Most of this was in Line Ideas for a while (at least six months judging by how far down it was), and when I came across these lines, it made me think of how tonight I took an uncharacteristic chance and did something cool.
Realistically Realize
A more complete night
Has never been lived through
Much less seen
By me at least
Not yet, but one can always hope
Dreaming for the night when
Me and the unnamed she
Can pack an entire year
Of living, of seeing
Of doing, of loving
Into one perfect evening
And be followed by
Hundreds, if not
Thousands more
Just like before
Only this time for real
Something I longingly
Wish for
Pray for
Think about all the time
That it’ll happen someday
But as I prepare for bed
I realistically realize
That it won’t be today
November 25, 2003
Manchester, NH
The hope of the promise of a new day, shattered by the end of the night.
Rockwell State of Things
A Rockwell life
Is what we wish
Upon our closest
Our dearest friends
A wry-smiled
Perfect light
Feel-good
Wonderful life
And that’s precisely when
Real life hits
So goddamn hard
And twists and turns
Into something like
A messed up painting by
Edvard Munch
Seemingly overnight
Screaming crying
Life in a tizzy
Feel so dizzy
So beyond gone
A fucked-up Photoshop
That vaguely resembles
A blurry part of the original
Madly wishing it would stop
And retreat back to the
Rockwell state of things
Nice thought, but no
Not tonight
Not for you
Sorry
January 12, 2004
Manchester, NH
I wrote the beginning when in Bay Point, California one night. I would have finished it then, but I didn’t know for sure who painted The Scream. I was pretty sure it was Munch, but I didn’t know his first name. Now I do.
Replayed
So hard to watch replayed
Those painfully awkward moments
We've all suffered through
The ones where we cover our eyes
Wishing then and there to just die
Years later when my wandering mind
Unexpectedly trips over one
Like a downed power line
Hidden in the grass
Lurking, waiting, pouncing
The last thing I think to think of
The last thing I want to deal with
But now it’s leaping and catching
Me off guard I’m falling hard
Trying to scramble my thoughts
Trying to scramble away fast
No matter how much distance
No matter how many memories
Are put in between now and then
They always seem to find you
You can always run
But eventually they’ll find you
February 24, 2004
Manchester, NH
I’ve got a few stunningly painful awkward memories that tend to pop up in my mind at the oddest times. Sometimes I wish I had an “erase” feature for my brain.
Missing the Friend
Missing the smile
Missing the friend
That was here
Driving the miles
Turning around the bend
I think I’m getting near
To where she lives
Stop at the bottom
Of the steep driveway
I’m so full of nerves
Check the address again
What am I going to say
I walk up the step
And knock on the door
I look around the yard
I feel so inept
And wait a minute more
Can’t believe I drove so far
After a few I knock again
And I look back at my car
Maybe I should be leaving
Just then the door opened
My belly felt like tar
Both of us there smiling
I entered and the door closed
December 16, 2002
Belchertown, MA
I got the idea to write this one after visiting a good friend. I was hanging out with him in his garage and he told me this story of how a few weeks ago he was cleaning up in here and heard a tapping on one of the windows. Startled, he looked up to see a guy. Over the next half an hour the guy told my friend his life’s story: how he came to Belchertown after looking up a dear old female friend he lost touch with years ago and was hoping to reestablish contact and the friendship. After he finished talking, he walked across the road and up to her door. About 30 seconds later, he watched as the guy drove slowly away. Maybe he had the address wrong, or maybe he had it right, I don’t know. Either way it was good fodder for a poem. I just changed the ending a bit to suit my needs.
