Ghosts of words and men on Bourbon St.

Posted on by meltingneurons
Image credit to Destination America

Older man now still chasing the speed of youth,

that magic release it felt like when finally

words would reel off the end of mental tongue

hang lovingly over the thought of pausing

crash headily into a flock of fuck-its

on a once clean and crisp page.

Chase that dragon and his friend,

slavishly bursting with a desire to create

fabricate, detail out something grand.

Have people questioning their perceptions

wondering where time has slid off too

drop by drop, carpe diem, another glass fragment

shifted out the bottom of the hourglass.

There are no epiphanies though,

no monumental Staffordshire bulldogs of arousal

that fucking bark and yap to be released in a crescendo of brilliance.

Just a desire for words it seems.

Something to quell the silence, push it away

give the erratic husks some movement back inside

where all those fiend spun neurons lie gasping.

Deeply depleted, running on random jolts

and chemical cocktails of enthusiasm,

diving for the closest rush of emotional splendor

so that I can etch away its finery

longing and pisspants whining for the chance at joy

but always refusing to bask in happiness.

Because all the words at my beck and call,

And it turns out….

….no, no, no, NO, not another one of these baleful fucking tunes.

Let them slip slumberous and scantily clad,

banshees at a jazz show on Bourbon St.

wailing in satisfaction that they are free and alive

settle down to some post-mortem beignets

a fresh cup of chicory blasted caffeine sludge

one last “hand grenade” to balance the boat

skin those yapping pups into submission

waiting for the dark to creep back in.

Blessings past death and the holocaustic ruin

peppered across an ignoble pursuit of the end of everything

weak-kneed, monochromatic, repetitious cycle rinsed and repeated,

a prayer to consistency and predictability

stability held dear during the wildest storms

even if just to dig one more shovelful.

You carousing, pithy skin sacks of arrogance and shame,

I see you there, you aren’t forgotten.

Clockwork paved roads that seem to spill wheels and gears,

springs and mechanisms all across my feet as I unwind another,

stumbling, less regularly, less urgent the staggering,

less is there that violet hue of madness thickening the air

glossing out the glow that once we all embraced in ourselves,

saw in everyone, sought to share with each stranger.

words and a face shattering grin,

perfect tone, chuckle, and off-kilter phrase

each syllable an expression of fireworks

ruptured too early and spraying fearfully shiny things

spontaneous wonderment at existence.

The belief that if I just keep writing,

The words will lead me inward and home—

—and I’ll finally have something special to share again.

Bones and Flowers

Posted on by meltingneurons
All credit due to MacSeam for the artwork.

Spacious and widely set are these woven walls
stinging nettles wrapped firmly around whipcord center
a promise of pliable willow branches,
carefully soaked switches
cut green, bound in beautifully colored leaves thick with thorns.
Laced with the fabric of breath, desire, mystique,
keeping the luminescent beyond–
–beyond.

However, in those laced moments that the air stirs first languorously,
then rising to delight in how it can twist and whirl
a joyful movement of shifting scents
breeze spraying aside the curtains
they, no heavier than dreams.
Rolling across the stones laid intricate with care
drifting to cross the lone pond.
Glassine and undisturbed as puddled silver
thickly magick and deeper than deep can be known–
–as the air quenches and remakes.

Where tendrilled branches cast ripples,
serpentine gashes play at being rivulets of liquid
cutting once pristine layers
on which reflections lay.
Alive and shedding mirrored skin,
sloshing possibility and promise
as ancient hearts cast aromas in the air,
only as decayed wood left to rot can.
Dust and brittle powdering husks
broken down from their heights to furnish food and fuel
that the next generation might cast ramparts of growth
riding high on the bones of the Old.

Silently they sit.
Gazing down at the scarred and skittering pool,
beaming hope in darkly radiant intensity
from behind eyes set deep with focus.
Reflecting, and wishing fitfully,
that as it calms,
they will find relief from their personal tempests
peace through the restoration of waters
returning to their unblemished state.

A cauldron of insight,
slickly metallic and alluring
where they might at last catch sight of their foes,
drag them into the shaded glen,
bleed them onto the stones,
leave their corpses ragged and torn,
that they can be reborn with the changing days.

Blissfully drift into their thoughts unfettered by care,
smile indulgently at the colorful cacophony
as it unfolds behind their drooping lids,
Oh!–what flowers Spring would surely bring.


Obscenity Cavern

Posted on by meltingneurons

Obscenity cavern,
plastered with fucks,
gives rise to the new age
raised to bow low
keep your head down,
duck, tuck and roll.
Whispered in stories,
like the day it last rained,
awash is the removal
of freedom from failure,
honesty and blame.
Turncoats and bastards
(that’s what they cry)
mirrors twisted and cracking
impossibly contorting
as futility sighs.
At long last there is sense,
(though it echoes too loud)
in the canyons of absence
where each of the dead
is everlastingly proud.

