Rust and Ruin

There's a breeze blowing on me

It's whistling songs into my ear

I can hear all my memories

But I can't hold on to anything

I took a walk last Saturday

without ever leaving my home

I thought of you coming through my door

And then I woke from a dream

I've been tumbling down empty streets

Avenues trimmed with rust and ruin

Leaning against tall buildings

I used to play it down, now it's coming round

I used to shake it off, now it's shaking me

There's a breeze blowing through the trees

All my nerves go nerve goes weak

And I go down

to the middle and the surface below
to the trembling streets all torn apart

Down to the trouble ringing out like a siren

Down to the pressure and its folding me properly

I've been tumbling down empty streets

Avenues trimmed with rust and ruin

Leaning against tall buildings

I'm trying to hold on but everything's crumbling

Bakersfield

I cut my face leaving this city

on the sharpest words I think I ever did speak

Now, I don't mind apologies all the time

But I swear I'll never, ever say I'm sorry

We caught a lucky break on Valentines Day

I bought a two way ticket and a hotel where we could stay

Meet me here in Bakersfield, halfway

We could settle down and talk the day away

With no self control,

no question why,

no giving up, 

no saying goodbye

no reason to ever stop

loving you

A stranger called on the telephone

it was a dirty prank played by a local boy

Nothing here interest me except you, my dear

So lets pack our bags and never come back again

But we made love late into the morning

I watched you changing in the mirror

The teddy bear I bought was tossed in the corner

We spilled some red wine and caught it on camera

With no self control

no question why,

no giving up,

no saying goodbye

no reason to ever stop

loving you

No letting go, 

no nights alone

no kiss and run,

except with tongue

no reason to ever stop

loving you

Heart Drive

"Click...Click...Click...."

The music had hushed, Elliott Smith was quiet.

iTunes was working, but not working.

The time marker crept along, keeping time, but

no there was no sound except the underwhelming whirring

of the fan in the CPU and the slow, eerie,

"...Click...Click...Click...Click..."

which I had never heard before.

"Some thing's wrong." I said, grabbing the mouse

and selecting pause on the play options menu.

Quickly I selected

Start/Shutdown/LogOff

"Please wait while..."

I waited for a long minute before deciding

something was definitely wrong and used my index finger

to quicken the shut-down process.

The clicking ceased, the whirring quieted, and

another long minute passed.

A hopeful index finger depressed the power button and

the familiar high whistle of the fan blew again,

the motherboard chittered and chattered to life,

gears and gadgets creaked and clanged, and

the computer came to life, much like when any

man or woman wakes from a black sleep,

stretches and twists the body, preparing him bones and flesh

for the working day ahead. And though all these start-up sounds were familiar,

one sound stood out like a jewel in the sand, or

a dark spot stained against a flood of light.

"Click...Click...Click...Click...Click...Click...Click..."

"Fuck." was the preferred expletive.

LogOn/Start/MyComputer/

"What the fuck is 'Drive F?'" It was not the drive I was looking for.

The drive I was looking for was not there.

I was looking for Drive H: Seagate

At least the clicking had stopped.

I unplugged the hard drive from it's mount and "Bum bum..."

the cheerful and dismissive sound of disconnecting a unit from it's port

chimed loudly out of my studio monitor speakers.

"At least it's being recognized..." I thought.

Carefully, I plugged the drive back into the slot, docking the unit to the CPU.

A cheerful and welcoming "Bum bum!" was pronounced along with a haunting

"Click...Click...Click..." from the little black drive.

I was starting to get scared.

"BZZZZZZ BZZZZZZ" shook my phone, and a blue light indicating a text glowed on and off.

"It's over... It's done..." I quietly announced.

My Mother busy with her crochet needles and yarn sat quietly on my bed,

her ears tightly cupped inside a pair of my headphones, listening to a YouTube program

streaming to her phone.

"10 years..." I thought.

"10 years of my work, my memories, my time, all erased; lost."

I thought about all the times I had fantasized about this happening,

losing my work, that is,

what I would do, how I would feel.

It was nothing like I had thought it would be.

I was painfully calm.

I didn't scream, I didn't cry, I didn't punch holes in the walls, I didn't

brag about it on Facebook,

instead, I accepted it.

Tracing the footsteps of my memories,

I traveled down many hallways to doors that had long been shut.

Pictures and art from high school; gone.

Pictures from the road trip with my estranged Father; gone.

Pictures of my lovers; gone.

All the late nights, every minutes, every hour, every trace of anything I've ever produced; gone.

My writing; gone.

All the music I stole; gone.

My memories; gone.

