I said that I would
    be there for you
     but didn't know
  how far you would go.

  If I can't make it
    to your cloud
   to save me
  will you accuse me
    of not keeping
     promises?

   Everything
      I imagine you'd say
    is just fiction.
  Guess I'll have to
    go up to your cloud
   and ask you directly.

   Hey, ya, hey.
   I get it.
     it is too much for me
   to be so lofty.

   Go back to your mountains
      and you're for-dobule-you D
     I know when the party
         isn't for free.

   I will stay away.

   Margerine
    on a sandwitch?
    no a cup cake?
       it's frosting?
       in a mainaisse jar?
    A can, no, a jar
       of olives?
    Canola oil?
      Carrot cake that's
   dried up
      shreded carrot
     on the floor
   that the mice eat.
   One of them is in the cake pan.
  I frisbee it out the window.
  You say, getting very angry
     that the cake was still good
  and why am I such a busy body?
  and why do I kill flies?

      Most  Saturdays
     that Summer
     I went to the shore
  Maybe not the same place
       every time.
  Some times the long beach.
   Some times the conservation island
   Some times the shell-fish estuary
  Maybe a peir
    Maybe a jetty at the state park.

     And when the sun would be setting
  I'd try and find a place
      where I could photo the clouds
  rushing away
       and photo the birds
     circling for prey.

   When my camera broke
     I had to buy another one.
  I didn't even think about it.
   I just did it.

Hey, Ria, Marlena, my yesterday
   didn't you learn anything?
   Anything at all?

I saw you stuck inside
   your yesterdays
  Living in the pasts
   that you misconstrue
 
I saw you
   cake held in the rain
  what was it you were saying?
 Here you go again!

   Ria, Marlena, my love . . .
   didn't you learn anything
        anything at all?

    We'll be together
   through every endevour
   We'll be together 
     with all.
  We'll be together
    no matter what the weather
   we'll be together
     with all.

   Morning when I was too tired
    to know better I typed
      this poem, this morning,
  I typed this poem
   not worrying what I am going to say.
  Trying to chase the thought demons
       away.
  
   What use is it to aument
        the fears
 and after fifteen beers
     those poems you write
     when you're a soppy drunk
    in the middle of the night
   in almost illegable scrall
      those poems
     might be good relics
  for you to understand
    your inner pains and fears


  But do you really
      want to share
     all that
     with the world?

   When
      she
    said what she did showing me how much
  she
      doesn't care no matter how hard I try
   she
    let me know that I was not welcome in her
   house
  with her
     family

       So, bad marriage?
   it isn't my bad marriage so why is
               this a problem?

   Oh ya, it isn't.


  So why do I feel guilty
     for feeling such glee
   that I am never
     going to have to talk to 
        her
    again.

  Oh ya, that shows my inner
     failings.

   Now I ask
   and I don't expect an answer
   should I call her
   and wish her
      . . . anything?

   And if I am still thinking
    about her
     as this sophmoric poem suggests
   I am not free of
        what ever flaw it is
     that I am needing to be free of.

 

     Families 
        in ice
   are just the way
    she
        remembers them to be.

     Taken as it is
        there is no greater joy
      than family joy
    remembered.

   But I can't live in
         the false memories
       of who 
          she deluded that I am.

      So flasity be gone!
      and then I can't find any
          reason why
         she 
       would really want to see me.

    Old friend did
       you really think
     that you could come back
     here now that
       everything has changed?

   Yes, I see, you have 
        found God.
  But that 
      happens to everyone
     so how am I 
       to be
   impressed?
  
     Old friend
        you walked away
       and didn't return
      my pleas to be
        better
       calling me a
          busy body
       so I could hear it
  and critisizing
         my every breath.

    And cursed me for
         being in love with you.

    How could this ever be good
        you wanting to see me
           again?

        Old friend
       I love you
 and if
            you ever
         called
          I would
          well
         not sure
         don't know
           I'll know
         if you
           do
           but
           you
          won't

         Mitchell said
      that he would
        do what he
            was going
             to do
         and I should
         fetch the ball.
         that is all
           fetch the ball.

         I said
        that I wouldn't
       be his ball fetcher
     anymore
       and then
         we were
           friends no longer.

        I still remember
         most of what happened
         and I don't regret
           the loss.

     A super memoir of pain
         is a hard page
        to read.


      What use to relive
     the decadence of past
         fears?

     But when the light is low
         and the wind is cold
       and the joints ache
      and the television
      keeps metioning litanies
       of disease
      and side effects of drugs . . .

     How do you look away
        from the urge
       and face the light?

   See the light between the distant hills?
   See how the sunbeams
     skitter through the evening pines?

