shelf
i would have to say that you don’t know me
i thought you did
and now i’m in hell
the pain is a leeeettle too much
and one more cigarette ain’t gonna do it
though breathing in the night air helped
watching the neighbor’s louvers swing in the breeze of an open window
and thinking of this place and that place and
how once again i will be alone
where do you put your soul when its only
trustworthiness
is found in a medicine bottle
not for yourself because
hell
you know the difference
others bleed for the right of comfort
in your sedation
and you almost would
except tired and old doesn’t add up to stupid
the one thing i have managed above most
even the sane
is honesty and the reality in foundations of integrity
but
considering the sacrificial lamb on christmas
lying for the need of children to believe in santa
i suppose that it might be worth the security
for little minds to keep a falsehood in place
then all that caring fortitude can sleep more soundly for the price of a lie
and i can just plain sleep
trustworthiness
is found in a medicine bottle
i want an answer, damn it
where do i stand as the captain of my ship
when belief in a substance at the helm is considered
of more worth
than belief in anything i have ever been
where?
after fighting the sea and riding so many waves
barnacles so thick they weigh down the vessel
and yet i have piloted her
any drug simply a ghost that roams the decks
getting in the way more often than not
and you think that spirit with no hands steered me
clear of countless storms when i was
the one strapped to the wheel the whole time
that was me
and i know there ain’t jack can be said
to make them see or believe
“all just a fantasy world on control i live in”
you think
to make myself feel better
but since when have i ever needed to feel better
seriously
when was the last time i constructed a costume about myself
a lie for when i look in the mirror
if anything i am too blunt and sharp in my reflection
and so we are back to this
where
do
you
put
your
soul
when its only trustworthiness
is found in a medicine bottle
where?
my inward eyes
floating in the afternoon
these careless ties
striking all the world away from me
i hold onto that something
as the sun drifts in the sky and looks
for those other dreams
what it never means
is i’m not that far from realization
hanging on the wings
of every hour i spend perusing
every mood wrapped in smoke rings
and for the time i spent my life forgetting
drinks on cool survival
in the heat of tough beginnings
where the songs you sing revivals
of a spirit you once knew
and the gods that all were bought
by the high-rise in the village
where the school of chain is thought
and i don’t know where i’m running to
but i sure know where i’ve been
every crack that fell between the times
of where and how and when
my inward eyes
floating on the afternoon
as sun sneaks through my doorway
while my love goes back to you
and i’ll spark another cigarette
top off that glass of wine
to look beyond what can’t be mine
forever wandering
never truly living til i’m me
somewhere within proximity
of where you look at all my sorrows
from those guarded towers
and keep me locked on the outside
hopelessly mesmerized
floating through every afternoon
on the tears of inward eyes
i don’t think what makes me fall
is something that ages or becomes
a memory
feelings for you no different than the first time
and where my soul needs a wall
a barrier to protect against the play
i would find the only way to touch you
is to be young of heart
forking over power and allegiance
in the late afternoon on a high desert
flowing through restless feet to stumble on salt flats
thirst speaks of convenience
a shared cup of tea
where i would crave a big gulp a hotdog
with plenty of mustard and relish
and maybe a scratcher that at least paid for itself
useful
past the age of value in making babies
my only “barterable” goods being the abilities of
a homemaker
or maybe if i lose a little more weight
something for the arm
though getting a little too old for that even
and never sure what i want but
the whole homemaking crap is not completely out of the question
it would be respectable at least
where living alone as one’s own person is
more or less a crime against
all that you were supposed to think
you were meant to be
well heck
they shouldn’t have beaten up the white boy
maybe second degree murder harsh but if my own white kid
was stupid enough to gang up on another
i would say yea, take your lumps
and a “hanging because jow crow is still alive”?
please
what is so sad is that you would rather believe that than
the truth in what we “white folk” only expect
from our own seed
we do not spare the rod and this
is what is called being treated equally
and yet you ask for preference over what we would even give our own
because discrimination is a heavy word
and if the jury was all white….well that’s the bloody lawyer’s fault
you do know that lawyers pick jury?
not some righteous spewing from
tyrany
and “domestic terrorism”?….well hell’s bells
these are not the middle ages
just aks
birds only land on fields of denial
you have to be the most exasperating man i’ve ever met
and don’t even know what to begin to do with you
do i keep up this one-sided sharáde
holding you close where your distance is a sigh
a wordless blanketing of indifference
for everything that is mine
part of me continues to give and part of me
has decided
reasons in looking at the sky and wondering how
my sunshine
became your melody
poetry perhaps 