In the Cloud

I wake to find myself under the shroud
wet, rain, mist mixed with dense fog
soaked I stand midst the moisture, sog
I am aware, I am in the cloud.
As in a dream, feelings of isolation
wandering never finding prevails
I walk, I run, I stumble, I fall
against the odds, swept away by fate
I will scream, my latest complaint
I will not give in, I will note hate
The unfeeling unknowing sleeping giant
stirs around me deaf to all my cries
the unfeeling computations this is
the satirical equivalency, the web of lies
I reach out with artificial hands
I grasp towards the apathetic stars
the universe remains distant unseen
far away from the earthbound crowd
like some forgotten god unfettered, lost
while I dwell far below water bound
standing in place, I am in the cloud.

Seemingly Impossible

You cannot do it unless you do it

or at very least, try to do it.

You cannot live it, unless, of course, you discover

you are already living it.

You cannot say that you won't go there

unless you have tried and failed,

then can you say that and actually mean it.

You can say that you don't want to go,

but without a reason, it won't mean

a thing to anyone you tell save that

they should go there instead.

Some of this is true,

some of this is possible

none of this is a lie,

unless,

you tell me it's impossible.

Cutting Stone

for Charlie

My hands caress the smooth surface

feeling for the shape locked therein,

my fingers are the keys to its secrets

to uncover with chisel and wits alone,

as long as the pain does not betray
for this is the day I am cutting stone.

My age tries to define me in aches
criss-crossing my limbs like branches
of a wizened and ancient oak tree
I rest from my labor at the noontide
to consider what I have found within
the rock that resists the vision I seek
in this, as in all things, I shall abide.

Time again for day to chase the night
a body is born from the fragments 
falling away like leaves in the breeze
autumnal seasons, weathered bone
I bite back the hurt, I will remain
releasing my desire cutting stone.

Falling Forward

A casual sense of fumbling in forward momentum over the edge
a spastic plunge down or up or just out into the abyss, the nothing
the joy and sadness and ecstasy of weightless as well a easy dread
the music is around me, it's to my left, my right, then in your head.

The dead drop down down down down-falling into the deepness too
bottomless rhythm erupts like a box-beat blown out of my mouth
like a bass scream of ominous yet curious portent now resounding
now pleasantly violent though deliciousness amok chaos pounding.

Then like an explosion of light and colors and dust, now then Saturn
overturns Jupiter, thrumming in the absence of the sine waves crash
shattering like a thousand tears of glass all over the surface of Mars
such beautiful substance, such insane significance midst the stars.

I am the hammer of my own heartbeats, one, two, three now four
there is nothing but the fall, there is nothing here, no nothing at all.
there is no emotion, no fears, no tears, no laughter, wonder extreme
nothing is apparent, nothing is obvious, it is after all just a dream.

Life is weird

Life is not some water color painting
or a chess game from star trek that is
multi-tiered.
No, that's not what life is, it's harder
than that, it just that life is weird.

It is not like a box of chocolates
shared from the park bench wisdom
we could trust.
It is not like a zodiac wheel of stars
read in the paper on the road to
heaven on a bus.

It is not to be found in the quizzes
found on the Facebook page.
It is not to be learned from an actor
strutting and muttering on the stage.

It is not to be learned from a textbook
lost on a forgotten library shelf.
It is not to be heard in a barbershop chair
debating golf or the path to wealth.

It is hidden inside the secrets held
under the roots of the hanging tree.
It is not to be bargained for in turn
at the crossroads of absent irony.

It is not to be told through a myth
written in the films of youth.
No, my friend, that is not where
you are led to learn this final truth.

It is bled by men and women on
the fields of the living.
It is found being dropped into the
hands of the helpless, in giving.

It is sudden and wretched, wildly
unstable and rude.
It is the music I hear in the laughter
of undefeatable attitude.

It is all this insanity as the world
burns around us, angry red.
It is the fortunate loss, the tears
that come from surviving instead.

It is the understood in the midst of
the madness of the storm.
It is the moment I can grok it
I am my imagination reborn.

It is everything I never hoped for.
It is mostly what I have always feared.
It is like a prayer unanswered, unasked for.
what is more than this, is that life is just-
weird.