1. Prologue

I'll explain to you when dreams are dreams
when the wind weaves and weather dithers forever

I'll explain feelings seeping through ceilings
like echoes of ghosts whispering a toast:

to all ye men and women
who seize the day

I remember myself as a boy
as if it were a molotov movie
combusting on a Sunday screen

I watch myself in anticipation
knowing what will happen
enthralled to the unchanging plot

and I come to some brutal acceptance
that this impression is my self
narrating some representation of me

2. Subtext

I want to be loved
for the right reasons

3. Point

the semen of the season
a man creates with his body
twitching fibers not hardly
begun to be out done

he loves with all of his being
or not at all

4. Crescendo

the sadder the city that swallows
treads ground backwards tracing
undressed redresses raw and hallowed

into the maw
I dive between your legs
into the depths of your identity
that you toss against mine
in mighty waves

glistening wet incandescence
reflects light on the city below
making us glow brighter
in stark contrast

5. Counterpoint

I will exist in two parts
both of which you may grasp
with your nurturing fingers

I want to love
for the right reasons

so take it all in
with a breath of infinity
rolling past the hills
toward the ranging skies
and on to a blooming oblivion

6. Epilogue

I know it will be true
when you look at me in that way
where I feel myself
in how you see me with your eyes
while meeting yourself in mine

At the Crossing

the revolving moon has sucked the tide out
and in its wake for this breath
we are just that much closer

the water's edge is a nice reprieve
from the mowing clamors of the city
blanketing the streets at night

can you feel the kisses blown your way
from my direction? they are
endless in fervor and imagination

my path is lit neither by sun nor moon
rather by a mass of glowing bodies
of jellyfish hovering near the surface

this congregation is particularly ancient
in their slow undulating movements
transfixing a starlit path

we are now both so young and old
engaged anew in this timeless narrative
fresh as each new radiant sunrise

fully felt against the ocean's horizon
a resplendent blinding white curtain
silent and shimmering with awe

Regaining the Stars

the old man in the fog
suffered hearing loss
from the weight of the air

his eyesight turned poor
from the slimy pressure
and his hedgehog left him

staring out from the window
he'd imagine the stars
entwined in love-making rituals

each pulsating pulsar
ignited another nebulae
dazzling the stars to expand

the autumn wind tattered
his window with broken leaves
peppering his life with imagination

archangels were dancing
and their deft movements
cast off a brilliant meteor storm

the leaves were meteor twirls
alighting the thick night
into a celestial dervish

to which he was the patron
rocking back and forth
to the hypnotic beats

after a particularly stormy night
he worked up to a fever
aligning his body to the planets

he slept with heavy breaths
burning the misty air
that suppressed his senses

awakening with a start
he felt his senses tingling
with a rejuvenated spirit

he set out to the mountain
with his walking stick
and an insatiable desire to ascend

by nightfall the peak was his
and his neglected body ached
as he collapsed on a bed of moss

below him lay a new field of fog
and above the clearest sky
he'd ever seen in his life

the dance had become him
and he was the pirouette
at which the Universe orbited

the sounds of poetry
are these engines
pressing the train
along the track

in a night of fog
and desolate cold
the bellowing whistle
lights the way

I've never felt so much as now
that I own absolutely nothing
and my poverty allows me to love
each moment with a aching sigh

it feels terribly good to live

climbing the hill
to escape the fog
with sudden clarity
stars pierce the air

I see at once
a million ways to love
in this reverence
I set forth

to try them all in succession
like counting the stars
in the quiet recesses
of a hill draped over fog

what a lovely curtain
this earthen shell is
that I am floating upon
to the train whistle's tune

Wild Wild West

Some believe that the wild west is a thing of history or folklore. This is not entirely the case. The wild west is an idea as strong as the oaks nestled into forgotten canyons along the deer tracks by the mountain run-offs. It lives on eternally in the hearts of men who have no master. It is in the eyes of every drink aimed at overtaking a drunk.

The old Indian killers kept scalps for rewards, and ears as trophies. They raped and they pillaged. They killed tens of thousands of buffalo. They turned everything into a steamy wasteland of possibilities that should have never been explored.

The frontier is still here. It is in the earth underneath my house. It is the dust settled on my television and bookshelves. It is in the air I breathe.

A great withering sigh escapes from the frontier's remains. It is a nameless sigh, with the listless meaning of sighing for the sake of sighing.

I have not yet seen riverboat gambling nor dredging for gold, only the old swampy quagmire left behind. Only the old gold teeth held in museums as a reminder that all bets must be paid in full.

The wild west lives on, lurching under the pavement. The frontier extends yet further beyond the eye of any man or satellite imaging system. You cannot find it in the back channels of the extended cable package, nor in the independent film aisle in the movie store. It lives on as the itch behind your eye that would leave you blind were you to scratch it.

I felt out of a tree once as a child, cutting a hole in my bare belly from a branch. The scar is faint now under a growth of hair indicating the changing of time. It is there though, plain as day, like a fraction of a memory.

Life is like that.

The wild west is a fiction, and it always has been. It is an over-active imagination for people who have had terrible childhoods. It still exists because we need it to. It holds branches at bay and turns the most pathetic of dives into exotic saloons and whorehouses. It turns desert into cinema.

When Kool Moe Dee released his hit song "Wild Wild West" in 1988 about growing up on the wild side of downtown 129th Street, he knew this truth. Growing up in a movie is better than growing up in darkness. And years down the road when Will Smith came back to him for a remix with Dru Hill and Stevie Wonder for his new movie of the same name, there was no denying that truth.



"Wild Wild West" turned out to be an awful movie, because it was too obviously what it was advertised. That is, empty spectacle.



When performing the song at the 1999 MTV Movies Award show live on television to promote his movie and album, Will Smith gallantly took the stage in a purple suit on horseback to thunderous applause to the theme of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." He burst through a simulated saloon door to the main stage. He started his rap with a cadre of dancers behind him in flashy clothing. He called Kool Moe Dee and Dru Hill with Sisqo out to the stage. Sisqo emerged from a platform with pyrotechnics belting the hook of the chorus. He jumped off the platform and they all danced in unison together demonstrating skill, dedication, and practice. Halfway through the song DJ Jazzy Jeff cut up the break to the repeated cry of "breakdown!" And in the last moments of the song, Stevie Wonder appeared suddenly on the stage playing a saloon-style solo to end the song.



What you won't know by looking back at this history through the annals of the internet video collection, is that Stevie Wonder was left stranded on stage after the performance. Looking lost and confused and hopelessly blind, he eventually was helped off the stage so the awards show could continue.

The was an unforgettable moment for me, that by far eclipsed the fanfare of the spectacle that took place on the stage moments before. There was a pierce through the veil.

This was the one true moment.