AJ Lewis Poetry, Poems

Most Of Us (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-09-25T08:50:00.001-07:00

will never know what it is like
to have a million dollars.
and yet we will watch television
as handsome men and
plastic women
squander and fight over
bags of money
as if it were ever deserved.

we will count pennies and squeeze them
until they squeak
and fret ever having to buy
groceries.
we will take terrible jobs because
there is an opportunity to
earn more.
we will buy alcohol
or jewelry or
gamble
as if this could make it all
better.
we will sit in dark rooms and try to sleep
as the world around us
continues on.

and then, one day,
someone will rise from this terrible nightmare
and break away from this lifestyle;
this person will rise like the phoenix
in flames –
leaving us all

leaving us to

our

mundaneness.

The Singular Poem (from "Disarming The Atom Bomb")

2008-06-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

I have written many poems
in myself
without words or
paper or
ink.
I have been
happy and
lost and
sad.
I have spent the afternoons trying to figure the clouds
and the nights waiting by candle light.
the poem will happen in you
it will build and
climax
and the words will become
the page of
your
life.

I am the poem
the singular poem
and now I sit here in this apartment
by myself
my wife and children and family now long removed
typing
hitting keys
trying to make sense of this
and
becoming the
singular poem
of
my
life.

the rain comes
the days come
and all I have are these memories
as I stare out this window
as I stare into the future of my life

and you said I was a terrible person
deep in the darkness

but I always imagined myself surrounded by golden light
above it all
like the clouds

becoming

becoming

becoming

the dream
the better person for all of you

but I am the poem now

and I must move on.

How This Begins (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-04-07T03:46:00.001-07:00

the day is overcast
and I am south of Tucson
staring at clouds through screen windows.

this is how it begins as
I type
and this is how it begins as
I sit and wait for
the divine
inspiration.

today, words have been lost through
humidity and
self-doubt.
concepts have been drawn and then
re-arranged in
uncertainty.

the rain keeps coming down
and I wonder if
there is any hope for me.
I know that it is miserable to not
get through.
and I know that it is terrifying to not
make way.

the rain keeps coming down
and the wind blows through
and it is hard to
sit through it all.

but I sit here,
despite my present failure
to write the
immortal
poem.

this is how it begins as I
swat at the gnats and
the spiders.

this is how it begins as passion and desire
are fading into the rain
as I hit these keys.

the mountains are distant
like the charcoal summer fires.

the city is a speck on the
wall.

and this is how it begins as
I make my way
through rain and
wind
and
drunken days.

maybe it was meant to be
this way
or maybe I have fallen victim to some
terrible joke.

yes,
this is how it will begin
at the porch of
a quiet desert
in Arizona
just 30 miles south of
Tucson.

A Tragedy Of The Heart (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-03-25T04:24:00.000-07:00

I never really open up to a person
unless I trust a person, and when this happens
a kind of diarrhea of my soul drowns us both,
revealing parts of me that are inclusive to my inner workings.

it is intense and it is honest
and sometimes even a bit exaggerated,
and nothing momentarily feels as good as getting empathy
from a person whose attention you've taken
for an afternoon chat at a restaurant
or a 2am conversation on the phone.

I used to talk to this girl about spirituality,
religion, the occult,
poetry, music
and sometimes even about "us."
she was a good listener
and at some points in our dating
I think she genuinely cared about me.

I remember a conversation I had with her back in 1996.
God, that was not a good year for me -
too much of everything;
which seemed to fit so well with our conversation of
how we would belong together in the future

ah yes, ignorance is bliss.
I have heard this tired cliché too many times,
and ironically it fit me so well then
as love was a simple thing for me to understand,
never having taken that into me.

and so I blindly put it into her,
making love, thinking that's what it was,
milking the ecstasy, and believing the fantasy of being together
forever.

did it last forever? no.

I have re-lived it a hundred times: going back,
making wrong decisions, trying to make it right, battling the carelessness
of being young, until I was sick of it all,
replaying it over-and-over in my mind:
cringing, hating, regretting, losing sleep, and all of it caused
because of those tempting moments of our passion.

this, I have come to know, is the tragedy of the heart.
once I took myself into her
I don't think that I have ever
come back into myself.

