1.The Middle Distance
Somewhere in the east：early morning：set off at dawn, travel
round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it
up for ever never grow a day older technically. --James Joyce,
Ulysses
Waking up with the sunrise
Running fast enough to the west
Forever fallow your shadow
Never allowing it to shorten
It's a youth without ever ending
It's a death with nothing to show
Just a life spent negating
Screaming no, no, not what I wanted at all
In between the two letters
The firsts in the alphabet
Navigating the expanse
Separating them on a map
Is a swamp covered over in water
Overgrown over sediment
That'll bury a traveller
Sinking slow slow slow till it's all overhead
Down down down
So we fight to flee towards the lives that we wanted
Leave behind all the murdered air
Then find we aren't what we were when we started
Lost, old, removed from the things we once cared
How those years start to weigh
How the reflexes slow
How the passionate days
Grow increasingly dull
There is so much to say
When the tide is out low
But it is trite it is vain
When the moon starts to pull
There's a space in the seam between hate sewn to love
And I know what it means to live in the undone
When you've stopped your retreat but you're unsure at what
You want to re-raise your gun
If you should re-raise your gun
I've been lost in between all the gaps separating the atoms
I've been trapped in the billboard fonts lining the highways
All I want is the middle distance
Where the solids have definition
To risk defeat find meaning without just running away
2.Back Stage Room
I'm living it up in a back stage room
Chasing the sleep from exhausted eyes
Each moment enthroned and paraded through streets
We wave and we scream as it passes by
Can't reconcile the life I knew
The forgotten basement ignored nights
Holding signs on the corners so hungry will work
Watching eyes fast divert and then drive on by
The trees always falling in silence
No crash, no bang just an emptiness
The trucks drive away with trunks tied down, secured
To bring back a little of the forest
That's how it's going to go
As long as we keep on building
I just pack my bags and leave
Losing my grip of a back stage room
As habit devours and colors die
Chasing the moments through blockaded streets
I beg and I plead, oh god don't pass me by
Can't you just move in and stay
The streetlights give as the brighter sun arrives
The past night slips to the memory's broken drives
With all the roads we will never again
Walk down strange and foreign
But there's hope just over the edge of the horizon
I'll find a home in these back stage rooms
But never get used to the passing time
3.What I've Missed
The window's a mirror when the sun is a light bulb
There's some beer in the fridge it'll help take the edge off
But if the last one was emptied out last night
Then it's a block through the rain to a well lit corner store
An ambulance wail undulates in the distance
Does not reveal the direction it travels
Will it get further away
Or drive right down this street
My scenery built with
A stranger's tragedy
And I tragically
Try to fight for the cause but then marry the martyr
Is that statue that stands in the park a celebrity
If so does it get its own groceries
Just like me
Does it forget the list
And then get lost in the isles
Walk in circles aimless
Looking for what it has missed
There's something I've missed
So I'll put on my shoes
Grab my hat and my coat
Turn off all the lights
Turn the locks and walk alone
Passed the houses, and storefronts, and streets
By all the people I'll never get to know
Till I stop at your front door
I hope that you are home
4.Uncharted Lands
The coffee spilled, an unsteady table,
Drying ring that gets darker at the edge
The sleep that lingers long in my red eyes
Creases from my bed
Still mapped along my arms and stubbled face
Contrasting sharply with the rest of the room
Where mothers sit with children
Businessmen eat lunch dressed in suits
I exhale an ellipses and a question mark
The things I have to say
The assurance this will work
The shadows of doubt start to swell into an audible cry
You need to leave from edge of the uncharted lands
The dark spots on maps where no person has ever been
Just give up, go back to California
Go back to where you lived
But I won't go home
All the second thoughts the minute decisions
In the hours we will never recall
The days we thought our weakness unconquerable
The nights too long
But a month can find a change in position
Sometimes a year is what it takes to realize
All the forward flailing found a foundation
A purpose in time
If I leave from the edge of the uncharted lands
Those dark spots on the map where I was hoping I could stand
Just give up, go back to California
Well what happens then
I'll keep heading towards the edge of the uncharted lands
Those dark spots on the maps where no cartographer has been
Won't give up and go back to California, this is where I live
I am home
5.Answers For Change
The red tinted cardboard turns green as the cars pull away
A rinsed out fast food fountain cup holds the answers for change
It's not very much but it might be enough for a drink
Passersby keep their sight straight like horses in parades
Or else tap their pockets, shrug shoulders, sorry not today
I like mine on the rocks or else as a shot when toasting
It may burn a bit but I don't mind the taste
The wrecking ball breaks through the walls that were shoddy and
old
But wrecking balls can't clean the mess, can't build back, can't
uphold
And I've had a ball
The adrenaline rush takes some time to retreat from the veins
Still flustered and flushed on the drive home from having our
say
But at night all alone the signs tend to humiliate
My active attempts to not do anything
But you found something undisputed and true
It endures like a morning commute
And forgives when you thought you were doomed
It reminds through the whole of your day
That there's more than just what's in the way
A clarity above the haze
A straight exiting from the maze
A finish line so worth crossing
Give me five minutes and I'll tear it down all the same
6.The Things I Hate
It's the sin not the sinner I'd insisted out loud to keep my
hands clean
