sand dollars on your lips
sandals on your foot tips
send across the message
soon you will deliver

paper cuts with sharp words
praying through your eulogy

"gathering dust in thornton, colorado."

It's all endless like the black snake in the fire of bitterness. You can't have what you'll die for so why do you even try for it? Isn't it like a miraging harbor in the middle of a typhoon unable to reach the shore for safety? Why have I come to the question again it's all up to me. or is it? The boredom of sitting around all the live long day brings nothing accomplished. Except shuffling shuffling back and fro across the burbur, and smelling the ass wafting from every direction released by those of us who partake in the vegematarian or mexican cuisine, tofu and burritos, cheese and milk, lactose intolerant. Feeling the floor rumble with every bass line thump. The studio in the basement, the jangle jangle of the guitars,vraaa vra vra vraahh!!! boom boom crash of the drums, oh yes it's all very soothing to say the most. not really. I think I'd like to be in that little apartment on 14th St. downtown Phoenix making dinner for myself, and getting that solidarity high. You know the one, right? The feeling like you can do any fuckin thing you want. In fact you do. You stand on the back balcony very naked and refreshing, the birds can see, and the neighbors that might be around during the work day. Ahhh, it feels fine the cat comes down from the rooftop, sliding that tree like a swirling fireman down the pole for his meow mix. I'd sweep the outside floor, but writing on the walls sounds more fun. "Making Life My Art" in magnum huge black permanent marker. It means everything to me, about me and what I believe about life. Enjoy the wall and the sink and the soft carpet and the dried up flower box on the porch, and the couple across the way with their lonely puppy who cries for their attention while they have little suspicious parties inside, and the pool that the girls come down to on the hot days and lay beside giving me a pleasant view. Dig the cat again, Fugazi, as he gets high and walks around with squinted eyes and catnip breath. He's the coolest cat on the block, no doubt. His girlfriend shows up every now and then, more frequent lately, they lick each other up and smell their butts and go back up to the rooftop to stick. There's an endless poster wall of the music we love and the colors we like. Candles...I dig the candles, light all of them on fire, the new the old the ugly ones from my mother, the gift candles from girlfriends and the sensual scented ones, down to the, down to the-wick, melting into the television and the coffee tables, hardening, we'll get that later...OH my G..the boiling water has burned!!!!! Forgotten all about the boiling water!! High am I, I dug too deep. I'm still very naked and now the kitchen smells like burned water. Ever smelled burned water, or is it the burnt air? Yuck! I have to scrape the brownness out of the pan, and start over. A watched pot never boils, I'll have to sneak in on the bastard. Take a peek when he can't see me. Then immerse my noodles in the boil...three minutes, thats all it takes for tonight's delight.ramen. what the hell else would it be on this weeks wage. I'm a laborer for construction contractor. Frame houses, or try. Fall off roofs and nail my fingers together. Once I was working next to Rick Speedeater, one of the veterans, pretty senior to the rest of us, but that don't exclude him from his share of injuries as his badass leather tan skin, red headwrap, dirty long hair shoots a nail from his nailgun right through the center of his hand and wails in dramatic agony. I couldn't help but have one moment of concern then try to help myself from laughing, in turn shooting my own damn nailgun right into my left shoe...Luckily it only nipped my big toe and no one saw me do it. Nailguns can be a real fun toy if there's no one around and your on top of the unfinished roof squatting on the plywood shooting the knife-life bullets into the neighbors fences...but I'm getting way off track, this work pays alright, but not enough for me to afford the most healthy food around, and plus I spend my money elsewhere, like the thriftstores to gather all the big gaudy velvet paintings of Elvis or Jesus I can find. The first Elvis has a home over the piano mantel board in Larry's shack house off 7th Street and Dunlap. It just gathers dust. Sort of like myself as I sit here day after day on the couch, at the desk, walking around, sleeping on my mattress in the basement in the peaceful darkness, waking to think there's something important to do, but instead eating a bowl of cereal... That's pretty fun. Some days I'll take the wagon downtown and find a meter still running and park the car for a bit so I can walk around and feel a part of something that I'm not. All the yups during the day, down the 16th St Mall, passing the punks and the chumps for change that I'll give to the one who's most sincere. On my fortunate days I can get a free burrito or a fish taco and a beer at Legal Peters from Trish the Dish, and feeling full and thoughtful I'll head to the bookstore and hang on the third floor with my own book to read for an hour or so, then suddenly remember the meter!! A bit like the boiling water, on my feet burning as I run in my worn down, flat footed converse back to the parking spot, passing the meterman in his blue hat, and comfortable walking shoes, and jump into the wagon that's been sitting at an expired meter for almost an hour now, barely escaping his wiper blade note. Only for a lack of knowing Denver's geography do I end up right back in Thorton, Colorado amongst the neighborhood of all day Spanish fiestas and lawn couches,inside the two story home, on the burbur, at the desk, sitting, gathering dust