Just Living (from "Disarming The Atom Bomb")

2008-03-15T05:58:00.001-07:00

I have been swallowing vodka like a fish
and sitting here at 4am
staring at the TV
and this guy is on there
open bible on the desk
telling me how
Jesus will save me
if...

lately I have been playing video games like
some sort of
zombie
and sleeping during the day when I can.

I bought this book on the science of meditation
and I thumbed through it noting
the relevance
and the
lack of it.

I've read the bible
cover to cover
and studied it for years
and this guy on the TV
has his own interpretations
and facts
to prove how he is going to help save
me.

hell,
this is just living;
this is just fucking
living.

and there are people so lost and
there are people so right and
there are people asleep.
and all of my studying of the bible
and all of my understanding
and lack of it,
I am just living
like

you

you

you

so do you care what I have to say?
have I amused you?
entertained you?

I have learned that
knowing doesn't justify anything and
learning doesn't make you a master of
anything.
the only thing that you can be a master of in this life is
yourself.

and I am typing this out of me to
disarm my atom bomb
to get to the core of me
to save me to
master
me.

now this guy on the TV has more facts to prove his
interpretations
of his truth of the
bible.
and I am happy for him
and others
because this is just living
and that is why we are here:
to
live

and I am just here
in my own way
disarming my atom bomb
and trying to
fucking
live.

Est. 1863 (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-03-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

I am feeling good tonight
took some pills
and I am drinking sparkling wine of all things
listening to Toto
as midnight passes.
a poem can happen with little warning
and it is the best that I can do
to lug this typewriter around
this ancient machine
and capture the lines as they come.

I am not trying to capture anything immortal here,
just trying to keep the paint from dripping off the canvass too much.
I think that some artists force this type of thing
but I have found that it comes easy for me.
some people were born to be heroes, great men and women,
athletes
and role models,
but myself, I am hardly anything worthy of redemption
and still I try to be a good man, try to do the right things,
try to live a life less decadent.

my mother told my wife
before my son was born and before we were married
that I am not a good person, that my wife shouldn’t
live her life with me, to have the child without me, to leave me.

I was there when she told my wife this.

well, I may not be a good man
but I am struggling through it all like everyone else.
and I don't bother people with my problems, I don't do that.
I have found my comfort in this emptiness
as my phone doesn't ring
as my wife is out tonight
as I sit under this hot ceiling lamp
and pick at this wine bottle label.

this is
my
life
and I aim to enjoy what little I have of it.

I Know I Have (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-03-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

written about pain and indifference
and demons and
loss,
but today as I reflect through this open window,
the sun is out,
the clouds come and go,
the birds sing in the trees
and the wet green grass
jumps with life.

it would seem that there will always be another day.
the sun will come again
and life will birth
and grow.

but me, well, I have become stagnant.

I have become stale.

I ache in the desire to live and live and
live.

and through this window
I see that much life is living
where I am
not.

for me, another day
is a slow death:
I must wake, dress,
and move on to my place of business
where my soul will suffocate and die,
where lines are drawn, erased, and then redrawn.
and at the end of my day
I come back to this
and shit
and flush
and wonder about butterflies and
rainy days
and old comic strips.

much of my life will be forgotten,
and maybe only a small portion of it will appear
as a paragraph
in the obituaries.
but this life today outside this window
has kept me
as other things have not.

death, life, both are moving forward
with the eternal question mark inside of me.
and today I think I will stick with the latter
as I hit these typewriter keys,
as the wind makes its way through this
open
window.

