You Had A Name But i Can Not Remember It

When i was younger, maybe fourteen years old,
there was a dog who lived on a wire in the yard
of my father's stone manufacturing plant.

He was a mean dog. He was yellow, lean,
bristling fur, white teeth. Firm, muscular,
a neck calloused by chains.

i could never go near him, he smelled the
fear in me and dominated me. That nameless
dog was the most terrifying being in my world.

One day my father told me to clear the weeds from
the yard, from around the stones, the green
in their growth can stain the curing rocks.

When the yellow dog came near me, growling,
i caught the tip of his nose with my knife.
He cowarded from me from that time on.

That poor dog on a wire, probably underfed,
over sunned; vicious - afraid. His scarred nose
white with a knife mark.

i didn't know i would cry when my father told me.
i was a boy and didn't know about the
things of men, of how the world works, how cruel it can be.

The nameless yellow dog died during the night.
During the thunderstorm he had become even
more afraid, more than me and my youthful blade.

He had jumped the fence with his wire 'round
his neck. There isn't a way to tell but he either
choked or broke his strong yellow neck on his wire.

i had never known the death of an enemy, what's
more, i hadn't known he was always my friend.
he was afraid, i had cut him, he died without my apologies.

So dog, You had a name but i can not remember it,
you were a good dog, i am sorry i treated you bad,
i hope things are better for you now, off of the wire.

For You, Waterfall

There's a ring in the bottom of a well
somewhere in Eastern Colorado;
there's a heart in the bottom of the falls
North of the Texas state line.
i wish they belonged to me.

i remember the air, cool with
the December air, repose, thousands
of falling breaths crashing onto the rocks
below my feet. It was more than the
first day of Winter, it was without.

So deep in my heart, a kiss that never was,
a stolen friend, a miracle at the well that
didn't come. An able hand without a will.
The smell of sorrow rising from the water
as it broke its way down dense, open hearted, stone.

It took all i had not to join those voices,
those mournful, sorrowful, voices of the waters
crying there way into the air. i tried so hard, so
hard in every way. you gypsied my heart,
now my feet can't be still, never settled.

The wings of the air held me steady
at the top of the cliff. Their feathers pulling
at my jacket. i climbed down without the
most jewelry i had ever bought. It glittered
silver and fire as it fell down with the voices.

Every mired step down got easier and
lighter as i left my love for you behind.
i needed help leaving. needed a spark.
i was prometheus though instead of stealing
the fire at the top, i climbed the mountain.

Late at night when i think of you
the song of the falls still rings in my ears.
The secret whisper of friends falling down
into the river, becoming part of a history
not my own, never my own.

Your White Coat Makes Me Sick

Your White Coat Makes Me Sick.
Your prescription pad always
scribbling away, dispensing drugs to me,
onward and upward to stoned control.
You're not willing to talk to me -
i am so lost in the moment,
that breathless, vulnerable moment,
i forget to ask about this and that.
You move quickly from me,
discarding me to poor, drug taking life.
You are lucky my wits were not about me,
you are lucky i needed, hoped, for you to have
something for me. Something tangible.
Oh and you did have something for me -
no time, no asnwers, no thought.
If someone treats me like that in the
street they are as good as a gutted
racoon. White coat or none you best
think of your self now. my enemies are few,
pain is not even my enemy, it is my constant
companion - you, though, are now my enemy.
So congratulations you dead man in white coat,
you are enemy mine and i trifle not with common hells.

The Only Place You Know

The soil and grass were wet with
the dew of the morning. Crystals of
water sprinkled in the mist as
the morning sun ate the fog covering
the grave markers; tall and silent -
holding there spines straight and strong
for the living.

Fresh dirt fills the smell of the air;
soil and the making of men.

She spoke with words that
trembled on like hell at the end of time.

"He was a good man", she told me,
"Like most the good and the dead
he had to be the last to leave and
never a friend or a body left behind."

That was all she said.
The sun wore on us in its way.

If i could, i would have held her hand.

Talk To Me

Her lips are sealed, the space between stones.
The silence is a taste, an awkward dessert,
all to familiar race into the mouth of discontent.
Haste to the point of abuse, her eyes fixed into
the hush in the room, at least i know we see
the same thing, a little out of place joint.

The curse falls like heaven and land,
suffer now child of God, mother of men,
you are no longer in the balance, so bare
the burden unto thine offspring whose body
shares the same affliction. Her marble motions
tell me all I need to know.

I slowly stand into the force of the river,
no faith on the banks, brand me now with the
iron of courage. The twill in my jacket talks to
my arms - you will not fear the wind, the hat
says no such thing to my face.

Ice cream it is.

The Pirate and the Bible

Her blood on my fingers is as smooth as black soot made white as snow;
I wish I knew her name, I suppose it is of little importance now,
she tried her hardest and that made it good, better than the last.

I have seven new messages on my voicemail, six from a "law office",
they are worse than dead if they knock at my door, and one from
the therapist, apparently they want me back at group - I want
a ham sandwhich.

The pills I take no longer taste bitter, I like to chew them - let that limestone
chalk taste fill my mouth, it's more cleansing than mouthwash. I don't know if
those mouthwash tablets work like they are intended, pain is rarely disuaded.

The last guy i punched wound up in the hospital, I'm glad I have police friends,
but I am glad they don't know about the bonfire in the desert; there is at least
one set of findable teeth out on the firebranded Pawnee Grasslands. Got to love
the forgotten state parks - I have not forgotten you.

I get these dreams, dreams of dying and killing, I get them at work
where I sleepwalk through the day. Trying to keep my hands from doing things,
trying to keep my mouth from hurting. My right eyelid twitches like the white rabbit.

So back to the girl, ahh she doesn't matter much. Nothing matters really,
without hell, without those lonely trips to the Grasslands, burlap bag and
diesel fuel in the trunk of my car. The tags are up to date, I don't get
pulled over.

So what's one more fire to you? It doesn't mean a damn thing to me,
the moment is over, it is statistics now. Rather arbitrary motions fill me
and my thoughts turn back to group. Maybe I will go back,
tell those snivelling incadescents what true life and light are.

Tell those panty wearing limp wrists what pain is, what it takes
to be free from the darkness, to stand in the light as He is in the
light. Screw 'em, no one deserves what I've got! It's my treasure
and those swine shall not receive!

So home it is, the smell of burnt flesh on my jacket and my
finely fashioned jeans. Same pair since I was young, got to fit into
them again since eating is hard. I don't see what the big deal is with
anorexia - let them starve if that's what they want, if they are
broke in the head, well, welcome to the club.

So I wash up and ask myself again where it all leads? If nothing turns me
in to the cosmic police then do it all. Eat them all. Kill them all. Love
them all. Set them free. I am the mercy killer, I am the Christ.