Unpublished Poems

24 Dec 2003
They choke the life from me
in smiling contempt
There is no escape
There is no attempt
Starkly blank my expression now
I can't breathe
I can't see
I can't make a sound
Jackhammer in my chest
Is all you'll hear
Till the blissful end
Though the end is near...

Chunky Tilton 2 Jan 2004
Welcome one and all
To my little patch of dirt
"The keenest place on Earth"
A tractor on the lawn
A shack gone wrong
This was my escape
--and I thought you'd never find me
Simple, dirty existence
at my own leisure
Not at you insistence
Hid behind blackened teeth
and a false beergut
Still made it to mayor,
Let me tell you whut
Fixed elections
& paved the roads
Yeah, I had some fun
A little money
Now I gotta run
--again....

Roadside Story 2 Jan 2004
I sampled the flavors
Tasted and savor'd
The softly season'd hiway
Caught a faint aroma of lost adventure
Follow'd till dawn
Arrived at the light
To find the trail behind me was gone.

Voyage 9 Jan 2004
I stood at the shore
Ebullient w/ dreams
I built a vessel
Beyond all means
Dared the tides to swallow me
Though I couldn't drown
Cast adrift as always
No one noticed
--no alarm to sound
I arrived in the mountains
at the shades of dawn
From there I cannot tell you
I do not know
this foreboding country
I've landed on.

15 Jan 2004
Cage the serpent,
Unrepentant,
Rage the darkness
intermittent
The storm is coming
Sky alive w/ evil force
Stinging rains
Winds off course
End is near
Soon the angel comes
Soon, no more to fear.

17 Jan 2004
If I appear chunky,
a corpulent impostor,
I could be.
For I've spent days out of time
Growing fat w/ imaginary excess
The sluggish crawl thru history
Didn't bring desired happiness.

The Retail Rant 13 February 2004
Leave here,
Leave behind
any hints of humanity
You parasites
You troglodytes
Filthy w/ disease
The disease of
unbridled greed
For your plastic treasure
w/ insipid laziness
for good measure!

24 Feb 2004
In awe of her
her casual beauty
her sweet speech
her aura of love
Yet I could not enter
had my time passed?
Was she my secret goddess
my hidden ideal
Long surpassed?

#2
You take my breath away
But your air's not mine to breathe
--at least not at this moment
So I quietly sit and seethe
Hoping one day to break thru
Break free
of this deep sadness I am beneath.

Feb 2004
I walked into a darkened room
Deprived of sleep
Deprived of dream
Mood has changed
Technicolor glow
Replaced w/ hues so strange
Pall cast over
Years have sobered
Now these ideals
All sealed over
No more for me
Don't ask to see
These are the mocking faces
Quiet unearthly faces
Timeless, mindless
Halls of my own insanity.

Don't mourn for me
I've been dead too long
Intruded on your life
Invaded your dreams
It's all gone wrong
I have come to the end of me
Shall I now give rebirth to myself
So I can finally be free?

May 2004
Street scared visions
We only gaze upon a rare fireshow
In curious states & odd positions
When we have nowhere to go
Dance to a music no one can make
& only you can hear--
Sweet sounds of what never was
& now has disappear'd.

#2
Do not let me forget you
or these cryptic words you speak
You wish to go? Why would you?
Why should I let you?
w/ your manner most unique
a visage speaking to statues
Warm recollections in this dream
Speak silently in riddles
Nothing as it seems.

#3
The stream pours out of me
Cacophonous, undisturb'd
Rhythmic flow of reality
Now altered & perturbed
I shall tell the hidden tale
What is in this shadow'd veil?
Ancient allegories come to life
Spinning silken threads
in elaborate palaces
w/ luxury beds
They send glowing light thru us
When we cry & wail.
How can you take me at my word
When I read the scroll of time?
When I speak of long-lost paradise
Never quite yours or mine?
It could not be the island
Not on this plane
--not truly here to find--
Beyond the cold blue resonating pale
That spreads & now unwinds
We were devour'd once more
I can only tell you how you got there
I can't show you the door.

