a song for christmas eve

i have seen her looking at me in sultry night clubs...i have seen her the morning after...i have seen her as the prim professional...and i have seen her as the little girl behind the wheel, smiling at me, waiting out a red light...and that is my favourite image...don't you simply love girls with glasses, girls wearing corduroy, girls with smiles as wide as the winding river...i will never pretend to understand anything on this cold, whiskey stained rock...i will never pretend to understand any one of its inhabitants...i hardly know myself...i am mystified by the sounds of the closing bars...i am gazing in wonder at the skyline...twinkling out like the stars in the sky...do you remember what it was like on the empty island...far from rationality's embrace...do you remember the first sunset that made you cry...well i don't, but i do remember the first time i saw the beautiful mask of existence lifted...i remember when the fog cleared and the rainbow appeared...

rum covered glasses

i have been living out of train stations...seeing the sad old folks come and go...i've been living out of rest stops...the 'vince lombardi' in jersey...the indiana tornados are wheezing down the hi-way...my lover gone away, someone sees her at an arby's in connecticut, and yet here i am in the big city, missing her...and the hick straight from the klan laced areas of mississippi gets to bask in her neverending beauty...some dirty scumbag in brooklyn gets to look upon her multi-coloured eyes...some good-ole-boy gets to gaze at my flower south of atlanta...a jesus freak in wisconsin is able to witness what i once had...upstate new york, texas, and god knows where else...they all are reluctant witnesses to my past...all i have is the amber-frozen memory...do i want to phone nova scotia tonite and risk waking the neighbourhood, do i want to phone washington d.c. and risk waking the wife, do i want to phone ireland and risk waking hungry priests...of course i do, i want to phone them all, and reminisce...

we're all in this together

the streets are quiet tonite...only a few days until christmas and everyone has fled for the suburbs and its warm lights and roaring fires...watching the migration is both empty and joyful...i stand with a wave and a smile, "goodbye" i say silently, "goodbye"...coming home on the subway, everyone carrying packages, the capitalism of their love...i think about the past holidays, the good and the sad...it all floats away with the crescent moon, the highway-ed autos, the rhythmic trains...by bus, by flight, by foot...all are going and coming...i sit here tear-eyed along with the mice and the roaches and wonder why...what is all this shit?...aw fuck it, let's go bowling...

the lean-to

i was feeling bad earlier about a story i told a friend of mine...told her word by word, line by line, scene by scene...told her about the first time we met...and it made her cry...she has problems accepting herself for the beautiful person she is...she is constantly working on herself...never satisfied...i stopped that a long time ago...it is probably a detriment, but i simply couldn't contend anymore...my heights were too grand, the bar was off in the heavens...so i decided i would accept myself...the good, the bad, and the awful...i cannot say i feel better but i do feel different...i told her how, that within five minutes of meeting me she tried to take off my baseball cap, and that most people would not even approach me...and that was a good thing...i remembered the conversation tonite while listening to dylan...i sat smoking a cigarette, staring at the painting of rivington street on the wall, while dylan sang, "she walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns"...and i wish, amidst the empty days and long lonesome nights, that she understood...she removed my crown of thorns, and if only for a moment, eased my suffering...eased the suffering of the ages...

the remainder

i am constantly getting spammed by these savages trying to sell me 'my little reminder'...i don't need to be reminded, i need to forget...

a memory of home

i am here smoking camel cigarettes again after three years and it makes me think of the first cigarette i ever smoked...our aged neighbours used to smoke and they had coffee cups full of 'benson and hedges' cigs in every room...one day, as a twelve year old, i snuck one...pocketed it...for later consumption...and when the folks were gone i went to the outer reaches of our property and smoked it in between the withering pines...i am happy that my first cigarette was a 'benson and hedges'...straight from the british empire's lips to my lungs...it was crazy and solitary...i loved my neighbours...they never had any children and were ancient by the time i was old enough to recognise their existence...in fact the patriarch still lives on in a wing named after him at the new york metropolitan museum of art...they suffered tremendously towards the end...he was sickly and died, she moved, but my father and i would still go over to help her out...she had m.s. and was miserable but never let on...she was always generous...they were interesting and worldly and i respected them for that...and even as young as i was i understood their suffering...whenever i would go over to their house i was always mystified by the interesting relics they had...especially the authentic egyptian sarcophagus with mummy intact...imagine being a child and witnessing that as window dressing...simply amazing...tonite, in the ghetto of my love, i miss that...i miss the subtle imperialism...i miss the subtle appreciation...all i have is my memory...all i have are the fading years...

