Run screaming through the night,
Waking infants and the elderly
With your wearied cries
As you shriek in madness for
Your lost lover.
Rattle the tenement windows
With pebbles thrown in vain
In an effort to wake the one
That no longer resides
Therein.
Stark naked and sweating
In the cold, feet cut on pavement
And bitter broken glass
Challenging ideals of twisted
Optimism.
Knuckles broken in backstreet
Brawls against the rugged
Jaws of men who are
More than you could ever
Be.
More laughing than crying,
More sick than sane,
The night swirls round in
Technicolor drug hazes
Blurred.
Scream and moan and
Howl like like a rabid dog,
A rational defense further from you now
Than the consciousness
You held.
Never grinning so much as
A grimace, the sweet state
Of a madman tainted with
The gall of uncooperative
Weather.
Sleet and rain and hail
Come flying out from the
Inside, soaking and freezing
Whatever happens to be left
Of you.
Bleeding Sterno sharply swallowed
In a last ditch attempt to
Forget and twice as long
Remember your long lost
Identity.
Raped and drained of your
Soul by the machinery of corporate America
Shiny and slick and oiled
With the blood of lost generations
Of men.
Thump thump thumping of blood
Running acid through your brain,
Deep inside the head that you
Wish would once and for all
Explode.
Revolver clutched in a desperate
Hand, no bullets but the one
Society gave you at birth when
You, the clockwork toy of shit
Were wound.
Motherfucked and crying in the
Alley behind the house of the
Innumerable and impotent twelve
Step programs that never once
Helped.
Never stabbed and forever stitched
By that which would be the love
That you never so much as had
And never in your life have
Felt.
Three dollars and pocket change,
A high rise flat of nothingness
Rising ever higher into the
Broken American
Dream.
Each further hour a year in
Hell, each minute another
Needle in your eye, each and
Every second another bite from
Your soul.
Rambling, mumbling to your
Self the lost secrets of an
Empire that never was, and a
Escapist’s flee nearer than the light
Of day.
Polaroids and snapshots of a
Dissolved sanity that haunts
You and forever pulls on fishhooks
Of ice buried deep in the flesh of
Your back.
Dissonance of fake culture and
Pretend learning, the would be
High society of pop culture and
Sleaze, steadily ticking points off
Your IQ.
Hypocritical political mental marquee-
Scrolling of names you’ve never
Known but in the fake phony
Cinema of your fucked-over
Youth.
Losing the ability to walk and forever
You must run or stumble trying not to
Fall and never to let on that you’re not
As good as you would have yourself
Be.
Standing on a bridge over the Allegheny
I-beams of lost industry underfoot,
Gazing into the icepack of dying winter
Contemplating what will be your last
Fall.
What you’ve just read is probably what I would call my most significant poem – certainly the biggest, longest, and most passionately-written of all of my poetry. I wrote it at the peak of my last big personal evolution. It’s been edited and revised since then, but the main text is essentially as I first wrote it. It was a chaotic time for me, both in terms of my personal life and in terms of figuring out what came next. It represents the sort of personal change and development I’ll likely see in myself again over the course of the next year.
And what new things will I produce as I work to find myself again? New poetry is very likely. Many new photographs as well. And who knows what other forms of expression I might explore and discover in that time. I’m excited for it all. I can tell you almost assuredly that it specifically will not be a particularly easy time – this sort of thing is rarely pleasant in the “golly I’m so happy” sort of way. Not to make it sound like a bad thing, though. It’s a very rewarding process, but usually involves a lot of catharsis, a lot of honest self-evaluation, lots of questioning. Emotions go all over the place – anger, sadness, depression, joy, ecstacy, rage, etc.
The process has already started. Not in any big way, but I get the feeling it’ll gather momentum before too terribly long. Certainly once I start shooting and writing more again. I’ll keep you all posted.
