Time Between Voyagers
The art can’t be put into rhymes
Serenading with wooing song
To the eclipsing human sprit
A fish-netted leg lamp
Garnishing business windows
As suburban Santa Clauses
Run around Tremont
Wearing numbers
Longing for their lost youths
Confetti vendors
Pour and poor
But the night awaits you
Disappointing the walls again
Reaching for peace
In the lonely hollows of our suffering
Calculating robots turn the screws
And the friction grows tighter
Getting further and further from some long ever after
Brighten souls around us day to day
Small triumphs with helping
Pauly, “Sticks” home from the bar
Pulling his crooked feet from
The cement to the floor of a 1999 Ford escort
And setting them down like a fallen baby bird
“Be a saint, not a martyr,” Timmy always says
In conjunction with a laugh
Time between voyagers
Clouded with spirt.
Revolutionary war
Home planet egos
In a dark corners with slippers and a beard
Failing bodies crawl
Towards dim light that can’t
Possibly feed all the starving
Reconstruct, reexamine
The solution is nearly passed us..
And we slide and slide
bottomless
Into screens and features
Burying the soul under virtual trash
Information is a weapon
Information is a weapon when used irresponsibly
Shadows genocide
There will is a point here
Of no return
No responde se vos pla
But don’t worry, baby
I can make everything feel wonderful
We can sufi dance across
The Cleveland skyline
And skinny dip in undercurrents
Drowning us into retreat
The images will flow at
Our delight
Dancing panthers
And subterranean night crawlers
Slither among bar stools
Trying to remember art school
There is a dark force among us
Thick and whispering
Take arms
Upon arms
Clasping jewelry
To toddler necks
Under the purple dawn
In the infant phase of every daybreak
In the first and last decisions
Of the lonely dawn
Using healthy resource under
Undying constitution
And the blessing of the ancients
It is false to think us alone
It is immature to say we are not
One upon another
Hands curved around shoulders
The infant Congo Line
A thread across space
In both directions
Pulled taunt between the unknown
And how humbleness evades us…
The art can’t be put into rhymes
Serenading with wooing song
To the eclipsing human sprit
A fish-netted leg lamp
Garnishing business windows
As suburban Santa Clauses
Run around Tremont
Wearing numbers
Longing for their lost youths
Confetti vendors
Pour and poor
But the night awaits you
Disappointing the walls again
Reaching for peace
In the lonely hollows of our suffering
Calculating robots turn the screws
And the friction grows tighter
Getting further and further from some long ever after
Brighten souls around us day to day
Small triumphs with helping
Pauly, “Sticks” home from the bar
Pulling his crooked feet from
The cement to the floor of a 1999 Ford escort
And setting them down like a fallen baby bird
“Be a saint, not a martyr,” Timmy always says
In conjunction with a laugh
Time between voyagers
Clouded with spirt.
Revolutionary war
Home planet egos
In a dark corners with slippers and a beard
Failing bodies crawl
Towards dim light that can’t
Possibly feed all the starving
Reconstruct, reexamine
The solution is nearly passed us..
And we slide and slide
bottomless
Into screens and features
Burying the soul under virtual trash
Information is a weapon
Information is a weapon when used irresponsibly
Shadows genocide
There will is a point here
Of no return
No responde se vos pla
But don’t worry, baby
I can make everything feel wonderful
We can sufi dance across
The Cleveland skyline
And skinny dip in undercurrents
Drowning us into retreat
The images will flow at
Our delight
Dancing panthers
And subterranean night crawlers
Slither among bar stools
Trying to remember art school
There is a dark force among us
Thick and whispering
Take arms
Upon arms
Clasping jewelry
To toddler necks
Under the purple dawn
In the infant phase of every daybreak
In the first and last decisions
Of the lonely dawn
Using healthy resource under
Undying constitution
And the blessing of the ancients
It is false to think us alone
It is immature to say we are not
One upon another
Hands curved around shoulders
The infant Congo Line
A thread across space
In both directions
Pulled taunt between the unknown
And how humbleness evades us…
Mary Katherine Owen
Mary Katherine Owen
She was not always a ray of sunshine
but when she was
she might just blind you.
