it is the last night of the earth limousines are waiting in the streets and you're all dressed up for the last time with high cheekbones and shiny green eyes your every blemish perfect. you are stacking up all your moments of sorrow as if they were books to be placed on a shelf even as the clock ticks away (meet me up on the roof when you get done i'll be up here all night drawing pictures of clouds and roads that never end)

keep falling in love with yourself and let your dreams draw wildly on all the walls of your soul

october long open roads you were attracted to violence out of nowhere of cars overturned and charred branches left by last summer's fires and how those trees remained standing proud of their wounds and scars under the bloodred moon you were homesick silent sleeping by the lovestruck ocean studying the architecture of your dreams and writing in the sand all things will be equal in the end

traveled earth's memories in spring with a smile in our eyes, knew the enormity of human hearts, and evil; always silent in the margins, dwelling beneath our blood forgot about the strange kindness of nature and heard the tired voice of god ask the dead sky what does it matter?

the ashes of old moons lend their hands to this evening we are sitting shallow on rusted bleachers thinking of yellow mornings beloved with a question on our lips as intricate as maps of the earth on strands of your hair as epic as the confused battle between night and day(and those brave stars sending the enormous tide toward us!) the music of time passing is comfortable we embrace the infinite and wonder how we can be alone in the world as free as clouds melting into a billion suns

we are sick of distance and only free at the top of mountains while the desert lies dead melted by the neon lights we sit and study clouds moving like thick smoke through sleep our dreams burning with good fortune and it's no wonder we wanted to run away we are still impressed by the mirror we wake to small apocalypses and the wind sounds like applause we write our scriptures in spiral notebooks wondering what they'll mean when we're gone our front lawns are littered with shadows in the middle of the night and we are willing to trade sunlight for our love of absences we have made homes along this accordion highway writing our epitaphs on polaroids of our past lives and we sleep in the shade of a tree that grew from the root of all evil we ignore the symphony of farewells and clocks always ticking to concentrate on the sound of our smiles only the bitter sun sees us as we walk through the desert like those wandering prophets tonight we promise to sleep as though our beds have headstones and wake to paint our dreams on walls

roads all clear, sky too as if i were alone in the world i turn up the static and let the sunrise in!

today i am in love with everything and happy to tell you about it i am friends with the wind who sits upon my shoulder like a songbird i am friends with beggars & blue moons, mountaintops & morningtime & even the saddest songs bring me joy today i am at peace with gods of all sizes they are writing poems in the clouds and my neck is sore from looking skyward trying to memorize them today children have the wisdom of elders and elders have the innocence of children the patrons of heaven and hell are all equal (and equal to any of us on earth) all of us are perfect brilliant and foolish i once said i wanted to wear a jellyfish as a hat you said you wanted to keep a dolphin in your swimming pool and i wanted to be a roadside in my next life tonight we will all dream of one another (past and present) but we will not weep for the departed knowing that hellos and goodbyes mirror each others beauty and we all live on in a strange smiling sleep marvelous and endless as the sky

it was thursday, surely the anniversary of something you were sitting quietly watching shadows of the wind on cinderblock walls only breaking your gaze to look occasionally skyward you knew the airplanes would be landing soon you knew the lights in your neighbors' lonely houses would be going out soon they would sleep soundly that night though all dreams would be forgotten your stare moved blankly toward the setting sun you knew you would embrace the silence tonight you knew the darkness would be filled with your smile perhaps in another life i would have been there next to you as for now, i remain stuck to memories like poems on a page and even those inspiring words you painted on my bedroom wall are peeling away

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my eyes were clear and gorgeous this morning and the mirror held my gaze longer than usual i was still young though feeling like life had passed me by emptiness was a word i knew well as Robinson Jeffers knew it and as the mountains have known it standing pointlessly still for thousands of years as the cracks in stone mimick wrinkles in the sculptor's hands we have accepted that we will become ashes and bones yet our children are born with a will to create as if something will remain after us and after the ocean and sun that silent endless true as gospel nothing

in the mountains pondering the age of rocks pondering the timeless silence of their nights true darkness save the same moonlight you've seen from rooftops and the wind that mysterious wayward dancing gypsy wind that breathes a song onto your flesh and you are alive in the morning waking to the enormous sun that always waiting for an end doomed to burn out warm wonderous sun sharing your same fate you would like to tell her that you are gracious for this but you have also been the center of some universe and the stars ever since have longed to revolve around you

that Frank O'hara poem is rubbing off on me i take small steps everyday i think of him when im stuck in traffic on the west side and everytime i see the Pittsburgh Pirates on TV and even the most awful days are littered with small victories

made a promise to the dusk we'd be back soon for good to sit with the shoreline and get tangled up in sunlight to tell typewriters of what weve seen through unclean windows to ponder with pendulums the inevitability of absolute zero and as i sleep i see the brightest light and hear the sharpest static of memories treveling through naked time

you wish you had more to write about as you wake up and try to remember your dreams you look at the blank walls for a while then you get out of bed, undress and take a drink of vodka and gatorade (this coincides with your interests) in the shower you forget to wash behind your ears you were thinking of Fante's amputated limbs and all those cats with 6 toes that Hemingway had

you cant stop whats comin' even if its just a long dirt road with the young, clean-shaven face of god scratched into it