A Simple Game

His thoughts were tailored by

The absence of himself

Her words sincere but from

The mind of someone else

Each clicked like a chess clock in the park

Played by strangers in the nude

It’s a simple game we complicate

When we react before we move

Her thoughts were tangled by

The silence in the room

His words unclear because

They sounded from a tomb

Each fit like a shadow in the dark

Exchanging others clothes

It’s a simple game we complicate

What we wanted with the truth—

I’m not a gambling man but I’ve played a hand or two

I’m not a fable or myth but I’ve read what sounded good

A tired man sits idle in the park asking questions with his eyes

I’m not that man in the park but what separates the two?—

It’s a simple game we complicate

When we react before we move

It’s a simple game we complicate

What we wanted with the truth

April 29, 2014 — Brunch In The Village — A Journal Excerpt

While the money drains from my pockets like a busted water main I can’t help but wonder—has our existence really boiled down to name badges and paychecks, fedora’s and chino’s, tax breaks and debt? It’s no wonder the streets are filled with broken bodies.

It’s no wonder the idea of the “weekend” has begun to depress me. This invisible structure, unspoken, yet accepted continues to devour our living, chewing us like cud, and then spitting us out to white sheets where we can’t even reach the bedpan without assistance.

A weekend ago I was eating brunch in The Village, drinking a Bloody Mary, eating eggs Benedict, and writing a letter to a friend when I noticed two men noticing me. They asked if I was a writer—each in their 50’s debating women over Mimosa’s—to which I told them I was just going through the motions of my 20’s. They both smiled, shared a laugh of remembrance, and went back to arguing. If I was smart I’d play the game, perhaps try to sell myself even. One day I thought, but for now, I’m an artist stuck in his artist ways, trying his best not to care that he can’t afford the eggs, the rent, or brunch in The Village for that matter.

Aprils Fool

I wish I could have been

The air of reason

Forever calm

Before the storm

Instead of becoming

Those howling winds

Those howling winds

You knew before

But having been

Picked over plenty

Like a jukebox full

Of another’s score

And though I never

Sought to reign

Like Aprils Fool

I seem to pour

In Our Time.

Remember— oh brothers and sisters

that we are the philosophers of our time.

Us haggard poets of principle and measure,

no matter the plight must rise.

Through tears of understanding

with honest eyes do I

accept thy pleasure’s burden—

to see within our time.

I’m Your Huckleberry

If you told me then

We’d now be coughing blood

You know Doc, I wouldn’t change a thing.

The Road Between

Sometimes all there is to do is drive

and drive, and drive, and drive until

you forget to where you’re going,

you forget from where you came,

and you remember there’s no difference

except the road which lies between.

And when you don’t got the wheels

or means or place to stay

you walk, and walk, and walk until

it all makes sense enough to go away.

And you remember not to worry so much

as in all walks of eternity

you’re a part of this one, and the heartache

pain and blame is all just slapstick.

It’s a grand ole comedy of magic and men

who’d drown before they’d ever dive in.

So the next time I, see-you-me,

I hope we’re swimming in the Milky Way!

Travelers through time and time forgot,

our elephant minds remember.

Selfies of Ourselves

Perhaps we take photographs

and selfies of ourselves

in the event that someone might care,

in the event that someone we haven’t spoken to

in a long, long while, might see us there,

and just for a second consider the thought:

that everything’s quite alright.

Or, perhaps we do these things

in order to remind ourselves we’re alright,

even when we’re anything but.

Selfies Of Ourselves, March 2021

Our Current Social Dilemma

We went from public displays of affection

Straight to public displays of everything

Now leaving nothing to the imagination

Embracing it all, then apologizing for it after.

It’s like some convoluted social stream of consciousness

That forms a figure eight of disingenuous pandering

One which tastes to a choir of social unrest

Like change, its value null, when in reality it’s all just

As sad and dull as high school sex.

the bliss of ego-manic thought

There’s something happening when

There’s nothing left to lose—

The apple of the eye

Is begging for the truth—

I admit, it’s possible but

The language that we use—

To disengage, it’s all the same

Our fears of being used.

There’s something distinct in the

Absence of yourself—

Like when you manifest

Your love in someone else—

He’ll seem incapable but

The patterns that you choose—

To disengage, it’s all the same

Our fears of being used.

Now there’s a sinner and saint on the corner of the block

One’s got a rifle in hand believing that he’s God

They’re both wrapped warm in the bliss of ego-manic thought

To disengage, it’s all the same

Believing that it’s not.