A Eulogy Far Too Young 

     Michael told me on more than one occasion that, setting aside the pains of loss, he loved funerals the way he loved weddings. These are times when all the people of a person's world come together. We drink and we tell stories. We promise to see each other more and to do so much together. Most importantly, we believe it then because we want to believe. There is a time for sadness and a time to cry. We all have found this time and we will again. Gathered here today as Michael's kith and kin, we should honor him with our love for each other. We should all be the best of friends. We should be what Mike wanted us to be. Our very best. 

     When I met Michael in high school, I was a depressed, anti-social miserabalist. I was not looking for a friend. But Mike's heart was always as open as his ears, and he was relentless. In my moments of reflection over the past few days, I have realized what he really gave me. It seems that every person with whom I am close and hold important came to me through Mike. It is because of him that I have all of you and you know who you are. 

     Michael was a lot of things and always creative. A poet. A musician. A journalist. To me he will always be that rarest kind of person. An honest man. He was unquestionably the most genuine person I have ever known. He only ever demanded one thing from the people he loved. The truth. 

     Michael was a true believer in the power and importance of words. We would speak for hours about literature and suffered each others amateur work. Then he became a professional. He became an inspiration for me to turn my life around.

     I feel it is appropriate that I steal some words from a writer far more skilled than myself. A passage that may articulate how all of this feels:

     [Inside here, in this space and time], there is nothing. No bones, no dust. How surely are the dead beyond death. Death is what the living carry with them. A state of dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it.

                                                                                                                      Suttree, Cormac McCarthy

     Michael is now free in a way that is foreign to us all. He is free from contingency and burden. For him, there is no more strife. But we are here and it is for us to remember:

Michael Bartholomew Dismas Bellmore.

A king and a fool,

But always a friend.

With clear eyes and full hearts, 

We remember.

I Left My Heart In Carcosa

I returned to the land of my birth in the year of 1895.

The great stone walls of the city were crumbled.

My steed whinnied with fear,

When I left her parked and tied to the massive iron gate.

Through the rubble of a battered city,

I sauntered.

The landscape of my youth spread out before me, torn asunder.

The homes of kith and kin annihilated. The rhythm of my boots

On the cobbled stone was all that that calmed the rising tide

Of anger and despair that churned within me.

I ascended the broken steps to the Hall of Strength.

The entrance to the Imperial Dynasty of America.

It was here amid the pale moonlight and foetid stench of ruin that

I found the King in his tattered robes

And yellow.

He stood and prodded searing coals in the pit of fire.

He wore a pallid mask.

A mask?

No mask!

How is it that so magnificent a kingdom had fallen?

Betrayal.

The betrayal of my cousin, my blood.

My King assured me a reckoning, a resurgence.

The campaign would require

New method.

I removed my armor and unsheathed my sword.

This metal was cast into the flame

And melted down into vapour.

Kneeling, I sung “Cassilda’s Song”.

My King took the brand of the Yellow Sign

And emblazoned my chest with its call.

All men would see it

And heed the Last King

In service of the lost.

(My cousin, the Betrayer, would never marry and Constance would die alone.)

Upon exiting the shattered city, I stopped and stared to the sky.

The dark stars that hung, now that the twin suns hid behind the lake Hali,

Pulsed the power of conviction into my heart. It swelled and rose

To join its brothers in the Heavens.

As I rode upon my galloping mount,

Across the burnt and ashen fields,

I knew the mystery of the Hyades

Below the circling of strange moons.

My tears were dry and my voice was dead.

The song of my soul could only ring true

In lost, dim Carcosa.

Promethean

I came down the mountain.

I lit the fire and sat to see.

You came and sat and stared at me.

I do not know you.

I never will.

The fire danced to a flamenco rhythm.

The unity was palpable.

The others gave up their fuel to the fire.

And the world burned.

Drinking and Thinking of You 2

The low lighting and drinks

That I have fired into me

Have made my gaze

Slippery at best.

Her glass is only half empty

Of a light brown ale,

Which in small swallows

She downs.

Before last call we’re leaving

To an apartment bedroom

That smells the same

As the back of her neck.

This is the moment

Where the dread begins.

