For Clarity's Sake

Raining pieces of yesterday
A colored jamboree
Of mistakes I never made

The rare ones float away
To the endless places
Of my minds wanderings

I dare not ask
If these are your tortured
Memories

But then the play
Is off in another
Realm of what (I don't know)

So let it rain
Let it pour
Nevermore

177 Years of Being a Jerk

Oh I was no good

You wouldn’t have

Liked me

It was the drugs

(I said)

It was the liquor

(I said)

But no

It was me

Standoffish

Rude

Sullen

Moody

But always there for me

You could count on it

I depended on

The indulgence of strangers

And friends

And family

Cruel, biting remarks

Often meant to hurt

Successful

And oh so happy to be me

Wasn’t I great?

Now leave me alone

Off doing my own thing

If I need you

You’ll be the first to know

And so I went

I was something else again

And again

Me mine I

Oh yeah

Short

Sharp

Curt

It’s all over now

I’ve changed so

Seen the light

Burning bright

It says:

Be nice not yourself

Okay

So here I am

Reformed

Like Me?

Happiness

Tripping off the long nights
And daring to stare at your dreams
Hoping that willingness
Is enough to start
Not knowing it all
Not pretending to
Having a reach exceeding all grasps
Pissing sea water into the wind
Lifting the dancers with your mind
And applauding rapturously
These are times to tie men's souls
To the beautiful days of endless rhythm
Just don't forget...
To sing

He's Dead

He's dead now
Once your lover
Drives me crazy
To think of it
Always has
Still will
But dead now
Still tortured by
The thought of
Him touching your
Hair your breasts
Kissing your lips
Inside and out
Madness to imagine
No solace in
His slow death
Which was an
Awful one
Sad for him
Pain any way
I look or
Think of it
Hate him and
You with him
All those years
Ago
No no no
But he's dead
Changes nothing
You see my
Mind is warped
A jealous raging
Crazy man I
Am today and
Can't understand why
But there it
Is
It is it
Is it is
He's gone now
Except he lives
In my jealous
Silly mind
Poor poor guy
Poor me poor
All of us
Who suffer from
This kind of
Silly pain of
Memories
Damn them but
Bless him
He was a
Nice guy

Your Yesterday

That was your yesterday

Not mine

Those were your tears

But I’ll mingle mine with them

If you’ll do me the courtesy

Of loving my life

As I worship yours

On the promise of golden tomorrows

And dangling virtue 

And dancing morals

And happy tunes

Of your not quite correct

But always genuine

Searches

For that yesterday

That was yours

Love you

Mean it

The Agony of Remembering

I feel a hellish pain tonight

Reminded as I am of waking up

Those warm Summer mornings of my youth

Eager to start a new day 

Certain that it would be full and rich and meaningful

Perhaps with sport or sex or just being young

Now it is the night of my life

Dark and cold and bitter

I cringe at the lamplight

It reflects of an old and wrinkled face

Whose time has passed

Gone is the carefree reverie of yesterday

Gone forever

Here instead is the melancholy of memory

The bitterness of what was missed

The longing for what was had

I do not spring out of bed these Summer mornings

I lurch and groan and ache and wonder

Where did it all go?

Can’t I have it back?

The agony of remembering

The regret the heartache the excitement the elation

All intertwined and all in a knot

In my belly

How I wish....

It Happens

At Fisherman’s Wharf Norwegian tourists discuss which way to go

Germans take photos of one another with Alcatraz in the background

A few block away a Filipino drag queen argues heatedly with no one

In Chinatown a small restaurant sign reads: Dim Sum, Nice Food

On the bus recorded announcements come in three languages

A beggar greets people emerging from the subway station by asking for change

A young couple on the train wrestle playfully

At a Berkeley cafe a woman suns herself in a bathing suit 

Men ogle

A mailman strides purposefully up my street

In the house the cat is laying on a nightgown

Time for me to type