Solar Boat 18 May 2004
Now we come upon cusp of glowing sunset
Summon the solar boat for our next ferry
Our sacred sweet journey
thru softly breaking waves
thru gently moving tides
will take us to the end of time
Our course leads us in lonely sail
& our private gods
those wonders we still hail
Our mysteries play out as theater
& scrolls of destiny as acting
We do not know that which we see
Alive dead or everlasting
A bearded man older than known time
Greets us at the golden shore
W/ dimming light
we knew strangely once before
We know now what we came for
We now open the sacred door
to walk thru to luxuriant land
fields of grain and honeyed air
Never to look back
Never to want
Never to go anywhere.

Untitled 18 May 2004
Unlimited time
in a runic rhyme
Iron prose
in a robotic mind
Fully intended
now seized as mine
Lost in a file
no one can find.

21 May 2004
The pale curtain of night descends
upon this corner of the world
A banner of soft-shifting darkness
Begins to unfurl
And I descend, as I rose
into sweet shrouded slumber
Do not disturb me
in my clandestine cocoon
--For if you do
you risk my utter destruction
Let not this nightfall's quiet rejoicing
End too soon.

#2
Soft glistening body
lies in mystic rain
Charging the view w/ images
Enchanting & insane
Night's darken'd journey
Perfunctory perambulations
Blind stabs at a heart of lust
Shady dealings
Poor associations...
Lonely abiding creatures
walk thru this metaphysical jungle
To come to us
to be our celebrated teachers
Hoping we will trust.
Curtain lifts and we are alone
Forgotten in the mist
--as dawn breaks w/ ill intent
We must beware of this--
No one hears the wilderness call
No one hears the tree limbs fall
No one knows we exist
or that we could at all.

Memories of Salem 24 May 2004
Warm dusty penetrating air
Greets you on your voyage
into the musty casks of history
into a harsh land now fair
Alive w/ ghosts
& spirits of forsaken time
Alive inside the sacred mine
An image of a woman in black
cries out upon your arrival
w/ impassion'd pleas of sacred state
pleas for holy survival
No ceremony now can be found
in the becalmed fertile green
Once held to a nightmare scene
Now the new exemplars
of a new faith w/ old roots
take up the mantle of these souls
walking paths in scaly silence
in their worn out boots
We are among them as before
Now the castigated masses live on
To fade away nevermore.

Cold sullen blue light upon
my withering face
Shines into deep centers of my eyes
into unresolved space
yet I hear their cries...

15 June 2004
Dark mystic journey
The spiral of blind-sighted reveries
The slideshow of bitter memories
Depart us now
on the old country road
to visit wounded creatures
Grasping for our very souls
Sweet embrace of my old skeletons
Sweet release as they fade away
--You brought me here,
you cursed me
you fill'd my soul w/ noxious air
& show'd me worlds best left buried
So you taught me well
So I no longer care
Blacklighted corners of my hidden room
the shelter inside
foretells of wintry doom
Though before it arrives to pall our doors
Long-day wasted light
echoes thru our bodies
Guides us to forgotten blue lands
Now we understand
Though no longer w/ an end in view
Shadow passes
thru our masses
& we're still me & you.

22 June 2004
I commend myself to this nothing
to this lonesome village
To fly among totems
in a smoky haze
To live w/ out time
in noble days
Now I come to the temple
The Monks of Ramini
live here in structured light
in halls they possess the night
Thru arrogant argument
Proving themselves right
'Tis time now
for me to take flight.

