In That Dirt

When I'm in that dirt,
Know that I never wanted to be there...
like the dentist office, the doctor, the DMV.
There's no time for such things.

Before I was in the dirt,
I lived afraid of death.
Living on time borrowed at an interest
rate that I could never pay back.

I'd catch myself, panicked in the car,
a cloud of smoke wreathing me
like a guardian angel.

I'd wonder if today was the day,
a semi-truck would run me over.

Is today the day my heart stops?

Is today the day a blood vessel pops in my brain,
and I fall over without the chance to say goodbye,
or to say the three words?

Before I was afraid of death,
I lived life like a king,
on a panhadler's salary,
Sinatra-style, the end unreal.

At the age of 35,
the unreal turned real,
the future morphing into the present.

Now, when I'm alone,
I want to curl into a ball
as protection from the world.

When I'm in that dirt,
Know that I want to be with you,
On the beach, in the bar, in the bed.
There is still time for such things.

Mom... Where Are You?

Mom... where are you?

They call,

4 in the morning,

my head spins from dream sickness.

Jacy?

Your mom has died.

Oh... oh... oh...

They hang up.

I roll over and try to go back to sleep.

It doesn't happen.

I'm glad it doesn't.

Out back, I smoke a cigarette

Unconscious,

My wife next to me,

Tears leaking from my eyes,

extensions of my love.

Oh... oh... oh...

Lying in bed,

colon cut,

uterus gone,

bladder cut,

stomach tube to feed,

pain the order of the day,

Oh... oh... oh...

She's gone now.

That hurts.

That hurts real bad.

These words,

so incapable,

incapable of communicating.

I'd pull it down,

the world,

burn it to the ground,

stomping through the ashes,

laughing,

swearing,

destroying,

for the chance to say goodbye.

Goodbye, Mom.

I know you loved my with all your heart,

every cell,

the cancer never touched that.

I'll Get There One Day

I'll Get There One Day

Poetry is those thoughts you can't say,

Those things you reserve for maudlin times,

When the booze cruises through your veins,

And you allow yourself to feel.

I listened as my grandfather talked.

Clark Martin, in his cups, on the frontside of a doctor's appointment.

His tone let me now that this was real.

This was important.

This was the end.

Sitting at a cheap-ass, white kitchen table,

smeared with ash and food,

not wiped off because of failing eyes.

Beer filled the glass,

oval shapes magnifying the amber liquid,

seeping into his failing body.

This was communion,

one generation saying goodbye to the latest.

This was my grandfather dying,

unable to say it,

he showed it to me.

He filled me with tales of his youth, imparting all that he could,

out of love,

out of fear,

out of respect.

He had the same from me.

The beer disappeared,

but the words solidified.

Seventy years of thoughts, all distilled into one evening

for a kid that had not yet hit twenty-one.

My girlfriend called, friends called, the night called,

but I knew I had to stay,

out of love,

out of fear,

out of respect.

In his eyes, I could see...

I could see that he wanted to stay,

that he wanted to say, "Fuck that doctor's appointment. We got shit to do."

But he went...

and he was gone...

in a month...

I'm still recovering from that... don't know that I ever will.

Poetry Is...

Poetry Is...

Poetry is those thoughts you can't say,

Those things you reserve for maudlin times,

When the booze cruises through your veins,

And you allow yourself to feel.

Feel the shame

the hate

the loss

the sadness.

Talk about your trees,

Talk about your rainbows,

Talk about your smiles and your love,

Masturbate on your own eyes.

That ain't poetry.

Poetry is the opposite.

The self-loathing,

The thought that you could have done something,

Or done something more.

Poetry is pain wordified,

Turned into communication.

Poetry is tears translated.

I feel it, burning, hidden, denied.

The words I couldn't say

become my muscles,

striate my heart,

consume me,

and lead me to the end.

I pick them up and carry them on my back,

like we all do,

another in a long stream of things that we all feel.

I am not special,

Never was,

Never will be.

Unique... a misnomer

These are only the things in my heart,

Poetry their only commodity.

Hidden behind the lies I tell to myself to others.

The lies we all tell,

A oneness crafted from loss.

This is poetry.