Lay the Needle Down in the Groove.

It comforts me to listen to dead people.
With the ghosts whispering I hear,
their spirit talking with the still walking.
That record continues spinning
long after the button is pressed.
So death took them.
So the living still have them.

For years you lived as though
you'd just woken from a dream;
snapped to with a whole life
on the tip of your tongue.
Yet you could not recall the details.
The specifics eluded you.
You knew it was epic,
and it was long;
you knew the river was long.

You left gifts.
I got what you meant.
When you said,
your heart is living forever,
isn't it?
I said,
it seems that way, yes,
I agree it seems that way.

I don't know where things go when they leave
but when they do I go ahead and grieve.
The records all stacked up with notes to cry to,
the letters he wrote to live up to, at least try to.
I remember he said I would be successful
with whatever I used to make my head full.
He said I was a good travel companion.
I took the trip his head unraveling demanded,
and in the eventual I held his cold stiff hand.
I sat and wept with what was his end.
Though he passes far and away,
his world is just as mine and does not decay.

Do not misinterpret the signs.
What falls away is only the flesh.
Their are many kinds,
than just the bodily form of death.
We are not watching memory decay,
but witnessing legacy find it's way.
And so,
farewell father in body,
hello father immemorial.

Roots.

Booking flights to where I came from,
I am going to see who I came from
so as to see where I'll go some day.
The underneath from which we come,
and where we go to when we leave.
Complete circle.
He left a while ago,
on vacation, on leave, on business.
It was not by choice but it was natural.
His body of work kept being left
scattered about his body.
In the infancy of my adulthood,
there were fledgling thoughts
that forced themselves into questions.
If I left would I know where'd I'd left.
If I left how would I get back to what I'd left.
What's left when you lose it.
What's loose when the wind blows into the darkness.

Out there in the whispering
where the trees stand
the branches do not resist
the wind that pushes cold
across their sticky blood.
The tapping of their trunks,
the tapping of the needle spinning:
side A is over.
When we break fast and pour out their insides
the horizon cracks open with light.
And the b-side gets up as an anthem.
We can say it is cultural,
not to think too hard of where things came from.
We will reassure ourselves.
Where things come from are fully left behind.
There is no thing with nothing left behind.
There is no thing with nothing.
We assure ourselves.

Color Theory.

something like cowboy.
something like feeling.
unable to figure it out.
something like a horse.
a horse carved out of stone.
the myth shooting me right between the eyes,
and coming out of the television.
tumbleweeds and dust mustn't make me sneeze.
the desert is vast and symbolic
and the sickness never comes to light
because we are legends.
we won't experience death.
we pretend with the end.
we see beauty.
an exquisite corpse,
such an exquisitely dead body.
the wind discontinues its ebb.
it never stops pushing and pushing
so as to keep
the black horse
rushing further and further away
from this blank sphere
we all spin on.
when the lights turn on
there will not be white,
only shades and shades
of yellow.

Business Grief.

Even though you place
the plastic crown on your head,
the thoughts still leak in.
You binge on self awareness.
You still, self aware mess.
And you'll still abuse your body because of it.
Waking up and noticing
that the water is deleted
from the map on the wall.
Walking down a lonely alley,
stooping to pick up a piece of paper.
Written in lavender ink,
You keep telling yourself 
you are nothing
and you will be nothing.
I'll dance.
I don't give a shit I'll dance.

Empty Light Pouring from Some Holes.

When the roots took hold
of everything inside me
I knew that I'd have to take a tab
to keep myself lit up.
And when that happened,
all my hues and tones
were filled in with neon anxiety.
Poison plant lay your underpinnings within me.
I am nutrients.  I am support.
I know the out there in the darkness.
Where one tree sways unlike the others.
Where one light shines dead matte black
while the others twinkle.
Where the singular planet wobbles gracelessly.
There are deep wells like empty holes.
Chalkboard coarseness scrawled
with random scratches of light.
The whine of the camera after the flash,
the red light bobbing in the after image.
I am surprise when the india ink tips over
covering everything effortlessly.
The whirl pool that stands
perpendicular to the marble hallway
is faster than your quickening pace.
The man just outside the window screen
is asking to be let in.
There is an air conditioner on,
no one will hear him slip in
through the hole in the wall.
And he can hear your footsteps.
He'll stroll amongst the parts,
the reoccurring nightmare,
the empty universe,
the ever present discontent,
the twinkling beauty.
Can't you see what I am doing?
What I am doing.
What am I doing.
I am a wasted guru.

Grief Funeral Procession.

We can make things less empty
if we all pull up the wreckage underneath.
We can turn it around in our minds
and let it completely unwind.
We can let the body burn slowly,
let the tears at our edges mend knowingly.
We can get the loss to recede in fits.
The sun wedges in our broken heart as a stint.
We can crystallize and turn into pink ice.
Our organ no longer an over used device.
We can get the cold.
We can lose to it.
We can come back from it.
We can live further then die from it.
We can be laid to rest.

The Bog of Eternal Insecurity.

I know you are a monster.
Your monstrosity has nothing to do
with why I want nothing to do
so wholeheartedly with you.
Within you prowls creaturely anxiety.
You shoe gaze to assume some sort of piety.

When your milky violet eyes
creep over my skin
the fog of the lagoon
turns into a blanket
and I get damp and sour
with your gaze left like dairy
on my skin for weeks.

I am sorry for you, monster.
Sympathy without sorrow.
Empathy rotten with malevolence.
You are a monster of the heart.
You are beautifully deformed in your emotive strikes.
My hands grow wild with decay as you stare into me.
Tears leap from your eyes as flames do;
the lonely descent of a suicide falling from the ledge.
The smart phone notifies, forgotten under the hedge.
My feet sever their ties, yet no farewell to the ankles.
You drill your eyes into me and take core samples.
This layer is empty.  This layer is full.
This layer looks all crossed out and null.
The bog has lain traces of itself all along your skin,
fissures of silt stratifying the stupidity forthcoming.
Something that is wasted without knowing it.
That breath, that voice, that fear of showing it.
Wasted for everyone to see you unclear.
Your struggle of expression leaves you further rather than near.

The middle of the earth just wants to give you away.
And the outside just wants to take from the middle.
And that is life. 
The transfer of electrons.
You give it and I don't want to take it.

There is cowardice in feigning internal struggle.
Hiding behind yourself, your emotions are a muzzle.