Shutter
He held the old black Nikon to his eye and took pictures. Every day for years he walked the urban streets and and with a short lens framed an alley man and engaged the shutter. The slap of the mirror startled some. Some grew angry. One threw a bottle at him, just missing his camera and crashing against a pissed up brick wall . But over time the Alley Men got to know him and accepted the pantomime of his photography. For all the years he took pictures, for all the years he engaged the shutter, and listened to the slap of the mirror and felt the weight of the camera hanging across his neck and shoulders he never loaded the old black Nikon with film. He never pulled TRI-X out of a yellow cartridge, nor spooled it, nor closed the film door, nor turned the rewind lever. Some Alley Men believed he processed the photos inside his head. His brain like a dark room where each image of misery was printed. Other Alley Men thought that was crazy talk. The old Nikon was empty. Nothing there. Just a short lens and the dark negative spaces of time and madness. 

 Waiting

I dream sometimes of barely floating atop a dark black sea...praying for gentle waves to safely take this soul 

I don't know where or how...whether ever it will be 

I don't know if it will be today, tomorrow, or when my spirit passes 

But someday the waiting will end and perhaps I will be saved,

My life may be preserved...a drowning, praying captain safe from a dark black sea

Blackbird
I remember the summer of Tokyo time...between the gathering of darkness and a sun's rise.  I close my gaijin eyes and hear the rumble of walking lives...the ghosted  memory crowds from Shinjuku trains hurrying the blended mix of jazz and cinema samurais and swords and sullen Blackbirds singing into the dead of night. Oh, reimagined salarymen as Shoguns stumbling into red lanterned Izakayas to embrace Kirins and taste the grilled catch of the Japan sea. Where did I stand in all this loneliness? So far from home? Nippon handkerchiefs absorbed my sweaty brow. Two years in Tokyo time...the end. Back home to where I can drive my car. Roll down my window; feel the ocean breeze. Look to the east...and dream of samurai trains; remembering how much I wanted to come back to my town.  And now with the decades passing I wonder how I was ever there and if in the dead of night Blackbirds drink Tokyo beer and sing forever into a sun's long rise.

 Beatles Library

The Alley Men

I have an evening secret... 

Under a rhyming street light.

live alley men who come apart

Like broken parts, Like wheels that come unwheeled

Minds astir, crazy, unwell, mad city birds fly ahead

I have an evening secret, I stop at the alley and take a breath..

my mind a bit astir, but no broken parts, and the wheels still wheeled

the devil cries inside, compels me...

I roll bye in defiance of the sorcerer's mind

Not yet ready to walk inside the rhyming alley

To sing Psalms to an atheist's Spirit

Not yet ready to walk within an alley's tears and madness

Space and Time

Do you know fallen sons who

fade away

into the silent movie of

whirring reels

of crazy minds 

of backlit flickers eliding space and time

backbeats and rhythm disappear

The band is gone

Projected words between quiet scenes

The band is gone...

Do you know clowning fathers who

cry alone

Eying final credits of their fallen sons...

who ride the whirring silence of space and time

Veins

Each day from work my muscles are torn,

my eyes are weary like heavy weights

my belly is fat, but my stomach is empty...

just like the empty kitchen shelves 

and the blank cold air in my fridge...nothing there but sticky food stains and dead celery...

only a last waxy sleeve of salt crackers... a hollow plastic jar of peanut butter...almost as empty as a beer can... I'm too tired to go to the store...to go get takeout...junkies prey on old working men who walk slow and alone... the crackers will keep me going...the last swabs of Jiffy sticking to the roof of my mouth...even my lips are tired...68 and stocking shelves...the only reason they hire me is cuz labour is in short supply..."I don't want to end up like that old loser"...is what I overhear.. the part time high school kid says so...

Then don't drink so much...and don't treat your wife like she don't matter and she takes the kids 30 years ago and walk's out on you and your crappy apartment and minimum wage job....68 and stocking shelves...sitting on a tired couch, eating crackers and peanut butter looking at Peloton commercials on a 16 inch flat screen...barely able to lift the remote...barely able to fill the bathtub with warm spinning water...

I drop my old, fat body in a half-soapy mess of drowning thoughts...what happens if my arthritis gets worse...what then?...disability pension...not enough money for rent...no more money for booze...homeless

I guess I'm better off than the junkies...they prey on old men...I wonder what goes through their veins...if its painless...the needle tearing the skin and muscles...I wonder if they know its night when the opioids damage their brains...what is high?...what is low?...supposed to rain tomorrow...damp weather makes arthritis worse...the doctors say they don't know why...I wonder if junkies get arthritis...if their arms hurt in the rain...