Directions (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-02-27T05:42:00.000-07:00

my pregnant wife and my son were waiting in the
car
as I hurried into the gas station to buy some cheap
wine.
lately I have been thinking about integrity
and what makes a hero out of a man
and what I'd do if I got an opportunity to help
someone.

well, as I was waiting in line to pay,
I saw a man in his sixties
wearing a winter coat and thumbing through a book of scribbles.

as the cashier was ringing me up
he said in his thick middle-eastern accent, "hey, this guy needs directions,
can you help him?"
I shrugged
and then listened to the lost fellow attempt to tell me
where he wanted to go.

it was obvious that something was wrong with his mind
as he had seemed to forget where his home was
and he kept thumbing through his book of scribbles.

people came in and paid and left.

time could have brought in new moons
and shift changes.

yet, as I stood there listening to him, I remembered my wife and my son
waiting for me in the parking lot. I needed to go.
then my wife called me on my cell phone; to be polite I didn't answer.

but I wasn’t solving anything with my questions and his
answers,
so I said "good luck to you," and exited to the parking lot.

my wife was leaning out the car window and said,
"what took you so long?"

"oh, there's a guy in there,
I guess he's lost,
and I think there’s something wrong with him. I should go back in there
and help him. what do you think?"

she shook her head. I got in the car and we drove home.

my wife needed help getting her and my son up the stairs to our apartment.

I guess that guy might still be driving around
looking for his home,
but I'll never know if I could have genuinely helped him.

I guess I'll have to leave the hero business up to the
heroes
tonight.
and I'll have to convince myself
as I drink this cheap wine
that tonight it's o.k.
not to care.

Starting Again (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-02-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

summer is over
and a cool breeze moves in through the patio door;
the palm leaves outside sway and come alive
against the quiet moon of
this evening.
something is happening here in me -
a memory is surfacing -
and I hear wind chimes
and I remember the Autumn that I spent with her,
of course now long over,
but I have not thought of her for years.

and something happened
and we lost those quiet moments staying up at night
talking and
walking in the night air.
and it saddens me
that she reminds me
of why I keep myself away from people now - that all of my life
people
have seemed to keep me at a distance:
never really being the friend, always intrigued by me to use me
and then to move on.
ah, but she seemed different and special then
and she ignited a passion in me.

but now this memory has progressed forward
and I recall the last real conversation that we had together
when she told me what she thought of me
and she left me there on the cement steps
to wonder why I am
who I am
and why she could no longer accept me.

several years later I was telling a friend about her
and he suggested that I go knock on her door to say hello.
we were out driving, and against my better judgment,
we showed up at her house.

the lights were off and the house looked cold
like a familiar ghost.

no one was home.

when I got back into my car
I looked in my rear view mirror as we drove away
and I watched her dark house slowly disappear into the night.

and I see now,
that was exactly how I left it
the first time.

A Letter To Raphael (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-02-16T07:03:00.001-07:00

I never claimed to be a poet,
a romantic,
a healer
or a visionary.
I am a man,
beaten senseless by life,
drunk in my anger
and tired.

there are things in me that I can't explain:
like these nightly dreams of events
of the past and the future,
to be spoken to others
and then to be told that I am crazy.
yet despite the remorse, sometimes I can capture my spirituality for a moment,
to experience the ethereal
and the astral,
and feel this energy pulse through me
like it has some purpose.

there are demons that have suffocated my soul -
to be seen somewhere between
waking and sleeping -
to torment and violate -
to break me apart -
to dismiss my handed down Christian beliefs.

and to watch the God I was taught to believe in
turn his back on me
while I am consumed with these evil consorts:
dangerous
hateful
cruel
and self-destructive.

I am a mess:
to wade through the folly of occult teachings,
searching for answers
and sometimes even searching for questions to ask,
to quench a hunger
that has been burned into my mind.
and this has become my life:
the pitiful stench of one who has bathed in his own vomit of a masquerade.

in my mind I am at war with myself,
a war that is bent on explaining these unexplainable occurrences,
to question who I was
who I am
and who'll I'll become.
and I can attest to these emotions now to relate to you
that your beliefs are held together by a thread
to someday unravel
to let you fall into a mess
of confusion.

that for a time,
your personal religious beliefs could be a farce,
and this tempting darkness could be so soothing
to keep you
and your soul.

I ache for release -
hoping for an easy exit from my tribulation.
oh, God, or gods, spirit guides, or angels,
hear me now
and let me return to you,
to leave my tormented past of demise and foul doings,
of selfish desires
and woe.

I am not asking
to become a Christian
or a Buddhist
or a Muslim
or anything else beyond my scope
of reason.

