New poetry

[Greymure]

SONGS FROM AN UNFINISHED LIFE


This is as bright as my darkness gets
There are no twinkle- twinkle little stars there in my broken blue eyes
These city street lights I left behind me
When I moved away from Hell’s Kitchen
Three years before the Twin Towers fell down

Although, I miss the friendship I stopped drinking two X Guinness
Followed by Bushmill’s Black Label shooters at Kevin’s across from the China Club next to McDuffy’s
Yet, still
Light
Reflect in broken glass ground into the street to make blackness
Turn all glittery as if they were paved with
Black top
Diamonds

Headlights flashing
The honking of a horn behind me
Sounds like
A man bludgeoning his wife to death with an axe
That’s a line from I play I did in another life and two degrees ago

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing Neon signs BUzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzinnnnnnnggggggggggg
Dying out at the end of the world
Just buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzedddddd flickered out
Like a burned out firefly caught
In the window of the liquor store
Where I used to buy really cheap wine return the empties
For five cents which added up to a new six pack or 40 oz.
Which was equal only to emotional cocaine fueled flare-up
Damn we always had a lot of nickels
I have always wanted
To render
Down the night sky
Until fats and juices boiled
Down

Invisible

Just thoughts
While
Sitting for ten minutes or was it 20,
Somehow it always feels longer
When waiting under
The never ending glare of a red traffic light with its endless, endless single tone
Rhythmic pinging to let the deaf know the light had changed like when you need to change the battery in a dying smoke alarm

On 50th and 8th
Just near where that great famous dive bar
Siberia used to be
Under the streets out of sight within the bowels of the subway system
Tracy
Used old back car seats as couches
The best punk rock juke box this side of 20th or west of FIT

I love that bar
Hidden deep within the bowels by the N train
SO buried
New York’s worker bees could not see us come stumbling
Eyes red from stale cigarette smoke
Bleeding dry cracked nostrils from thick lines
Cut on the broken ancient Addams Family pinball machine

I always forget to wait for the left arrow to turn green
I often find myself wishing
I could be like the stars
And
Disappear completely
Whenever, I don’t feel far enough from the ugly side of my past one hundred and two lives

In a crowd
I can be most conspicuous my skin translucent
Smooth marble not a mark or a line
The immense physical moral presence;
Defiant yet amazingly without a touch of conscience
Amazingly, long delicate fingers, finger nails almost clear due to the anemic lack of blood feet that do never make a shadow sound

The very mirror of patient inhuman misery
Soft-voiced and so so sos o so soso very human
Unable to read minds, or to levitate
In spite of whatever Cris Angel might tell me
Never should have listened to David Blaine
I wouldn’t be so locked in ice
Naked in front of everyone

A new kind of night creature hovers
In deep shadows at Avery Fisher Hall
In the alley behind the Royal Opera House
Just to listen to the whispering notes of Phillip Glass’ last piercing irresistible note of dissonant song
Mathematically perfect

I am long past questing for a God I know is dead
Or seeking out the true meaning humanity or the Devil
Or Truth
Or love

Once
I thought there was someone in my life who thought it
Sweet I would read the poetry of Keats by the light of just one candle
So as not to disturb her sleep after all it was only fair; she did her graphic design homework one drawing at a time - I am so glad she got married and got fat,

Once, when I was found standing
In the rain on a slick downtown street right outside the Angelique
Watching through the store window the young actor Romeo kissed his tender loving Juliet
On a television screen some salesman forgot to turn off, thankfully for me
There was Tompkins’s Square just up the street
Where we once made love in the gazebo; I love summer rain in the city, it’s the only it’s clean


I know
I once had a soul
That may have been beautiful beyond description
As immortal or perfect as Lucifer
Too bad I was or am, I never can tell which Sometimes, I am compelled to do some very cruel things
As, a tormented outsider Always ready, to transcend gender or To dance drunkenly on the bar at Korova Or to just to speak from my heart or soul about different matters Of life and death Of Love, Of loneliness Of guilt Of pain, Yes of pain, bitter pain I’ve tasted over and over
AND over Until I learned to love the flavor couldn’t live without it With self-imposed charm, humor, and invincible innocence
Which at the time maybe, I should have cherished more
All of my beloved heroes I brought Alive to carry all my guilt and suffering

When I walked these same silent streets so long ago In my black evening clothes High frilled collars High cut boots
With sweeping waistcoat that Silkie once designed for me
When I lived in someone else’s life
So even, the light changes
From red to green to yellow to red

I alone blaze
Out of the city towards the expressway to the road I have to take home
Down Jericho Turnpike in my deep green GM
With the Northern Irish sticker which was once on my American Classic motorcycle I rode in Antrim

To rush past the slow burning fires of the dying Bar-B-Que crowd from Hobbard’s Beach
Past
The densely-packed Target shopping center
That sometimes gives hope and
Meaning to late night shoppers like myself
Who can’t stomach the late night food at Applebee’s
Though I sit there almost every night
And
Who like me
Find themselves
Craving a very rare and bloody steak with sizzling hot fried onions at 5 am
I Love to drive into long lasting ever night that once belonged to me and only me

Yet on my drive home
Images that always seemed to lie and burn before me
I know my cell phone will ring to fill my heart with false hopes and searing
Because I cannot admit I love and still love one I cannot have or……………….

