The smoke slips into my mind and

the freedom follows.

My shadow puts down

the world it carries and

my life unwinds for a night –

Atlas puts the boulder down.

Why do you

waste all this time,

little birdman?

Waste away,

Waste away,

Waste away.

what does time do,

When the seconds drip off

My face and onto my thighs?

And what do I do

When you drip between your legs

And onto my face?

I love it,

Time loves it.

I’m reading Ovid in my Hemingway socks,

A classic and I’m a sellout,

Books bought locally

But not my local – not yet.

Icarus falls from the sky

And my plane will soar safe –

So life goes.

I’m a little Icarus and a lot of Hem,

Big battles with my big ego

And small sentences with small words.

I’ve never found a sun I didn’t want to fly at –

A flaming bird tattooed on my chest –

Because nobody tells me what is too hot to touch.

I am the fire.

The wind weeps savage,

Long

Tears.

A memory – another life –

Dances behind my eyes when

I feel your ghost in my room.

I want you riding shotgun,

I want you with a shotgun,

I want you to feel me end.

Your desire drips

Down my sad face

And tries to ignite my heart

But my love is dead

And bitter

And caged.

I watch your face melting

In my dreams and

Nothing can change that fake reality.

I hold you in my private nowhere –

I watch it all come down –

Everytime I dare to dream or imagine.

Where did the time go,

And why did it take you from me?

I have nothing to wake up for –

But I won’t sleep forever –

Only for awhile.

The dream dances out –

Out and away from my troubled, empty mind –

And i chase it every night

Just for it to be gone in the morning.

When did I wake up for something – or –

When did I wake up with you?

The sands of life blew in and buried me –

I suffocate to your past –

The sun burns where the wind hurt me.

I don’t get to see you smile anymore,

except in pictures of Dieppe and Ottawa

and those towns just hurt me now.

Are you staring at the other side of this wall?

Or do you get to see right through me now?

My heart feels bloated,

hollow.

I’ll let the ink dig through my arms

while the music pours through my ears and brain

and I write words on faux-white electric screens

that should be said to your crying, longing innocence.

I bury the bird in bodies of broads –

scratch that –

I bed down with sophisticated,

beautiful,

sassy or sweet women.

I drown your ghost in other ladies’

laughter,

endlessly laughing,

until the manic chorus puts me off balance –

my head matching my heart and purpose.

I’m not The One –

I’m not even a whole one –

and not everyone gets to be the quarterback.

I don’t need you to feel whole –

your doubt, your sadness and your beautiful love –

but I’ve never felt so unfinished,

or maybe so,

finished.