Bourbon Sweat

Choices,
mistakes.


Words
written out on a beach
on a sunny day
in the back of your mind-
words that
never quite washed away
when the weather
turned cold.


You will never stop hearing the echo,
you will never stop feeling that certain pain,
you will never stop reaching for another,
then another,
and another.


You will never stop shivering when a cigarette is
snubbed out
beneath a tall
black
heel.


You will always think of those glasses-
that musty car
and the smear of make-up.


You were the one that made them cry,
but you never remember it that way.


They left you,
they abandoned you like some spoiled thing
like some festering boil
like some unwanted child.


They called you 'too much work'
and somehow
you were indifferent.


We are often defined by such stupid things
moments of insanity,
moments that were once so clear-
so cut and dry.
Now they seem like
any
other
outcome
would have been better.


So many nights of staring into mirrors and
splashing cold water onto warm, red faces
over and over,
and over.


This is where you should be
here and now,
and we know it,
but that will never assuage that certain pain
and the thought of how much time has passed will never
muffle the echo.


You will always reach out for another
and no matter now strong the tide,
that message way,
way back,
in the sands of your mind
will never wash away.


It all sounds so depressing
so dire,
so in need of a stiff drink;
but it amounts to little more than
one
more
night
splashing cold water
onto a hot,
red,
face.

Bluegrass

The clouds are faster here
or perhaps the earth is moving
that much slower or
steadier than in the metropolises I've known.


Nature declares herself unabashedly, not through
cracks in the concrete
but in in the marbled atmosphere swirling
with the changing seasons and in
the emerald colored life, further spread
than the industry of man.


There is a different beauty found in the
tremble of thunder out here.
The unobstructed sound of unearthly light
tearing it's way from the heavens to the soil.
I can only wonder if rainstorms on the great central plains
are this stunning.


This land is so different from
my own. I feel ashamed to think that I knew better,
that I wasn't going to find a new world
but there is magic here in the fireflies and the
burning piles of leaves.


I have known the sound of cicadas to be synonymous with the heat
of summer, their song so prominent in films of the humid south; but now-
now that I hear their call and feel the muggy air I can't help but think myself deep
in a foreign land.


This place is older,
the trees all have deeper scars that have
healed over long ago-
their branches darker,
more knarled
just as the knotted, callused hands of the
people; seventh generation workers with
the minerals of the earth in their veins.


I am breathing better now.

Breaking Point

Old Matchbooks
worn and empty.
Thick green glass ashtrays,
spotless
and smelling of bleach.


The man I once knew is
hiding from me
pacing in the back of my mind.


I find myself trying to reason
with hallucination
debating with a sickness.


There is no secret pack,
there are no more cigarettes dancing
in the bottom of some deep desk drawer.


There is no flask in a hollowed dictionary
there are no answers in bottles.


There is only some bizarre faith
in the next
word.