My time; arguably wasted.

Still, I did not scream. I did not suffer from any inverted orgasm.

I did not writhe. I did not quiver.

Instead, I responded to the blue flashing light and

joked about about how not all hope was lost, just "most of my stuff."

Ballpark Love

I could say dreams are curious, but are they really? I cannot recall a time that a dream has flirted any inquiry of me, it is only me that inquires into my dreams, or so it seems. What if we never spoke of dreams and regarded them as an off-shoot of memories? "What was it I was thinking?" Dreams are portals; step into the fissure and feel yourself carbonate. Bubbles rushing through your toes up and out of your nose. You're in deep, dark, thick, sleep. 

So, last night in my dream she was sitting next to me. We were at a ball game of some sort. It felt like baseball, but smelled like football. I sat with her and her girlfriend. The two were laughing and joking at topics easily ignored by a man. She sat next to me, plainly gorgeous, light, and womanly. She is a woman. And here in this stadium, immensely packed with blurred apparitions of people, she was my girl. I wasn't mad at her, but a little annoyed - much like my actual attitude towards her in my waking life. However, annoyed as I was, I was playful and caring, though hardened and quiet. She sat on my left, her hair in a bun, a black tank-top clung to her chest, and jeans that I did not see. A comfortable halt in her girly conversation and she turned to me, finally. Cracking a smile she sarcastically complimented me, "Ohhhh, look at those veiny arms of yours..."she joked, but meant it seriously. My arm outstretched, veins and all, responded immediately to the call. Annoyed, I was, but still in love. Her words still push, prod, and shove like they always have. She tried to turn, but I caught her in my gaze and stared at her as if in a daze. My face was cut as sharp as stone, and in that moment, we sat alone. Isolated in a crowded space, focused on my lover. 

And as I awoke the stadium went black, a heavy vignette shrouded my dream-girl and she was gone. I tossed in my bed from one side to the other, grasping frantically at a pillow, shoving it between my legs. It was early, too early to get up. I laid my head down and thought about that mystery until the waves of sleep carried me again into the sea. 

Highway

Pouring down the dark highway

just moments before the coming dawn

softening up my waking senses

raising Cain inside my skull

freaked out on a glowing highway

absorbed in the neon lights

pink and green intoxicate me

raucous laughter and muddled behavior

indistinct and inebriated

glazed and high, you know it ain't nothing

compotation on carousals

lit and lush, now I want something

on a trip of sent consumption

tumultuous and turbulent

dry and flaky on the inside

sobering up like a wet sponge in the Sun

pictures of her under the table

plastered on the bathroom wall

all my memories come on doubled

I am steeped in nostalgic behavior

intemperate and rebellious

baked and bombed, I'm all night long

enraptured and exhilarated

tanked and fried, got my hands tied

If it's all a dream

I'm ending it now

It's a break in the clouds

hard light shining down

There's a tear in my eye

from sinus congestion

am I dead or alive?

Well, that's the question..

Slipping out of that saturation

She's the rhythm, she's the sound

I desire no separation

So I dig in deep and make my girl proud

I can't touch her, but I can feel

her sine waves are oscillating

wired to my instrument

my tool, my love, I'm never leaving

Salvations

There is a beach house in my dreams

riddled with dusty things

on the walls lives a whole history

my collection of memories

The edge of the universe, I have seen

there was nothing there for me

just a grip of complex patterns

I laughed until I cried

Today the fifth year continues

soon coming to an end

I have taken on the task

of letting everything go

it runs on frayed tattered edge

Round Corners

Is it enough to be a dreamer
a composer of realities
One that bends the lines
rounds corners and breaks light?

What is it to become the dream,
to personify a fantasy,
the walking image whom
manipulates its every angle?

The flesh of the imagination
is bound to the bones of perception
nourished by the blood of creativity
and courses through figurative vein

nails and hair become corrupt
growing and curling like nightmares
draping over and on beliefs and certainties
playing pretend at ones expense

trans-dimensional sketches
dance in poly-morphing rhythms asking
"Could a finite vision transcend
the perceptual walls of the unrefuted?"

It is felt as a sound
a knocking, pulsing vibration,
an oscillating electric punch,
the budding of a fiery orgasm

A broken chord plays whole notes
and dissonance emerges through the chroma
polished by smooth resolving concord
birthing temporary silences between silences

Hallucination stretches
proposing total faith in the immediately visible,
or a fear cloaked in the invisible,
perhaps the invisible cloaked in fear

There is something permanent in an idea
like a photograph, it can be seen
and like a memory, it can be photographed
half forgotten in a dusty index of pictures