Anthropological Neuroses

Like slaves rejoicing in the secret night,
We are intoxicated and feeding on dreams-
Voracious and violent,
Beholding red vast galaxies with optimistic eyes.

We exult in diversions until we have the sense
To suffer or else die;
Or until we feel like Sisyphus,
But turn instead and create new lies,
Discontent enough to know we must deny.

We live trying to ignore and forget
The eviscerating dagger
Through which misery revives,
Eminence and faith seducing us,
Insisting that it does not hurt to try.

But it hurts each and every time
Fresh wounds strip us of disguise,
Animate our memories- expose and re-open
The bruised sunspots, the scar-tissued flesh
Where the ghosts of pain and confused failure reside.

But most can not really resign-
Convinced, even if just in secret,
That somewhere in the immensity of space,
Distilled and remote,
The sacrosanct lotus of ultimate bliss unfolds.

Roderick Lane

Roderick Lane
will smell the dust and death
of the great, great West.

Off the bus,
he lights his mother's stale cigarette.

Looks fantastic in those boots,
in that Aztec Jacket.
(It is a prismatic, hallucinatory,
idolatrous thing. It is the fabric of his dreams).

But the city has thirty years
to play a merciless game.

The metropolis shrieks,
lurid lights invade him
while he sleeps;
the dirty Atlantic
spreads its breath across his back.

In thirty years
his each and every aspect
has become an artifact.

Now, still in his Occidental boots,
he seems a curious shell.
His jacket is a listless cloth,
of dust and death it smells.

(It was a prismatic, hallucinatory,
idolatrous thing. It was the fabric of his dreams).

Untitled (at least for now)

Today, only a photograph remains.
So sad a picture always fails. So I
Preserve his words, as if blood in his veins.

Eyes will hide torment, where phrase still contains.
Sadly though, when I recall his soft sigh,
Today, only a photograph remains.

Desperate, I know how memory wanes.
But I love more to listen to his lie,
Preserve his words, as if blood in his veins.

Good. I imagine his spirit complains
that old mothers at that smile can cry:
Today, only a photograph remains!

Whispers still sigh, of relief he attains,
and (free finally from life's evil eye),
Preserve his words, as if blood in his veins.

I imagine the congealed crimson stains,
revenge for the rest, who ask themselves why,
“Today, only a photograph remains.”
But I preserve his words, as if blood in his veins.

No Phone Call Song

Impatient twisting in my gut,
for my part,
fiddle with a watch,
with a heart,
pull a cigarette, have a smoke,
this air seems to choke,
this ember dies on my lips
this echo of silence embraces and grips

no rings,
oh, how it stings,
this cruel vengeance,
the coin flipped in mockery,
this dagger, this dagger
no rings,
oh how it stings.