I Dream of Indiana

I dream of Indiana, because of a woman.

I dream of Indiana, too dream of something.

Cold and grey days, colorless at noon today,

I dream of her, and how we know the score.

 

Some rural town, like the one I’m in now,

with mustard yellow silos pricking the sky

and a smattering of houses in the dead fields,

and the ubiquitous chain stores in town.

 

I dream that in a place even drabber, colder,

than the place I am now, just as empty, burning,

as left behind and sighing, that with her there,

I could be happy, content, settled.

 

Years ago, when we were young, we partied

and we knew heartbreak and loss and hope

and magic in the sung words, the right note

of a tragic and sorrowful song.

 

We knew the promise of April and spring

and the soft and warm sunshine through a

classroom window, the joy of connecting,

as we smoked cigarettes at shitty parties.

 

And know, older and greyer and fatter, left behind,

I dream of her and that grey prairie state, of finding

her and beginning again, recapturing something my

broken mind and scorched heart has lost.

 

I dream of Indiana because of a woman.

I dream of Indiana to dream of something.

Fools errand. Our moment has passed forever.

But I dream to escape the terror of silence.

 

The terror of my own thoughts.

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Amen To Wild Days

The recording she sent me, of our old stories of private gods and our valorous children,

has the cold wind of roaring February blowing her straight brown hair and her soft and

gossamer voice.

She sits in the field, our once mighty and eternal kingdom that has faded now, just a field,

as we have grown up, and the tales just slip away forever, you cannot hold them close,

cannot remain that child, even if you never grow up.

My tattering and navy blue hoodie, the one I gave her when I left for the war, from

Weeki Wachee springs, our last childhood adventure, all of sixteen, all out of grace,

the summer when mermaids were taking us down.

She wears it, and her t-shirt of the painting of Diane the Huntress, and blue jeans and

black boots, steel toed for her job, as she sits with our leather bound book of tales,

our own private holy writ of gods now lost.

Her soft, dark eyes cast down, light brown hair blowing over her face, the wind the edge

of tears in her voice as it swirls it up and whips the gossamer like spider webs in the gale,

ripping apart to send to the ancient kingdoms.

I watch this, laying down in my bunk, on my aging smartphone, still good enough for us,

and the working she is sending, of the brave monarchs we once were, the gods who adored us,

and the children we made out of dreams and voices.

I am away at the war, and her, with her mental illness, stayed behind, and she sends her magic,

her voice, our dreams, to me to protect me and anoint me and keep me safe, from friend and enemy,

and The Red Dragons that eats up children’s hearts.

Reaching the end, she closes the book, closes her eyes, says sacred words I cannot hear or pronounce,

and then looks into her little camera as if to look me in the eye, and smiles, beautiful and sad,

then says there will be another child coming from as last night together, this one in the usual way.

She turns off the camera, I turn off the video, and sit in the dark, the stars in the barracks window,

the stars all secret gods and valorous children that has been lost but still light the night and the dark,

and ours watch over us even know, in the war that will be The Red Dragon’s finally victory.

Amen to mad days, and the ones left behind. Amen to brave tales, and our loss that makes us sweet.

Amen to her, and what might yet be.

Lake June

Cara shivered in the dark lake, the very end of summer,

maybe already to cold to be out in the water, and with

the sun gone under, just a low, raw red on the horizon.

She tread water in the cold lake, not wanting to go back,

back to the lake house haunted by better, sweeter times,

to the troubled thoughts, troubled sleep, she always faced.

But finally, she swam back, leaving by even the fleeting peace,

of being alone, and not having to face anyone, and their endless

questions, endless assumptions, assuming they knew it all.

She emerged from the water, started to dry with her beach towel,

and it was now pitch black, the lake house lit with hazy gold light,

a beacon from another time, a time she could barely recall now.

Last night of their holiday home for the season, back to Walchula,

where all her friends had already left for college and careers, marriage

and all that adult stuff she still couldn’t put together, here at 23.

Cara went inside and her mother smiled at her, told her to get showered

and dressed so they could go to her Uncle’s for the end of summer family

get together. Cara smiled, did as she was told, dreading all of it.

Now dressed in white blouse with a bow, and knee length black skirt,

She waited on the front steps to go, wishing the she could defeat the

madness, the disorder and chaos in her mind, all the shit holding her back.

Always tired from fighting through the jungle of her thoughts, feeling as if

she was macheting her way through it eternally and never getting to the

other side, to the clearing, or the grasslands, were all was open under the sun.

The night was cool, the air still, as she waited for her mom and dad to come,

and for them to go to her Uncle’s, and to try and make it through, to have

a good time, and not feel all those eyes upon her, all those judging “Good People”.

For just a moment in the night, she could rest.

Trains Ran Right Past Her Backyard

 

 

Sumner sat in her tiny back yard, in the cold of December,
drinking hot coffee, looking up at the smattering of stars
that shone through the lights of the city.

An Amtrak train passed right past her backyard, shaking
the rickety wooden fences that separated everyone’s yards,
the horn howling out into the darkness like a wounded demon.

When she was little, Sumner imagined riding on one of the
trains that passed behind her house, heading to New York City
or Boston, somewhere far from her broken world.

She dreamed no longer of such things. No place offered freedom.
The Devil was everywhere. The Devil could not be escaped.
The Devil had conquered the world.