the drunk tank

my friend called me earlier this evening...he was in the czech republic drunk as a skunk...he kept asking me what my favourite christmas song was...i told him, 'fairytale of new york' and he sung it line by line, louder and louder...he said he met some slavs that asked him why his head was so big...he met some people that hated americans, so he pulled down his pants and yelled, "get me a cheese sandwich"...last week he was in thailand singing 'fairytale of new york' a capella in a karaoke bar...he had the old irish ex-pats in tears...after his performance was complete he bought them irish whiskey which they wouldn't drink..."fuck you," he exclaimed, "you better take that 'o' off the front of your surname!"...they responded by telling him he was a lithuanian bastard...ahh yes, the spirit of christmas alive and well on the other-side of the world...after i hung up the phone i took a walk and thought about him a little more...i thought about the past...i thought about my present existence...i thought about the future...and it broke me for a moment...the hollow life, the populated streets, the desire to be joyful, the desire to be loved...and i thought without desire, without sadness, without love, this place would be even darker...i said to myself, "goddamn, love is a fucking wonderful thing"...the polite tones of the evening were creeping up on me, whispering in my ears...telling me to carry on regardless of the infinite loneliness, regardless of not knowing why...

another night finds me alone

"oh it gets so lonely when you're walking and the streets are full of strangers...will you take me as i am, will you take me as i am, will you take me?"

this seems familiar

my friend called me yesterday and asked me to watch his newborn next week...i agreed, flattered that he and his wife would trust me with that responsibility...although i have never changed a diaper...and it will be joyful, to have influence over an infinite life...to be able to tell her in eighteen years that your uncle al watched you, sung to you, rambled on for a day...i am lost in a sea of despair...far from any bright blooming days, roaming the garbage riddled, piss stained boulevards of the city...realising that i am not worth my weight in gold...hoping that this fragile newborn will grow into a happy, care-be-gone adult...ready to make this world more wonderful than it was before her existence...on this unseasonably warm december night, i hope that my influence on the people i love will be enough to justify my existence...because tonite i feel like the wasted day, the waning hours...perhaps i am the selfish, bumbling fool...perhaps i am the shadow on the street, the rat on the tracks, the vagrant on the train...but perhaps i am something more...something good...all my words lead to someone else's despair, my presence leads to someone else's problem...the light and the darkness converge on this sleepy new york street...the cigarette smoke curls towards the sky...i watch the souls shuffling in the pale half-light and i wish for sleep...hours before it will take me...

demolition

it is one of those occasions where the the night creeps up on you and grabs you from the neck...it chokes the the life out of you...clutches your adam's apple and rips it from your throat...i've gone through a pot of coffee and am shooting vodka to put me into a childlike slumber...my phone has died, and cut off my lifeline...the outside has disappeared...i am left alone with myself...joni was singing about the emptiness earlier...a woman singing about despair lends one to realize that big breasts are only one aspect of eternity...i wish sting never turned into adult alternative, i wish i never turned into an adult...but it occurred...i am the 'ghost in the machine'...i am wishing for j. daub's insight tonite...but he is living in little havana...and i am living here, far from the grace of god...the dirty walls, my dirty soul, the dirty streets are waiting for a cleansing snowfall...we are all waiting for a soft landing...

hello sir paul

it's a strange night...it's a paul night...very rarely is it a paul night around here...i am drinking my roommate's fancy pants vodka...straight from the czar's lips to your ears...and listenin' to "beep beep, beep beep, yeah!"...usually i shun paul, but tonite...something different...and i wonder where the night went wrong...somewhere between crossroads and crossups...and i sit with the beatles blaring...chasing the shadows away...wondering and waiting...another night in the soup...tomorrow it's the boys and girls...hot-buttered nights...long lonesome days...