Imagination Destroyed
Driving on Route 9 towards town
Waiting at the light by University Drive
Saw a kid walking on the sidewalk
In front of that Chinese restaurant
He couldn’t have been more than 12
Holding an umbrella and swinging it
Like it was a sword or something
Then shooting it at the cars ahead of me
Like some kind of all-purpose weapon
A blade one second, a gun the next
Swinging it shooting it swinging it again
Being careful to shoot each of the cars
Sitting waiting at the light ahead of me
Part of me was thinking that I should
Grab my umbrella from the backseat
Take careful aim and “shoot” him back
That would be a cool playful discourse
Showing him that not all adults are lame
Some of us can be creative and fun too
But something happened to be just then
It was like my adult-ness kicked in hard
And I sat staring stoically straight ahead
Watching him out of the corner of my eye
As I kept my sights glued facing forward
He shot off two last rounds at the car
Just two up from me and then he hung
His head and just kept walking past
Almost as if his adult-ness kicked in
And he realized how silly and stupid
It was to pretend his umbrella was a gun
Or a sword or anything even slightly fun
The light turned green and I turned left
But the profound impact of our social mores
Which kill our creativity and make us so much less
Inside still remains and bothers me deeply
As I witnessed the happiness of youth
And the power of imagination destroyed
And taken away right in front of me today
Never to be regained again
August 4, 2003
Amherst, MA
I saw this recently. It had such a profound impact on me that I really can’t explain. It was like I personally witnessed this kid’s imagination being taken away from him by his realization that what he was doing was childish.
Putting On Wet Clothes
I don’t want to
Be here be the one
Dealing with you
&
nbsp; Anytime all the time
In this situation
Especially is
As difficult as
Putting on wet clothes
Something you
Don’t want to do
All cards on the table
It’s annoying
It’s uncomfortable
It’s grating
Somewhat unstable
It’s not for me
I like my clothes
Dry and warm
Not cold and wet
No use having a wet blanket
Smothering smoldering
The fire that I feel
So if you don’t mind
I’d like to toss you
In the dryer and get on
With the rest of my day
October 13, 2003
Manchester, NH
Not really written about any one person or situation in particular. I was getting dressed today and I was thinking about washing clothes for some reason and I was slightly thankful that my clothes were dry. That got me thinking about how annoying and grating it is to put on wet clothes. That thought, in turn, stuck with me for the rest of the day until I wrote this.
Just How I Pictured It
I want love to be
Just how I pictured it to be
Not how it has been
I don’t like what it's done to me
Seeing the after-effects
Has affected me
So strangely
So radically
Negatively
Bringing me
Down and found
In the wrong direction
In need of a correction
To turn me around
To bring me back
Back from focusing
On everything bad
Like a compass
I finally point
To the true way and
Change my heading
Back to thinking
About the good
That I’m heading
Towards up there
Somewhere she’s there
Where everything is
Good and right
Where the image in my head
Of how it should be
Where life and love
Matches perfectly
Just how I pictured it
Is how it really is
January 24, 2004
Manchester, NH
I wrote the first few lines a week or two ago in my Palm Pilot. Tonight I was listening to Rachael Yamagata’s “Worn Me Down” on repeat and got the inspiration to finish it.
Early Morning Angels
While throwing out a box
Brimming with my past
I stop, stand, and pause
As my eyes linger over
The cards
(hundreds)
The letters
(thousands)
The words
(millions)
Found inside
Chronically detailing
The abortive past
To the absurd point
Of oversaturation
Should’ve thrown it out
A long time ago
Steeped in procrastination
Standing and looking
At a random letter
A paragraph later
And feel silent embarrassment
By my liberal usage of “forever”
I slam the thick binder shut
And toss it in the trash
Along with the other seven
Today I’ll put the past
Out to the curb
And let the garbage men
Those early morning angels
Take away the memories
Help me move on
Help me start fresh
On the new life before me
April 6, 2004
Manchester, NH
I threw out the thousands of pages of letters my ex-wife and I wrote to each other back in high school and college.
Anything but Dreams
Why does everyone (including me)
Talk about how wonderful dreams are
Think back to your dreams
We have a few every night
And how many of them
Can you even remember?
Not many
How many of them
Can you say were amazing?
Even fewer
How many of them
Weren’t really messed up?
Fewer still
So if you can’t remember them
And the ones you can think of
Are just plain confusing
Why talk about our dreams
Like they are so amazing?