There was an itch in her brain this night, a thorn in her thoughts,
of the one who she thought loved her, who’d left her behind.
She fearfully, tenderly, touched her belly.

The trains couldn’t take her to a better world,
she could not escape her world, broken and growing dark.
The fight was here, in her house, with her family.

She went inside, down into her room, to the small closet,
In the dark she went on her knees to fight The Enemy,
to fight for the hope of the world, to find the love in The Light.

 

Sea of Tranquility

I sit in a swing, watching the house burn, the house where we were children.

Slowly push my self back and forth on tired legs, to dissassociative to care.

I’m watching myself, the orange flames ripping open the night on my face.

I’m a tin dime angel, addled brain almost touching heaven, which the flames reach.

I know you’re up in the sky, the eye in the moon, the listening dish, Sea of Tranquility.

You have that pilots clearance and the love of all that’s holy, good little princess.

I might have gotten something in my mind from kissing your older sister, a tumor.

I’m like neither of you, neither saint or demon, just at a loss for who to breathe in.

The house burns and I don’t care, not even my revenge gives me any feeling here.

I still float, brain damage and alcohol making me float, far away from you, in Tranquility.

The ashes always become embers, and I can never be free, my demons are invincible.

The Raptors are scrambled to take me to hell, still better than being a drone like you.

Still I have the name of love carved in my belly, without your name beside it.

 

Neither The World Nor It’s Souls

Caroline, who once heard spirits,

lays in her bathtub, lukewarm water,

looking up through the makeshift skylight,

as a bomber flies overhead.

She sighs, the war has already come,

and nothing in the world or it’s souls

could turn away the half-rotted face

of the queen of the dead.

Her town is left to burn and starve,

and her man was taken at the first,

only her alone in this house of theirs,

all hope and light has already fled.

She could almost sleep, sink under

the grey and soapy water, take that

into her lungs and not be in this world,

full of fires and blood and endless dread.

She gets out, gets dressed, cuts her hair

short and at a harsh angle, and packs her

bag with enough to last maybe a week,

and a picture of the man she never got to wed.

---

An Innocent Art

If ever I loved a woman pure and true,

if ever I gave my best, it was to you.

If ever I chose to be angel, holy and brave,

it was for you, only you, as I knelt in the knave.

Train ride on a rainy night, I got left behind.

It’s still raw, the memory of you in my mind.

It’s not gone well since you left for Lincoln.

I fight all these demons, turn to often to drinking.

The city I’ve always known, seems dirty and small.

I can’t find my voice, knowing you won’t answer the call.

I cherish you, the tender wound in my heart,

for it’s still the best of me, loving you, an innocent art.

You’ve done well, and I slip into the same routine.

We were close on a place high up and inbetween

the summers of a small hope, and summer of loss.

I still carry you in me, hoping our paths will again cross.

The train comes to the station, I walk home in the rain,

I never made it to Domremy or the warm coast of Spain.

I try and fight on, like you always believed I was able.

I try and fight on, despite thee empty chair at my table.

Young Woman, Ghost

I see you, a ghost, still hurting, still left behind,

in your long, flowing dress, and long curled hair

from another age.

All the others have gone on, but pain keeps you here.

In front of that mansion, now a restaurant, tourist attraction,

you walk in the depths of the night, softly crying, your

translucent arms wrapped tight around yourself.

All the others have gone on, but pain keeps you here.

So I close my eyes, and as I hear you weep, as moonlight

creeps over the trees and lights you in the only light you know,

I offer prayers, I offer tender words, hoping you’ll hear them.

All the other have gone on, but pain keeps you here.

I don’t know what to do, maybe I can cast a spell to cut your chains,

or find the thorn in your soul, and make right what broke you in life.

I offer prayers, I offer tender words, hoping you’ll hear them.

All the others have gone on, may you join them there.

Jocelyn

Your ghost Jocelyn, is here in this hot summer night,

As heat lightning flashes silently and brightly across

The far side of the like, where demons and dreams linger.

 

You’re alive still, having long outgrown me and our

Childhood games and mischievous days on the lake,

In the waters where mermaids bore us to Eden.

 

I am, alive, or perhaps dead, left with my own loss

And broken sleep and dreams that turn to ashes

As I try to close my hand around incense smoke.

 

I sit on the dock with a bottle of red wine, watching

The heat lightning that’s roar I cannot hear or touch,

Just as I cannot hear or touch your grace, now we are grown.

Sad Ballad of Paradise

500 miles to DC, from this death burned town, this empty plain.
The wind with the creep of winter, the bitter snows and darkness.
Me and my daughter running through the day, hiding in the night.
Me and my daughter trying to find someplace safe, to rest, to live again.

 The rich cities, the places of power, the lords of the air hide apart.
All others left behind, not even slaves or cannon fodder, just tossed aside.
The dead walk, the world broke, and me and her are even on the run.
Winter is on it’s way, and there’s nowhere to find solace from the cold.

 Hiding in a tree house as night falls and we hear those damned howls.
I hold her close, and rock her and sing to her, some sad ballad of paradise.
I always promised her a tree house, and here we are, but it’s all changed.
Finally, we both drift to sleep, to someplace upon in the stars, beyond death.