Let’s have lunch at D.A. Levy's gravesite.
Never happened
imagine the possibility
her all tied up in a bow
Mincing words and rearranging them into music
a changeling
a Groucho a Garbo
Mary, you are constantly reinventing yourself.
You are the one person I know who can be
Groucho Marx and Greta Garbo all at the same time.
As effervescent as you were maudlin
Like a vampire minus the bloodlust
Imbibing the people around her
Deep in the groove of them
Like they were the record and she was the needle
She seemed to see you when you couldn't see yourself
Like a mother cleaning her child's face with spit
She believed in you
She pondered who you were
Sometimes she'd speak at you,
Squeezing your face like a wet towel
She was trying to wring out
Telling you things she herself needed to hear
Her smile was a hug, her hug was love
She was in a constant state of
Standing up straight and aligning her spine
With the rest of the universe
Looking around at everyone dancing to see
If she’s taking the right steps
She was the vision, one needed
A precise prescription to grip
She poured her love out around her
Like a pool she sat in
Never leaving enough for herself
This was her sacrament, her sacrifice
She could teach you how to love paint peeling
on a park bench
A broken flip flop, a cracked tooth
a half-eaten jelly bean, a patch of faded grass,
a rusted banana seat, a three-wheeled roller skate, a hole in a sock,
a broken cap gun, a tattered magazine,
a woman in blue shorts and black socks,
smoking a cigarette
crossing Detroit Ave.
at dawn.
She saw a halo around it all.
The medication was all she could do
to not die of a world full of beauty
from how utterly desperate it can all feel
She wanted it to be beautiful
she needed every nuance to sing
C’mon, wake up and get happy or
get the fuck out of my way!
She wanted to capture it all and chop it up
into lines and read it to you
She wanted you to know in no uncertain terms
that she saw you from top to bottom
and that she approved
even if a steaming mess,
you were her steaming mess and
…only one of those things was gonna’ change
She could go dark
as if a spell had been cast over her
It made you want to summon her back
The wheels spun until the grease burned away
Then she'd return as abruptly as she had left
The smile, and the glasses,
Mary and her glasses…
the fidgeted rustling always
to put herself back together
Like repairing a china tea pot
To serve one more round
I wish this was like that
That there was some sorcery to perform
To guide her spirt back into our arms
Oh don’t be such a cry baby, people die every day. You think you are something special?!
There was a light in her that will not dim
on this sad embankment
a spirit set free is all
where the water meets the earth
as she washes her feet
along the celestial shores
her ball cap brim flipped back,
back pack tightly cinched to her shoulders
smiling at you voraciously,
Lead the way, Captain. I'm ready for anything.
Mary Katherine Owen
She was not always a ray of sunshine
but when she was
she might just blind you.
Let’s have lunch at D.A. Levy's gravesite.
Never happened
imagine the possibility
her all tied up in a bow
Mincing words and rearranging them into music
a changeling
a Groucho a Garbo
Mary, you are constantly reinventing yourself.
You are the one person I know who can be
Groucho Marx and Greta Garbo all at the same time.
As effervescent as you were maudlin
Like a vampire minus the bloodlust
Imbibing the people around her
Deep in the groove of them
Like they were the record and she was the needle
She seemed to see you when you couldn't see yourself
Like a mother cleaning her child's face with spit
She believed in you
She pondered who you were
Sometimes she'd speak at you,
Squeezing your face like a wet towel
She was trying to wring out
Telling you things she herself needed to hear
Her smile was a hug, her hug was love
She was in a constant state of
Standing up straight and aligning her spine
With the rest of the universe
Looking around at everyone dancing to see
If she’s taking the right steps
She was the vision, one needed
A precise prescription to grip
She poured her love out around her
Like a pool she sat in
Never leaving enough for herself
This was her sacrament, her sacrifice
She could teach you how to love paint peeling
on a park bench
A broken flip flop, a cracked tooth
a half-eaten jelly bean, a patch of faded grass,
a rusted banana seat, a three-wheeled roller skate, a hole in a sock,
a broken cap gun, a tattered magazine,
a woman in blue shorts and black socks,
smoking a cigarette
crossing Detroit Ave.
at dawn.
