Can i get a witness?

Like a pencil with a bum eraser, i scribble out my heart in lead scratches and try to rub out each stroke of my feeble right hand.. the smudges smear against this emaciated piece of forgotten wood like the snot on the collar of my flannel sleeve that fights to stop the leak of my runny nose.... The flannel fails, the eraser eventually ends its endeavour.... As Paul Simon graces my ears with 50 ways to leave a lover... i wish i could find just one good reason that would hold up in my court of failed loves...
Today as i was marking papers on the roaring twenties three of my female students posted up in my classroom to complete some work... As each strike of my red pen drew me closer to sanity, their proud voices to loud to be ignored, talked wildy about boys, and relationships.... All the while with each one of their giggly syllables or grunted grudges i digested their problems and praises of the opposite sex and in silent gestures that couldn't be recognized through my teachers front I sat in total acceptance of their plight....

Can i get a witness?

Stay golden Ponyboy........

Lethargic eyes stumble upon the virgin day
Foreign skin desperate for home raises quite a fuss
For a comma, a pause, a break in the monotony of staring my life away
At metal coffins in motion, penniless and drunk on oil
Parading skeletons to and fro, divided in their unity
Robotic arms ally themselves with prosthetic tickers
While flesh and blood disown each other
Machines with different last names forget their common past
And intoxicate themselves with exaggerated stories of an old precedent
With their rusty memories of the industrial revolution...

Today i feel like a outdated machine...Old and usless like a 8track, or a floppy disk.. I am no longer compatable with modern technology...
Nothing gold lasts forever.......

I wish everyone had a replica....

As i lay in my bed that is no larger than the bed of my youth... untucked covers drape over me like leaves in the fall, my pillows understand each other without uttering a single word... the world rages on outside my window...I hear the faint sounds of wheezing as Nicholas' lungs wage a war against the phelm that has attacked his immune system.. 20 feet from were my head rests, my brothers skull sweetly sinks into his pillow as he is rocked to sleep by the sounds of the city... I wish everyone had a twin.. or if not an exact replica at least someone who they loved more than themselves.. someone they weren't jealous to see suceed but longed for their happiness more than their own... to look at someone whose is his mother and father....Who has my fathers smile, stoic nature, and strong spirit... While at the same time possessing my mothers, gentle soul, careless excitement, and passion for life.. It makes all those years I spent desperately begging for people to know that we were different seem wildly outrageous.

The following are lyrics from a song Nicholas and I recorded on saturday... We've made a pledge attempting to be creative more than once a year and not let life swallow up our passion to create things that only we appreciate but find hard to live without...

Black Bible, White Gospel...
Will i ever find, a kitten in this litter
Shes got her claws out
And shes ready to scratch,
like redemption, its tempting..
Saints and sinners, are all losers
Thieves and givers
no winners
They got their hands out
in the offering
they can't shell it out
what a blessing.


"Where so fragile were so calm, were so innocent of what went wrong" John Ralston......

Wishing like Skee Lo.... Hello...

Sometimes i wish that i was different...
I wish my voice was scratchy and distorted like a microphone addicted to reverb
I wish my hair wasn't so thick and difficult but fine and easy like the weekends....
I wish my heart was shrewder, blacker, and colder like the first frost of fall
I wish my brain was witter less analytic and uncontrolably unlikely to communicate with my heart
I wish my hands were frail and boney like a skeletons unable to feel others pain
I wish my bones were brittle, tired, and better at betraying the longing to be touched..
I wish...
I wish i wasn't praised for being different all of the time...
Deep down were all the same...
Waving more than drowning.....

Fiend of dreams......

Today i stood with 30 high school students who wanted to try out for our varsity baseball team in a vacant lot outside our school... the barbed wire glistened as the orang sky shot schemes of purple.. it was like a vibrant drive by of color. The sun bounced off the L, and off my face, reminding me that spring is making its way back to the north. They lined up on the concrete, pretending it was grass while the elevated train screamed by in 15 mintue intervals.. they daydreamed as if it were diehard fans screaming their names... Their were no parents present at the first day of tryouts but in their place sat prostitues and fiends watching in amazement as the young bones of our vibrant youth ran around with leather mits after balls of yarn in the ghetto...In Philadelphia theirs more concrete than grass, taller buildings but smaller spaces for children to be kids... So its not surprising that as i write this i think of our kids and smile at the little joys and privledges that so many other teenagers take for granted and it forces a smile upon my tired cheeks that our kids will play baseball and pretend the blacktop is dirt, that the barbed wire fence is the green monster, and that the crack fiends and prostitues are adoring fans waiting for autographs...all for the love of the game.....