I used to hang out in abandoned buildings.
Old machine shops with puddles of rainwater pooled up on the floor;
sun or star light visible between broken and failing rafter beams
and the holes in the ceiling and my eyes.
Sometimes there would be particle board hammered into the brick
where heavy glass windows once stood;
tacked all about with bright yellow and pink postings warning
people like me to stay out and to not trespass under penalty of law.
The warning signs made me nervous because I don’t like to get in trouble.
Sometimes I would notice abandoned spaces while
driving up route 11 - Scranton, Pennsylvania.
I would park and discern through google maps on how
to gain access to yet another relic of American industry before
Wall Street reinvented slavery and shipped the spirit
of the Rust Belt to Mexico and Bangladesh and China and
various sweatshops overseas.

I had a lot of spare time to walk up and down the Wyoming Valley, northeast PA,
looking for the abandoned skeletons of buildings
into which I could furtively enter and abide.
Friday night, long week, punch the clock, no plans - no problem.
It was me and my two feet,
a long walkabout winding through the annals of my memories,
maybe some take out for dinner and all is well.
Don’t get me wrong, I had friends.
I’ve been to many places and I’ve seen many things.
I’ve faced many hardships but I always found a
posse or a partner with whom I could abide in peace and cheerful community.
That is before I would up and leave them abandoned in the wreckage of
my slow motion odyssey of self destruction;
dusting the bones of my many friendships with the many
chem trails from the many jet planes from the many tickets booked
by my father to save me from the many demons gnawing on my neck and heart.
Goodbye florida. Good bye guam. Goodbye california.

Abandoned buildings are safe.
There is a comforting predictability in their steady dilapidation.
There are no standards of social etiquette by which to adhere.
There is no small talk through which manufactured smiles show their teeth.
There are no ****** expressions and body postures to monitor
and reflect back what adjustments in countenance and demeanor I must make.

My face was a Greco-Roman mask.
Stretched and dried out, suspended somewhere between a comedy and a tragedy.
My face is the furthest frontier of my soul song,
the outermost edge of my heart.
That through which sound passes.

"She's long ago forgotten me."
"I hope she finds me in lonely rain."

We were in love with someone we can't keep or save.
We were in fight with that reality, we called it love and hate.
We were in suffer for this tragedy we called romance.
We were in trapped the way it called game, but nobody knows how ready they are.
The tragedy we called romance, the way the heart's broken, the adrenaline when we were in love.

"It's too late to grow a beautiful flower with the same sun in the wild street", said the man who was sitting on the park bench eating his own ****.

I’ve written enough small poetry
to start a nuclear war.
Do you want to die in traffic
behind the wheel of your car? Or in yr rodeer camp next fall.

Control eludes us. The hero
loses urinary control, the unified nation
loses missile control, lost my timepiece, lost my metronome,
now my music is ethereal as an archangel’s.

No owl hoots or duck quacks
or squirrels *******
or spiders spanning rampikes.
The floccinaucinihilipilification of nature.

No greater tragedy than a tipping
point that tests the hero’s gullibility, complicity,
self-control, comity, sense of humor
which is the only remedy not to hate those in authority.

Them guys with guns at the Michigan state house,
fat bearded tattooed ******* white bros.
Norsemen, Crusaders, Vikings, Britons.
For despair there is no forgiveness. Peace out.

Nuclear mischief, mad Man’s most incandescent bloom
and the devil who exists to carry the load
when we misbehave and fight among ourselves.
I wake up to my skin boiling off my bones.

Humor is the only remedy, or is ardor the best way forward.
We’ll see how things work out in the next generation.
The same diverse, spoiled, unpatriotic revolutionaries as at the nation’s
      beginning
trying to reverse the future, making phone calls to get out the vote in
      Georgia, hating the desert for having no water.

Events keep piling up,
the future depends on ourselves.
Conflict is inevitable and in this conflict power must be challenged by
      power
so err on the side of patience, perseverance and impermanence.

Her fairest words not an apology,
Words that bother me, eating her up,
'All that your are is swallowing me; doubting me,
feeling cowardly:' But not what you want to be:
For daily days so hourly, judging men horizontally,
screaming in your head 'acknowledge me,'
'And just apologise to me':

Back when the world was loving,
You for your chest, interests in *******;
They're spending pays on and invest,
Leaving children eggs on your nest:
None of them did impress, but only did undress:
Leaving your hair in a mess, and moving onto the next:
With their sins stealing your bless: To Pastors,
how do you confess? The gave you more,
but made you feel like less:

Child how do you love;
As you're sick of what some of
Them speak of when, they say it's young love?
Taking your portion, and happiest emotions,
Bare on your flesh like erosion,
Rubbing against you like- Their body lotion:

I do try to love you for you,
But can't relate to what you've been through:
They've stuck their hurts on you-
Like glue, more than one time or two:
They used you, abused you, tossed you,
away, straight after they ******* you: Threw you,
Found their release through you: Lining up,
To view you in a-
Queue, fitting their sizes in a small shoe:

I now understand why,
You are who you are in the first verse.
Giving them your worst, from those who
stole your worth: Hands in a bag-
Stealing inside your pursue. So hard for you
To converse, hoping to be anyone else in the entire universe:
I see how it hurts, and how quick you curse:
Told to move forward; trying to have,
All your pains and struggles go in reverse:
They gave you their love by force,
And all of the times it did leave a hurt:
Without remorse, making you their main course.

So as I write this verse,
With tears through the pain of your teen years:
Those darkest moments and your fears. All of those,
Left you after a night shift; shifting their gears:
But I'll try my best dearest sister,
To be right here. When those demons-
Try creeping back in: When the lights are so dim:
But I don't know where you've been,  
But I'll share all of your hurts like a twin.

Raise your chin;
Clear you're skin,
And help you fix what's broken from within.

Pen this verse-
For all of them to know;
That you don't have to face the hurt alone:
Don't feel like you're all on your own,
You could be whole, even if the process is slow:
But I'll help piece back together your shattered Soul.

MOVEMENT I (written to be performed on tárogató, accompanied by acoustic guitar)

"The morn rises o'erhead
The baker bakes the daily bread
The people smell the blooming roses
Happiness in smaller doses

The children go off to their school
And think learning is ever so cruel
But they'll wish these days back
Everyone will wish these days back

Glowing rays crown the apartments
It is, in return, dubbed glorious hence
Though the clouds will later darken
And the air will taste of iron"

MOVEMENT II (written to be performed on baritone saxophone)

"Radiant, glowing
Destructive but invisible
The naked eye suffers
The body faulters and wilts
Crime and agony
Pain and suffering
Endless, endless throes of woes
Breaths draw short
The air becomes thin
The water grows darker
Blackness overtakes
This is the realm of Death
Come to take ye
Who dare tempt his fated word.

You, whose body fails
Whose organs rupture and fall apart
I suggest you tell your fellow man
Die screaming
The alternative is far more sinister."

MOVEMENT III (written to be performed on contrabass clarinet, accompanied by prepared electric guitar and bowed cymbals)

"Bloom (wilt)
Grow (die)
Sane (mind)
Must (cry)
...
Decay (decay (decay (decay (decay))))
And a reminder for the future folk:
Bury your dead far beneath."