Something for Saturdays: Notes from the Dead Letter Office

Dreams like boxcar salamanders
on tracks made of tin, expanding across the horizon
Smoke and sky intermingling, but too polite
parting ways with out a word
walking away with that mystery
never quite enough to question
yet who has the time these days to write Hallmark cards about
“the being of self when faced with mortality”
or my favorite “sorry, you got stabbed by your cell mate”
and if anything follows tonight’s feature
too distracted by the mood
which is set out like a name card at a dinner table
sit down and start dissolving, we are the distinguishing differences
a relative look at unraveling people
without cheating the temptation of time
please continue with your hands in your pockets
but keep in mind that there are…
no lessons to be learned with this tale
or life changing experiences within
for example: the beating heart
a metaphor
simplistic and iconic
an old world god, high on a mountaintop
long forgotten by the same people
who based themselves in their likeness
played by their fancy, made up rules
a game
and as we well all know, the act in engaging in a game results
in a winner
and a loser ( or multiple. Who is really getting fucked here?)
Lost without a connection
in common or with reality:
the common unspoken agreement set by the ruling species.
If you could, Please answer me this:
What is the color red?
A mood?
A sound?
deep inside flowing
feeding
growing within everything
(and yeah that too)
but you are really not there, and please stop calling my name
or is it all in my head, induced
Like the itch on the back of your neck, or
the color a room changes when others are in the room to, just…
and just there to, just…
but not like a “just” used in a if type of statement
no, nothing like that.
that nervous “just” that rolls off the tongue
when you might be embarrassed to say
what you really need
is that why we rip apart…
lives and days, through out the coarse of our lives?
To obtain these experiences that add up to something that resembles
Life, spelled backwards, perverted but your meaning of life.
and would trade seconds on the years, of your life to find the answer to that question.
insert answer here:________________________________
Now, take that answer and think of what you would trade to get it back
Bread crumbs, and eggs sitting on walls.
Old tricks of stories, the desired outcome
to let us know, as soft headed children,
To be glad with what you have , and never of what you had
cycles spinning inward, a black hole in the big white everything
breathe in, connected like a child’s crayon scribbles on the bedroom walls
spinning like the rest of us characters in this chapter of this particular book
no beginning, not middle, no end
illusions shared, experienced, and collectively agreed upon,
the truth, the lies, the errors, the corrections
the I’m sorrys, that are never too late to say
but you never can seem to get them out
Swallow that medicine, that poison, that mother’s milk abortion
understand the writing between the lines, between jump rope and sand
the list continues of taboo, fictionalizes, fears
Toys made in china…
underlining chemical reactions, we are talking in the plural here, people
All of this maybe above the national recommended reading level
a generation hooked on spell check
You! In the back raise your hand, so everyone can see you
YES, you. I have see you in the meetings
Always with the creepy hands, that work their way around each other
the story of know without telling, you can smell it in the air
ever so slightly, a twitch, a disturbance
visitors, commonly knock, or some other insert: decadent rant about some random topic
Something that only razor blade would think it was funny
a dull razor that did things
like got a fucking job and voted
what’s wrong with you?
bad 80’s commercials in my noggin
I learned it by watching you…
I took the prescribed moral in the opposite way in my youth.
That was the reason that scarred me away from drugs.
Growing up seeing people with no septum, teeth all flat, swollen hands
Beg, borrow, or steal, wondering why things really haven’t worked out
Is there anyone at fault in this situation,
yes, you over there…
my wife is hurt!
is there a scapegoat in the house?
I’m talking about a home not like a place to only store your shit
most of it memories, or objects justifying your existence
what else then? Would you really die without?
All this conditioning, slick brain made, consumer barely holding onto the grass
trying desperately to not fall off the earth
just a few minutes each day
would you be that missed
beneath your feet every day is a world free to interact with, free of charge
A super sized playground, not some simulated, air conditioned to behave
to slow down, become cooler, slavery of the elements, and ADD children
never to be properly harnessed, to allow growth, polar opposite
retarded, in a mechanical sense, like a choke on a carburetor
wigging out, maybe it is the weather, water, condensation
A compliment to agree to disagree
publicly and privately knotted
Trees transformed into wood made into fences, to keep you out
but it is only the gate to the outside, unfolding messages, pulses that are music
like hips, hooked on a baseline that sway back and forth, snake charmer
in the mist of thieves, a den of jackals, to disrobe you of you strength and fools luck
a prisoner, bricked into his own worst nightmare because he is afraid to sleep
to feel rested, and well approved. Maybe throwing in a little faith
oh yee of little
twenty seven made up minutes later it all changes,
I’m not even going to look back to lick these wounds
these contusions have added up, I don’t mind them any more
they match my shoes
that glassy smile, fish eyed, smoking
laser eyed chrome fantasies, foretold in that shit the he writ
down the rabbit Alice, dove, and never did come out that hole
but I don’t think do? Most like the ease of use…
A BEE Use, a stinger to defend its self from what ever is attacking it
Blind spots in a Technicolor, quadraphonic, representation of your life
all the parts gathered, interviewed, cross examined but
has anything been accomplished, or have we forgotten to check the score board.
home or away, ghost haunting convenient store bathrooms licking the stalls clean
acquiring all the memories smeared on these cockroach traveled highways
a trail of insects, we are the new kid on the block, bigger is not always better
so maybe this is all… ok?
A fermentation of ransom cells and atmosphere that came into existence,
not by random, but by choice.
like a playlist of MP3s for a special occasion, dreams
like a carrot on a string driving Disney cars on tracks, the illusion of control
are you receiving? I am… receiving.
just like any business it will probably be 10-15 working days, for a response
and without fail will get lost in the mail, only to yet again call and repeat the cycle all over again.
Sorry, no breaks given, kiddo. We handed those all out, already.
Soft snickers can be heard as our hero walks away.
This is where the music stops and we put something sad on…
sad but romantic, with hands in yours, forever in those eyes lost happily
locked inside your own head, round and round the tempo is a maelstrom shrunk to the size of a planet.
Becoming tangent rays of light, orbiting particles bent around the sum of existence
only to be extinguished before conception,
the death of ideas, more concrete than ideas, dreams of weight.
A quantum distance, only measured in a lifetime
being poked when no one is there.
scent that triggers response more than taste on the tip of your tongue
casting stones, first. All these reactions are programmed on probable cause
a spontaneous calculation, the big conspiracy,
and the counter intelligence to the opposite.
All this pent up, unable to relax
I thought all this was all supposed to be real?

(Sunday, August 19, 2007)