mother of the blowin' wind.

Mother of the blowin' wind
don't let whispers get away from you
don't forget they'll come around again
and then whisp into conversation

Hide away your heart's past
it wasn't a wish come true
for your sake
there's no such thing as a mistake
if it's one you never knew

A chord struck through the ear
your secrets came out of nowhere
you're void of an innocent future now
it split right open
now you're faced with face
you can save yours with a lie
or see the truth in your burden's eye

Fate changes love
it steals back a heart, or purifies the dove
it can't behold histories
it casts out all theories
it answers questions never asked
it completes the final task

Oh mother of the blowin' wind
hear your daughter's new song
as easy as it isn't
accept what may come
and let go of what's gone

Beth's Cafe, Seattle WA

Being that I'm pretending it's raining outside and I'm inside next to the window of this Seattle-type setting, I know where there's a spot called Beth's cafe. Always a comfortable little dirty grunge down-to-earth place to hang at 1am. Beth's Cafe OPen 24 HOme of the 12 Egg Omlette. The coffee was always like good strong hot water so I usually drank 6 or 7 cups. KC digs the pancakes because their damn good! Every time I go in that place I just like to sit and look at all the child-like crayon colored drawings that are pinned over every square inch of the punk diner, mostly made by the locals smoking too much tea and being prophetic. The waitresses jump the counter and dive at the jukebox to change a song! Their yelling and singing and dancing back and forth with the tattooed cook, of course; in his late-twenties looks like Greaser Swanson, but with no cigarette mind you, and quite interested in making those pancakes and bacons, and 12 egg omelets. We usually sit in the same place every time right behind the cook counter and talk with infection of our future and our past ironic adventures.
Wasn't there a tiny whisky and gin type bar next door? I met a women triple my age in that place who asked for my lovin' with eyes that steamed like a horse’s snout. My, you know I was so scared, I ran out the door before I finished my shot. And next to that joint is a new and used lawn care equipment store with lights over chainsaws and riding lawn mowers and the like, through big glass storefront windows to oow and awe over.
Yes, I remember it swell...and if we decided that we didn't go to Beth's Cafe, we'd eat Dick's!

I dont know about travel today, but staying motionless on these here white pills is taking their affect.
Things to say I did today.
-Made an extra good brushing of teeth
-Took my medicine 2 1/2 hours before expected surgery
-Slipped into a baby blue chair at the doctor's office
-Pricked with a needle and threaded a drip of deep sleep juice
-Oxygen over face
-Wake up remembering nothing
-Part of body in a container
-Falling in and out of consciousness
-Puddings and soups - no straws
-No spitting, coughing, chewing, nose blowing
-Final Desination 2
-Vicodin, IBProphen, Amoxicillin, Vicodin, Vicodin
-Too much TV
-Sleep
-Sleep
-Sleep.

Picture this, two of some kind sitting on the stairs far off in some land and time. Feeding off eyes and lips where words were not so easily swallowed. A moon over the foot note of Columbus' pride. The place where captains failed and mutany was cried. And besides all that there were two who sat alone with each other and passing strangers. buona sera luna fortuna. The songs of all the feelings were moving through embedded dreams and surfaced into melody. And though it was heavenly the silence seemed deadly and back down inside went the dreams to hide. The air it was black with only light from the moon, they walked. Tongue tangled teased and strangled. Sweet and sour sometimes at the same time.