The warmth of smiles

And alcohol drains

Downward on my face.

In a beautiful woman’s room

With her splayed out before me

Gently tugging me to come inside her,

I will be drunk and painless but

I will be thinking of you.

Scarface

I came

As soon as I heard what had happened.

You were still alive.

I would have thanked God

If that would have made any sense.

You were not dead.

I found you in front of your parents’ house.

The house where you and your sister were born.

A cabin

Made of logs from the World’s Fair.

You were sitting alone in a plastic deck chair.

You wore a white linen dress

And a large cotton bandage on your right cheek.

My face was numb

And my heart beat furious.

We hugged and you showed me.

Long thin marks and black stitching

Shined up with Vaseline. You told me

I was a liar when I said you were beautiful.

We ate a quiet dinner with your family.

They would not look you in the eye.

I was making up the pull out couch

In the guest room after everyone went to bed.

I sat in the lamplight and began to weep.

I had not cried in years

And my chest was heaving.

I looked up to see you in the doorway.

I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands

And tried to be a man.

You came to me and I hugged your waist.

I wanted to be your shield.

You wanted to make love

And feel something that was not so sad.

You stared at me throughout and I wanted you to believe

That I had not been a liar on the lawn.

Abortion Clinic

The ceiling came down

at 3 am again, and I don’t have the time

to do the kinds of drugs I want to,

and I don’t have you to go home to

to talk to fuck to sleep

because I’m already home and you’re in yours,

It’s smaller now than it was before, mine,

and the animals no longer recognize me.

The smell is different everyday inside

and they shit on the floor

I told my boss I’d come in early

but I hate it there too -- get going

to get away, and end where I left anyway.

So fuck it. This is for you ghost reader:

time to jerk off

and hit the hay.

Once during day and now alone in morning

on the deck

i watch the clouds

and try to understand them

they are low

and moving quickly above the trees

I see branches

snaking the grey sky

in the clouds before dawn

like synapses

or arms of galaxies

the clouds roil,

their texture gives and takes

moving east

I see an eye and face

as in childhood

when we all looked

for shapes in the clouds

Life is Good

To turn a tap
and receive
water from a faucet,

what pleasure
cold water
is on skin!

Red

It's a lounging bar

Full of maroon lunette booths.

Polyester button-downs

Slide on faux leather

As everyone drinks their cocktails.

Dingy, passe yet somehow hip,

The air is full of discussion

About John Waters and Johnny Unitas

And bleary, ember bulb light.

Do you remember Baltimore?

The historic district's knowledge

So near the dangers of the ghetto

And you hanging from a low branch

In that cerise dress.

A Night Out

The wind rushes across the field

Covered in matted hay.

It needles your ears

With a low, cold whisper

And takes with it

The flesh from your bones.

Trudging lead-footed

Up to the barbed wire fence,

You stop and look

To the steely blue orb

Showering white light

Into the harsh winter's air.

You reach out to grip

The top black cord

With dry, purple knuckles.

The piercing of your palm

Warms your numb fist.

Lifting the wire and

Sending your cramped legs

Through to more to more hard, dead earth,

Your socks are drenched in sweat

And black by now

From mud and lacerations.

The air appears before you

In intervals as

Warm, wet pockets dissipating.

You wonder starkly:

"...where the fuck are my shoes.."

welcome back

‘s hot glue on my tecate bottle.
a mountain like the one Aguirre came down.
an eagle has a T in the middle
...cause, it's cerveza.

the hot glue isn't hot anymore.
it ribbons like a woman’s hair.
spirals, clump, then stuck,
stuck where neck meets stump.

Place my bets on drink at midnight
cause day is not enough.
Place my bets on drink at midnight.
can't do what i want.

the one hundred thousand dollar pyramid

look at me i lost all the weight

e diet changed my life

free online membership

free, what are you waiting for?

you have a 50/50 chance of walking out of here a millionaire

from television city in holyywood this is the 100,000 dollar pyramid

oh good audience, thank you

we really need someone to go to the pyramid, it's been a long time

i teach achievement for the SATs, well good

shes a singer, not only bright and attractive but a run for your money,

thanks nipsy, somebody's gonna win today, i can feel it

alright we're gonna take horseplay, things associated with a jockey

good choice nipsy, you'll be receiving first this round

stone cut man

I scrape clay from a stone
with a miniature trowel,
scratching at the earth
that obscures its shape.

