In the Underworld a Song

He was just a man

But was he?

Sitting there in the subway

His long golden hair

Danced in the artificial wind

Of the Cement Jungle’s underworld

Where on each side of our island of stone

Subway cars rolled by in violent force

Stealing people from one place

And inspiring them to another

Then the man presumably homeless

With clean features and normal look

Parted a smile that ripped my soul

And to this day I have never forgot

The crazy jags of those crooked teeth

And Cheshire cat eyes

Now looking on me

In me

And those long bony fingers of his

Strumming the guitar he once had on his back

As he took a seat in the dead center

Of this underworld where my friends and I waited

The rushing command of people everywhere

And yet it was only he and I

And the song he began to strum

What terror in such perfect ordinariness

Was it his condition, his smile, his unnatural eyes?

Or was it something more I sensed

Some hint of a past full of violence

His fingers danced upon the strings

And out came the song I remember never hearing his voice sing

“Hotel California”

His lips moved but the sounds of the city stole his words

And though I have forgotten much of that trip to New York

I have never forgotten the presumably homeless man

With golden hair and unsettling eyes

In the underworld of that city

And the song he chose to play

Begging for a buck

Begging for attention

And how he got one but not the other

He stays in my imagination still

Was he a man?

Or a monster in human flesh

I am grateful to have not found out

I Want Love

I want love like a foreign country

Where I wonder the streets in happy lost abandon

And pass not through in a hurry but soak up the culture

Where I sample the many delights

And taste the greatness of what otherwise might be common

I want love like a summer night

Filled with shooting stars to wish upon

And the soft private songs of isolation

Where being on our own road is a good thing

And the promise of laughter is always nearby

I want love like a snowy day in winter

Where the only option is to cuddle up

And has the peaceful feeling of sitting by a fireplace

Where sharing a blanket too small pulls us closer

And like the presents under the tree always a happy surprise

I want love like home

Where I can drive the roads blindfolded

And summon the sounds most comforting at a moment’s notice

Where I know I can be held in good times and bad

And can carry with me no matter where life may take me

A Rambler with Roots

 (In memory of my Cousin Brian, Rest in Peace)

In all my memories of you
I cannot remember many where you weren’t on Lock 8 Road
Or in the sticks of that home country you grew up in
The river must surely now be your blood
The rolling hills your bones
The greenery of the trees in the summer and spring your soul
In that place you called home your spirit now freely roams
In all my memories of you
There is that memory deepest of all
You were a rambler with roots
A quiet conundrum
You are alive and will live always as all of the family will
In memories, in thoughts, in the spirit of those that mourn
Upon the wind that sings a sad song in the winter
Rolling across the hilltops of lock eight road Creaking the trees and rustling what leaves there are
We will always know your presence
And hear your voice
So many memories keep your ghost
Of jokes we both shared about dad on his grumpy days
And of stupid things you shouldn’t have done
Like burning gas cans you carried to the creek
You have traded a presence of body
For a presence of spirit
In the legacy of our home and family
You will be carried on and remembered

An Excerpt of a Short Story: Working Title: Clock Tower Photograph (A very Rough Draft)

Caroline was the next victim of the picture. When time finally caught up to Jake, reality fell like a hard swung hammer on a thick anvil. There was the rush of sounds—normal sounds, birds chirping, wind rustling the thin leaves of the tall oak in the yard, the distant rumble of a tractor, the kitchen sounds pouring over from inside the house and then the sudden slamming thunderous commotion of the back door.

Caroline had been frozen too.

First Caroline’s jaw stayed shut, like wires had bound it tight together. Then everything came loose. Everything. Her jaw dropped, swung limply, her shoulders slumped, her body bent, and just before she fell to her feet as it looked she would, she sprung. It was an altogether beautifully ugly motion as she pounced on the picture and where Oliver had been before.

There was a sound like the lonely wail of wind on the top of hills during winter. It may not have been a word she said, but Jake always remembered it as one. A long and continuous wailing, “No!”

