Friday, March 24, 2017

Ben's Blues

While on this bus heading to the east
I find myself down, at my very least
When I have no good for anyone
And wither away at the morning sun.

I've lost all my friends 'cept the very best one
He and I have our tears and our fun
And all the rest are pushed far back away
And I can never hope to reel them back my way

Some think I'm a blood drinking crazed killer
Others thought I'm just plain filler
Some I'd gladly give my heart
Others, good thoughts can't start.

Sometimes I gotta wonder about it all
How'd my full house of cards all fall
Will I find a new deck along the way
Or has it long been time to call it a day

I hope I treated them in ways they deserve
That any punishments were justly earned
That all ill-doings were brought up to health
And that our good times were worth some wealth.

And I know so many hopes are in vain
But now I know to call out all lyin' claims
And not just how to moan and pant
But to stand, help and fight like a man.

I promise I'll do my best to give good to everyone
To never start a fight or give a shun
To tell all the wrongs from all the rights
And to show the same face day and night.

Friday, March 10, 2017

I can't remember
Four fifths of the books I read
The colors of the socks I'm wearing
My sister's middle name,
Her fiance's last one,
When my mother's birthday is,
Where my keys are,
How to brush my teeth
And comb my hair right,
Why I started writing poetry.

But I can remember
The first time I saw you
The first words we said to each other
Your outfit that day
And how it all felt.

Hint hint hint:
It was good.

I Told You I Love You

I told you I love you so you left
At least those were nice parting words
But when I think of you I must confess
If we meet again, it'd be for the best
If you bring your sharpest sword.

You and I walked along, learned some things
How to make toothpaste cookies, how to play hookie
How to eat with brushed-up freaks and them lying kings
We ate as the walls where shaking things free
And we knew where the other was without looking.

You said I love you first, ain't that funny.
We wouldn't see each other a long long time
You yelled it from your car, so I went running
Back to say it to you a first time
You didn't seem to mind then, I was lucky.

Then we saw each other season to season
Usually just for talking and eating food
As if there are any other reasons.
Those days were find but not as good
As the old day's meetings.

I sent you that message, a fail try
To let the boat we were on keep a-sail
Why would any one let a good thing die?
But I guess it just had to fail
And we parted like morning and the night sky.

I told you I love you so you left
At least those were nice parting words
But when I think of you I must confess
If we meet again, it'd be for the best
If you bring your sharpest sword.

Haikus

I can't write haikus
But I'll try and try and more,
Bring out something good

Lone and forsaken
I heard some ole' bum sing out
Now hear this ole' song

Saturday, March 4, 2017

To The Generation Too Far to Know

This writing will most likely be forgotten, if not soon then soon enough.
Its letters will be on this page, maybe, hopefully, a few more
Then be crumpled up, torn, trashed and let go from the memory.
It happens to everything that has been written and will happen again to everything that is.
Shakespeare's human will come to an end, so too will the roads of the Beats,
The echoes of the canyon bards, the whispers of the bum poets.
All will be given a final blink, a note on heard.
So be it.

There will be far more people who won't read this poem than will
There may already be more dead folk through the centuries
Than there ever will be live folk who can read this.

To those who I cannot touch, who I can't hope to imagine
I give to you my hopes,
That you might do something grand and great
And know things that are small and their strengths
That you might be loved and give love
That the words that bruise our skin,
Racism, zeen-o-foe-be-ya, sexism, apartheid,
Perjury, theft, prudishness,
And all the rest,
Will be too ancient for proper translation;
That you might love with your touch and with your mind,
That you might see the Sun wider than the Earth's orbit
And know all you need to know, do all you need to do
And be all you need to be.

My Angers

My angers come to me too easily.
I never show them, their faces are ugly, like Mars,
Crimson, filled wrinkles of mountains and rivers
Long since vanished,
And their voices are like the sounds from freezers
Deeper than they'd ever need to be,
Colder than they'd ever need to be,
And their words are infantile,
Mono-syllablic, ill-said and mostly meaningless.

I never want them around and I'm never glad when they're gone, not really.