Jack-o-lantern Man

Posted on by meltingneurons
Jack-o-lantern grin showing the way light from behind can play off the emotions carried in its face.
Smile, always smile.

Jack-o-lantern grin on a soil soaked face
brings a gleam to the eye,
sickly off color oceans sweetened with flint
surrounding coals sunk deep,
always to be diamonds forever unpressed.

Invert your beliefs despite all the tears,
blessed by devils to love
gruesomely wishful, they call themselves angels
sent from above though their stories are fake
always spinning tales out of mud.

Shackle that spirit into iron bound blocks,
wither your freedom away until it sounds
desperately weak with a voice
that falls empty on stunted ears and emotions
no longer caring, and even pretending.

Blaspheme your values and lay in a trough,
where the swine plunder for pleasure
dig deep in the mire
suckle like beasts on that sick, sweet, distortion,
all while minding the cross.

Dangling promises to release your mind,
kept partial and broken
sentenced to time after time,
words carefully chosen
to leave you feeling less than divine.

Where the road crosses and breaks in the dark,
trails leading past peaceful places
handily strewn with spent dreams,
delusions of grandeur and half glimpses of faces,
all of them wasted, missed chances for safety.

Memories and hopes on the battlefield lost,
reclaimed to a tune that warmed off the frost.
Singing songs of cast rays from the sun way out there,
rainbows breaking on storm’s end
embracing adventure, barking laughter, always finding the fun.

Limp and crumpled between all the worlds,
a traveler beneath the weight of mental fissures deeply cracking
out way beyond where he started his feet land where he was hurled.
Giants lurk out there in a mezzanine layer,
reality is a sure thing until fact and fiction are swirled.

Rise up and break down those glassy illusions,
smash down the oppression (he thinks to himself)
that would handily break you under flurried confusion.
There’s a joy to be found and happiness born,
love to be shared, thoughts to think, great lessons to be learned.

Memories hurt like jagged rocks in the side,
but you’ll never go back, forward though not always straight,
no matter the rivers rush or how frightening the ride.
Loss can stain clothing, grief stain cheeks,
but the future is brighter ahead then behind.

Jack-o-lantern grin on a soil soaked face,
in mercy you’ll be pulled from the gates,
yanked back out of the chaos and dusted off sharply,
lips with compassion and renewed desire,
lay on you words of beauty and a kiss to inspire.

You’re insides are gone,
replaced with a flame,
one beautiful fire,
let that light be your name.







The Middle of the Story

Posted on by meltingneurons

Where our main characters find themselves journeying apart from each other into adventures and places unknown in the hopes that they will reunite as realized and complete individuals on the other side….so we begin in Reno, NV…..

S & H at Taco Loco

Transcribe the hope I feel
into optimism and other such essential stuffs.
Imbibe the flow of sweet spirit
that drips from off our lips and out our mouths.
Believe in dreams meant not to fade
even if the road has twisted uglier and uglier still.
Hold tight to goals we shared
as our footsteps drift further and further apart.
We’re still in love,
and this journey which so profoundly changed us
is not at its end yet – just an interlude.

Wistful Short One

Posted on by meltingneurons

Sing me songs of vitriol all laced in melodies of love,
shame my wisdom gained by years of pain,
tell me that sentience comes from somewhere up above.

Mock my broken harpsichord that I played with as a child,
tone deaf ears on loosed strung strings twanged hard
milk savagely the loneliness we all feel as calling from the wild.

Forever more the notes will keep as a heap rotting in my memories,
the smell of favored sympathy and dulled attention,
what once was beautiful to the ears of youth is deadened by perfection.

Impatient

Posted on by meltingneurons
I’m late for life.

Lick my frustration laden eye trails
with your feverish degree of need.
I’ve pulled apart my patience in brushstrokes,
and sit damming rampant torrents of greed.
Traipsing through a shutter-box as though
a thrown skein of glass trapped thoughts.
Spending words of do not try a thousand times
until they’re echoing so loud it hurts.
There is less difficulty here then meets the eye,
even when it’s filled with sorrow.
We’re on endless roads, journeying upward
on travels through time into tomorrow.
The final hurdle is simply to start the race,
get up off your ass and focus.
Move away from rabbit holes and wasted days
lest the world consume us as the locusts.


Infectious

Posted on by meltingneurons
Infectious mood imagery.

Sardonic reserves of time kept patience
blending outward in rippling shades of hatred.
Baby, you’ve got that heart shaped gaping wound
says you’re bathed in longing for now not soon.
Nothing moves faster than a synapse firing off kilter
blistering brain waves melting downwind all splintered.
If the days were longer and I could taste your fears
all that we’d share could be understanding made clear.
So if you’ll touch your enthusiastic distaste to mine
lets go passe with anticipation and the cheapest wine.
Show me your ugly that I might gag and spew
my own redolent virus of loving life all over you.