A Wedding Sonnet (for Brian & Silvia Brown) 24 June 2004
We are now here
Though we did not exist
in that faded image
it tells us now, softly, this--
We have arrived at the gate
To be warm'd in the vacant horizon
Not too soon, yet not too late

Lowering into emerald night
Sweet melancholy glow
Now to recreate our sweetest dream
In currents that softly flow
We have wound into our view
as snakes come to life in roads
Only now to have the clearing view
Only now to wash in reverie overflow'd

Two children lost in thicken'd wood
Playing in the soft night
Embracing in sacred afterglow
Bathed in wondrous light
The journey that now begins
was set out long ago
In secret scrolls and hidden books
No one can yet know
To be found here in sylvan vale
to be found together
is the only word that's needed
in this cycle in our world
in the open of this tale

Love shall live on
Into quiet cloud's dreamstage
into the vaunted celebration
into the warm parade
Now brings on two to live
Time to come into the sun
Two now becoming one

25 June 2004
Let me tell you now
We are gathered in the theater
to view insane cinema
& sideways looks at staged life
Open your eyes & blur them
Open your ears as if you heard them

Pills booze & hash
Constant companions
Only true friends in these times
I am still left at the waystation
w/ only them to talk to
To stay w/ me
in the rubble of this devastation.

We can pave the way to new consciousness
Living among diseased natives
Parading among darkened trails
Hearing cries of feigned righteousness

Did you know
the gateway is open?
Did you know
my friends broke down the door?
Did you know
when I walked thru it
I was not who I was anymore?
No longer in control
No longer feeling
It was the only way
to arrive at healing
I'm more fragile now
than I ever was before.

#2
The haze fades off
The clouds lift away
To reveal the same scarred visage
Who began this day
The same remnant of a person
Who long ago went away
Was thrust into cold oblivion
& left in mute screams to stay.

#3
When you see me next
I shall not be in your immediate view
Yet I will be in your annals
in your precious encounters
to remind you.

#4
The cacophonous rank jungle
possesses me once more
Insane from these vapors
Speaking in guttural roars
I have now stumbled into this wilderness
Devoid of any cold reason
w/ out a random thought
in a newly bitter season
Yet free w/ possibility
Knowing not what could be
Where no one can find me
& expects nothing of me
My wild creation envelops us once again
To surround us in dewy leaves
To cocoon us in nature
To save us
Bind us
From sadly going insane...

26 June 2004
The sweet merciful end
of this guided tour has now arrived
We navigated, castigated
& survived
Brutal winds give way to coming of sun
Resplendent w/ possibilities
We come here as one.

Yet our caravan continues
& the hills of our journey
terrible & turbulent
bring us to adventures,
curious new venues
we cannot clearly see
for the blinding light
It is now the end
of embitter'd night

Raise the shaduf
Spread clearing,
cleansing draughts
over a befoul'd land
This could still be
Could still exist
in the palms of our hands.

Jagged Fragments 14 July 2004
I have been a prisoner too long
held captive by gap-toothed mutants
hollow'd & brainwashed by electronica hell
Their master on a TV screen
Can't tell you now
or care if it's wrong

Loosen their iron grip of envision'd reality
Twist their heads off in defiance
Now we can see for what they are
& gawk in stoned silence

Take me into blue paradise
Sustain me in technicolor night
Draining the liquid, aqua vitae, from the day
Refuse the admittance
of the procession of light
I will not stand here as guardian
of this rotting facade
I will not await my destruction
like doom'd dictators on the promenade

You cannot live thru me
You will not coopt my dream
You will not mock me
w/ your crack'd visage
& rehearsed impatience
You will not tell me to lay out your wants
on this splinter'd tableau scene
I am not the sacrificial demi-god
Nor the scapegoat
Not a forbidden incomplete creature
in a story or song
None of you wrote.

33 Years Hence 14 July 2004
Leather'd sacrifice
in an outsized suit
shrinking w/ society's rages
Still a symbol
Not symbolized
Left in the ground
Bruised & broken
Casualty of his populace
Everyone hears
Makes claims
Invents sacred games
Yet not a true word
of his is spoken.

Sweet Elixir 14 July 2004
Bring me my sweet elixir
So I can continue on
To be your dreamwalker
To be the face you know
& sing the familiar song
Once I taste your offering
Can I then come alive
w/ a slick end to my suffering?

