I was banging on the big wooden front door
with both fists
there were little square windows
each framed with four mitered corners.
I could see into the church
people singing and raising their hands
but I couldn't get in.

I have many dreams at night
almost all of them forgotten
but in this near-waking state
I knew this one meant something
I needed to pay attention.

Pay attention
what a phrase!

Moving my hands and arms
across the canvas
with the brush in two shades of red
lavishing the northeast corner toward southeast
next to blacks and blues.
Yellows now circling like covered wagons
into the blossom of a daisy.
These strokes took care
in praise of pigments
throwing a few coins for toll
just costly enough to
keep me moving west
the sun not yet setting.

There are always doors
or blinds I cannot open
nearly as easily as I would like
too heavy or out of reach.
Patience also costly.
Like attention.

THE SHAPE OF HER LONELINESS

she looked at herself
as if she were someone else
looking at herself

"I'm me & not me!"
she thought on her third whiskey
soon she was nobody

she stared intently
into nothing
Nothing stared back

song on the jukebox
colouring in
her sadness

the song her song
poured itself slowly
into the shape of her loneliness

she cried
without crying
great big invisible tears

she was playing at Life
as if it were a game
she didn't know the rules to

"Oh feet..!" she intoned drunkenly
". . .take me home!"
the street seemed to know the way

she stood still
under a street light
"Beam me up!" she smiled

OF ALL THE KISSES IN ALL THE WORLD, SHE HAS TO WALK SMACK INTO MINE!

I kissed you in
Islip & Liss.

Then once again in
Swaythling . Shipton & Pershore.

Where ever I kissed you
I only ever wanted to

kiss you
more.

I kissed you in
Amberly & Arundel.

Once, I kissed you in
Swale & Sway.

I kissed you all over
in many various places

that I can not remember
today.

I only remember
the kisses

scattered all over England
refusing to fade away.

miles davis blowing sad
and in the ruins of his room
among the empty beer cans

the room where the floor is tilted
like the fun house floor

he wrote his poems
on the back of over due bills

on paper plates flung out the window
like dying daffodils

on those orphaned buildings
on cookman ave


the click clack
and the sad echo
off his duct taped boots
drifting off empty stores

in the soulless town
he gave a heart

the man
axe in hand
chasing tommy down 5th avenue

too soon the night has found you

too soon you left this earth

The music plays its dirgelike tune
repeating it repeating repeating
until it is painful to keep listening,
lonely in its dreary tedium.

I am not sure whether to call this
an ache
or a yearning.

Being enclosed here in this seemingly endless loop
makes me want to jump out of it
onto the ship wreckage floating by me
to find a place with more life and lift
a field of clover and daisies
bees buzzing about the tasks of their short lives.

"SHE LOOKS LIEK SHE STEPPED OUT OF
THE MIDDLE OF SOMEBODY'S BLUES!"

I met a traveller
from a Martian land
who was mortified

that his mask had slipped
and that I could recognise
him/it for what he/it is

"****!" he said
"I paid good money
for this...

guarantied genuine
human
disguise!"

his face flickering
on & off on&off
breaking down into static

"Got it in a sale
it was going cheap
thought I'd got a bargain!"

I laughed
being as I was
from Mercury

and that I must
have a spare
in my emergency alien pack

"Well howsa
'bout that"
he chuckled

and so
faces
in place

we set off
to find us
some real-life earthlings

the Disco ball
turning turning
like a little silver planet

Blondie screaming:
"Ehhh, she's so dull, come on,
rip her to shreds!"