    If I were
      canoeing in an
      ice flow say
   on some giant lake
      at the fringe
    of a break through, 
      a place of warmer water
     that flows back
    to civilization
     beside some giant lake-wall
     built along the shore 
      where they've made places
   for canoes to pull up.

      Fragment thought poems that
            run on but don't complete
      fill the page with
         possible

  possible conclusions
      that aren't stated
     but will be infered
    by the reader or listener
   are just as much a part
 of the story as what the story
        is but
     they are not the story.

   Make up all the false histories
      that you can if you want
  but don't expect
     me to believe them.

   I don't cotten to the sound of the crowd
   chanting a politician's name.

   when the crowd disburses
   I hope that they aren't in a mean mood
       ready for revenge
     like they did to Ceaser.

   The side walk is cracked.
   He pulls a snow ball out of his pocket.
     That is premeditation.
   

    My frisbee throw to
      your puppy
     at the dog place
  where the dog people go
      on a Thursday night
    near Clevland Circle
        1998.

    Puppy learned to catch
   the frisbee.
     But then
      he ran away
     when you wouldn't feed him well
    when you were spending all your money on coke.

     Her son
   made all the grandmother's 
    eyes light with joy, 
   a most pleasant child
        and she knew this about him.
   She told him this was true, 
        that he had the natural charm
     that was the gift her family
       got from God, so use it.

   He learned to flurt
      and please the girls.

     Flattery of lies
  made up of heartaches too real to be true.
   Flattery of heartaches
      for you.
   But they really are true.
  
    If you didn't believe
    a thing that I was saying
       then 
        why did you stay?

      It always seemed to me
        that you ought to be
        walking away.

      Flattery.  Flattery of lies
    and even if they were true (which
                 they were not
           and I knew this)
    would have been just as
       damaging to me
     had I believed them.

    But I always saw you
        as insensere.
      and even though I will always
       love
       you
     I don't believe
       your
    flattery.

    when did I become
      that hard friend
     who won't call you back
 when I was always so
   oh oh he called and I must call back
      right now and find out
   how to hook up and spend this day
      with him, lonely heart that I am.

   So anyone paying me
        any attention at all
    became an instant obsession, 
     object of affection.

  And I would write these
    horrible love poems 
    all goopy syrup like
   honey bee buzzes, 
    hovering around the carnation vase,
      it doesn't sting but it could . . .

   so you threw 
     the flowers
    vase and all
   off the balcony
    and onto the roof
    of my Mid 80's Oldsmobile.

    And we were friends no more.

  Oh horrer to you
    that I love you
    so much that 
 I won't call you back
    because I know
  in your heart of hearts
    that you'd rather not see me
   as I am to day
 and the things I will say
    out loud
   question your fever
  cause you drank the cool-aid.

    I can't save you from
      the fallacies that you hold dear.
    You call them truth.
    How can I argue with that?
  If I do, why, aren't I just wrong?

  I love you so much
    that I won't return your calls.

    If you are in the room
  do you take a pound of heartache
       and shape it into
    a votive candle?

   The boots dripped with melting snow.
  I put them near the heater vent.
  You cursed the ice on the rug (so little)
     and gave me a hateful glare.

   Nice to see you too, I think,
 as you return from your ski vacation

  But you didn't stay, gotta go, and away
  off for a few more months of not being home

   Good thing
  I've got the delete
   button with
   all the mean things
  that I say
    and tribute
   screes of
   random sadness

   Sadness is the recollection
     of how you and I 
  misconnect
    because you can't be true
     to what I say
    and let me have my thoughts and words
 without trying
    to censor me.

  And I pretend
  that these regrets
        are poems.
  A great fiction?
  You probably wouldn't say so.

    Who?  Who?
   Who are your poems about
     you ask?
   
   My poems
    are about
      you.

   But I seek not to flatter you.
  I look not to give you false hope.
   There is enough real virtue in you
    that you don't need my point of view
   and you will tell me so, and call me
       dope.

   Who?  Who?
     How is it that poems
   are not just mean?

   But I put the teeth
     inside the poem
   as an artifact of
      what I might feel
   if I used those teeth
      instead to byte you
     chattering fool that I am.

   Of course this poem
      could never be 
        about you.

  Rejecting dogma
    he became dogma
  with his 'do as I tell you' rants
     and his perpetually rightous stance.

  

  When you said
   that you love me true
    I really thought you meant
       forever.

   Cause I can't stop
      still loving you
    it's been this way
   long as I remember.

   Fly fly fly 
       away
     fly fly fly
       away
   
   Fly fly fly 
       away
     fly fly fly
       away