I am asking for help
to see the light in my darkness
and to save me from this path I am on.

I guess
I am asking for forgiveness
that someday, soon, I can be whole again.

The Effect Of A Life (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-02-15T03:35:00.000-07:00

sometimes I don't even know where to begin.
I just see a drowning ocean past.

I think that the confusion in my life started
when I realized that I was different
in relation to my peers; I found that not fitting in
hurt me (and to some degree, them), because they would lash out at me
in retaliation.

I have tried to forget the years
and live like a kind of sublime vegetable,
but the cost of this has been my diminishing soul.

of course there have been those who have tried to save me,
but what is there to be saved?
you see, I have always known this way.

as a child I explored the darkness
not knowing what it was.
to me it was new
and exciting.

as the years progressed I was occasionally reminded
through the lessons of people, karma and those of a higher embodiment
that the darkness is an unfulfilling place to reside.

it eventually took me two lives to figure this out on my own.

I guess I had to learn this lesson the hard way.
and now I look back and it seems a dream to me.

yes, the things I have done karma will never forget,
but some nights, when the bottle is low and the moon is bright,
I can forget about her, and about them,
and let myself fall back into that easy darkness,
further and further, further and further,

until maybe
I might accept the significance a single life can have on a person -
how a single moment can create such unhappiness,
and how easy it is for everything to be lost in the effect.

To Be A Kite (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-02-14T04:27:00.002-07:00

when you put yourself out there
I've found that often it's the emotion that's in you at the moment
that comes back to you.

I have kept in the back of my head
a realization that I made when I was younger
that we really are all just kites in the wind,
controlled by the elements
and sometimes worse: whoever we let yank our string.

there must be somewhere in this chaos
of life
that a person can find true happiness;
that beyond our scope
there really is salvation.

and so
in the pursuit of happiness
I have put myself out there
and I have met such amazing people;
and these people have reminded me
that there is hope
and that dreams are achievable,
and that maybe,
somehow,
there could be a hero in each one of us.

as you read this
you may feel like I am yanking your string.

well I'm not going to lie to you;
I'm only going to tell you that nothing in life comes easy.

as a kite, I have been fighting with myself all of my life,
and in my struggle of being out of control
I have gained a bit of insight:

what you do with your short existence
is what you will get out of it.
and all of these hardships that we cannot control
will happen, and keep happening -
but what is important
is how we meet these struggles,
and to our end, we have the ability to shape who we are
inside.

This Place (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-02-13T05:09:00.000-07:00

this place
it never changes.
the spiders still hang from the corners of the walls.
the lamp shades still sit covered with dust.
the carpet is stained and filthy.
not much happens here
but my life
and the keys of this
typewriter.

to write is to die in a dark room
under the light of a 60 watt light bulb
as the moths collect against the window
and I watch the flying circle of insects
against the
light and the
night.

maybe they will discover me here someday soon
buried in papers and words
dead from
alcohol or something
worse.

all I can do is
hit these keys
and masturbate between the
moments as I am waiting for some sort of divine
inspiration.

was this what
you expected when
you began reading this
poem?
God and
myself will laugh off this poor moment
at the onset of eternity.
nothing left to do here
but sit and laugh
at how dark this night can really be
when the lights are out
and the words run dry.

yes, there is a sort of warmth in knowing
that you have hit the bottom
and there is no where else to go now
but to your
self-deluded
top.
this place.
this place.
I take another drink
and hit these keys
again.

He Wanted To Start Over (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-02-12T07:50:00.002-07:00

I went to go see him.
he had just gotten out of prison.
he had served a short term.
he looked tired, so I took him to dinner at a nice Italian
restaurant, and we had several drinks and talked about the
good old days, he told me about his stay in prison and I
caught him up with my life.
he said the food was good, and took some of it home with him.
I even paid for it all because he had just gotten out.

on the ride back to where he was staying
he told me that he wanted to start over, and that he had finally
discovered how wrong he was living his life
and how prison had helped him become a better person.
he told me that he was living with some people that do drugs,
and that it was just temporary until he could find a place
to live.
I told him to wake up, and that he was falling into his old habits
and that if he was going to turn his life around,
he needed to make the acquaintances of people that could help him.
he nodded
as if he was agreeing just to agree.

