My Last Fall

I saw this coming from a mile away,
I just couldn't bring myself
to brace for it's impact.
I remember my last fall,
I hid under the pretense
of certain circumstances.
Some nights I get the feeling
you were a balloon floating above it all.
I was your anchor buried
six feet under the leaves;
we were tethered together.
At night I'd dig my way up
and meet you.
You cared about me then
the way no one cares about me now.
I still think about that empty park
and the frozen grass on that
black out golf course.
I still listen to those same
songs but my drives are a lot colder now.
I tried to reach up but the leaves
have become too heavy.
And once I tried to pull your string
but you weren't attached
to it anymore.
My thoughts will always find
a way of manipulating themselves,
but these words are a permanent
reminder;
of the past present and future.

My Aim Is True

"I could really fall in love with you Case."
She prowls those city streets like a lioness;
a jungle cat on the hunt.
"A street walking cheetah with
a heart full of napalm."
She'll take you down with a graceful
precision and devour you.
I was the gazelle at the end of the bar,
who lacked the courage
of his convictions.
And she was my Alison.
But I'll walk away this fall
sipping on black coffee
and smoking cigarettes.
Eventually I'll burn away
like a dying star and forget my way back home.

If You Set It Free It Will Never Come Back To You

Looking over my shoulder,
only half listening she asked:
"Is it better to have loved and lost?
Or to have never loved at all?"
What I say won't matter,
because I don't even play the game.
Letting people in,
letting them affect you,
feelings, emotions...
these are all just inherent
character flaws we're all born with
and only a few of us grow out of.
But I've dropped my insides
and cut the anchor loose.
I'll employ this phalanx
to guard what's left of my soul.
This last grain,
this last fragment,
is mine.
I'll watch it turn to ash at dusk
and I'll bow it away like a
dandelion, like an eye lash,
like my last birthday candle.
Because the further away from me
it gets,
the better off it is.

A Leap for the Faithless

The first word is always the hardest.
It's a leap of faith into the unknown.
I've become the Pied Piper.
I will be Charon,
I will guide you through Hades.
The cover of this book
will read like a divine comedy
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"
This is an Odyssey but I'm no Odysseus.
This is the anti-hero's journey.
This is a journey to a lost paradise.
Follow me home,
to the bars on pleasure island
where you will never be thirsty.
To the whore houses,
where you will never be alone.
To the lake of fire,
where we will sit on it's shore
and smoke cigarettes.
This is the journey of the damned.
Is it in you?
Can you take that first step?
Take a vacation into desperation,
I welcome you.

Eyes Like Emerald City+

They say home is where the heart is,
my home is in your embrace;
in the shining green eyes
that light up brighter than Emerald City.
I'll wait forever for you to come home
to me.
Rod Serling came
to me last night in a dream and said
you were the one for me.
He said somewhere down low,
where we've buried our hurt,
and with what little love we had left;
we found each other.
I was wandering around in the darkness;
a candle with no flame,
and you had a can of kerosene
and a pack of cigarettes.
We used our hearts as flints
and made a spark that never seemed to fade.
The black turned to gold in our light
and the coal in our hearts turned to rubies
that tasted like tropical punch.
It took me 23 years to find you,
but it's just a drop in the bucket
if it means forever.
So take this with you wherever you go
and know that I stay up nights
looking at the stars;
and spelling your name.

Do Not Feed The Writers

This pen is filled with poison.
It strikes with graceful precision,
like a cornered cobra.
A few strokes and you'll be on
your knees
reduced to a hemorrhaging heart.
But it's the quiet one's
you have to keep your eye on,
isn't it?
The one who never punches back.
But the punches and insults
don't go anywhere.
They linger inside and produce venom.
They pace like a waiting tiger in a cage.
When the pen is full
and the tiger is hungry
they will attack until
they get their fill.

Fall In Love With Everyone You See

I drink, I smoke and I write
because I do not greave.
I do not let things die.
Death is not an option.
I folded a winning hand
and I threw my drink in
life's face.
The only thing I have ever let die
is their notion of who I was
supposed to be.
Now I walk the margins of sanity.
I've sailed to the end of the
earth hoping that I would fall off.
I live alone watching myself
from afar, in an out of body experience.
People flow in and out
like a crowded bar,
always trying to catch me at happy hour.
Always trying to take what they can,
while giving nothing in return.
All of the women who have ever loved
me, said they couldn't be with me.
This man once told me:
"Don't fall in love with everyone you see."
But it's impossible not to,
so I write about them.
So that a piece of that love
may live on after my heart grows hard.
So sit with me on a stoop in this lazy
Los Angeles weather.
Share a cigarette, pass the 5th.
Maybe we'll fall in love,
maybe we'll fuck,
maybe I'll remember your name.
But when it's all said and done,
I'll sit on this stoop 10 years from now
and remember that night.
The day fire, candle wax,
and volcanic ash drip from the sky
I will have a lot of stories to tell
and a lot of faces to remember.
Will you?