Howling Madly
 

Inkstains
One by one words fall
From shaking fingers
Inkstained by memories unsaid
Written in a fading hand
Unaware the pen has run out
Scribbled on the back of envelopes
Til the space is gone and the words remain
Always the words remain
Tattooed on the soul
Inkstained memories burning with unlit passions
And half contained madness
Just trying to bleed through
Until even your eyes are inkstained red
From liquid tears splattering on the floor
Leaving tearmark tragedies

Howling Madly
 

Ghosts
I watch the mirror
Expecting to see the ghosts of myself
Each a little different
Each still the same
Grading me on the man I am becoming
Each haunting with the girl, the boy, the changeling I was
I watch expecting a glimmer of a different face
But they are all me
They are in my eyes
Laughing and crying
Watching the world as it changes around us

I am not the road traveler
I am no Kerouac
Though I know his ghost
I am the mad eyed poet
Forever lost
Howling to a universe
That does not know how to listen
Banging my head against a wall of bureacracy
Too scared to find the door
I am not the underpaid overworked poor
I am the man who lives on goverment checks
And air
A whole lot of air
I am not the wandering lover
I am the midnight whisper in the air
The howl of ghost wolves on the wind
The secret that only the stars know
And only the moon will ever tell

Burn, Burn, Burn
I know not what else to do
I laugh at my own incompetence
Delighting in my striking madness
Dripping ink on pages typed by a typewriter
Older then me by 50 years
I listen to the sound the keys make
Tap,,,tap,,,tap... ching
Page after page after page
Meaningless letters
Go back through and correct
With bitten up pencil
And that G-d damned leaking pen
Fingers stained with progress
Or is it defeat
Murdering innocent words
Give up put it away in closet
Use computer for a while then there's delete
Don't change it now post direct
Only form of courage is hitting send
And even then it's mostly madness
But madness given form
Given breath though little depth
No crime in being shallow
As long as you admit
Now where did I put that G-d damn leaking pen
It's time to bang on the typewriter again

I watch it drip
It's all I can smell
Even the antiseptic doesn't overpower it
It's a crimson that is beautiful
I stare at it knowing it will stain
Oh well that's what peroxide is for
I lay back and turn on music
Just a couple of hours
I can handle it
Just a couple of hours
Glance at the clock
Only 15 minutes done
G-d I hate being confined like this
If you call me princess one more time
No I do not have a girlfriend yet
Even if I did I wouldn't tell you
Swallow down the near involuntary snarl of frustration
Smile glance at clock
Why the hell did I forget my computer
Try to ignore the beeps
Try to ignore the moans
Try to ignore the smell
Med time oh joy
Nausea for another day
Glance at clock
Only 10 minutes left
Okay I can handle that
Pull the needles
Damn but this always hurts
But I've had worse
Tape me up
Leave trying to ignore small talk
Oh it's finally light
Thank G-d I have a full day off
Then I go back
To ignore the copper scented hell again

Sit on the shore
Water lapping at my feet
Watching the wind change the water
Lay back palm fronds whispering
Close eyes
Ignore the call of gulls
Nap a bit
Get up stretch run
Splashing in the water
Dry off and leave
Just another day in paradise

Rain
Drip...drip...drip
Falling down from sobbing heavens
Crying for a world that knows not how to grieve
Drip...drip...drip
Splattering on the sidewalk
Tearstains of the earth
Drip...drip...drip
Endless suffering pain

Howling Madly
 

Hey Mr. Kerouac
Got a question for you
Did you know what would happen?
All because of that book you wrote before 1952
Did you ever guess you'd be the voice of a crowd?
Did you know that your screams would be so loud?
Hey Mr. Ginsberg
I really loved Howl
I loved the passion the pain the...
Just wow
Could you of guessed
You'd bring the red stamps down
Or were you really just writing to make a sound
Hey Mr. Burroughs
We haven't yet met
Your voice isn't as loud as those other guys yet
I know we've got some shit in common
Maybe tomorrow I'll find you
Forgotten mustering in the stacks
And then a friendship for the ages perhaps
Beatnics Beat Sound Repitition Unscripted Prose
Different voices
Screaming Words
Painting Pictures
Making sure we all were not lost
The American Voice given sound