I took a right at the corner and parked in front of his house.
we went inside and it stank of pot. his buddies were sitting
on the sofa, the TV going and the
night dwindling away.

I left them to their night.

he called me recently and told me
that he had finally found a job as a truck driver hauling crushed rocks.
he was excited that he was going to get his license back
after seven years of not having one.
but he was still living at that same house and hanging out
with the same people.

when I hung up the phone
I knew he would call me again, probably with bad news.
it's always like that with him.
he wanted to start over
but he went back to the same place to do it.

I shook my head.
some people will never get it, no matter how much you do for them,
those people will just keep letting you
down.

Wanting More (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-02-08T05:54:00.000-07:00

in high school I was very depressed.
I would excuse myself for long bathroom breaks
and go to the top level bridge and
stare at the mountains and the clouds.
I was looking for a release then,
and now,
as I stand at this apartment balcony
looking to the mountains and beyond,
I still
am looking for a release.

there must be more to this life
than just feeling around blindly in the dark.

yet, I stand here now,
wondering and waiting,
as if my entire being is crying out to do something
more than what I have been.
I am hoping for a chance to prove myself
to
myself.

this balcony is like a cage,
and I am a hungry tiger,
holding quiet behind this prison of me,
waiting for the chance to leap out
for the want of more
and more
and more
than this.

Blank Page (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2008-02-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

I used to sit under a willow tree
at the foot of a lake
on soft green grass
and wait for some sort of external inspiration
to fill the blank pages of my notebook.
in my mind I was a song writer
waiting for the lyrics to break through.
and usually the lyrics did
and I wrote song after song
just sitting there under that willow tree.

I was hurting then
as I had lost a love and a friend.
and I was without a job or any real
direction.
but I wrote
to release the pain,
to let it come alive through my words
and to come to terms with it.

this was my place
to come and sit and watch the water ripple,
to sit and think and
write.
this was my garden -
my
sanctuary.

and although I have grown apart from that place physically
I still see it in my mind.
and sometimes when I meditate
I go there to the soft green grass,
the lake
and the willow tree.
above me the sun shines yellow as the scattered cumulus clouds
push against the sky.
I breathe in the autumn air
and I release my
tension.

this was the place where I found solace.
this was the place where I used to go to find a moment of
peace.

now it is the place that I go
to center myself
to find strength
to find a better way
under that willow tree
that would sway quietly in the wind,

a place now in my mind
that no one can destroy
or
touch.

A Million Miles Out To Nowhere (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2007-05-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

today I feel like there are so many things that I want to get done
but I have no energy to see these things through.
I am standing at a million miles to nowhere.
there are dreams and
hopes
that swirl in my brain
and are then gone to
the next moment,
and I pace about this house,
rubbing my chin and
feeling the late day beard
growing in.
I stare out the windows in this house and I think about
this album that I am recording or
the bills that I have been putting off paying or
my job or
the next poem,
a short story idea,
or what I am going to eat for
dinner.
this life, it needs to slow down.
everything feels rushed,
and I just want to sit down and sip warm vodka
and fuck my wife
and listen to music
in my studio.
this is a long walk
a million mile walk
to some sort of sanity
in me.
and the days will come
and come
and I will walk,
following these damned moments
and searching for a better
way.

I've Been Waiting (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2007-04-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

in this small room
second floor
staring through screen windows
as the wind blows through.
the mountains rise
and the telephone poles reach like fences
into the horizon.
this whole view, this yellow dried death of
Arizona
pulls the gaze out from me
and into the memories that have resurfaced
today.

the time is 3:14pm
and the wind howls and haunts this
afternoon.

beyond those mountains
is another life,
and I saw on the news this morning that
a group of illegals got gunned down by an
unidentified vehicle carrying a machine gun.
some crazy asshole opened fire on a van of 25 illegals,
and some of the victims were children.
there were some who died, but the rest
rode the van for miles until it broke down
and they went by foot the rest of the way.

this small room
is safe
and I am
here
and these mountains here
bring down the whole
sky.

while I slept comfortably this morning
there were desperate illegals
getting shot to death
to take hold of this.

and all I can do here
is sit
and write
and
wait.