One hundred thousand years ago,
a common group of men and women
(not yet tribe, not gaggle)
followed migrating deer
along the north bank of an
unnamed river.

From the clay bed
a sphere,
vaguely headlike? emerges.
I scratch with my trowel
earth from eyes,
or what I think may be
eyes, and they open out of limestone.

Skin painted, black hair braided,
draped in iridescent shells,
he broke from the disorganized stream
of Homo sapiens skirting the river. Noticing
a stone beneath an eddy of whitewater,
he thought, in uncertain terms,
‘that looks like I look,
they,
we

I think I see
what could be shoulders, a chest.
I blow aside loose sediment.

He lagged behind. He turned the stone
in his hand. His thumb surveyed
the groove that split the middle
of the bottom half of the stone.

Legs. I see feet
emerge from earth.

He turned the stone in his hand,
tracing with his thumb
irregular divots on its upper sides.

Arms. Hands
chipped onto clumsy wrists.

He realized he carried a stone man.

A stone cut man. I brush away the last bits of dirt
that mask its form. I lift it towards the sun
and squint to find its detail.

On a quiet evening, warm,
he rested against moss on a boulder
after a large meal. He scratched a deer tooth
into the groove down the middle
of the bottom half of the stone
and repeated the motion:
up down,
up down,
up down

Later
there were legs,
arms, fingers,
a head. He turned stone into man
and when he died many years later
the others left it with him,
returning to earth
that from which they came.

Me, now, to chip away at the block

I press my fingers to the keys
and numbness fills them.

Naked flesh to ice,
electric wax paper
buzzing against the teeth of a Hercules comb
(bendable, unbreakable)
like pressing index in screw hole
of a desk lamp missing its bulb.

Thunder

Sounds like lightning
Looks like thunder

Three glasses positioned on the leathercreaking oldwood my grandfather gave my father.
I got it when both were dead or dying. (I’m a bastard son-
Saying so
at least until I am and regret it)

No matter what order I place the three glasses, I lift them with a timid hand. Uncertain,
I raise a glass and halt, thomp it down and lift another, thomp it and another.
Finally I sip the cobwebs.

I had a feeling. Thunder across my background hearing.
Escaped from the asthenosphere, volcanic clouds barrel mindlessly
in that place where shingles show as pebbles, and trees like soles of feet.
The tremors of woodframe windows shatter chipped paint to rest
upon the gutter of my windowsill. Telephones cold against my ear,
one dying, another dying, this one plugged and dying still,
it cuts my lobes like grad students take slices of pizza, lobes.
Like technicians spend two years prepping for the day they slice magnetically and automatically.
Like standing before thick glass, soundproof and speaking through an amplifier
wired through the ceiling past soundproof glass.
My voice coming tinny. Her voice coming thin.
Thunder coming humble,
thinking thunder’s me,
but isn’t, and is August manifest,
congealed in the atmosphere I breathe outside, choked by the vigor of an August storm.

I had a feeling…
This thunder is far too fucking timely. Sometimes, you know,
you have a feeling? You feel like

shit is choreographed? Strung together (up, along, out) by some maniac who hates you
and wants to see you squirm?

(God: What do you need now, boy? You punched your gut and kicked the seat from under.
You’re alone and drunk and in the mess you’ve made, boy. Call to me?
Grilling a grilled cheese?

Do you know what I hate? You, and your grilled cheese too.

See? You’ve burned it cuz you fuck up what you touch.
She’s crying. And you’re hard behind your face, teeth clenched; somewhere hard behind.

What you need is thunder, boy. Ho Ho Ho)

Thunder when tears begin, and the white of lighting past my ruined window.
See them take the place of what you’ve tried.

(Ha ha)

Is that you god?