15 July 2004
Working hard?
or are you hardly working
Brain-busted & whipped
Fabric & paper jerking
Unconsciously ripped

Now swimming amidst
Seas of paper money
Can it be so?
So I am truly your chum
as piranhas circle about
they smell blood,
approach slyly
& mechanically hum

This is the only part you see
Look inside for the rest
For a lone mourner
of what I could be
For this drone
That isnt me.

The Dog-Man 16 July 2004
I was the Dog-Man
Led on the golden leash
thru electric fields
w/ ice sculptures in their midst
was sent out to the pasture
to herd you sheep-people
Where could you see this,
this multicolored light show
to blind your wanton eyes
Dull your failing intellect
& tell you friendly lies
This was me, then & now
Only difference today
is I look the part
instead of you remembering
the living art brought forth one way
I shall still be here
w/ crude cunning
to lead you in red-blanketed grain
feed on it to see visions
till you know me by my former name.

18 July 2004
My jagged shards
of capitulation
to the animal rants
of an unknown station
Speaking chants
--the incomplete betrayal
that befouls my skin,
the very last thing I own
Seared & twisted
into dormant mixture
threatens to intoxicate me
& burn me alive
w/ my soul a mere effigy
of a time
when I did more than just survive.

20 July 2004
You will not tempt me
w/ your jaded masochism
Your latent rage
We are now past that,
aren't we?
We're in a new age?

You cannot know
What unearthly burning creatures
Were spawn'd from dreadful days
Residue of a soul drowning
in a tide of poison
Can you recall those noxious days?

Give me a break!
We should have had our skirmish
In a lonely little room
on abandon'd calendar dates
When the obscene beast was still fresh
& I still resonated w/ hate
I have no use for your
tape-delay mind...
No place for swirling animosity
that once awaited a corpulent demon
Swinging about in blind velocity
Hazards of green acrid smoke steaming

So now we embrace,
Drift into our silky netherworld
Living as mindless children
Oblivious to a squalid place
I still loathe myself
--as I once was--
I don't need you to do it, too
When you breathe fire upon me
It still smells foul upon you.

I will not die again
for what we kill'd long ago
In a shutter'd rented box
--and neither should you
release whatever tiny monsters remain
behind well-placed iron locks.

20 July 2004
I stared at the sun
'til it bleached my mind
I tempted elements
Became my own white elephant
Why?
There's no answer here
There's no scroll on the periphery
Just what you
& the wrinkled ones
w/ pig-snouts did
& I respond in kind.

R.A.M. 20 July 2004
The boy lived in a garret
Cloistered from what
others judged unkind
w/ no will to escape
--not yet--
these obscene thoughts
of curious origins
had not yet enter'd
his tender mind
though he came from
the mouth of a dragon
& an unholy reckoning
& a whiskey flagon
He still does not know it
those who raise him
Quietly betray him
--as they say his cold donors did
though no one ever shows it.

22 July 2004
Cruel animalistic rage
betrayed by ambitions unseen
& indecisive holy animation
Read the screed on the wall
Ironic in its cutting prose
Rusted as it stands tall
in dusty Gothic script
--a victim of too many falls
in midnight's blue sky-flow
This was the declaration
of my own doom,
Not clear on its near pictographic nature
Though plain in the blacklights
of the masses who follow'd it
We were, in that evening, neophytes
not yet initiated into the tribe
not yet open to the sacrifice
--not knowing we were to be placed
upon the scarred altar
to be tossed into deranged view
a corrupted caricature of Nature
then you were whisper'd the secret
& I was martyr'd w/ out you.

23 July 2004
Trace my journey
thru clear orange dreams
--that I should see these origins
Playing as broken movie scenes
The clouds lift for a moment
Long enough to view my totem
in ancestral burial ground
There I could see the sun
& some beastly swamp sub-god
throwing thunder on the hill
Making proclamations
seizing lives by force of will
& I was still there mocking him
at the request of bird-men
Until they led me away
w/ a mouthful of dust?
I could not say
This was still the living end
as the sun continued to rise
Charting its path for me
in what was once
My road-dying life.