Some of these angers know that they're justified
And then some of these angers actually are justified;
I never know which is and which isn't until the years and years have gone
And any reason, justified or unjustified has long since passed.

Some of the time the angers come when I realize it's been too long
Since my lips touched other lips,
Since I've seen another person as naked,
Naked in body, with all their worts and their hairs, their sizes and their guises,
Naked in spirit, saying what I don't know,
Not saying thing what I'll already know,
Since I called someone mine
And since someone called me theirs.

Some of the times the angers come when I'm reminded of money;
Of how I have it for what I want
And never for what I need;
Of how it can't be burned when I want to forget about it in the most splendid way
And how it can't be found when I remember it's as much part of me
And you and all the other yous
As is the bacteria in our bodies;
Of how I never know what to feel
When I give it to someone on the street begging their dignity away
For another bread or another bud;
Of how it chose the bed on which I was made on,
The hospital which I was born in,
The schools I wanted to leave,
And of how it'll choose
The looks I'll have, to certain extents,
The gifts I'll give to my loved ones,
The looks I'll get from others, to certain extents,
The medicines that'll sustain my life
And the medicines that'll fail at that,
Where I'll be buried and if I'll be buried,
And so much of what I can give after I'm gone.

I've hurt too many with my angers,
Made them know that the glare of my eye
In its moment of distress and
Has more gravitational pull than the blackest, widest black hole.

I don't even know where the anger stems from,
Not really.
I don't know what tragedies have justified them,
Which losses gave them room in my mind.
I don't know if the angers are one anger or many angers
Or how to rid myself of them.

I know very little about them,
But I know they do sometimes mean good.
I know that if I have an emotion this strong then there are others just as strong,
That there things I'll fight against and for,
That my heart beats to the point of hurting,
That I can write any poem of any length when I'm passionate enough,

That I can do good, that I will do good.

Friday, March 3, 2017

What Are My Goals, As A Person?

To love those who deserve love
And to love those who don't.
To create what's worth creating
And to keep many, many drafts.

To read and become
To listen and become
To watch and become
To think and become
To dream and become
To be and become.

To have the dollars to live
And compassion to give.
To see the darkest nights
And know where to find light.

To see the many blemishes on the many faces
And still to remember them in the galleries of the mind
With all their graces.

To walk lands that are smooth, flat enough that a pancake
Syrupless or not
Could fall and fall as if it fell on a table.
To walk lands that are rough and coarse
Where ankles fear to tread
And logs by fire serve as beds.
To walk lands I haven't heard of
And challenge my bottom half to stand tall
So what's in my eye sockets and past my nostrils and right above my ear lobes can know it
And know that it is not all.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Song to Bob

I'm reaching and reading all that I can
Sometimes I'm just learning to stand
And that sometimes there are mountains of blues
And sometimes not one's worth for to use

Hey hey Bob Dylan I'm writing you a song
One that'll probably ramble too long
Seems there ain't enough songs these days
That are saying all that's worth to say

Hey hey Bob Dylan I know that you know
All that I'm saying and many a-times more
I'm a-singing you the song but I can't sing enough
Cause there's not many folks that've done the things you've done

I'm a-hearing the sung-out echoes
And all the ones the sun still has chose
I'm a hearing them and hearing them again
Seems like they're still a-goin and blowin in the wind

I got nowhere to go and nowhere to stay
Bob, you know what I'd least like to say
So I'll just give my thanks to you
And hope I won't hope to only be you

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Nothing Was Hid

They tell me you don't love me no more
They tell me you never did
I swear you looked into my eyes
The same way I look into yours
And in that moment nothing was hid
I swear, I swear, I swear
Nothing was hid

I remember you holding your boy
I remember, like I've never been
And I remember the swings sitting still

I remember your clothes and your hair
I remember you lookin' so fair
I don't remember a single care

They tell me you don't love me no more
They tell me you never did
I swear you looked into my eyes
The same way I look into yours
And in that moment nothing was hid
I swear, I swear, I swear
Nothing was hid

I love you and I'd paint you new colors
I love you and I'd sing it til there were no notes
I love you and all that is you

I love you and hate knowing that I do
I love you and don't know what to do
I love you, I love you, I love you
I love you