Drone Boy Reflects

Posted on by meltingneurons
To the top mother fucker.

There is a gaping pressure to perform
and become something more inline
with the standard expectation
that we all face daily. To become
a contributing and upstanding
shill to the mockery lifestyle of
the norm. Where an unabridged story
of what life has really been like
would cause discordant gasps
and choking on $7 coffees. A land
of spreadsheets and data with endless
phonecalls and emails to confirm
that we are all part of this droll
and seemingly futile empire of dreams.
Each moment will be etched as gray
as the moment prior and only
punctuated by the sycophantic
bleating that denotes contrived success.
But there can be joy milked
from every endeavor, every adventure
and journey of any kind. For all I lament
the necessity of this change
I recognize that this, as so much else in life,
is temporary in passing. A gateway
to attain a degree of comfort for myself
and those that I care deepest about.
Walking through the door framed
in expectations is a moment of sacrifice
and service to the good nature of love
where we are willing to endure,
seek to excel, survive and adapt
all for the promise of a more easy smile.
Once the game begins, I enjoy the race
rat or otherwise. I’m programmed
to enjoy the chase, the thrillingly mundane,
the average existence. In some ways
I know the unsuspected truth of experience,
let it guide into appreciation for opportunities
and a day not on the street or going hungry.
For the leakless roof overhead
the potential for participating in the world.
I hate the side of me that is drooling
at having funds available and the luxuries
that they provide. Its almost as though
my inner monsters haven’t been sated,
are waiting for the next opportunity to scorch
away the meat and tender outline
of my flesh gone to pasture in the haze
where hard living is the only pleasure to be found.



Homeless Idols

Posted on by meltingneurons
House the Homeless - from Council to Homeless Persons
Truth.

Dystopian cartwheels in the caterwauling life we lead
staring constantly at the satisfaction all around.
Bitching occasionally to satisfy unmet desires
that we struggle to attain even at unreasonable cost.
The hunt for happiness overwhelms the basics
and sometimes its worth it whatever the price.
Disciples of a daily rut where we stay stuck and mired
deeply in the mud of a situation not planned for.
In the moments of joy where our desire for completion
coincides with our faithful love and devotion,
we find a peace despite the discord that is without compare.
In the moments where we falter under the weight
surviving as only survivors can and are willing to do,
we have to remember the strength we share to stumble on.
Nothing becomes the norm and requests for aid
cut as a degrading act that dehumanizes us further.
Outlasting the shame of each failure and the disgust it brings
resolutely waking each morning to the grim gray of sameness.
As upper class homeless we are on the outskirts,
enjoying luxuries like cold running water and a toilet,
that the rest of goddamn society imagines are god given.
Fear that the envy of our possessions will lead to thievery
leads us to close the door and have knives on hand.
Eating another can of soup in mid-summer heat
because the soup kitchens provide cans and bread regularly
and its too goddamn expensive to purchase a real meal.
Endlessly pretending that things will just fix themselves
because the reality of work necessary to get out of this situation
is beyond daunting, it’s easier to capitulate and get high.
Holding tight to special items because they are memories
encapsulated in the fur of a stuffed animal or favorite shirt.
When you’ve lost it all so many times before
the littlest things can have such an enormous significance
you might even indulge in a treasure box for safe keeping.
Solid week long stretches without bathing
because the $7 per person to shower at the truck stop can’t be found.
People look at you with mixed contempt and confusion
because if you dress nicely and present well
it defies logic that you should be in such a predicament.
Putting on makeup diligently just to feel pretty for a moment
scrape the grunge of sweat stained skin stickily from your body.
Oh yes, there is freedom to be found if you chose to indulge
and let the wash of illicit and irregular activities become your home.
A beer and some vodka to wash down the weather and heat
along with the anxious discord of stress over the unknown of tomorrow.
A shot or a bowl of glass to provide focused determination
the confidence to strive for success into the oncoming crush
or an opportunity to zone out and lose days at a time without emotion.
Some black tar to sleep peacefully and stay dazed
no thought and no fear, no nothing at all because you’ve gone dead inside.
Its a slide down into a pit of needles and loss
where the bottom can always fall out and take you lower,
lower than you ever imagined possible in such insidious ways.
Bravo to those that soldier their way out of the muck
find themselves a spot of sanity and personal identity
allow themselves the grace of overcoming through grit.
Fucking monsters of life having been torn through the gutter
when they stand proud and defiant despite their obstacles
applaud those hard mother fuckers that didn’t give in,
defied all the odds and managed to rejoin the world on their own terms.