what have we learned
about the quest for
happiness

(to bury things like
pain):

And how to turn fear into
"business"

Accidents
life-trips
ripping through
space-rattled
minds

Effortlessly
careening
through mishaps that
prevent us from dying
again

and again
they say Jesus Charges by
the lifetime
But Buddha
doesn't charge a dime

(the best things in life,
just let it
free)

She asked me not
to mention that
wer'e dying

(one at a time
the hints surface)

Things like revolutions
of the earth
trips around the sun
and gravity

subtlelties pointing to
the fact that
something eternal
is creeping up
on us

as if we knew
what we were doing
when we came to this life

Fractured with time
bloodied from the battering
of astral calamity

Shotgun-like verse
pours from our empty sidewalk
pharmaceutical- scrambled brains

"why not, I'll try it
nothing else has been able to
terminate me with any kind of Glory"

Some kind of apocalyptic tombstone
prose would be a nice accoutrement to
a life well riddled with outlaw
markings

So long
to this life
embracing an instant

colored by what I thought
it was to me
flavors, hints, shades & Hues
of:

Love, pain, fear, ecstasy
fire, freedom, exhalation
genius, despondency
infatuation, lust, hell-bent-desire

crashing and burning but
always returning to fire
a straight line through the galaxy

one extended fragment of unbroken
motion
cut like a groove on a record that's
been unbent

One long pure, unbroken, melodic
analog

Direction/focus
Oscillates in and out
of my life

Between Fear/Love
Blurry vacillation
temporal images
of a crumbling temple

THIS LIFE
is human
and animal and happening
and imaginary

and so so fragile
and unbreakable

Of course we knew each other only
from dreams
lost paintings/ songs

(she sleeps inside the forest untouched
by rain/frost
heat/cold)

She is her own blanket of
Protection

Her smile is a lifelong
Good luck Charm

Sometimes the dream element
is more apparent
Illusion of time passing

Decades float by like instances
(dream qualities)
Planets, continents
worlds

Inside the worlds of friends
minds
Waking with souls
mixing with souls

Moving, flying
riding
super-hero despair
drowning
reviving

Re-inventing
Phoenix time
Phoenix mind

Summer childhood time
Searching Wilderness
for
Home

Days that don't pass
Keep playin' games with time
during what we think is our lives

A series of dreams floating past
others yet to be revealed
Alongside a series of explosions
(some friends gone, needles, crashes, and bombs)

Their fragile lives of infinite beauty
skipped over
radio channel being changed

I am into something now
4 decades down the road
my mama held me in her arms

my limbs grew strong on country roads
backwoods trails
Later imbibing the sacred smoke and spirits

Strong visions of the afterlife
and shamanic transmutation
(who would not like to shed their garments
grow a wolf's skin and roam the wilderness
solitary beast of power and wisdom,
carrying the seeds of magic and
destruction)

Some Buddhas are crazy Some Buddhas are fucked up
Some wield shotguns
Shoot dope
crash cars

Burn inside of broken down
stars
Make scars

Smoke life
Eat pain
Burn Rubber (insane)

drink coffee through dawn
scribble lifeblood poems into
rust-shot-death-visions
of dying generations

Some of these Buddhas
can't be
trusted

FIRING IT UP FOR SPRING

Firing up a motorcycle does not make one feel old
feels pretty dam good
(especially if your Exhaust is on the wrong side of
legal: read-LOUD)

Shakes the cob-webs off
yeah it's death-every-second to
ride
but I don't think I'd be long for this
world without it

Risk is a bitch but
fear is much worse
Better to die doing what you love
than warp and twist in fear and loathing


So...drive a little too fast
& take some dumb chances

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear." Frank Herbert, DUNE

We are all demon hunters
our entire lives are spread around us
(countless lives, actually)
All happening now
There is no past
Everything is accessible

This can be overwhelming
Once the dream is shattered
(the isolated/linear dream of the false self or "ego")
Great trust and courage is needed

A great responsibility must be taken
One can heal one's self internally
meditation/contemplation and a kind of
karmic shamanism must be executed at an intrinsic
level,
Thereby transforming all of one's lives/karma/past-future

This can only be achieved from within
and there is no guidance
one must intuit one's way along a dark path
that is paradoxically illuminated from all around
from within

"It's all because of that music
That we're slowly driftin' apart.
But it's only there to dance to,
So you shouldn't take it to heart.
Music, only juke box music.
Only music, only juke box music"

from "Juke Box Music" The Kinks


I believed every record I ever played, from the first 45 to the cassette tapes to the CD's
(Was my first piece of music ever owned "7 Bridges Road" by the Eagles?, a 45 single)
Charlie Daniels Band's
Full Moon may have been the first complete album I owned...then there was the Kiss album Dressed to Kill, I can still see it proudly displayed in the record store (yes the record store, back in the day that was it baby! Records, lining the walls and stacked in rows!) Mind you I was born at the end of the record era...approximately 5 years old, circa 1975 when Dressed to kill was a BIG album...I convinced my loving, and a little bit gullible father, to shell out the 3 or 4 bucks for it (not a small amount for a blue collar man to piss into the wind)...I might tell you that It was for the music, but don't believe it, there was one reason why I needed that album...BECAUSE KISS WAS REALLY FRIGGIN' COOL...they were gods man!!! It was the makeup and the costumes!!! Of course that made the Rock n Roll good too!

...Well mom caught one whiff, one note, one word of those evil kiss lyrics about sex and whatever else (all of which I was oblivious to) and that record went right back to Record town, even though it was opened, I'm sure she got her money back...that's the way she is....you don't mess with a woman that grew up on the streets of Flatbush...

So when did I stop believing the songs on the radio? Well...I'm sure I believe every word of my precious literature that I study (I certainly believe all the fiction and poetry that I write...Why wouldn't I? It's all absolutely, unequivocally "true"!!!!!

Ain't gonna lie
Life tears your bones out
spits out dreams
Burns everything else

Kind of Karmic Dragon
the whole damn thing
won't stop turnin'
long enough to get off

(Just switch the light on)

Blood givers
all of us the
wicked tariff paid
to get through this life

The toll must be taken
whether it's the devil
or the savior

Almost doesn't matter
so use your bones
and your brains
to lay somethin' down in this world
somethin' worth livin'/dyin'
& being here for