aid to veterans thrift is where i like best to be. beyond the cluttered main space to the tiny room in back, with the door that has nearly no room to swing. only flick the red switch or the whole place will go darker than one of hell's caverns. herein wait the records. stacked anonymously and covered in dust; rubbing up against my hands, i don't mind, wipe them on the same delapidated shorts with their embroidered dragonfly, slowly disintegrating mauve. i'm looking for someone i know. like paging through a yearbook, i scan the covers for a face beautifully familiar, or beautifully new, to me. from these friends i learn my lessons, so i seek them, pockets full of quarters, keen print-reading eyes.

the kingston trio, sometimes. peter, paul, and mary on their sunny yellow cover, who knew mary was such a babe? joan baez and her luminescent doe eyes. songs about the bombings in hanoi. and cat stevens,

(may all our voices lift in praise)

buddha and the chocolate box. he makes it so easy, to choose the greener path.

i will write myself through this and emerge slightly battered, exhausted, on the other side. or i will crawl through it on my belly like a soldier, smearing mud down my front, wishing i could
give up. just sleep in the mud. just sleep

inching like the living dead toward a blurry dawn with indistinct features; could be a grimace, could be a smile. could be another day at the park. ocean park, its water always the color of the reflected sky. silver sleeping with eyes closed beneath its dense blanket of fog.

perspective is a telescope and i have to jam myself into its center, bones and all, stay forever. make a moment of clarity expand to encompass all time. like a bird in the estuary, diving beneath the surface and then returning to the light. so, a moment of wet and cold.

it's just a moment of wet and cold. the sun'll dry you right off

when i was thirteen i began listening to billie holiday. and her dust. i was hypnotized by the dust, its sound, how it would never be blown off with a breath. it's been recorded, it is as it was, frozen in time:

stuck in amber; improbable, but true,

immovable, billie locked in her position of grief
then
now
forever

with no possibility of a new beginning. the needle swings its arc, drops on the first song. one more tired revolution around the sun

dont fall off the face of my earth;

i am not the strongest

what would be for some a gentle push

might just knock me over and concuss me

i am not

and i am grateful that i am not

a crow

but i might be something smaller

with little sugar spun bones

wounded wing

carry me in your mouth

but don't bite down

be gentle

my mind wont sit still, i'm as i ever was :


in a starchy scratchy floral confection, i never would've picked it myself
but there you are


lacey socks on but my legs wont cross
daintily at the ankles
i won't sit still

can't do what i'm told when i simply cant
sit still


and i never believed in being seen but not heard until i knew how it felt to love silence more than words, and knew how it felt to see truth being told without speaking

so my mouth it is closed but my mind never ceases
its reeling

and i dont believe in growing cold in your fear and waiting for disaster to appear so i let myself sink back into the feeling.

and furthur back into the feeling

time is two eyes across from me. when i let myself look it ceases to exist entirely and gets out of my way

to let me live

my pile of stones is growing and
so is this feeling

i'm enamored even with distortion
even distortion sounds sweet

how it pushes me sweetly toward the edge. i'm not afraid
of going over

anymore

it's all coming down

it's all coming down. pouring from the sky
relentless and wild
on top of me

it's all coming down. it's coming down hard
remember the old adage?

'it's coming down hard'; it truly is coming down hard
on top of me

i open my entreating mouth so that i might fill it up with rain
and never speak a word again but only trickle condensation

feel cloud matter slipping from behind teeth

i think it would be an honest thing to do, an honest thing to be said from me to you:
no words, free of sound

only rain

i might rain all over you and let you stand in the haze, let you ponder the aged old refrain

let you feel the weight that only i draw near to touch, that only i would take the time to introduce myself to

it could all come down on you