Another Journey 24 July 2004
Star-chariots passing thru
our naturally deluded universe
Bring unwieldy gifts
from poorly tended strangers--
a new gateway to back into
our broken time wave
to call us in foreign verse
Decipher our very destiny
if there is one to save
These water serpents
Undulating into our hidden river
Swin w/ in our tragic thought
and tempt us w/ reptilian sense
of a time we once forgot
When we travelled the world
but never went anywhere.

Cornholio Mode 25 July 2004
I was once a disembodied spirit
w/ a shirt pulled over
my non-existent head
I could jabber constantly
Not knowing what I'd said
But I could open a hole
in my sacred cask
to bring forth liquid wisdom
as it flowed from my lips
w/ eyes bugged out,
relentlessly,
& lightning
from overanimated fingertips.

27 July 2004
How could you hear it?
This ancient drum-beat
When you could not even be there
When you could not pretend to care?
How could you see the dragon
Tending to sacred leavings
When you would not hear
Gentle spirit pleadings?
How could you feel the elders walk
When you were never among them
Not even for a second
Could you follow the writings
When neither had you lived
nor done them.

In Town 27 July 2004
They've shot up the tower again!
The bank's gold-tinted windows
Shatter'd w/ an angry blow
Fill'd w/ tourists who wouldn't know
Not to notice the grime of the town
Not to live in it
--just aimlessly hydroplaning thru it
They say they'd live here
But you know they'd never do it

I can't help but notice
These rusted-out heaps
Owned by the overalled natives
Betraying their ignorance
by tricking us to their whims....

A harsh rough woman in an alley
Smokes her day's profit
I asked her name
She casually said she'd forgot it
& went on her way
Probably to a backstreet rodeo

There is no gain to be had
No knowledge to be gained
No justice to be had
No truths to make plain
--You see, the courthouse is for rent
& all its awkward occupants
Staring listlessly behind the pane

23 Sep 2004

I told the world my vision
Stated in simple lines
"Let me take you back
to an errant shot
in a shining spot
Where everything wasn't broken
& life was always fine"
You told me,
Then,
the slow march would go on
we'd run for vindication
w/ a joyful song
Now your diminutive minds
Bring deaden'd dreams
& I couldn't be more wrong
an effigy on stage
Burn'd w/ ignorance
& blinding flammable rage
You speak in riddles
you don't even understand
& I've been forgotten
in a technicolor dreamland
to sell my hat of dreams
to trash my coat of stars
To look longingly at what
will never be
As mercenaries & sullen strangers
Gawk from afar--
a bruised & fruitless remnant
of an antiquated guard.

Narrative 30 Oct 2004
The words flow
in a whitewater tide
Alien & criminal
w/ climactic force
Before the ignition of the day
Before night's vigor dies

Hedonistic Zen Monk
Plays w/ pliable souls
to mold them into
warm, moist servitude
In some divine duty
"A righteous dude"
in movie cliches

Bible thumping cretin
Strands a traveler
w/ pedestrian stories
& calculating intent
Hide behind your hollow'd icon
& a cross you don't understand
till we find blind parity
(on some other plane)
& your platitudes are gone

I'll go live in the telephone
Dance on your film
living in fire
Melting to a steady drone
No one can hear you
& I have lost & gone....