Tearstained tragedies
Bitter with hurt and memories
Falling onto unforgiving pavement
Where they spread finding cracks
From madness induced rage
Slamming down a sledge hammer of heartache
Mixing with inkstains from memories
There they lay staining the blood of our souls
Made real

I have a stack of vintage photographs
What used to be called french postcards
Naughty women in black and white and sepia
Heavenly creatures with sultry curves and dead eyes
Did those old pictureboxes truly take their souls?
Trapped on paper and tin
Held there as they fade
Until only crumbles of paper and dusty ink last
In the cigar box under my bed

If words were like raindrops
Noah's flood would only half approach
The untamed longing in my heart
To please my gentle lover
She who whispers in tender carresses
Inspiration
Yet I drown sometimes when cruel mistress she becomes
Trying to swallow around words
Being torn to shreds by emotion
I cannot convey
Until I lie in broken sharded sanity
Weeping ink and sobbing sonnets
A broken battered beloved
Yet still I shall crawl
On hand and knee to worship at her feet
For she is inspiration
My muse who stands hidden
A ghost in my shadow
Brave daughter of memory thy name is Calliope

I am madness
A screaming soulborn lost boy
Genderfucking anarchist with wild eyes
I hide it
Carefully conceal it
With gentlemanly ways and dark glasses
With expressive hands and 1930s grace
I am the son of my grandfather
The laughing trickster running from growing up
But desperately wanting to grow old
Saving pennies in a jar
For a life I think I'll never live
But embracing the worse of Pandora's curses
I hope

Mr Wilde just so you know
You still make young men feel
Untethered by the limitations of rigid societal obligation
You tell us we lay in the gutter
But you implore to stare at the stars
Well in paltry words and feeble phrases
I reach grasping at ink dark eternity
Where crystalline brilliance twinkles
Fighting impending madness by embracing it
And laughing in my shallowness
Still your words delight
Pervasive comprehensible dribble
But deliciously decadent in thought
Let me hide my paintings so I may live forever
Wrapped up in a serenity of words

I write in the shower
At 3 in the morning
Because I can't sleep
Little kids markers that wipe off the wall
That bleed from the spray coming off me
Sometimes I wear my clothes
Family doesn't ask anymore
Quite frankly don't want to know
It's hard to explain but it's nice
A way to let out angry jumble
Wash it down the drain
Works better then scribbling on envelopes
With a pen run dry

I’m screaming raging in the night
Laughing in the maddening delight
Searching for ectasy down a bottle
Breaking down insanity on typewriter keys
Sitting in the buggy humid hell
In boxers and Converse
Chest bound old school
Speedtyping oblivion
I am a trans queer madman
Lost in my own mind

I am no poet
I am a fire eyed fraud
Who taps at letters
Rambling mumbling
Incompetent
Nothing I create
Is Shakespeare
So I can not be a monkey with a typewriter
No I am ruled by emotion
So in the world of Wilde all I make is bad poetry
I have no sense of form
No concept of structure
I have never had a conversation with a comma
I am a grammatical anarchist
I am no poet
I simply sit down at a typewriter and bleed
So maybe Papa would say I'm a writer

My imagination is in a box
It sits on a shelf beside my heart in its cage
It has a lock on it
But it breaks often and escapes
Then it roams doodling on the walls
In a magic marker that won’t scrub off
It makes funny faces at me
Trying to get a response
Some days I ignore it as it babbles
Incoherent in the back of my mind
Others I embrace it and we laugh like jackals
Dancing about like we dwealt in Bedlam
And sing out the troubles of the world
For the vorpal blade to slay