Five AM

  I’d fallen out my window at five o’ five AM/just to find I’ve never slept a morning at all,
awaking out the right side of the bed, still feelin’ green-eyed & blue,
‘cause I’ve something weighing me down – just another yawn long gone,
& the midnight sky is my ceiling/the stars my bride, the moon my nightlight–
keep me safe from the thoughts flowing me ‘round the warmth you endowed,
& I never fallen out’ve the window with you around,
‘cause it’s somethin’ I can’t explain – somethin’ no one needs said,
& if anyone wants themself half-an-hour of a drout drownin’ em inside
the orphan sidewalks & guttered impressions, comparing the next towns
over as somewhere else a better way to live & be,
I’ll never have another window so completely clean–
& shooting out my eyelids, I just haven’t fallen out’ve my window yet.
Hardly sleeping away the afternoon, since you’ve – been dead.

  Outskirts moon, how do you like to tarnish my strengths & spirit?
Admitting to myself the distances I’ve stripped myself thin over,
& without all the miles walked back in Middletown, New Jersey
to see a girl I’ve never met before in all my wildlife unslept without a blanket
& half a wish to keep in mind, running far from the craziness another’s life
swallowing ‘em to the cold-hardened rain & snow, leaving them alone.
For if I’m on my knees set for prayer, holding your hand again another Light
so bright I can’t even close my eyes; t’ keep from watching the flicker dim
& burn miraculously over the Dream World several houses over,
& will you ever shine against the warmth a Summer’s carnival brings?
For the art districts just on the other side of town, & you’d grace the heights
I would’ve sworn was meant just for me & my sun arriving to flee/
never hearing once the twice-forsaken leaving Sister Day.

  Asking for the late night bar-hungry flies to come & make me a drink forgotten,
‘cause it’s nothing new I’ve ever said, wonderin’ all the lives that’ve been dead
some out throughout all centuries looking for food, like an overhead spared sparrow
ignored; creepin’ for my knuckle’s skulls to digest with zest & admitted lust severed
& spayed, lookin’ absurd the memories dancing along the skylines of Ohio.
Am I the fool lookin’ for love abused, got the night on a mind abused– & surely
it’s someone with a saxophone riding the snails of the blues courteous & fair,
red-haired silhouettes rising for all the sun; I’ve never a love burnt like this remembered,
for the train tracks passing through my yard smile each & every night I haven’t been
around – thru this town/forgotten - flip-sided up & spiraling down/into myself I seem,
& though the face the stage for all displayed & call-against know what it is I think,
I just can’t let her see what it is she’s done to – any side of me,
nor even the single greatest friend never really seen, some person I’ve caught
in the butterfly nets of all I’ve been, a bloodshot moon & sapphire lust dropped.

  Follow me the depths I’ve no courage on my own for seek,
so if you’d be a piano so kind to me this night I think I’d say
somethin’ you’ve heard before, haven't you, all the nights you’ve snored?
Wakin’ up for the afternoon’s hollering forces draggin’ your sorry shoulders
from limited lament to abandoned porch-steps crusty & ragged,
like that ol’ dime jagged first love of yours sworn behind the soldier lines long
ago — & I don’t know anything about myself ‘cept I love a saxophone,
& five-thirty AM curfews of the waining night, like some crystal November ghost
hard on my footsteps of everyone I used to know, & I wouldn’t feel so all alone
if I wasn’t stoned into the dust of a century tenfold,
but alright are the agreeable hour lights, welcoming me all their homes–
& first I’d ever slept the winks of a pattering light my moans so young & my
tears so old; without the hand a depths I’ve walked behind those who left before;
never returned a smiling grace/placed within the hands I’ve erased, again.
At least – I – think.

  Out on the boardwalks, I hear her shivering sigh escaping heavy from
far away, & with nothing I can do of the never-touched infant, of the
never-dreamed instant wishing themselves a wingspan drifting away.
I could begin a song  somber some & true,
I could begin a story overtold & through, with the frozen spines beside the
cries loose, but I've no footsteps worth walking towards anymore,  these highways
are too skewed, I'd packed up all my freedom inside Augusta, Georgia, anyway.
The cold signs my friend, & the blisters on my eyes my best lover;
the signs reminding me of her my own universe,
& nobody knew me, & nobody cared enough to say they
never saw me high & confused, as high as the sensualist in the overbearing
bored town below– far from the escapable world I’ve admitted myself the
island asylums swam above the gorgeous portraits painted in th’ sky,
even though my mind edges for a gem in my eyes, at the bottom of
every shivering sighfar away from my – lonesome special mind
I’ve no claim to perceive for love.

  & I stare still at the ceiling without a gall to move a breath,
without repair what I’ve helped create once repeated-twice the aching memory left,
beside the orange-tailed images stripped naked beneath my window impaired,
it’s only the merit of any truth I’ve put any investment towards nourishment
to grow, & she’s too young for this too live alone–
but she has him, & he has the parts of her I’d only dreamed about burning bright
& out’ve the other side of a melancholy moon singing its own song without rhyme,
without whine or voice; without the hiccup of a stumbling memory to walk-through.
& at the moment, curled inside the now-distant pearls of unwalked balconies in hand,
conjuring up the puddle’s stories of all told friends walking each other home, all smiles--
all stupid incidents just another scar-mark’s adventurous harken upon experience
from bar-stool to the carnival’s songs & several-thousand mile-high whisky coasters fed
into the tubes of every grain of sand passing into both their exchanged kisses & mouths enclosed,
though I’ve never heard the tears of the wind pass through without a breath,
& I’ve still the gall to stare at the ceiling unmoved.

  Can you sing me the blues? Can you show me all you’ve thought about,
& make me believe all you’ve seen inside the images of your opened mind,
& closed eyes? Would you ever share with me the dreams you’ve seen unheard,
even thought to make yourself so crazy inside? With whatever they’re about,
I’ve no idea nor concern. Just to talk myself into a stupor's all I’m worth,
all I’ve got goin’ for cash & pay off the debts for a full-month’s service of
suicidal tendencies looming my shoulders, & whippin’ up the backsides of my ass, throwin’ away discarded ash for a smile unheard.
Can you sing me your loneliness? Could you sing me your adventures?
Or do I have to smack you upside the head just for a bit of inch of truth?
It’s nothin’ new; repression’s all the rage, I’m her number one fan.
‘Cause she sings to me the blues.
Like an old Valentine’s ideal swept under the rug, with no one showing their love,
of whatever it means in someone else with half of a half-crass day, half-forgotten & rotten inside the broken streets of no dreams,
no aspiration’s I’ve seen from the eyes so cold,
lonely as I– as low as the sensualist in the overbearing boring town below,
it was here I met her a year & a half ago; with just a cinematic preview to play,
& hope up for another conversation saved, forgetting all the best things said–
though the stars still burnt brightly, & the next yard overhead brought us to California,
where I slept next to a 3-year-old friend doped up on fields,
trudging through Italy’s riveria; & I’d be luckier to walk around everywhere
I go if I wasn’t such a blind piano following me as I fall out
the window/just to find I’ve still never slept a complete morning at all.
‘Cause I’ve something weighing me down – just another yawn long gone at six o’ five AM.