on a plane from columbus, ohio to chicago, illinois, after the wedding of my best friend; after the wake, funeral, and burial of my mother; after years of personal ethics-zeitgeist collisions causing a general lack of success, i.e. happiness

sitting, slumped in my airplane window seat,
unsure, unwitting, and unwise,
your head appears, swiveling,
as long curly black ropes, pivoting
my pen towards your well of ink.

searching for a seat for your body,
it is plausible to see you seeing
yourself in the mirror and smiling
with tangerine abandon and clear content.

i already have neighbors;
my row allows for no more.
fate has put you there;
you have put you here.
and i have only these words,

blown round my imagination
for a minute of stirred whimsy,
everyday life’s salt
against slick monotony.

what would it be like to dip my pen in your inkwell?
how would you feel after dipping your pen in my inkwell?

could we save each other?
can anyone save anyone else?
are rested heads on shoulders mere
heroin and chasing from dear to dear?

but possibility seems concave, bland and sterile;
i am satisfied with my words and will . . .
and nothing but disappointment.
negation leaves only the boring?
or will i always want the can’t’s and the hasn’t’s?

questioning the efficacy of past action,
declaring potentiality,
constructing imperative theories . . .
writing poetry keeps me present,
writing poetry is ballast.

as it is, i'll surely be stuck in a cumulus before breakfast.

the possibility of possibility amid amor fati

my mother died,
and the breeze
in my step left.

my mother died,
and the breeze
 in my step left.

but i lived on,
still,
while her chained heart
sank to the depths.

your heart still beats;
i almost mourn you more
since you are human
and prone to reason,
while death will not be wooed away.

i have the faith
of the dogmatists' i hate;
ressentiment divides
the self of my own fate
into a million negatory mirrors.

death is not just the end;
it's another beginning.

Radiohead's 'Frozen' (featuring Charles Bukowski and Steven Lazaroff)

ye olde prologue



radiohead's 'frozen'



epilogue (a)

Bukowski's 'Bluebird'



(rebuttals and alternative endings)

epilogue (b)

Bukowski's 'The Laughing Heart'



epilogue (c) 
Lazaroff's 'The Girl and Her Door