bright lights, loud noises

@brightlightsloudnoises

Poetry and prose

553 posts

nyc

we slept in the milford by port authority and when you woke up you piled your hair on your head in front of the wooden water towers and we checked out and took a taxi to central park where you grabbed my arm right above the wrist and said you needed to take a picture of the carousel, of the horses with their mouths open, and frozen with their legs stretched out and I stood next to you looking at the people and birds while you bent and stretched, getting the right angles and you clicked it and I said ok and you said ok and we walked down a very famous street

madness in december

there is madness in december, it has white knuckles and hears pindrops

it howls and breaks windows

and it uses the birds to sing its soulful songs

the weeknight

I can't get my head clear

I daydream about picking up and heading to new orleans

I have visions of lifting a drink off the bar and it taking me away like a balloon above the bored faces,

I think about these goddamn useless things and stay here like this stool nailed to the floor

I will love you even in spaces and in breaths

I will love you even in spaces and in breaths

I thought it was stupid when I wrote it and looking around at what's out now, it's probably fine

in spaces and in breaths that's tough, meaning no relief

that's tough, hard to do but have done it a few times personally you too I bet

love, people are quick to think or say others have never had it

really

everyone no one

the universe the country

plans won lost

insects born like robots

insane in their sex and death

winning nothing

all sensation desperation seasons

and silence

here we are

I found a cigarette by the side of the road even though I'd quit, I picked it up and put it in my shirt pocket and then instead of walking down my street, I decided to go down to the next one to the bar

it was only 3:30 PM so hardly anyone was in there and it was beautifully empty, I mean the place was shit, but empty like that it could have been an opera house I picked a stool in the middle and the fat guy came up and I told him and he gave me the drink and I said, "hey, do you have a light?" and he said, "you can't smoke in here." and so I stared at the tv, past the tv, past the pretty news anchor and waited, I guess, for a sign or a girl with a heart heavy with the books on her bedside table

get over it

I don't think I've ever gotten over anything and I don't mind,

it gives me plenty to think about

aren't you with me

aren't you with me on the pale mornings when the sun does not explode behind picket fences

aren't you with me when the birds are too sick to get up and do it again

aren't you with me when the night is cold

hard

stale

with what didn't happen

aren't you there

your figure carved between the seconds

vacation

I dreamt I was on the titanic drinking a martini looking at an iceberg

and then I was on a horse with some indians or something

I woke up, turned on the TV— someone was bitching about face cream,

outside, someone was watching their dog piss

there was a text on my phone telling me I was an asshole

I turned everything off and went back to bed

the stranger

I’ve walked for miles in the wrong direction.

when it comes down to two choices, this way or that way, I usually pick the wrong one and as I walk the buildings become stranger, the shadows become taller, the people become colder

and I feel at home.

the watchman

I was driving home and I saw this old guy about 50 yards in front of me on the sidewalk and as I approached him, he began waving his arms crazily

“look at this crazy motherfucker,” I thought and then I saw what he was doing, there was a pigeon in the middle of the road, he was trying to scare the pigeon away so I wouldn’t hit it

now, either he wasn’t giving the pigeon enough credit or he wasn’t giving me enough credit,

but shit, either way, I guess every little bit helps

small empty rooms

“every morning I get up I die a little” the radio plays as I get up and light my first cigarette on the cold porch and the grey light hangs out over the same street I’ve looked at for years

there is nothing out there, I’m certain of it, there has to be nothing because there was a time when I had beat my knuckles against the closed doors until they were raw and the ones that opened opened to nothing,

just small empty rooms with more lonely people

for the birds

I gave her a quarter and she pulled the lever and the food came out, she fed it to the ducks and as I stretched out on the bench I felt my soul sink down towards the mud, under that even, full and heavy from the way she was

on a mattress

on a mattress, floating on violent waves as the sun bends into strange colors through the blinds,

and I remember you stretching, under a few minutes of the moon

faith

she bites into oranges to peel them

and when she does

I've never seen her happier

becoming

if you write, you barely have to exist

you can become a daydream or a series of daydreams

for yourself or others

and the things that broke your heart suddenly become tools

and your useless passing thoughts become blueprints

and even if you get it wrong,

sometimes it's right

the light

there is a light you may have covered it up but it's there

it might not consume, it might not illuminate, it might not guide, it might not roar,

it might flicker dangerously in the big dark

but it's there and you can never lose it and that's all that counts

these days

these days have been poison for the soul with short tremendous breaks

these days have been lonelier than the teenage days

they are the rainbow sheen over gasoline

and they are mean

they are a stack of bricks in a parking lot

a bird hopping along a rail

they are wednesday nights and sunday mornings

and a hell of a lot kinder than tomorrow

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