soon,
to,
come,

 new shit, here

~~

I sit writing this story, and fall leads the day on in the most beautiful gray and in between sips of coffee, I write this

the walls shake, things go thud with noon’s tide and all I hear is screamig, and now it’s the ambulance’s scream

I tried knockng, but no one answers

a woman sobs and they call the cops

I try yelling, “HEY - ARE YOU GUYS OK?!

just sobbing, “OH MY GOD, CARL - CAAARL”

the day is gray and beautiful

My knocks go unanswered and my inquiries are drowned in a lifetime of grief, all captured in a few minutes

Carl, what happened Carl? They have found you! They have found you with a noose around your neck.

“Oh MY GOD, OH MY GOD, I CAN’T BELIEVE HE DID IT”

“CHECK IF HE HAS A PULSE, OH MY GOD, HE DOEN’T HAVE A PULSE”

I sip my coffee and look into my computer screen

I hear the fire engine roaring up to the building, foot steps

lots of foot steps, but Carl is quiet

The coffee tastes good, and I like the story I am working on

“Stay right there mam - where is he?”

more sobbing, she doesn’t stop sobbing

Now it is many voices, many voices talking in hushed urgent tones as mine remains quiet and right here

We talked yesterday morning, Carl and I, cigarette smoke curling in the end of summer’s warmth

warmth that gives way to this hour as the day drizzles on, alive and gray

“Good morning,” we had said

Not too much, a few odds and ends

“Have a great day, man,” I said as I left for work

I don’t hear her sobbing now, I don’t hear the neighbor’s wailing and screaming

I hear the fire truck though, and it’s purring engine speaks to me of all it has seen

Really? Yes? Yes? But the day is gray and beautiful and the coffee is still good. Carl? Well, despair, despair, my friend

how it doesn’t stop for even the paramedics or children caught in the crossfire

what had been so bad? whatever it was, no one could have seen it, or else I wouldn’t be writing this right here

the engine purrs some more as the paramedics stomp out, their radios beeping clicking

transmissions, over and out

the day is gray, a lovely gray that settles in closely and asks to see what I am typing

and I tell it, Carl is not the first, and he will not be the last~

It’s Easter, 2009, and it’s been awhile since we talked last

It’s the holiday, I guess

That, and a machine-gun mind that rarely settles for anything like peace

I was thinking of you and how we used to skip church and get high

and that one Sunday we waited two hours for church to get out

as we sat on the back steps, talking about whatever stupid

kids talk about, waiting for my dad, and it turns out

that Palm Sunday masses are twice as long

double the pain

and how we couldn’t wait to grow up

and make stupid decisions on our own…

well, the holiday made me think of you

and yesterday

and tomorrow

and palm frawns

and stale holy water

and I gotta say,

I miss you…

I thought about that time we got way too drunk and how I puked on the floor

at my stepmom’s apartment so we used pine sol and a vacuum to clean it up,

and how you laughed so hard that you puked in the sink and how

we used Ajax and draino to clean that mess up

I thought about you giving me my first hits of LSD

and how we lived at music festivals together,

and how we chased women

and how we tried to solve the world’s problems

sitting at the edge of  a campfire:

the political mess

the suffering

and our concensus that we should just burn it all down

I thought about your family

and I thought about your father

and your alcoholic mother…

And I wanted to let you know that I’m doing good

Been sober awhile now

Working hard

Doing the only thing I ever wanted to do

You know, write

And today I keep thinking of you-

Your mad genius

Your wild, menstruating heart

A mini Hendrix on the guitar,

A natural-born poet

And the smartest kid in the class,

Far too sensitive to handle this world

And I’m doing good

I wanted to ask - How are you?

I was thinking about the last time we talked

I mean, the last time we really talked

And I told you I went off the deep-end

And ran to California

(about a year or two after you got back from

the land of withering palm trees)

and you told me

“that’s ok, we all

                            have to go off the deep end now and again”

and you told me you were ‘hangin’ in there’

and then I saw you for the last time after that, and you were out of it

hollow

a shell of the man I once knew

a shell of the man I once loved

and I know you’re not too far away

-

literally

-

you’re ashes are in an urn at the alter we set up for you

in my father’s house

that way, you’re always near, and I know this

but,

still,

I miss you’re insane sensitivity and your smart ranting

Your snobbish taste and the trends you set

And I miss our hungry lives

adventure for experience’s sake

Always curious,

Forever thirsty for more

And more and more

and I don’t know about an after-life, but if you’re there,

I hope you found whatever it was you were looking for

And I was going to say something like

“I hope we meet again,” but that just sounds so fucking stupid right now

And I know you’d laugh at me if I wrote something like that,

 so I’ll stop right here

Love,

Zach

or feel at home in the dark

or maybe fill you in

on life’s little happenings

like my mother in the asylum

LSD and Zen

being tackled by the cops

the Slayer/Manson concert last summer

staying up late and getting up early

armed robbery and intimidation

heroin and many brief love affairs

with woman who were too good for me,

yet still wanted a part of me that

I wasn’t even sure existed

sweet smiling memories to make you cry

souvenirs to wish back to warmth

a million secrets, begging to be told

and if you’re honest with me too,

maybe you’ll understand

I’ll tell you my deepest secret,

the worst and best of self-awareness

and I’ll even relive my

darkest hell for you

my life-

it’s all right here in these funny little poems

and the minutes run by
and I am robbed

I am robbed of the by
the butchers that just exist
and in thieve’s cant
they remind me, they mock me

they fire nuclear torpedoes
at my grass thatched hut

but its okay
I’ve been trying
to break free of this too

and I know I haven’t read enough
and I can’t write enough
and the days are stolen
like precious gems
cigarette butts
and spare change to the homeless

and I am robbed

the minutes slipping by
with the thieves of the night
along with my dishes, my books, my insanity

and I am robbed by them all

the toothbrush
instinct and hunger
lunch
and sometimes dinner

I am robbed by the dayjob
by school
strangers asking for the time
beggars asking for a nickle
phone calls, e-mails
women, coffee, wild animals

and the robbers never cease their bout
with my soundness of mind

and it seems like some sort of test
leading up to something, somewhere
some gross finale
some sort of prismatic rainbow of a conclusion

maybe a miracle or two
some sort of place to rest
but even then, I already know the ending

and I am robbed
even of the excitement and mystery of death