Sixty minutes in slippery speech
having everything to say
but can't speak
wondering your city's streets
fixing on the eyes that
peer into mine
a never ending clock
that ticks forever
in my mind
when I see you there
it lasts,
forever
Try again
I tell myself
try again
and it will
come true...

12.01.02
Oh pull your thoughts up from the the litter. This is the hand of a good game. There's Shamah in the back of your mind, sitting smoking cigarettes and contemplating denial or hopefully, to give him the benefit of the doubt, about his next move. She, the girl in the picture, has been discovering new feelings and sceming new dreams along the way/ is also somber and a bit distant at the subject of you leaving town. But she DOES understand and so does Shamah, so the optimistic, happy feelings and thoughts ARE the real deal and should be used as fuel for the engine soul, in-turn the gears move and progression is in affect.

-Wooden table
candle light
letter stapled,
friend of mine
been a long time
we were on missions and,
exihibitions
our souls weren't defined
drawn too many circles
and crossed too many lines
fools we have been
for women or men.

Cousin Micheal had the real cowboy hat, and a snow suit with leather boots. We dragged a saddle around the barn to put on "Hud", the big male horse. The problem was that we were only 3 feet off the ground and 4 years old. Grass would grow thin and tall at the first sunburn of spring. The three storied house needed fresh red paint. The driveway was a long and unpaved dirt road surrounded by forestation. I once caught a worm in my mouth by mistake when playing throw the worm in the winter snow with my brother and two sisters. I swallowed in an instant 'cause that was my first reaction. Later in 7th grade I got money to eat a live guppy that a friend of mine would carry around as a pet at school. The story has since been enlarged to me eating a "big gold fish". Either way I drank chocolate milk from one of those little cubular cardboard boxes and took one swallow of the fish. I needed money. It was entertainment.

My day isn't over, although technically it's the eve of the next day-July 21st, but I'm still in yesterday. Sunday/ these good wills will come. I'm trying to make a rock out of this day yet. On the walk home I felt the humid air and the thick drops of the first monsoon rain beginning on my face. The lightning desert sky lit up in parallel strikes. The streets were empty, I didn't know what time it was. The roads were wet and they always seem more intruiging like that. I thought about the last time I walked home from the bowling alley, and how much walking I do when I'm not in my hometown. I enjoy walking because it's so constant. My feet never get tired, and when I'm surrounded by pleasant atmosphere I'll walk like I'm getting paid to do it. Which actually leads me to a rather interesting hypothisis to my on-going restless nights. I'm always tossing and turning and my legs are never comfortable in any position. This causes me to wake up all the time, and some nights I realize I'm lying in bed feeling bored, like a waiting room. It seems maybe that my body, or my lower-body is always in that "go" mode and doesn't equate-in sleep. It's obvious also that constant travel for months on end doesn't help any. Hard or soft beds won't make a difference, just like futons, couches, blow-up beds, carpet or wood floors, hammicks, beaches, tables, RV dashboards, bathtubs, vans, or sleeping-sitting up. Last week I started taking pills. It helps at times, but I'm afraid of a habit forming, and then lazy zombie-like state sets in during daylight, drooling, heightened insanity, death. I want to figure this out purely, for the most part. At any rate, the truely wonderful thing about today is that it finally rained! Thank God for that. Our prayers were answered! The crops are drinking, the air is clensing, let it pour for days to come! Tomorrow the income needs to be coming, from somewhere. I will seek sources! I will seek a schedule and plan. I will seek coffee, nurishment, vitamins. I will seek renewal, and hope, and in these trialing times, I will seek strength, and The will shall be more solid. Solomn day goodnight, this is the end of our time together tonight. I love you. thank you. in honor and unworthyness.