I Don't Know What Else To Say (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2007-04-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

really,
the river has run dry
the ink is dull
nights and days run together and I have grown
bored with all of this.
and in me
an unending night has opened like a flower
to let the demons file rank
to my door.
the snails have rotted in their shells.
the frogs have choked on the flies.
the world has turned gray
and my finger nails continue to grow long
and I look at them and debate and debate
when I will cut them.
the TV is a blank screen.
the internet is a question.
technology has become a familiar
whore.
I am sick with all of this,
and even a short vacation to the mountains cannot cure
this.
another drink
another drink,
more bottles and
hours and
days.
when the demons make their move
when they come for me
I will ask them
in that hour:

this life that I have been living,
is this what death
is like?

Listening To The Earth (from "The Journey Of The Spirit")

2007-03-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

the wind has come up around me,
rearranging the sky
and dragging the clouds and the sun west.
now there is an orange glow behind the Camelback mountains.

I have been pacing along
a brick walkway,
though the piles of dried mulberry leaves
cracking in a fine brown and
yellow.

this pacing has put my mind at ease.

it has refocused my scope.

today I have been writing about being
introspective and inpatient and
how frustrating it is that I feel guilty about using my time for
this (I still haven’t found a job).
you see, the last few years I have been alone
and I know that I have brought this upon myself by
not taking control.

but knowing doesn’t mean that I can be free of this.
                                        it will take more.

all conflict aside, though, it is relaxing to
watch the clouds as the wind swathes my body;
there is a freedom about the whole
experience.

I know
that to discover why certain events have unfolded in my life
the way that they have
and why I have had the losses
that I have had

may take many years.

yet, to be innocent again
                                        would be nice.

to let go
                                        would be nice.

and to have a moment
to feel that this life could be
simple

                                         would be damn nice.

today I will have to settle,
I suppose, and I will have to wonder
if it is possible to make this change
in me
as I have lived it
in her.

What Ernie Said (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2007-03-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

in elementary school I was an outcast.
I had very few friends
and was picked on by a cruel bully named
Jeff
who rallied my classmates against me
to pick on me
to laugh at me
to treat me like
garbage.

this was at a Christian private school.
my parent's suffered and saved to send me
there; they wanted me to have a good education.

my parents were poor
so sometimes I didn't get a haircut for months,
and this would fuel the fire of my peers
and I would get made fun of for how I looked -
I would get laughed at
because my clothes were out of style
because I dressed poor
because I didn't fit into what was popular.

this was also where I met Ernie.

he was Mexican and had bad acne on his face.

both of us had a lot of common interests,
and both of us didn't fit in to what was considered the norm.

sometimes on the weekends we would hang out at his house.
he lived in a Mexican community in west Phoenix;
the houses were smaller and had chain link fences in the
front and back yards.
we would play video games
or go out with his older sister
who could drive.
his parent's were nice, and we would watch the Spanish stations
on the TV during the afternoon.

I considered him my best friend at the time.
it was nice to have someone to talk to.

at the end of our middle school term
Ernie approached me on the school grounds.

his voice sounded important
but I didn't expect what he was about to tell me.

"we are from two different worlds, you and me," he said, "and I don't know
how the two of us can be friends anymore."

"what do you mean?" I asked. I was shocked.

"you are white and I'm Mexican. you don't understand
the world that I come from."

I was angry. I felt betrayed. and he was probably right about it.
I didn't understand his world.
but did I really have to?

he left me there wondering,
and afterwards I didn't say much to him again.

when high school started at the Christian academy,
I realized that I didn't have a friend on the whole campus.
I got out of that place quick
and by the second semester I ended up at a public school,
which became a hell as well,
and I found out that I was even more alone
in a bigger world that
I didn't understand.

that experience...
my life...
Ernie drew the line between our worlds,
and I have been carrying his words with me since.

he turned his back on me,
and I became white
in a world of ethnicity.

yet, I still wonder about him
and where he is today.
he was my best friend,
lost to the world
and to himself.