Woodland 31 Oct 2004
(1st line courtesy of James Douglas Morrison)

"An ancient lunatic reigns in the trees of the night"
Holding court in abandon'd woods
w/ a poisonous crown
a throne of straw
while posturing upside down
Passing judgment on the tribe
& the creatures of the village

Our woodland spirit
Quiet hum & drone
Robes of hemlock
Sadly alone
Now to give way
thru to breaking day
No one hears it now
The landscape is gone

Mechanical monsters crawl
Creeping into empty gazes
Formulating disasters
& cryptic little mazes
To foretell our wrong turn
into the valley of death
Where we now reside
w/ our dreams that have burn'd

Soliloquy 1 Sep 2004

I can't replace
what I'm not sure I ever had
w/ these impudent nightmares
Sculpted images of gargoyles
Inspiring quiet nighttime dread

Must we speak
In these memories?
In unheard & echoing
Soliloquies?
You sat there
& never did hear me
I showed you my best side
Yet all you did was fear me

That dervish in the dark
Talking in riddles
Shooting electric fingers
& making cryptic marks
No one knows his station in the village
(We think he's a remnant
or a replicant
The last survivor
of some unholy pillage)

You never did know me
Live in a calendar date
of silent regret
I'll speak now
Surreptitiously soliloquying
In bitter mute cloudspace
& hope we'll both forget
Our journey to something better
hasn't happened yet
I am your false savior
Your every need
--as yet--
Unmet.

The Escape 27 Sep 2004

Survey now the murderous scene--
Wanton prophets fill'd w/ wine
Demented peasants
seeing demons
& holes in the floor of time
A curious monster
normal as they come
Devouring the fabric
as it comes undone
A young girl I barely know
Drinking my image in the sun
Blood in her eyes
when she says
in surprise
"You're the only one"
My roses wither'd
& rotted to black
When I went w/ her
to the next circle of hell
I knew, sadly
yet w/ no real regret
I would not be back...

23 Jan 2005
Poetic stereotype
Wandering,
Waiting,
yet knowing--
a god & demon in one�s own mind
Poor diluted
& deluded soul
Benevolent & benign
A terrible thief of fire
world most unkind
Disjoints
Rambles
Fragmented travels
Alone in a universe
Solid world of ink & paper
w/ a silvery polish
Crafting
Formulating verse
While all else suffers
Surrounding world is worse
How can one feel
like no one else on earth?
In human bonds,
experiments,
Everything still hurts.

Aphinar 16 Jan 2005 (for Rimbaud)

Take me to Aphinar
Twinkling dream waters
Take me aboard
w/ gold trinkets, well daughters
& Paradise sustain'd
Carry me on the dream ship
Exiles ignored
Orders of the day
Greenery, beauty paintings
& sweet words to say
I've been away so long
So dead, plaster'd
into these photographs
Guns & numbers & ivory
Trading my life's years
for a place in obscurity
To be a young poet again
A child w/ security
Let me be there now
Sailing off to lands afar
Using your service
To bring me a star
This would be bliss
This would be Aphinar...

"Tell me what time I should be carried on board"--last written words of Rimbaud

4 Dec 2004

The house was empty
Except for rattling blows
from the spirits
Specters, struggling, vain
in the basement
Cool prophecies
& Scattered mojo
Unnatural breezes
Flooding red tideflow
They give us their essence
Which we quickly blow
Puffs of dream dust
into requisite nightmares
Necromancy
Down below.

We burn'd in that sequence
Old Bill
Drunk
Sleeping spill
Leprous walls
w/ serpentine writing
Dishonest ironwork
tells our legend
w/ sepia lighting
The curious travelers
Lost in the bog
Got their money's worth.

We yelled our scratchings in made-up words
Black leather cars
Ploughed into the flame
Rotted wood
So lazy
No one to blame...

12 Dec 2004
We need to survey
the wreckage again
Altars w/ animal stones
Silence in their bones
Tales of disoriented rage
Written encounters
Mystery Plays
on a velvet stage
Give me a symbol
or some earthly sign
Musty, musky casks
Fill'd w/ dirty wine
to give us visions
of what we remember'd once
Destiny scrolls on
ancient afternoons
Halls of madness
Fresh w/ doom
& Crimson outpourings
Bemoan'd despair
You know it now
You were there!
You had a leather conscience
& blood in your hair
Led me to slaughter
on a childhood dare
Disembodied taunts
in lustful stares
One day your dreams
shall make you aware....

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