All for the love of what? The thought of speaking frankly in front of children and taking dreams to the river all bundled up with a blanket of hope. Yet, the hands are dealt precisely and accordingly to the way you get them. Jump on a train for free and pay later that year. Ask the questions over and over; the whos the whats the whens the wheres the hows? The hows? is like a filter through the brain gripping the easy answers and wondering, is that it? Here? NOw? but I already knew that! You may say...and it's only the obvious that reveals itself just to make you even crazier. endless endless endless

We met under one star/ shaped like a state
injury of the mouth/ I couldn't say anything
my thoughts hard to grasp/ did I attract
because of our stances we couldn't completely connect

Confidence could've revealed many words
but with hesitance I waited/ too long
followed by days of regret/ why
I haven't forgot those kind of looks
I'm learning what they mean

Sorry for my silence/ sometimes it's understood
that line I couldn't cross/ until the moment that never came
a wall of good blood/ protecting
a heart that needs a body
a souls been misdirected
and little you with a question/ like me

-L.D.M.

Woah! This time it's albuquerque new mehico. In a bedroom, drummer sleeps behind me on the couch. Just in from a long overnight drive from Tucson. We're a band. We play songs. We complain a lot. In this particular scene we've been thrown into that is nothing like it was, we complain and laugh at it. Who would've ever guessed that the New Kids on the Block and N'Sync and other baby faced boy bands would don guitars and get pretty star tattoos and be what's now called punk rock? Count me out of this fan club or scensterism. Call me jaded, call me sell-out, call me frank, I don't care anyway you state it! The way the "punk rock" genre has overlapped and unfolded over the years sucks. Now there is no difference between going to a swank night club in Scottsdale or La Jolla california and going to a local "show". It's all little baby birds of the main stream media mother with their mouths open wide ready to swallow any bullshit mamma gives em. And it's sad for them; who think they are being individuals or furtive amongst the cookie-cutter bands' fan club, but who are really just being lead indirectly by a major marketing sceme that has purposely trickled down to these young punks. It all makes me want to grow my beard thick and my belly fat and pick up my harmonica and acoustic and entertain the birds and bees in the middle of nowhere. peace be with us...
LukasMathers

I've got an invention about a clever pretend friend who sees through your makeup face into your bones. He's not always alone, though he seems to play the bum and squints his eyes at the sun, and makes rounds in the cities he goes. They call him something different down every road. He makes a point to stop and stare at the lifelines, notched out in the timeline; as the circles come back around. He stands alone somewhere in the midst. The cats and tigers are still moaning drunk in the new generation. Isn't your brother on his knees in the dirt over seas? The man secretly abliges to the breast bloomed with alcohol falls; what can you judge of this mess, let's go.

I can see myself
wrapped in puzzles
around press fingers
getting headline blues

all things considered
to be but the obvious
shackled jaw thought
arouse away innocense

furtive turns commercial
valiant and outragous
open the mail bag
dad sends love

he who holds a camera
may use it for protection
the pencil's been your sword
the words' stab new direction

the mighty mouth has groan
let the wind blow this as so
even trees do bend in pain
and the sky cries out in rain

horns carry clouds of gold
the rams turn to dust
fall do the masks of fate
for time is never late
when the meek sigh
relief.

by L. HONAS

slip me into your little pockets
carry me away with you
for the sea returned the lost forgottens
when salty waves again turned blue
the forward path was carved with notches
the mind had not yet dried the glue
you knew
they knew
plead forgiveness
follow through

somewhere in these private rooms
we created those changing moods
ecstatic sirens or silent dooms
forever these vital senses loom

candy eyes and an edible smile
so looking good with a face that's in style
until you rub all away the smoothness of a child
to reveal worn out wrinkles distancing miles

with fright
and fire
the passionate liar
will elevate emotion, while
it uses him on the side
for secret service to fahrenheit

maybe then
will love descend
catapulting hearts
to quiet forest parks
the summer sets
warm as moon
by the time set in
be fire, glowing monsoon

I can see it now
as they said it then
you'll have your fun
when the work will end
the hairs on the back of your neck will bend
when electric animalistic chemical waves come in

-LUKAS COHEN.

