History for sale

History is a difficult reality,

because it existed and is remembered in

simple fragments and usually

out of sync.

 

We write it down,

we debate about it

and we pretend to understand it.

 

In reality,

we are making up fictions

that loosely fit the facts,

but rarely even do that.

 

I can tell you what I walked in on

or whose heart I broke

and how bad of a man I was

but I can never show it to you.

 

I can also never show you the tender things

and how good I was to lay besides

and the way I hung on every word,

cared about even the smallest details.

 

History is always lost

whether it’s kept orally or written

and we pretend differently to employ scholars

but we are all rasping at straws and ghosts

even in the best of times.

As the quiet came in

The quiet came

and I remembered I

was not okay.

 

There was no sweet embrace

or somebody special to lie next to

and there would not be

it seemed

for a long while.

 

I could taste disappointment

in my mouth,

especially on my tongue

but it was strongest in my

veins,

flowing with my blood,

and there was something fierce

and unforgiving

about it.

 

I remembered how my dreams

let me down

and abandoned me on some

dark

corner

to fend for myself.

 

A life once seeming so full of

potential,

as a golden child,

a prodigy,

now idling on a hill

unable to climb further,

as a runner looking up a steep climb

only to realize they had the freedom

to stop

and it meant the exact same as

moving forward.

The value of sorry

Sorry doesn’t fix things
Even if it is a nice gesture
But often its empty and common.

There are some things you can’t be sorry enough for,
Cheating on the person who would die for you,
Manipulating a trusted friend of years,
Leading people who love you to worry about your instability
And any true mistakes from your past.

Intentions are the manipulator’s safe haven
And don’t lead to much with real mistakes.

There is no sense of regret or dread that makes
Anything better or easier
And responsibility is the gauntlet of honesty
That only some truly wear.

The honest, the damned
The wounded, the loving
All feel the pangs of shame and guilt
Sent out by regret and injustice
But it never helped a soul being sorry
Except for your masochistic self.

boredom as lover

We kill time,

because we're afriad of it

and what we fear

we destroy unprovoked.

 

A society of men and women

intimidated by empty hours

afraid to face the minutes without

stuffing them full of mindless entertainment.

 

A never-ending cycle of mediocraty

encompasses Can/American culture

to the point every pleasure becomes

guilty.

 

That's a fitting label in a society of sinners,

who only commit the lamest and most

selfish

of sins,

and never the exciting ones to confess or live.

 

Or maybe we are exciting,

with sky-rocketing adultery and greed

living to fuck and spend

and people say Freud is 

no longer in vogue,

but that's because he is feared

as truth often is.

 

There is something like the Confessions 

coming

but I never found God

and I'm not remorseful.

 

I was vengeful,

I hated

I cheated

I harmed my fellow man

I destroyed whole individuals

and I certain lied,

but I'm no different morally than the

vast ocean of human emptiness we call a race,

I'm just a sliver more exciting than most,

but mountains less boring than others.

 

Don't be afraid of that boredom,

embrace it,

Time is leaking out of our pores

a few skin cells fall off with every touch

– the great sand people,

a mock Terracotta Army –

but here I still stand

and you do too,

or you could lay with me and

forget about the boredom for awhile.

 

Life is used up all the same,

and I'm stabbing at my boredom lately

like a damned peon,

when I should be holding it like a lover.

The line

We all write searching for the one line
That will change everything.

The one line that clarifies centuries of thought
The line that makes the murky clear
and the line that ignites the embers of your heart.

Its usually buried in the mess that we call
Writing
All the muck we heap out just to get some ore
Tons of it,
just for one shiny diamond.

You mean something to me,
even if you never know it
And if not to me
Then to somebody else.

We all find love in the creases of pages.

Thoughts on hail

The hail outside made me think you were Falling out of the sky, Long held in high regard by me, But now your cold heart was fractured And pouring dramatically to the ground. The air was frigid and the downpour mostly Unnoticed, Save for maybe the one man who looks up To get a piece of hail in the eye, And that was me. The hail had dazzled me, and I walked around in it Shocked and enthralled Until it finally hit me in tender areas And I learned to walk away. It wasn’t a quick lesson And it was far from painless But lessons worth learning often are.

Then and now

The happiness in memories is often
Overdone
Misremembered for the better,
And that’s where the pain comes from.

Surely there were good times but
its the bad times that lose their edge
With memory
And good times come out looking polished
And new.

But there’s no novelty to be had
And that’s where the track ended
Not just for you
But for me too
Or maybe it was somewhere else.

The novelty had never been the break before
So maybe it was something else,
The worrying both ways and trust issues
Or maybe it was all stupidity.

I thought about talking to you today,
After three weeks without a word,
But it didn’t make enough sense yet
And there was no real will to do it.

I thought of time travel and if I could
Jump back somewhere and talk to you
Or talk to me
and if that would change things,
But I wouldn’t even want to.

There are whole universes inside my head
With real people and fake people and
You will slot into one of them
Although the memories seem more fictional
So maybe you’re unlikely to be found at
Your common haunts downtown and
More likely to be found in my bed
Talking
or sitting in the shower with me.

I took the best you could give,
Gave back the best I could give then,
and it was more tragedy than comedy
And surely the audience yelled for us to marry
Except the jealous ones
But the story of it ends bitterly
At least in this Act
And everything I wrote about it is true to me.

The poor Quidi Vidi dead

There’s a cemetery on Forest Road
As romantic
Old
And atmospheric as one could ask for,
but it has become crowded.

The dead are now squeezed between a superstore
Penitentiary
A parking lot
And roads.

The bright lights,
A mark of any city,
Invade the sleep of the dead
Constantly illuminating their resting places
And as the lights get brighter
Due to increased innovation,
The dead lose more ability to sleep.

Progress always marches over the bones of ancestors
Sometimes it is unintentional,
But it is always stupid and soul-crushing.