She saw a halo around it all.
The medication was all she could do
to not die of a world full of beauty
from how utterly desperate it can all feel
She wanted it to be beautiful
she needed every nuance to sing
C’mon, wake up and get happy or
get the fuck out of my way!
She wanted to capture it all and chop it up
into lines and read it to you
She wanted you to know in no uncertain terms
that she saw you from top to bottom
and that she approved
even if a steaming mess,
you were her steaming mess and
…only one of those things was gonna’ change
She could go dark
as if a spell had been cast over her
It made you want to summon her back
The wheels spun until the grease burned away
Then she'd return as abruptly as she had left
The smile, and the glasses,
Mary and her glasses…
the fidgeted rustling always
to put herself back together
Like repairing a china tea pot
To serve one more round
I wish this was like that
That there was some sorcery to perform
To guide her spirt back into our arms
Oh don’t be such a cry baby, people die every day. You think you are something special?!
There was a light in her that will not dim
on this sad embankment
a spirit set free is all
where the water meets the earth
as she washes her feet
along the celestial shores
her ball cap brim flipped back,
back pack tightly cinched to her shoulders
smiling at you voraciously,
Lead the way, Captain. I'm ready for anything.
Broken Finger
Broken finger
Sore wrist
Bad knee
Twisted joints
In the living room
Hair ratty from bike ride
Endorphins, then nothing
All across Ohio City skies
You can hear the heartbeat muffled by
The sound of the turning spokes
Tire meets pavement
Like lovers who’ve waited to kiss
To embrace the truth
Percocet for injuries
Physician’s assistant
Dirty little goatee
Low temperature plastic
Mold it out of place
Feel like sinking
Into the earth
Deep in the mud of it
Wheels spin
Heart seems scarred
Love is surrender to a pair of eyes
Looking deep inside to find yourself
Sitting alone
Obsessed over time
Fractured egos
Emotional splints
The artists lost his hand
The world folded on top of him
Recovered, but never fully
He mourned the losses
The loss of calendar days
Summers wrought with seasonal love
Foundations built on mud
The clay of man
Sculpted from bad decisions
Reckless awareness
The dangers and temptations of the immediate
Straighten it all out with a wrench
And some whisky
Waves across a woman’s toes
Plant me there in that image
Let me grow from this deformity.
Broken finger
Sore wrist
Bad knee
Twisted joints
In the living room
Hair ratty from bike ride
Endorphins, then nothing
All across Ohio City skies
You can hear the heartbeat muffled by
The sound of the turning spokes
Tire meets pavement
Like lovers who’ve waited to kiss
To embrace the truth
Percocet for injuries
Physician’s assistant
Dirty little goatee
Low temperature plastic
Mold it out of place
Feel like sinking
Into the earth
Deep in the mud of it
Wheels spin
Heart seems scarred
Love is surrender to a pair of eyes
Looking deep inside to find yourself
Sitting alone
Obsessed over time
Fractured egos
Emotional splints
The artists lost his hand
The world folded on top of him
Recovered, but never fully
He mourned the losses
The loss of calendar days
Summers wrought with seasonal love
Foundations built on mud
The clay of man
Sculpted from bad decisions
Reckless awareness
The dangers and temptations of the immediate
Straighten it all out with a wrench
And some whisky
Waves across a woman’s toes
Plant me there in that image
Let me grow from this deformity.