I remember also, once there was a kid in my school who always peed his pants. Sorry Charlie, I'll call him. Carried a big duffle bag strapped around him to hide his wet spots on his pant legs. poor fellow. I always tried to talk to him, and make him feel comfortable, pretending I didn't smell the lingering hot pee smell looming aroung him. He studdered too. I think he was also in those "special," as they call it, classes for slow learners. Really he was just a genious. The teachers and other students never knew or cared, trying to know, that this was so. In reading class we watched movies like the original Romeo and Juliet, including the fast-forwarded nudity parts, by our teacher Mr. Saint A'more. wow what a name! I called him mr SAy NO More, because he never really said much. During the movies, Charlie would often figit with something; a pen in his mouth, picking his nose, uneasy in his chair, drawing pictures. He always passed the tests though, even when I tried and sometimes failed. He was scared to touch, or examine the animals, insects, or reptiles in the science labs too. The first and youngest animal rights activist in our school. Some days, more than others, he would go home early because of a said sickness, which was actually fear and anxiety of other kids who picked on him. I found it hard not to want to extinguish the bullies that had these insecurities and desires to beat up on kids like Charlie. and Sheeka, and Tanjiu, and Laura. But for the most part, I was one like them, too little, and scared and quiet, and confused to do anything but be their friend...I think, now, they're all models, artists, or doctors. HA!

Last night I met a girl and tried to make small conversation in the little Italian I know. She goes to the university like everyone. She studies. He studies. They all study or work the days and out the nights. She asked what I do. Do I go school as well? What am I doing here. Well, now that's a mighty giant question to ask anyone on their first meeting. But I thought about it and said no, I don't attend a school of any sort. I'm just an artist. Alone. Here in Italy. Ummmm, traveling, living, undecided. Yeah, I'll take that route. I've always been the one who everyones waiting for at the gas station pit stops, back inside trying to decide weather I want the trail mix or a bag of chips. My passengering friend added, "the good life" with a distant look. That phrase took me by surprise and I drove on with that it my head for a few minutes realizing, it's totally true. Don't knock on wood, but think that way. It humbled me. I'm thankful. Greatful to whomever, and everyone along all the paths. I rumbed my eyes, and they turned red and blurred my vision into the reality that is these days and times we're in. Aye, I don't know what I'm trying to say, but this phrase broke a new outlook. Sometimes I'm a selfish idiot unrealizing the fruit of my labors is this.wooah.

Tonight, shuffled into the two-man elevator, down 11 flights, out the door, around the corner, bar insalateria, filled up with fasion-types, maybe I'm one of them, called on a beverage, and began to be only slightly amused.Feeling a bit on the low end this evening. Wrote a little poem when I arrived back home. Huh? Also I think now, there is an earthquake, or something fierce outside going on...

Rembrandt smoking a cigarette squeezed inside a corner bar.
On holiday from worried decisions for the moment.
A dame that never called back waits for his call instead.
A game of cat and louse.
Ever so studdering the words barely taught.
Through bleeding smoke-filled eyes he gazes the room.
The women that enter capture a piercing reflection.
Seconds like minutes, you're either here now or there forever, forgotten.
Too many bad faces, shudder and drink.
Call in replacements to fill up the spaces.
Outside the window, blows wind indoors, when opening the door.
It's cold, scarf weather neck warmer.
Sulky cheekbones turn pink.
Pouty lips quietly think, on the stone ledge.
Shes not alone, but her eyes are.
Unamused and waiting her man's nightly consumption consumed.
To go home in a high palace and sleep on her side,
eyes rolled, deserving of gold, but feeling sold.
Old comfortable, unescapable bond of nothing, anymore.
These days, unlike those days-old days.
Now it's all a haze.

-L. MATHERS.
goodnight sweetheart, well it's time you know.

Twilight on the frozen lake / the north wind about to break / on footprints in the snow / and silence down below /
you're beautiful beyond words / your beautiful to me / you could make me cry / and never say goodbye /
because my dreams are made of iron and steal / with a big bouquet of roses, hanging down / from the heavens to the ground /
the crashing waves roll over me / as I stand upon the sand / and wait for you to come / and grab hold of my hand
oh baby, baby, baby, blue / you've changed your last name too / you've turned your hair to brown / love to see it hanging down
-Dylan. Amen.

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