the benevolence of night

they often speak
of things otherwise
unknown – were it
not for they

they say that my
body heals itself
during the night

cells rebuild
and muscles are
sewn again with stronger
bonds than bones
or sinews.

in my dreams the brain
energizes lost
caverns deep within

where i create faces i’ve never seen
and places that don’t exist
me, a god, building
trees and mountains and the
darkest places

ah the whole of this world
finds solace when
the mighty mighty
sun is hidden

millions and millions of miles away

art has left a hole in me

art has left
a hole in me

separated from
my God
from this tree
from the
infinite

inward, a demon
dines on the
dirty relics
of childhood

i was raised in
Suburbia but weened
in the mountains.

isolation became my friend
and the loneliness of March
winds a sure confidant.

what is it that strikes me?

the art of the vein in the leaf

the whispers of slave Ghosts
among purple blooms of
mountain laurel

the silent dying of
of everything in the forest
always and every where

with every breath, a last of sorts

the leman

a well kept gigolo
lives down the street

he saunters by
on dazzling haunches

the lazy fawners wait for
him to pass

with his wide smiles
and white teeth

the pungent smells of
sandalwood and patchouli
are his bellowing harbingers

and

into the shadows he slips

and is soon forgotten.

indians and vapor trails

it’s the vapor trails
that leave me
wretchedly inebriated

and they come to
me through the
most fabulous
peace pipe

bought from a man, a
junk dealer, this and that man,
the boiled peanuts man,
the seven-toed man

for a bill. now it’s
wooden body and brass
fittings fill my mind
with cotton daydreams

of bare feet and red skinned backs
moving silently through
the forest, in sun and moon
invisible to the white man.

until those vapor trails…

(he really only has seven toes)

admission

if i ain’t
writin’

i ain’t
fuckin’

up

which craft?

tides rise &
fall in her eyes

she’ll see through you
she’ll she past you

to those greener
pastures

past them oceans

oceans in her eyes

past them boys
with fumbling fingers

to the man

enough of this boyish shit
there’s a spell with my
name on it
& i mean to
succumb
to it

beggar haiku

dingy, stingy streets
make small lives under bridges
tatterdemalions

bedlam January

My demagoguery is
always intentional.

My poetry is a damned
demagogue.

It’ll pull you, unwilling
into my sordid
lust for breasts and the
insatiable hunger for absolution.

And should I spend the
whole day musing
on the silky forgotten strands
of a glowing spider’s
web you would do well
not to read a single word.

In your silly, busy bustle
you may

find yourself in
intoxicating and wholly
unexpected rapture
at the queer beauty
of this solemn Earth and your

infinitesimal mark here.

vinyl

if a soul
were accidentally
spilled out
onto the floor

it would look just
like a vinyl record

covered in black
shiny grooves

etched into time and
matter, every emotion
every action, every thought
every love and every hate

of just one person

chronicled and wrapped
in a paper sleeve

stored away on a shelf

for the next life.

circumventing the inevitable

round and round
down cattails
between pillows
tossed into piles

i avoid
the very subject
of breathing

and regret everything
i’ve ever done and
still, regret nothing

what is regret? it is doubt
in the fantasy that there’s
no automatic consequence
to my sin

what is sin? it is the absence
of God, and where is that?
where can you go to escape
that shadow? Mars most likely.

we are there now,
popping snapshots
of ancient riverbeds and
mountains and valleys
in an asphyxiated atmosphere

perhaps Everyone makes mistakes.

thirty-nine

i remember my Dad’s 40th
birthday party.

the most talked about item
was a large banner printed
from a dot matrix printer.

it hung the width of our front porch.
everyone in the neighborhood came out
to see it.

it read, “Lordy, Lordy
Neal Cowan’s forty!”

the whole place was a buzz.

what kind of world were we living in
where you could print your own
banners? from a computer?

(a Commodore 64 in fact)

it was 1985.

now i post pictures to the world
from the Himalayans, or Cozumel
or the bathroom – using my
goddamned phone!

my diary is a blog, read by thousands
of strangers…. ok well, hundreds,
ok well, a few.

now i tweet and kik and text
instead of sharing secrets
with a best friend using
our G. I. Joe walkie talkies.

now, i’m 365 days away from 40
and i’m twice as old as my dad.

them thar critix

they say she
leaks moonbeam blood

but i saw the space within
i saw a new ocean
unnamed, uncharted

lying dormant in the
green of her eyes

they say they’ll
conquer Heaven and earth

without love
there’s only war

but war is why we fuck
so the fighting never
ceases.

comet ison

the year fades tiresome
like a pendulum that sweeps
circular patterns
in someone’s Zen sand box

days creep shorter, now
slowly, and longer they’ll
linger as our

tautly stretched
shadows inch
back to their
summer lengths

life has completed another
orbit around whatever and
we will be slung, once
again, by the sun into
outer darkness

and somewhere, millions and billions
of miles away, a disturbance has
heaved a frozen rock towards us

and it hurdles its way sun-ward,
like us, unaware and unable
to deviate from it’s chosen path

a comet rises in the east
“brighter than the moon,” they say

perhaps, as Earth thaws us,
our tails will also
illuminate the skies with
something different than before.

December 25, 2012

ever do some intentional
act of kindness that
is so amazing that it
makes you feel as if
you have been filled up
with warm butter to
the point of simply
bursting with joy, and
excitement, and contentment,
and butter?

well, that was today.

funeral for a friend

November beams
like crystal cobwebs
snatch shadows
from the ground

in leafless chunks
jigsaw puzzles
lay scattered
among the grasses

brown with dread.
summer is dead
and with hope
we’ve prepared his burial.

today

shine for me
brilliant sun

as if i were
the only one

the fallen

get up
dirty knees
and brush off
those dirty things

dawn has come

time to sing

no one falls
beneath the ground

He put it there

to save your sound

hiatus

hi·a·tus – a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.

thank you guys for all the reads, 30,000+ of them.
i’m slow in writing this as there’s no time to maintain this blog.

i’m sure on some dark, sultry evening, when the whiskey has melted
the ice and the hazy smoke is resting low in the room,
my sweet Southern muse will find me again.

till then, happy writing kids.

Straight Up for Ms. Paula

That Paula rawks.

Messin Up Midnight Train To Georgia

Tinkerin’ like I do.