The Drink
I watch the television
And I drink
The hipsters prance
And then I drink
The janitor hikes up his pants
And then I drink
I don’t look first and then I drink
Her beauty hurts
And then I drink
Time drips from taps
And I drink it
Little notebooks offer comfort and with this I drink
I drink to the patterns in the curtains
And for the few who took the time to be genuine
I drink to the obese children
I drink to lube myself into conversation
I drink to a canopy somewhere
Where I long to lounge
And drink to the real pinching life
To art projects
To feelings of completion
To the price of admission
I drink to your smile
Teeth like soldiers
I drink to the truth
That’s always fleeting
I drink to the cities
I have yet to visit
To the fertile music
To cleanly apartments
And a candle lit
In anticipation of a returning lover
To the stained couch
To the damaged egos
To the bread and wine
To the ulcer of life
To the smell of brownies cooling
To scratches on arms with unrecalled origins
I think on the next phase and then I drink
I collapse in the corner
At the thought of you
And then I drink
This deep dive in the psyche
Flowers the crystal moments
Where the liquid vacation sets in
And the brain drenches over
The beauty of life erased
For a smoke screen version
Numb and untouchable
The forever plummet
Into waking life
Only to fall again
Back into you
And it is to you this time, that I drink
I watch the television
And I drink
The hipsters prance
And then I drink
The janitor hikes up his pants
And then I drink
I don’t look first and then I drink
Her beauty hurts
And then I drink
Time drips from taps
And I drink it
Little notebooks offer comfort and with this I drink
I drink to the patterns in the curtains
And for the few who took the time to be genuine
I drink to the obese children
I drink to lube myself into conversation
I drink to a canopy somewhere
Where I long to lounge
And drink to the real pinching life
To art projects
To feelings of completion
To the price of admission
I drink to your smile
Teeth like soldiers
I drink to the truth
That’s always fleeting
I drink to the cities
I have yet to visit
To the fertile music
To cleanly apartments
And a candle lit
In anticipation of a returning lover
To the stained couch
To the damaged egos
To the bread and wine
To the ulcer of life
To the smell of brownies cooling
To scratches on arms with unrecalled origins
I think on the next phase and then I drink
I collapse in the corner
At the thought of you
And then I drink
This deep dive in the psyche
Flowers the crystal moments
Where the liquid vacation sets in
And the brain drenches over
The beauty of life erased
For a smoke screen version
Numb and untouchable
The forever plummet
Into waking life
Only to fall again
Back into you
And it is to you this time, that I drink
Elixir
The simple damage
I need chocolate
The stars twinkle out there
With the stats
As the smoke blows into my sweater
The rain stopped finally
In Tremont, Ohio
The cow’s milk went thick
The lovers were shocked
the mothers posted bail
As the storm worried above its people
The rats moved in
To the basement scratching
at the walls
Pissing from the ceiling
And again the rain
Packing bags we can’t possibly carry
On our back things can
Scare us
break our bones and laugh
dance around us
I need chocolate
the chemical release
by degrees
A brand spanking, fucking new
Vacation
F L A baby, with your heart sacked
Bang drums, break strings
like tambourine lovers
Don’t stop pretending with your wild-eyed wonder
Make a fool out of me
I’ll let you
Empty the cigarette butts
Smoke another, repeat
Retreat in the big act walloped
by late night spice
Insomnmatic devices
Poisoning varmint
Cartoon elixir
Quick picker upper
neat fixture
Double pleasure
From the joy machines
I can’t stand at the taxi stand any longer
Without a coat
The simple damage
I need chocolate
The stars twinkle out there
With the stats
As the smoke blows into my sweater
The rain stopped finally
In Tremont, Ohio
The cow’s milk went thick
The lovers were shocked
the mothers posted bail
As the storm worried above its people
The rats moved in
To the basement scratching
at the walls
Pissing from the ceiling
And again the rain
Packing bags we can’t possibly carry
On our back things can
Scare us
break our bones and laugh
dance around us
I need chocolate
the chemical release
by degrees
A brand spanking, fucking new
Vacation
F L A baby, with your heart sacked
Bang drums, break strings
like tambourine lovers
Don’t stop pretending with your wild-eyed wonder
Make a fool out of me
I’ll let you
Empty the cigarette butts
Smoke another, repeat
Retreat in the big act walloped
by late night spice
Insomnmatic devices
Poisoning varmint
Cartoon elixir
Quick picker upper
neat fixture
Double pleasure
From the joy machines
I can’t stand at the taxi stand any longer
Without a coat
Time Between Voyagers
The art can’t be put into rhymes
Serenading with wooing song
To the eclipsing human sprit
A fish-netted leg lamp
Garnishing business windows
As suburban Santa Clauses
Run around Tremont
Wearing numbers
Longing for their lost youths
Confetti vendors
Poor and poor
But the night awaits you
Disappointing the walls again
Reaching for peace
In the lonely hollows of our suffering
Calculating robots turn the screws
And the friction grows tighter
Getting further and further from some long ever after
Brighten souls around us day to day
Small triumphs with helping
Pauly, “Sticks” home from the bar
Pulling his crooked feet from
The cement to the floor of a 1999 Ford escort
And setting them down like a fallen baby bird
“Be a saint, not a martyr,” Timmy always says
In conjunction with a laugh
Time between voyagers
Clouded with spirt.
