I left this town in 75
a dumb drunk ****

or as a friend once
poetically observed
"a beer quaffing linebacker"

but tonight I return
an enlightened poet
ready to recite
a stack of poems
eight years and two days
removed from my last drink

now relishing
the sweet intoxication
of drinking in
seas of words and letters,
brading a life's narrative with
solitary lifelines of truth

This town knew me

I know this town

The pomp and circumstance
of my high school commencement
occurred in this very place

I know the exact spot
near St. Mary
where Moose was killed
that awful
Good Friday evening.

After enjoying
the team revelry
at a Saturday Night
victory party;
I ran my hand across
the scarred Poplar
on West Passaic Avenue
that abruptly ended
Fic's life.

I slink past the house
filled with heinous memories
of my youth, cringing
through relived nightmares
of my father brutalizing
my naked mother in
an alcoholic rage;
and remain busy
trying to lick the still
raw sting of running wounds
inflicted by a mother
consumed with a
raging bitterness of
self righteous resentments.

Beer, *****,
Strawberry
Boone's Farm
and lotsa rolled bones
destroyed my family home,
murdered childhood
friends and greased
the wheels of
getaway cars in
fruitless attempts
to escape emotional
nightmares.

From where I stand
I can throw a stone
in any direction to mark
the scenes of
a hundred stories
that authored
the constitution
of me.

Across
the street
I can see
the lights burning
in the apartment where
Weehawken Joe
once lived.

Take a look.

He was crazier than
Tony Montana and
like Scarface not a
single lie could
be found in him;
he also possessed
the gift of
the best jump-shot
the Bulldogs ever had.

Years after I left town
I burst into tears
when Buns Hines
broke the news that
Weehawken  Joe
died of throat cancer.

Mortality is a
bitter truth
to swallow.

All along
Park Avenue
old commercial haunts,
save Varrelmann's Bakery
long gone.

Further up the street
my pilgrimage ends at the
WCW homestead.

In the fading light
of a glorious
autumn afternoon
the house appears
rundown, empty,
mournfully shabby.

On an upper floor
a lace curtain gently
flits and darts out an
open window.

I ponder
the words
still dwelling in
the dark closets
haunting the rooms
of this distressed edifice.

I wonder
how they now
sound?

The faint noises
hidden in
dusty corners
moaning a
ghostly presence,
creeping the halls,
clattering about
the kitchen,
bounding through
the living room
in an old beat-up
Red Wheelbarrow;
rolling along
moving to manifest
faintly whispered echos
into fully formed phrases;
liberating expressive sentiments
of a very blue house...

Eight years, two days
removed from a drink,
I'm grasping for letters
fumbling for the words
listening for sounds
churning within me
seeking to release
the revelations
of my truth.

Crosby, Stills Nash & Young
On the Way Home

William Carlos Williams Center
Rutherford NJ
10/02/13

Dream Love when I lay down to sleep, will you lay with me in your dreams?
I ran from the comfort of shadows, into the fear of darkness, turned back again, and saw you.
Saw only the eyes of you, I begged, take my spirit and soul, so I may become a part of you and
you begged give me your spirit and soul so you may become a part of me,
so we may be home alone together, never  apart in spirit and soul.

Who decides life is not worth it?
You?
God?
When you reach this point, questioning living, breathing, you play god.
You feel your mind make,
take,
break
and create
new processes never felt before; a process of passion,
confusion, contradiction and confession.
You strive just by the thought of not surviving.
The
downfall
of a
suicidal
mind.

Painfully and buried deep down the impulses slip out.
Screams for hopes, answers, connections, positive aspirations.
Constantly wondering is this it?
Is this the end?
That your life can never peek again,
so the result of your collapse is an
eternal slumber with the devil by your side.
Whispering in your ear telling you about the ache
and sorrow your sinking heart and conscience feel.
An eternal hell. An eternal anguish, torment, suffering.
Do you stay in the hell on earth or hell in the after life?
You examine all the details
over and over
only thinking of your lonely pitiful life.
Meaningless and outrageous.
Screams moving around trying to get out but only
bouncing back inside of you to find
the little nothingness in which they are in seek of.  
Literally, are taking you in and cutting you into
the smallest treads as possible over and over.
Never letting up to give the one underneath a second break.
Pounding as hard as possible.
Thudding and pulling, twisting and hurting.
Neither end nor good.
You can feel the over whelming sense of your corruption
taking you headfirst and choking your every last breath off.
Cutting it away like a river being eroded by things we cannot control.
Your life you cannot control.
People you cannot control.
You see the only outlet in your mind
but it burdens you with insanity behind it.
Taking life; your own life.
The reasons are bliss.
Sweet tender resolutions freeze
over your tempered thoughts,
fragile thoughts of a
suicidal.
Unaware of the footprint left behind.
Your stomach churns,
stirs
and confusion
sets in once again.
You feel ***** rising in your
throat about to implode
but it’s just an illusion created
in your mind;
hallucinations.
Questions are still increasing
their intensity and passion.
With every moment of aloneness and isolation,
the time ticks away from you until you feel as though
you will fly into a rage.
You take a deep breath;
intense thoughts.
Questioning right verses wrong;
life verses death;
now or never.
Take a step back
and pull the trigger;
welcome to the end.