But the line often blurred when it was there at all, often
disappearing
In church cushions where I couched my blame and distaste for
everything challenging
Progress on a path, simple in syntax, but complex and
constraining
And draining
Soon circles of hell emptied out and refilled with lies of our
history
Corporate control, leaders and their thrones, I accused and
found guilty
From a place far away where my cluster bomb blame I'd watch
detonating
Removed from the stain of blood, the tattered remains of all
that I hate
Until nothing remained and I was alone
With a the feeling that I've gone about this entirely wrong
Is it too late to fight for a simpler struggle
To forget that I'm me, to forget if I'm right, and cling to the
subtle
Breathe in the ring, the harmonizing of different voices saying
different things
Is it better to forget the words or to never sing？
I've always been good at finding the problems with everyone else
That's the main problem that I have with myself
7.A Good Sense Of Style
On the edge of a curbside cliff
A red tipped cane
A higher pitch
A head canted slightly and straining for sounds of
Oncoming traffic while filtering out
Neighborhood kids ／ a Hey how have you been
A top 40 song ／ from an upstairs window
The memory of ／ dancing all night
The screeching of tires on streets unrelated
The windows of storefronts stand mute
I've felt extremities grow numb in the snow
I fought the insurgency then left it alone
My fireworks turned into shorter arms
But I still have my camera
Your favorite films ／ a good sense of style
Dinner and drinks ／ dancing all night
A stranger's sheets ／ the crushing weight
Can't find the blueprints start building the top floor
Lay tile, then brick, pour cement
If you're not busy
We should get coffee
And take a walk down to the James one night
We'll sit near the water, say nothing, till our heartbeats
Are heard louder than the gathering cars
In the city as the sun comes up
I've felt extremities grow numb in the snow
I fought the insurgency then left it alone
I've lost a lot of things that I used to own
An autobiography, the shivering cold
But I still have my camera
8.The Oregon Trail
Buying boxes, bubble wrap, and packaging tape
Emptying all the drawers out and throwing away
The coupons expired, the ticket ignored
There's no need to park here anymore
I have whiskey on my breath and I'm stammering
A slurred request for something stronger in my next drink
I don't have the courage to speak
Title page, previous works
Dedicate to spouse and to son
A foreword, a prologue, brief epigraph
You're gonna fail in Latin
Crossing the room here feels like crossing rivers
In a video game I played when I was ten
The worst part is right now I can't remember
One good thing happening
I have whiskey on my breath and I'm stammering
A slurred request for something stronger in my next drink
All the whiskey on my breath it is ruining
Any chance I'll get to not embarrass myself
Walk up to you and say hello
9.Tinnitus
A couple rings, brief message, then the tone
Hello it's me, it's been so long, I'll be home
Just one night next week we should meet up grab some drinks and
maybe food
I would love to see you
An hour late, I should have known, it's so you
To make me wait, to cause scene, when you walk in the room
Watch the heads all turn in silence as the conversations cease
You'd smile, then sit by me
Another drink I stir, restless thoughts drift away
To car windows, defrosters, secluded space
And the light on the edge of the sky as it creeps over mountains
and plains
The coming of dawn and the time that remains
The loudest of songs you should never let fade
But the silence you left is so deafening
My ears won't stop ringing
We owned the unrestraint
Of summer's sudden rain
Foolish minds will make their plans
But restless hearts don't stand a chance
I loved you once but I just couldn't stay
The wrong end lit of cigars unclipped
We failed on the beach that night to smoke
Then threw away, blushed laughing, naively hope
That the light on the edge of the sky wouldn't spread over
mountains and plains
The coming of dawn how it kills what remains
The loudest of songs you should never let fade
The silence you left is so deafening
My ears won't stop ringing
And not follow the roads out to their unpaved ends
Just to find you asleep in my bed
I left to chase the distant horizon
I chose to regret you instead
Still alone at the bar waiting for you to show
Keep watching the door but I already know
Pay my tab find the floor with stumbling feet
Make my way through the crowd to the quiet street
My ears won't stop ringing
I loved you once but I had to leave
It's what I tell myself at night
Before I fall asleep with cold sheets by my side
10.To Live How We Believe
Fast lane with the stereo loud
Crashes hard in the back of your throat
Monotone at the bus stop
A single line feeling so lost
In all the rooms that repeat a familiar routine
A sigh and a stare start the day
Pick up a keychain with two keys
But only one that you still need
It's so hard to leave pessimism
When all the facts seem to support the case
But you try anyway
To live how we believe in god
Always searching for a sign of proof
There exists a transferable thought
A lens we both see through
Cause I've been feeling alone a lot
And I was hoping that maybe there could be some way to...
Say a sentence or two that could get through to you
How memory adulterates
They dress in our own clothes
Another's words we'll never know
On the side of the road I am watching unfold
Another embarrassed defeat
If this is always a lost cause
Than what am I here for
Cause all I want is to leave cynicism
But I don't think I have that kind of faith
To just throw it away
And then live how we believe in love
Holding tight to every sign of proof
It exits, that there's something above
Our weak and fragile truths
Cause I've been feeling hopeless a lot
And I've been thinking that maybe
If I stood in the same spot
For a couple weeks unmoving
If I slowed down my talk
Stretched the syllables out lengthy
Could you see where I'm standing
Finally hear what I'm trying for
I've been wraithlike lately
I don't want to feel like that anymore
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