They tell me you don't love me no more
They tell me you never did
I swear you looked into my eyes
The same way I look into yours
And in that moment nothing was hid
I swear, I swear, I swear
Nothing was hid

Bus Driver, Oh Bus Driver

Bus Driver, oh Bus Driver,
Will you let me have a ride
Need just another dime
Bus Driver, oh Bus Driver
Will you just let it slide
Hour's become an unsafe time
Bus Driver, oh Bus Driver

The name's Patrick O'Williams
Today's a day I was young
Played with the whores and the bums
Played down and out on the run
Played around with my gun
Had myself some fun
But these days are done
My bat's been swung

Bus Driver, oh Bus Driver,
Will you let me have a ride
I only need a dime
Bus Driver, oh Bus Driver
Will you please just let it slide
Clock's hand show an unsafe time
Bus Driver, oh Bus Driver

So....this is unfinished but I like what I have so far enough to post it.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Ma and Pa

Dad's wearing a hat in the house again and breathing hard enough to blow Donald Trump off the national reserve's roof. The hat is cowboy in gender. He has glasses, glasses that've seen all the words in the English language and then some in the Indonesian one. He's surrounded by music and his closet has enough Grateful Dead shirts to last him all seven steps of hell. He sold his soul to the road decades ago and all he's gotten in return is a bad night's sleep.

Mom has a crazy smile on her face but not crazy enough to send her to the white wall house quite yet. What a shame what a shame what a shame. She's telling me of a restaurant she needs to go to before it closes and i need to go there too. Theyve never offered me nothing, not even something which i politely remind her of. Shes never listened to an album all the way through.

I dont know how to write a song

I dont know how to write a song
Sometimes i think out some thoughts
Then jot them down far too long
The words and meanings dont stand strong
And then i realize its all gone, all gone wrong.

She could play me like a gong
Knew me like hands know clocks
I thought id love her strong
That she'd make my storms all calm
But then it all went, all went wrong.

He and i could talk til dawn
Had some high and some low thoughts,
Of each other we were oh-so fond
We were each others floor and mop
And then it all went, all went wrong.

Monday, January 23, 2017

The Ocean Doesn't Want Me Today

The ocean didn't want me today.

I realized that whatever treasures were on the island we were heading towards wasn't worth dealing with everything on this ship, its creaks and and its broken handles. Doubloons, loving mermaids, tans that change the lightest skin to the most golden brown and the clearest swimming waters weren't worth the each wave's echoes, the lightning waking and rewaking us each night; they couldn't mend the ears forced to listen to the unpitched shanties, the woes of folks who had no love left to give, nothing real to hope for; they couldn't get the taste of moldy sandwiches from the mouth and the cob webs from the pillows and blankets. I decided it was time to end my journey. I could hardly even remember why I agreed to board this ship in the first place. Lord knows I was never forced to do my job on it. I jumped at the break of day, figuring it would end nearly silently, save for the sound of one small drop.

But the ocean didn't want me today.

My feet entered the ocean's water and then so too did my knees but the rest of my body never reached the wet blueness. You see, my suicide had been timed so imperfectly that I jumped in the water the moment a humpback whale was jumping out of the water. I landed exactly on that part that whales love to show off when they're letting the world know that they're mammals needing their portions of the air and ending up falling right back onto the deck. I was hung and put in the bottom of the ship the next day.

Yippee!

Hi folks, one and all

This post is being hastily written at 9:12 AM and this author really should have had a cup of coffee by now. The dog is sitting on my lap, uninvited, trying to scratch the fleas off of his fur (it's not working) and every few minutes licks my face. There are three different notebooks on the desk in front of me, each of them to probably be filled only to a quarter of their page capacity before being lost. There's a mist on the window, which is nice. The walls of the room are empty for the most, save for one Star Wars poster that's mostly blocked by a somewhat misplaced dresser.

It's now 9:16 AM and the dog is scratching my face. He's trying to tell me he wants to go on a walk. My dad took him on a walk when he got home from work and my stepmom took him on one when she left for work. School's a little over an hour away and now he wants me to give him a walk. Just as well. So, this post is terminado, I'm afraid to say.