#inkandspite

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an except from Morning Views; Vol. 2

I awoke to a number by a woman named Esperanza-

'Ponta De Areia', it was called

And I didn’t understand a damn thing she was saying

 But had I awoken to a tropical view of any sort,

The cat at the end of my bed and I

Might have found a place called home-  

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Porcelain Hammers

porcelain hammers 

and paper bullets 

can still inflict wounds 

for countless hours - 

with just the right strike, 

everything shatters 

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A King amongst Men

A King amongst Men

   I could tell he was a broken man. The strings he plucked were as rusted and discordant as his countenance. His guitar was slightly out of tune, but in my perception the detail really drove the scene home. The man on the park bench with his eyes shut to the sun, his fingerless gloves frayed and catching the strings here and there, his clothes unwashed and tattered- the man was recounting his story to nothing but the night beneath his eyelids. And there was nothing but truth to it. There was no glamour, no dreams of stardom or recognition. There were no thoughts of lusting women and Champaign from the heavens. There was no ambition whatsoever. Those days were over for him. There was a man and his guitar. A man against the world, and that was all that mattered to him now. Perhaps he had had all the finer things in the world once. Perhaps he had had a beautiful life, as commonly described, once- and perhaps he had lost it all in a terrible fashion by one circumstance or another; But in that beautiful moment- nothing mattered to that man but that song he was playing. There was nothing in the world to him but that broken guitar, and the truth only a broken man can know. As I walked away towards whatever oblivion I could find myself, I heard the newspapers he had stacked beside him rustle and take flight in the wind as if a dramatic outro to the song of a king. Even the oncoming cold meant nothing to him anymore. I had never known pity and admiration as the same feeling before. 

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All That Glistens

They lay in the grass

Well adapted to the earth

Locked hand-hand-

And hand-in-hand again

  Each with a leg entwined

Lovingly around the others

The way young lovers do

When clinging to each-others souls-

  -each discovering the others’

And claiming it for their own-

  She lay kissing at his neck,

He lay gazing at the stars,

Wondering how he ever caught one

And brought it down in his arms

  They lay there as the sky turned gray

And the morning fog settled and then glistened

On their bones and the worms retreated to the earth

  Motionless, they lay in each-others embrace

As if the world was of no consequence to they.

    They lay there for days, amongst the tainted grass,

Amongst the smell and the swell of decay

The weapon used- gone somewhere far downstream,

As too was the culprit, a jealous one, they’ll say.

  Someday the knife will wash ashore,

and shimmer its innocence forevermore

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Outside the rainwater Flows

Ebbing from uphill into the unknown

But if I were to dip my hands into the waters of John

                         It would never be enough to save my soul  

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The Last 8 of Eden

She had the look of the last girl on earth, and I mean that in a good way. The moment I set eyes on her, I knew there would be no other to shine so brightly, or taste so beautiful on my tongue, though I knew I’d likely have to fake a few; nothing lasts forever in times like these, especially the good stuff. Life has this way of teasing you with a paradise-built-for-you, and then promptly equips you with the ‘right’ tools and the tempers to burn it down, like the fabled Adam and eve did, all done without either of you having a clue, in retrospect, what the hell had happened, but the damage apparently has already been done.

Unrepairable- A total loss, an insurance stooge might say.

Perhaps it was the smoke, but I never saw the bridges burning.

So you find yourself drinking too much while cycling through a few meaningless relationships, then a few more, until you realize there isn’t a point. So, then,  you shut and lock your door, turn off the phone, and drink some more- reminiscing and writing, glancing at your gun a time or two.

There might be a knock at the door, but it’s certainly not the only guest you wish to see, so you just don’t answer. You hear them call you an asshole as they walk back to their car but hey- they should have called your phone, you tell yourself, knowing full well it was off all the same. Anyways, you didn’t have anything to offer them; being perfectly fine here in the darkest of places, serving a self-imposed penance- though you leave the porch light on, and one gate open.

The nights get colder, the whiskey gets stronger, but it has to, or else its pills to put you at ease enough to sleep. Always one or the other, or the nights are hell here- were you burned down the garden, and live in its shell, wondering where she might be out there.

It’s here in this place, where night after night, moon after moon, I bury myself, though I know a trip to some far off place might do me well- and soon. It’s here where I suffer myself with fools fantasies; stubborn, drunk, and waiting.

      The Prevention clinics and councilors would have a hell of a time with this writing, were I still in a state to take my own life… The loss of Faith, the loss of ideals, goals, all three the burial nails I have scratched at and beaten for many years… seeking the will to live, to reconcile myself, somewhere beyond this cursed soil- for who, either new or old, would possibly want to pursue someone who refused to stand on his own two feet; someone who didn’t love the dawn and the rain.. or just to love in general, and know the meaning of- 

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Collapse at Dawn

Collapse at Dawn

  The night brings both terror and paradise

-Memories of what was, promises of what should have been

-mistakes either forgotten, forgiven, or nonexistent altogether

Angels wrapped up in arm, angry or not, you’d take it all

Were there a rewind button labeled ‘learn and reconcile’

Its all imagery you would rather never wake from,

Lucidity a coma you would almost beg to remain inside

But with the sun comes the realization that none of that is true

-you are alone, forgotten, tossed away like yesterdays garbage

And the sheets are cold, ice almost four years in the making-

You fall back into those unforgiving linens,

And wonder how you will make it through this day alone and damned, all by your own doing.

You close your eyes and reach for the colder side..

Hoping at the very least, you can sleep, and dream again,

Where even the hardest of times, the roughest of roads,

Are so much better than time spent walking ‘neath the sun… 

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Band Of Brothers

There’s you, a few of your friends, a bottle or two of whiskey, a case of thirty in red white and blue (just in case), and a shared pack of smokes in this old room

You’re screaming over the top of your lungs at each other, because none of you want to be the one that turns the volume down;

-Not on such serenades, ballads, and attacks as are on this playlist- until it’s time to break just to crank your own guitars for a spin;

Just after or in between sessions of speaking wishfully of bands and women, of either this name or that- all pretend, though not quite in the realm of some weird fairyland

It might as well be a well-packed concert hall in here, but it’s just the group of you in a tired old house that’s seen one too many of these. 

You shout over shots of whiskey, debating the ins and outs of each band, each song that’s played, sometimes way too strongly, but that’s just the whiskey

Or it could be what everyone is suppressing inside; the things each of you gathered to escape or at the very least, suppress.

Memories of love, loss, war, peace- people and places not-so laid to rest-

All the things music is supposed to be about.  

It could be the anger, pain, the joy, or any sort of memories, not so safely harbored just beneath the shells, the masks you all three wear

-masks that read “over it?” with pizza stains and dead skin on your guitar strings

you down another shot, and spark up a smoke- the bunch of you at once, All for one, and one for all.

-Then you repeat the process until the first of you falls 

You’re celebrating nothing, but here’s to pretending- at least until morning when each of you wake, one by one cursing the sun, and proceed to breakfast over hangovers and swollen lips

And memories – still seething like the callouses on your fingers-

Still bleeding.