Changing Inside

Through my window you can see a patch of green
In between the gaps in the blocks of flats
Sitting here thinking to myself
It’s funny what you notice when you start to relax
So many days I’ve been on the floor
Since the light of my life turned me from your door
Where all that happened was about as clever
As missing something that’s gone forever

Yes, I see a patch of green. I see green amidst the gray--the jagged concrete--the hard, hurtful floor. I see green in the laughter of friends, and the camaraderie of a dance circle, and the smile of an-other on the occasion of a good joke. I see green in the words, the sea, and the art. I see green in the beautiful, the mundane, the sacred, and the profane. It is funny what happens--when you relax into something new--something from the perspective of light shone all the way to the floor--where I was left.


Down the stairway on the floor below
Madame Valerie hits the bottle when things take a dive
Still it’s reassuring for me to know
She’s been living here for years and she’s still alive
I talk to her when lost in memory
Her story’s one of faded glory but she still has some clout
Woke up this morning with this melody
And the realization that we can all help each other out

Oh the Madame, or the Madame's. They are present, too, I suppose. The Madames beckon laughter, as well as screams. They are full of surprises--at least before they take a dive. I like talking to them, though. I like it when memories get intertwined into balls of forgetfulness late at night, amidst bottles and cold beverages, and open, bellowing laughter. The Madames--of course.



These days I’m walking the road alone
Returning once again to my only real home
Waking up early, staying up late
Reading a book I borrowed from my friend the heavy weight
Finding a new way to begin
Living without but living within
My eyes are opening to what might appear
As waking up to the simple fact that I’m here

It's good--the road. I like it. Staying up late--of course. The momentous only happens when you've stayed up later than is useful--when the expenditure exceeds the usefulness of day, and is wasted in the antics of the night. Waking up early--of course. I have to deal with the words before the sun steals them--before the sun makes me temporarily think it is isn't worth it--before the sun silences the words with its piercing rays and ubiquitous giving.

Living without? That is an interesting one, isn't it? I like living without--living without why and without a thought. I like living on the outside--external--with laughter and charm--with libations and encounters. Living without? Of course--I don't need you--don't want you. Living without? Of course--it's nice to see the things I see when you aren't in my way.




Further down on the street below
I rise above my state of inner sorrow
The fishmonger’s wife she knows about life
Says if you can’t pay today you can pay tomorrow
Think I’d be alright if I could see you tonight
But I’m wondering if that’s really me that’s talking
Lovers or friends it all depends
Think I better let my feet just keep on walking

Further down on the street--the one below me--I walk. It is nice to make headway on this path--to progress somewhere. Seeing you tonight? The thought has crossed my mind, I won't fib. But, it isn't me talking. I know it isn't. Lovers or friends? How about neither? I'd rather be friends with the road--with my feet--with the without. You know? Lovers or friends? No thanks. I'd rather see the patch of green--see the things I see between the gray and the questions; the aches and the bellows. I will walk--continue to walk--and well . . .


Changing inside letting go of the past
Don’t worry
Sometimes we all have to see the light

Yep, the without has changed the withing. It is a good thing. Don't worry--not about me--I'm that one--the one among many ones--but one nonetheless whom it is hard to forget--hard to replace--hard to explain. I try to see the light--everyday, I do. But, not in the rays--no, in the green that absorbs them--in the green that turns them into something different.

The Crazy

When the crazy hits the page, it is cathartic. It feels like all the swirling--all the chaos--the muddled ooze of atoms and breached barriers--torn jetties--fragmented souls--all the fucked, fecal remains of sweat, adrenaline, and cum--all the battered levys and harried canals--are somehow organized into semi-coherent sentences, complete with colons, semi-colons, commas, and periods. It feels like the crazy is forced to confess itself in an organized manner--to testify to its existence--to tell the world that it exists--to witness to what I have been saying this whole time.

When the crazy hits the page, it is cathartic somehow. It doesn't make it worth it. I don't really know if that is possible. I don't think even God could do that--justify the breaching required for the crazy to tear up the little pink cepallic enter of my self--the virgin space criss-crossed by the lines--tears--violations--of breaching.

No, when the crazy hits the page it isn't about making it worth it. Making it worth it is a tired cause--it is a non-issue that doesn't even deserve a response at this point. It is never about making it worth it. No, when the crazy hits the pages the cathartic part is that I can see it--read it--and force it into grammatical servitude. At that point, the crazy is spewed forth--vomited--into categories, syntax, and grammar. At that point, it is real. It exists. It is an entity; a being.

It's real. That's the cathartic part. I don't have to persuade any longer--I don't have to cajole. No. When the crazy hits the page, I might be dead--but the swirling dervish of pain, trying, hope, idiocracy, and meaninglessness is immortal--it is its own at that point.

When the crazy hits the page I smile a wide smile--I grin from ear to ear--and laugh. When the crazy hits the page, I grab my belly and shrill from the inside out. When the crazy hits the page, I know it won't stop--but I at least know I know it is out--real--for everyone to see. When the crazy hits the page, I know that the criss-crossed lines of my pink center are born out--laid bare--and singular--no one has my lines--no one has my ridges--my canals--my marks--I might be dead, but my breaches--the breaches that make me possible--testify to the crazy that made me possible.

Remembering to Forget

Trying to forget is remembering, and that is the bastard of it. I guess I'll forget when I stop remembering, and I'll stop remembering when I forget. Until then, you'll be in my psyche--in places I like to think are evaporating--in places I don't really like to go. The pictures are gone, and the words too.

I guess you could be smug about it--smug that you are still there. I guess you could be hurt--hurt that I am trying to excise that set of rooms from my brain. I don't really care. At least I tell myself that anyway. I probably do--I probably care in the same places the memories are hidden--maybe the caring is what keeps them from evaporating.

It is funny how it all works out in the end. You told me a story the first time we talked and then repeated that story, and that is the thing we spoke of the last time we talked. Now we will never talk again. I know my stories--one of them, or many--got stuck in there too--in between--but, that one story--the pattern on that old shirt you wore the first time we kissed--well, it was the one, wasn't it? The one that stood at the beginning and the end. Oh well, I should have known better--about me, and about you. I should have trusted the doubts instead of the laughter. I should have remembered then--instead of consciously forgetting--the story--the story you told me at the beginning. If I had, maybe the end would have been different.