climbing mount creekside

miles scaling the walls at creekside...what a sight that was...just walking on the ledge until he came to a lighted window so he could invite himself in...and when he found that beautiful window, he knocked and they let him in...right through the window...so he sits awhile talking to these three folks as if he didnt just come in through the third floor window...he sees a guitar sitting in the corner of the room...he picks it up and plays a few notes...tunes it...and precedes to play beatle song after beatle song nearly to perfection...the two girls who apparently thought it was a laugh to let him in are slowly falling in love...the fellow who thought it a bad idea then, definitely thinks it a bad idea now...it has to be rough losing your women to a madman who just climbed in from the ledge...the night ends plainly enough with miles exchanging goodbyes and numbers with the women while the man feigns politeness...miles walks back to his friends' apartment and enters through the door...in this apartment not much has changed...there are still two lumps on the couch drinking canadian hunter and paddy powers respectively, listening to tom waits, and discussing the same old thing...a little department politics and a little about the futility of existence...in the kitchen the fourth of this rabble is baking cookies...miles grabs a beer, sits on the couch, and imperceptibly rejoins the conversation...that night he sleeps snugly in his bed, troubled not by the dangerous land...crashing and booming its way to tomorrow...

"november seems odd, you're my firing squad"

its early in the morning and i am putting some imitation meat on wheat bread...lathering it up good with gulden's spicy brown to camouflage the confusion...outside the wind is whipping and the thunder booming...that doesn't happen this far north in novemeber...well it is happening now...is this why i am here, to worry about the epic floods of the delaware and the hudson...to eat questionable meat...meat with expiration dates two months ahead...man that sure isnt right...is this all you have for me...another night in november...under the howling trees...whining with despair...cracking, swaying, and bending under the weight of existence...without you, your friend, or my other lovers...without all that means anything...damn its like my sandwich and these stale chips...its only what i've found...

it dont matter to me

man that ole tornado is bearing down on me...coming in fast from the west...the clouds thicken and darken just in time for the rumblin'...whistle blowing, crazed conductor...get the fuck out of the way...it is too warm for november...ive been walking the lazy streets...passing the good folk...tip my hat and they disappear...it is all dreaming fast, living young, living whole, here with the good people tonite...all your memories and memoranda wont do me no good...i am flying dead end and low to the ground...driving around looking at all the faces today made me think of this poem i wrote five years ago...i'll give it to all you tonite...

it dont matter to me

and as the old saying goes...
that in itself is an old saying
and it is all saying the same old thing

as the old saying goes
what are you good for?
good for nothing

and even though that's how
the old saying goes
that is how it is...

what are you good for?
dust on my clothes
silt in the sea...

so when they tell me
i'm good for nothing
they are telling the truth.
-sept 10 2000.