She snatched up the fallen picture and cradled it as if it were the boy himself. What must have been going through her mind was anyone’s guess, predicting anyone’s reaction to seeing such a completely otherworldly event is next to impossible. She cried long and hard, her whole body shivering with the lonely pain of unacceptance. And yet, she seemed perfectly expecting of the entire event, as if she had been cursed once before to face the loss of some great thing that had meant more than life to her.

Jake made steps toward her then, his acceptance far less than perfect. He was still trying to sort through what he had just saw, one hand reached out for Caroline, his long calloused fingers just barely touching the feather soft frizz of her hair before it happened again.

First the sound, then the colors of the picture swirled and leapt out on her milky white flesh and grabbed her. Jake jerked his hand back, sudden terror seizing him, he was completely within the means to offer help—what help there was for such a situation as this—and yet he knew only crippling fear for himself.

She was tugged at first, like a fish caught on a hook, testing the fisherman. She bobbed and weaved first toward the picture then away. Her head turned toward Jake, and in the sea of her eyes he saw the mirror images of all that came before humanity in that long ago endless night of the starless void that once was, a deep and primeval loneliness. And then she was gone, first in bites as the picture pulled her in, and then grand whole parts of her body vanished into the tiny photograph. The last of her to go was the frizzy tips of her long hair that he had just barely touched mere moments ago.

What had he done to deserve such hell?

I Am Made of a Trillion Dreams

I am made of a trillion dreams

Carefully sewn together and held by hope

I am a patchwork of possibility

Each tiny thread a symmetry of chance and desire

I am carefully sewn together and held by hope

I am the far off universe’s close up reflection

Each tiny thread a symmetry of chaos and possibility

I am the dust matter of the long burned out stars of ago

The far off Universe’s close up reflection can be seen in me

I am the song of barely whispered wishes on a soft evening wind

A phoenix from the flame of the big bang rising up from the ash

I am the echo of creation and siren song of the end eternal now

But one song of a barely whispered wish on a puff of cool air

I am the multitude of tears shed for hopes never fulfilled

And the reverberation of dreams with sleepy eyes opening again

I am both the pain and pleasure of the always present now

I am the multitude of tears shed for hopes never fulfilled

The quiet sigh of satisfaction at another goal accomplished

I am the pain of passing moments the pleasure of what simply is

A knot of flesh barely containing a soul of eternity

I am the quiet sigh of satisfaction the grin of accomplishment

I am the sum of silences from before my birth and after my death

I am a blanket of flesh barely holding back the next big bang

I am made of a trillion dreams

She Is My Sister the Photographer

With a thousand cameras she took only one picture
She danced with the glimmering beams of light from the moon
And talked politics and love and laughter with a moose head
She took only one picture, the picture of her life

She danced with the glimmering beams of light from the moon
She writes sonnets in pictures of an ocean I’ve never seen
She took only one picture, the picture of her life
Only in her photographs have I seen her world

She writes sonnets in pictures of an ocean I’ve never seen
She is eyes always watching, life always hungry
With a thousand cameras she has shown me her only picture
The one still life black and white colorful story

She is eyes always watching, life always hungry
Dancing with pizza in one hand and camera not up to task
She is the freezing force of holding moments captive in time
She is the frame waiting for the right photograph to accent

Dancing with pizza in one hand and camera not up to task
She is the laughing jovial face behind the lens
She is the right shade the picture calls to be painted in
She is the raw moment happening all around us

She is the laughing jovial face behind the lens
Ever watching, finger at the trigger, photo waiting to happen
She is the keeper of the eternal now
With a thousand cameras she took only one picture