Revolutionary war
Home planet egos
In a dark corners with slippers and a beard
Failing bodies crawl
Towards dim light that can’t
Possibly feed all the starving
Reconstruct, reexamine
The solution is nearly passed us..
And we slide and slide
bottomless
Into screens and features
Burying the soul under virtual trash
Information is a weapon
Information is a weapon when used irresponsibly
Shadows genocide
There will is a point here
Of no return
No responde se vos pla
But don’t worry, baby
I can make everything feel wonderful
We can sufi dance across
The Cleveland skyline
And skinny dip in undercurrents
Drowning us into retreat
The images will flow at
Our delight
Dancing panthers
And subterranean night crawlers
Slither among bar stools
Trying to remember art school
There is a dark force among us
Thick and whispering
Take arms
Upon arms
Clasping jewelry
To toddler necks
Under the purple dawn
In the infant phase of every daybreak
In the first and last decisions
Of the lonely dawn
Using healthy resource under
Undying constitution
And the blessing of the ancients
It is false to think us alone
It is immature to say we are not
One upon another
Hands curved around shoulders
The infant Congo Line
A thread across space
In both directions
Pulled taunt between the unknown
And how humbleness evades us…
The art can’t be put into rhymes
Serenading with wooing song
To the eclipsing human sprit
A fish-netted leg lamp
Garnishing business windows
As suburban Santa Clauses
Run around Tremont
Wearing numbers
Longing for their lost youths
Confetti vendors
Poor and poor
But the night awaits you
Disappointing the walls again
Reaching for peace
In the lonely hollows of our suffering
Calculating robots turn the screws
And the friction grows tighter
Getting further and further from some long ever after
Brighten souls around us day to day
Small triumphs with helping
Pauly, “Sticks” home from the bar
Pulling his crooked feet from
The cement to the floor of a 1999 Ford escort
And setting them down like a fallen baby bird
“Be a saint, not a martyr,” Timmy always says
In conjunction with a laugh
Time between voyagers
Clouded with spirt.
Revolutionary war
Home planet egos
In a dark corners with slippers and a beard
Failing bodies crawl
Towards dim light that can’t
Possibly feed all the starving
Reconstruct, reexamine
The solution is nearly passed us..
And we slide and slide
bottomless
Into screens and features
Burying the soul under virtual trash
Information is a weapon
Information is a weapon when used irresponsibly
Shadows genocide
There will is a point here
Of no return
No responde se vos pla
But don’t worry, baby
I can make everything feel wonderful
We can sufi dance across
The Cleveland skyline
And skinny dip in undercurrents
Drowning us into retreat
The images will flow at
Our delight
Dancing panthers
And subterranean night crawlers
Slither among bar stools
Trying to remember art school
There is a dark force among us
Thick and whispering
Take arms
Upon arms
Clasping jewelry
To toddler necks
Under the purple dawn
In the infant phase of every daybreak
In the first and last decisions
Of the lonely dawn
Using healthy resource under
Undying constitution
And the blessing of the ancients
It is false to think us alone
It is immature to say we are not
One upon another
Hands curved around shoulders
The infant Congo Line
A thread across space
In both directions
Pulled taunt between the unknown
And how humbleness evades us…