Instead of saying that I’m
Living my dreams
I should correct and say I’m
Living my wishes
Living my desires
Living my passion
Anything but dreams
Most of us are already
Living our dreams
And that’s the problem
June 17, 2003
Manchester, NH
This thought has been kicking around in my head for a few days now but keep forgetting to write it down. Luckily the idea came back and I was able to capture it and eventually beat a poem out of it.
Hurt
A Victim of That Left Turn
The could've beens following
Me around incessantly haunting
Me at every step at every thought
Of that cold day in January
Where we took a sharp left
Off the highway where our lives
Were already so properly
And methodically mapped out
Off an overpass down onto
Another road going out to
Some radical new direction
Recklessly speeding away
From the lives we had known
Never to return to normalcy again
Years later I’m alone on my own
Highway driving and left wondering
As my mind occasionally brings me
Back to the scene of the life-altering
Crime she and I committed together
What choice would I have made
If I had been the one who was driving
If I was charged with the decision
Instead of being just a passive passenger
Seeing what should have been our future
Thrown out the window to lighten the load
Silently I watch the untold miles pass me by
Hands steady on the ten and two like always
As the mental VCR reaches the end of that one
Don’t be kind, I don’t want it to rewind
And play it over once again
I’ve seen it entirely too often
All the scenarios have been played out
To death and then some
I don’t want to think about it anymore
I don’t have the answer
I don’t know how to feel
So I don’t
I don’t want to be here
A victim of that left turn
Someone else made so long ago
The CD, whose music I haven’t noticed
Loops back to track one
For the fourth or fifth time
I’ve lost count
Of that, of everything
The shadows lengthening
Across the road
Across my car
Across my face
Thankfully blocking the light
Of God’s flashlight in the sky
I wish I could put it all in the past
But that skeleton is particularly loud
And refuses to be forgotten
Despite my best intentions
To fight the past in my head
January 24, 2004
Manchester, NH
I still don??
?t have an answer.
Core Dump
Couldn’t take it
Couldn’t handle it
Just too much all at once
Overwhelmed beyond belief
Overcome by grief
Sorry about that
Core dump
Meltdown
Messed up
Didn’t mean to
Break down
Throw up
Bleed out
In front of you
Just too much all at once
Everything caught up to me
All at the same time
I’m not usually like this
I’m normally normal
Quite the happy guy
But as the chalkboard says
The Good Humor man
Can only be pushed so far
The camel’s back’s been broken
And you happened to be a witness
The tree fell over in the woods
And you were there and saw
What a horrible scene it was
Sorry about that
Core dump
Meltdown
Messed up
Thing that happened
Didn’t mean to
Break down
Throw up
Bleed out
In front of you
Just too much all at once
Everything caught up to me
All at the same time
Just too much at once
January 23, 2003
Manchester, NH
Gardenia
All alone at the
Wedding reception
It hits home
It hits hard
When you realize
That all your friends
Are going or
Have gone away
The sad day
Hits the heart
So hard
When everyone you knew
Have picked up and moved
Have carried on and gone
Have moved so far away
Leaving you
Alone
On a sunny day
It’s not like the movies
Where it’s raining at the bad times
It’s never like that in real life
You don’t always get
The storybook endings
It’s hit or miss
And my average isn’t that great
It’s getting late
The bride and groom have left
The wedding guests are all gone
Just the banquet servers
Starting to clean up
Removing all traces
Of what happened here
I sit and stare
At the forgotten favors
Under the chairs
And the empty champagne bottles
Surrounded by a sea
Of used glasses
On each table
What a great send-off
For a dear old friend
It’s great to see she and he
So very happy
I truly wish the best for them
I’ve been down that road
And wasn’t so lucky
What a great way
To remind me
To kill me with the past
To make me realize the
Joy love happiness
The wonderful memories
The feeling of her caress
That I had and now haven’t
I can’t be here anymore
I get up and leave
The site of the realization
And walk out into
The misty night
To my car all by itself
Near the back of the lot
I drive on the empty roads