Just One Feather On My Pillow

Just one feather on my pillow

That’s all it took to pull me in

Just one feather on an otherwise flat bed

That’s all it took to hear the call

That’s all it took to pull me in

The commanding caw of the oil black crow

That’s all it took to follow that song

Haunting deeper than bone and marrow

The commanding caw of the oil black crow

Came calling calling calling in my ever deep sleep

Haunting in the endless deep soul

Leaving the black blot stain of ink behind

Came the calling calling calling in my deep sleep

She my muse whispers to me

Tattooing the thin skin of my passion

Deep ancient goddess she

She my muse that whispers to me

Pulling me deeper in and farther on

Oh deity before gods inspiring the hand of poets

Lady chaos bringing order

Pulling me and beckoning me ever deeper

To the hungry hands of the poem write

Madam midnight of the endless abyss bringing inspiration

Open your wings and set to flight

To the hungry hands of the poem write

Upon the papyrus of my history inscribe

Open your wings to carry me o’er the endless sea

My soul cries out, “Feed me!”

Upon the papyrus of my history inscribe

That I will not to that faceless fire go

My soul so hungry, feed

Awake in me the deeper passion still

That I will not to that faceless fire go

Old crow what story do you know

Awake in me the deeper lust for life

Just one feather on my pillow

---

Dedicated to:

Edgar and Lucinda

How Much Can Change On So Little a Plot of Land?

How much can change on so little a plot of land?
Where my grandparents called home

My childhood lingers in that place’s memory
Waiting for me

Where my Grandparents called home
They lived there and died there
Haunting me
Their ghosts I welcome as I miss them so

They lived there and died there
They died feet away separated by long years
Granny visits in dreams and Pops stays in memories
I am their smiling continuation

They died feet away separated by long years
I have seen death’s ugly truth in loved one’s faces
I hold their smiles in my smiles and their life in mine
This is the legacy of the Welch family line

I have seen death’s ugly truth in loved one’s faces
Clouds parted, momma said, to let Pops in
I was a boy when I first learned my part in the family
I came to know many scars from death through the years

Clouds parted, momma said, to let Pops in
When Granny died I carried her coffin looking at parting clouds
I was a man then, wearing the pain of death’s too often visit
How much can change on so little a plot of land?

What's It Worth?

Each person is a possibility

A story waiting to be told

We are all a light bulb

Waiting to burn bold

To shine back that brilliant darkness

That would tempt us to sleep

We are instead so much more

Than counting sheep

We are the story the gods share with each other

The fire they hunger to know once more

We are the second coming and golden chance

Remember this when those hateful eyes fix on you

When you’re sad and even blue

Remember this

This story is the story of us, and the story of you

Seven billion or so call this wobbly place home

Seven billion chances at world peace and harmony

Seven billion chances to get it right

Imagine if we put down the weapon and stopped the fight

What could be, what would be, what even

Should be

If instead of spewing hate and damnation

We together build one giant human nation

Where instead of saying hate you

We said something bigger

Love you

Something better

Have faith in you

Something bolder

This could be our story

Should be our story

It could even be our biggest glory

To live together, stewards of the earth

From us all, we to love give birth

What’s it worth?

Into the Orange Ember City Lights

Into the Orange Ember Lights

I can’t sleep

No matter how many sheep

My heart is a raw nerve

With each thrumming beat

I want to go outside

Take my feet

Hit the street

I want to run away

Sink into the nothingness

I want to melt into those orange ember city lights

I want to grow wings

Take flight

I want to run away

Pain be gone

Turn to old news

Yesterday lose your sway

I want to feel free

Be free

But I’m a mime in a box

My screams can’t even hit the ceiling

My paper thin love gone from all the peeling

I’m beating at the walls but no one is coming

My heart is in a free fall

I’m hurting and aching

My soul plummeting

Loved her but was mistaken

I guess that’s so, I don’t know

I’m just hurting

She’s probably smiling

As this cut in my heart keeps on squirting

And all this pain keeps on piling

To the midnight street I take my beat

With two pairs of shoes to hide my feet

I the secret path seek

Escaping into the nothing

Melting into the orange ember lights

In the city façade

I whisper my midnight plights