Hello!!!

Hello retarded person on a bike smiling and waving and looking so content with life
Hello young black woman jogging looking like you might be a former student of mine
Hello drunken old man urinating against a building not minding being seen
Hello dead eyes dead skin dead mind walking and talking human form
Hello young and excited skateboarder scraping the sidewalk with metallic wheels
Hello sad lonely sagging middle aged woman alone in your car wishing for a different life
Hello asthmatic kid boarding the bus with backpack half your size and no friends
Hello vapid couple holding hands talking nonsense as if it were meaningful
Hello President Nixon's ghost still so delusional about the liar you are/were
Hello myself in the mirror being me myself and I 24 hours a day -- how are you?

Lullaby

Life is

Melancholy sweet sorrowful and sometimes joyful

Do you miss the times when you were single laying in bed listening to the rain at night and dreaming of your future days?

Does it make you sad that these are your future days and they are not what you had imagined?

Or does it make you sad that these are your future days and they are exactly as you imagined?

It's never enough is it?

It's never good enough is it?

It is what it was when you wanted it to so many rainy nights ago

While you kiss the dripping from the eaves and slap melancholia
You know that deep down inside the coming misty morning
There are your dreams floating by and wonder is all about

So pick up Whitman or Yeats or Ginsberg
And read and reflect and wipe a thought away
Ponder the rain and love its magic

Because today you are a dream man
Sleep lightly heavily and adverbly
You are what you imagined only quite different

So be it

Don't Ask He'll Tell

He spoke in great long burrs of energy and noise
It was as if he was marching forward into a storm head down determined and unstoppable
There was no preventing the torrent of words once it began
He could not be would not be interrupted
This impenetrable force of vowels and consonants mindless and forceful filled the room
It was frightening and awesome and would visit again
The next time someone asked him: how was your weekend?

Clamor

The clamor
For my writing
Is distant and seemingly silent
But I hear it
Just not with my ears
It comes from the gone
Like my dad
Who believed I could
And that I would
That I would do it
Could do it
Full circle
Full step
The unedited man
But I took long meandering turns
In my road through life
I stopped for extended periods
In other places
Like a school
Where I taught
Like a lot of things
That delayed and denied
The writer I am
Or should be
Or could be
Maybe would be
If I did
And it is there
I love it so very much
How it hurts and stings
How the bell rings
Within
Signaling that the time has again arrived
For me to string words together
In some form or fashion
To create
The creative
The creativity
Not being snarky
Being true
To the clamor for my writing
From so distant a place
I am

Waiting for Something

Melancholy late afternoon Saturday
Overcast quiet chill occasional car passing
No music no TV cup of weak tea
Read the same paragraph twice
But it doesn't register
Body fatigued mind more so
Nap not possible
Hungry but nothing to eat
No interest in cooking or buying or even
Looking in the fridge
No clear thoughts but a thousand muddled ones
Lethargy makes a change impossible
Sit leisurely in chair sore from sitting
No thought of moving
Waiting for something
To happen

Richard at 22

I am the great beauty mired in my own vomit and piss
I am the handsome blonde boy limp and alone with a blistering headache
I am the charming young lad with the oppressive hangover
I am the precocious fellow grasping and gasping for more
I  am the more I seek in the world
I am the pain
I am the hunger of compassion and love
I am the one desperate for understanding and respect
I am the desire of all my wants
I am the futility of my wandering dreams
I am the liar obsessed with my own half truths
I am the living walking talking fantasy of my being
I am lost in my yesterdays unconscious of tomorrows
I am
I am Richard and I always have been

At the Cafe

At the cafe
Eavesdrop on overweight lesbian with health problems
Hear skinny black crack whore cackling
See a dog sniffing where another dog peed
Muscular guy covered in tattoos yawning broadly walks in
Sense a young boy’s imagination being rankled by a parent’s admonitions
Look outside see a duck fly overhead must be lost
I cater to my whims and drink a latte while pretending to read
(There’s a chance of rain)
I see a kid go long for a pass that sails over his head
I see an old lady warily crossing the street
I see an impatient driver waiting for him
I see that football land in some bushes
I see an irritated bus driver let wheelchair rider on the bus
I listen to a teenaged girl pop her gum
I listen to a middle aged man hum a Gershwin tune
I listen to a car’s CD player blasting rap music
I listen to a moment of silence between noises
I wonder at the sense of it all
I speculate as to meaning
I fantasize about bikini clad beauties cavorting on beaches
I feel a little guilt for my fantasies
I wish that 11:00 am would last longer
I wish that the clock wouldn’t take moments away so quickly
Thirtyish mother pushes toddler in stroller
Skateboarder rasps against the sidewalk oblivious to pedestrians
Jogger pants and runs runs and pants
Car blasts horn at Hispanic kid crossing against the light
Old man in yarmulke opens umbrella
Homeless couple argue -- seemingly over possession of a can
Cute college girl walks unselfconsciously down subway steps
Rain starts
I’m glad for the rain
I’m glad for the cafe
I’m glad for the caffeine
I’m glad for the book
I’m glad for the city
There is more hustle and also some bustle
The stillness of the mind contrasts with the world in motion
Perpetual life
City life
Ambitious life
Swirling twirling life
Rambling shambling life
Finish the latte life
Rise from seat life
Go out the door life
Walk in the rain life
Life on life’s term life
Contentment