Long
Before I ever reach my home
Before I want to pour myself a fine old Port or ice cold whiskey I keep for special nights such as these when I can’t sleep

Gently lift myself into that solitary abyss of sleep
That awaits my gentle fall
With a little help from Seroquel

I guess this
Is as bright as my darkness is going to get
Since I am forever trapped in my happy little corner of hell
From I can see heaven just beyond the thin curtain I cannot ever reach my boney little fingers through

It's easy to understand
Why I, an overly thinking, a somewhat irrational emotional man
Feels nausea while contemplating
The spinning of the whole world on its right slanted axis
As the polar ice caps get smaller are they simply shifting following a cyclical path like mysterious upside green icebergs

By confronting all the brute facts of my own existence

In all of my hideous, bloody juicy half undead glory
I find the taste of my own heart horrid but it is, after all, my heart
A taste of my own fetid emptiness which is always waiting
To be fed of ego where I once saw the effects curse of Telmachus or Stephen Dedalus
And knew once and for all I was the biggest fraud of all
A Romantic who claims he cannot fall in Love
(but we all know that is just a lie)

While all my words seem to paint
A picture of that which is always unattainable and

The sweet searing scarring pain
When I know I missed the prize
I feel you wish
You'd never won the face of beauty
That bewitched ultimately betrays the wildflower growing in my heart
The one I saw back in the spring long after I should have won your heart with ease
The dunghill in the back garden
Where only weeds and fancy white tipped dandelions grow

Somewhere I think, As an Artist, I have all but lost my sight
Because of what has been offered relished with delight

I always try to remind myself, not to or
Don't make that mistake again and again and again
Yet somehow I always remember to hold my nose
To bear in mind what lies beneath the surface I thought I remembered where

Old Nicky-boy
My golden retriever who has been dead for a long time now
Used to sit always vigilant at the side door
Waiting for me to come home with a freshly boiled shank bone from my kitchen
That had been used for stock

Like me, as he got older
Cursed and squinted at the harsh light of a single 40-watt bulb which stares into the stale
Cold void leads downstairs to the place or cave where I dwelt
Beneath the sounds of tiny footsteps, running,
A television playing loudly to cover the sounds of lovemaking on the couch

This is where there is no sun that stares back, glaring
I know I haven't eaten yet today
In almost 24 hours or maybe it was more
I forget the last time I was home,
The last time I was truly home
It’s my stomach that's growling
Just as my heart does now
Yearning to curl up and be fed

As I ponder what a masterless life would be like
I only wonder what lies behind the half-empty jar of Hellman’s mayo
Or the lone frozen longneck lying on its side
Maybe I’ll drink it later when I think no one is looking
Or maybe I will wait till tomorrow after I cut the lawn

As I wait
For good fortune
To appear like some magic tidbit
Or the stray catch of a lotto number like I did a few months ago

Old Nicky’s old ears would twitch
At the sounds of my last hangover so many years ago
He groaned wooden shuffling
Down the hallway towards the sounds of vacuous chatter
In the background of my ever playing TV portraying once again the pains and sorrows
Of yet another neglected spouse

His cold nose wrinkled
Recoiled at the unseen molecules of yesterday’s perspiration
And beer-battered flesh who’s smells are ooozzzzzzzzzzzeed
Through stifling air of a dead apartment

He would look up, at the kitchen entrance
Me, a familiar figure wavering once more after
Another night long battle with a bottle of Stoli’s I keep in freezer
In case you ever stop by
But
Since you never do I felt it was a waste to just sit there and collect frost

He, that dear old dog, who I should have been put down long ago I just don’t have the heart watched

By then, once upon a time, 125 lb wiry frame, now doubled over
Wondering where my life went and what ever happen to
The glam-punk rock star I always wanted to be and a half-digested volley from
The remnants of a late night greasy diner breakfast spews
Onto the dirty vinyl floor
Now I have to mop it
I am older and a little fatter then perhaps I should be
I waddle across the room in memory as the old dog
Sniffed at the yellowish brown slurry
Once the contents of my stomach
His headlamp eyes reflected and
Lit with hunger

Tilted his head toward me, like a pitiful man
With a wrinkled canine brow
Humbly pleading
"Is it okay, now?"
His tail
Wagging with indifferent gratitude

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The rain - relentless.
Unforgiving.
The ruthless gale
Raging and storming.
I am,
In your absence,
Incomplete...
Each day too empty,
Each night too long,
Following shadows down an empty street
Thinking,
Each corner I turn will be the one
Where you’ll be waiting for me.

Alone in a crowd, I seem to see you just ahead,
But as I push my way to go where you seem to go,
I do not find you...someone else instead
Bears the form that made my heart lurch so!

Sometimes I hear your voice across the street,
Or someone smiles the same way you smile,
And just for a moment, you are here with me
And I with you for just a little while.

Always the quest, the seeking and yearning,
Waking in the night, saying your name
Then restless slumber, the constant dreaming
Only to find in the light of morning...
After all...everything’s still the same.
I want to lash out and
Strike her face.
The dreary night of despair
Makes the heart grow cold.
She is standing outside,
All her life
Waiting.
Hoping.
Praying.
One ray of light
Steals out of the curtains -
Her face glows in the dark!
Are her prayers now answered?
Will she be permitted
To cross the threshold,
To reach out and embrace
That which is so dear to her soul?
That elite circle
Is still eluding.
The doors are now closed,
The distance yawning.
The heart whistles in the air at night
the lustful sins of bliss surrounds tight
the love we share is unique and pure
tho as friends you feel the same with each tear

you found this heart and loved the same
tho pain sets in the love you have has fame
like a music award winning singers it shines
our hearts will grow and ill show you loving times

consumed in what love is there
when i see you i cant help but stare
my hearts is large and soft for you
i just hope you feel this loves true

true in the words he says, true in the heart
hoping and praying night and day for our love to restart
your the soul i desire most through life
wanting the love to grow so in time i claim wife

you read the words i write
which touch your heart you see me in sight
run to me with open arms ill love you always
promises of a new start showing it everyday.