Feeling Small (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2007-03-02T17:06:00.000-07:00

it is dark and I am driving,
feeling tired and trying to pay attention to the road.
the lanes are packed
bumper-to-bumper
and I fight to hold my spot as people pass and honk.

the stars light this highway, and beyond the mountains
the white light of the city burns like a flame in the night.

I feel small.
I am but a single person, with a single life,
a single family and a
single car.
my wife and my three boys are asleep,
and I adjust my mirrors to a better angle to see
this traffic coming at me.
so many lives, so many
stories. so many cars.
I feel crowded. I feel sick.
I feel invaded in my personal space.

these people, they are going
somewhere, like myself.
we have this in common, at least, to share this same road.

now they pass above me, across from me,
going in all directions.
trucks and cars
and faces and
blinding lights.

it is bad enough to want to get where I am going,
but this madness
is enough to make a man want to pull over and pant
for air.

it will still be two more hours until we arrive
at our destination,
and I adjust the rearview mirror again to see my three sleeping children in
the back.
their faces are gentle, not angry or urgent, and I am pulled away
momentarily
from the dizzying madness
of this
highway
traffic.

Jack (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2007-03-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

when he was sick
and in the hospital
I had to do his job for him:
janitorial work, not so hard,
just time consuming.

my brother met me at the office building
and we began working.
there were big trash tubs, lots of garbage,
dirty bathrooms and mopping to be done.
and we were doing this because
he doesn't get sick time;
if the job doesn't get done,
then he gets replaced.

when we were done
I went to his car to get a key
but I couldn't find it.
I opened the glove compartment
and a mess of paper fell out.
I fumbled through
and found a letter from his brother
who is in prison, and then another letter
and another.

it was a tomb of memories in his car,
and he carried it all with him.
I found a business plan for his
invention;
he had a patent on it
that almost made him millions
many
many
years
ago.

he was holding onto it like a cross.

he was holding onto it like it could save him.

I looked at it
and began to wonder about myself -
about my ambitions and my dreams.
I wondered about how his nights have been.
have they been dark?
lonely?
sad?
wanting?
I have had these nights.
I have sucked at my bottles and played drunk
in the night.
I have laid numb in bed like
a caged lion.

I carefully put his memories back into his glove compartment.
I wanted to get out of there.
I wanted to drive away
and forget about what I had found.

my brother came out of the building and asked me
what I was doing.

nothing, I said, nothing.

Leaving Someday (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

2006-12-31T17:11:00.000-07:00

this Arizona desert can get boring at times
with the granite
the cactus
the mesquite
the creosote
and the palo verde.

you have to look past the surface
to discover what is really out here.
and you have to live here
to ever bother wanting to look.

you see, when I am feeling closed in upon by life
I go outside
to listen to the quiet
and to let my mind go. (the desert is good for this)

sometimes it is the ocean rolling along the beach
and I am there
sprawled out on the sand
letting the water lap over me...

and sometimes it is green hills
and I am walking
with the sun at my back
and the cities far away...

oh, imagination can heal
and dreams can motivate.
and I have lived my whole life here
with the desert landscape stretching out from my window
into the emptiness of the horizon.

if you know me
then you should know
that I have been saying and writing about
how someday I'll make my way out of this desert.

and I am sure
that out here with the coyote howls if you listen closely at night,
you will hear my voice echoing
out from this city
and out from the canyons:

this desert will not keep my soul.

Wet Dirt (from "The Journey Of The Spirit")

2006-12-31T16:52:00.000-07:00

it is raining on this desert tonight
and I am a memory - a chapter from my childhood.
you see,
often my parents would yell at each other... it would be unbearable.

to escape them I would go outside.

sometimes it would rain
and it would cover me.

as a child it was hard growing up with them.
it was difficult to listen to their voices
and their frustrations with life.

but my life is not a result of theirs anymore.
I have grown into this man,
and I have moved beyond the memories of them.

as this storm passes through,
I will tell you this:
tonight this is only rain
and a memory entertained
by a quiet evening of my own design.