It’s what I did and lightning.
--

And then the storm subsides, and calm takes up residence in place of banished spirit.
A pillar of mucus ascends the inner spire of my airtight tubes, climbing towards the source of gravity beneath my feat. It’s all a matter of perspective, so when I close my eyes and picture my beating heart -- the squelching labyrinth; inner parts -- I feel mucus climbing towards my gut, not sinking. I hear legions march; shamans calling dance;
a druid chain of keening adepts
screaming for my pulsing parts:
I hear them cough when I pull smoke,
gasp to stay afloat
the pull of gravity, towards the center where I don’t mean a thing,
and really,
outside of me,
this doesn’t mean a thing.

It’s not so bad a billion years from now,
all my atoms pulverized into components of carboniferous matter
springing again in the form of an unknown island
where some poor bastard meets life
out the womb of his bastard mother.

(It’s not so bad a week from now)

There beneath,
unknowing as I know

a bastard child aspirates
the thick dust his feet kick up
from floors of dirt his bastard father closed
in corrugated sheets of tin
liberated from garbage set aside
for life, liberty and
some other shit
that makes my problems grand
and real ones gone—

handed to bastard sons.

Define

As auto-completed by my Google upon typing the word define:

Love
Agnostic
Culture
Socialism
Integrity
Ethics
Irony
Leadership
Race
Napalm

A separate peace

Day comes and nothing’s there;
Morning, evening, night,
Stare.

Harmony extraneous
Pipes electrons up my nodes.
‘Nodes’ I say, sounding like
The milk laughed down my nose.

Have you ever had a thought—
An idea off beat,
Patented generations before you—
That amounted to little more than a mouthful of ignorance
Deposited oppositely, quite eloquently, by an intellectual type
Who puts it simply without saying
Because he's read books you haven’t
And cultivates quotes?

Have you ever felt he/they did it already?
Watched a trite movie
That said so like you say it
Every night you're, you know, like, really on?

Probably unimportant

Now,
Have you ever lived a week—
The kind of week where thinking’s done
And cleaning is of dishes eaten from,
Floors stood on, Cups drunk from,
Pots in which bubbling meals were cooked,
Sumptuous, wholesome—

Have you ever lived a week you want to?

Ass in sand on private beach
With beer and ass in hand

Sun past leaves of local trees
On trails of geograph breeze

Weakened by the breathing of a complimentary beast



Holiday

Is it scary so, ideal?
Worse, to say,
Let it go?

Stumble back in hole,
Light smoke,
Burn, groan…
Imagine where, one day,
I’d like to wear my basalt shoes
That weigh beyond the in between,
Beneath my bobbing
Presently-
Orange vest
collecting black,
Lips
sticking,
Taking on the color of the slick—
Waiting for when
anticipation
realizes, presently.

Drinking rum

Love

hmph

Geothermal

Here we are again.
The morning birds of spring,
Robins whatnot, chirp their chirping thing,
call the earthworms from tunneled loam,
frost to mud
oxygen, nitrogen
consumed by roots
in dirt i paint my face.

too dark to lie awake,
Light enough to wake,
An owl sticks my ears--
doppler whoops like
!oh? howling arteries
hatching veins in lungs
Where the flavor of Spring calamity gurgles up muck
Stagnant inside.

I really hope and really fear
That at the end of false light and fake death
When the sun expands to swallow the world
That like I've heard a few say
And like I've seen fewer believe
That there will be the snow and there will be ash
And the cold and untouchable will melt in an instant
back into their earth

The true dust made of all the crosses they've shrugged off

And the ash will remember the furnace and the sun will know his own
Because they've talked before and had their fights
And the snow will fall and melt for real
The flakes are frightened without their irony
And face to face they will flee, who could blame them?

And the ash will return to the flames
And know that what burned and scarred
was only the hearth of their home

Eggnog

Down the length of a trench of snow
Dug by the wide turn of a Ford Explorer,
Should I be my dog and put my snout to the tread
Dug along a shallow arc by the wide turn of an automobile?

Should I put my ear to the mouth of an evergreen strip
Between street, reservoir and mumbling parkway?

Should my shadows fall from the mouth of Chimney Rock
Rebuilt in white by haphazard plows and snowman piles?

Is winter really something to get high about,
Or should I tug his collar and take him home?