inside the night

In between days
You sit and wonder
Where you are
And what time it is on the outside, but
It doesn’t really matter.
Yesterday has sailed off into the sunset
Or diminished
Into the gloomy haze
If that be its want,
And tomorrow hasn’t returned to port.

So in no man’s land you stare
At a half empty glass
With half-empty eyes and half-empty heart
But good God, alas!
The emptiness hasn’t taken over,
Yet-your umbrella’s still keeping you dry
And the holes
In your shoes aren’t quite holes
Yet.
As the torrential rains from heaven cry
Flooding your empty street,
But as you listen, you discover
There’s more of you about the night
Listening
To the cries of one another.

And in no man’s land you think
To yourself
About the girl you love so dear
And why has it been so long?
Since you’ve held her hand in yours,
Since that day in the park,
Since you swept her off her feet,
Clasping your dreams in your arms.
And you think some more
About the night on the beach
And the jack of hearts, but
She’s far away now
Beyond your outstretched reach
And the sound of your voice
And yes, it’s even more cutting than you think.

And now the streets are truly empty
You’re all alone
And the timeless hour persists.
Unable to stay awake
Unable to sleep
Unable to live
Unable to die
Hoping to find the door to tomorrow
And find it as bright as before.
The darkness passes slow,
So slow,
But the sun also rises, cradling your forsaken dreams;
The wind and the waves
And you’re home.

Siren Song

My entire life I’ve sailed this sea
Riding the swells
I’ve fought the waves without fail till now
But suddenly into oblivion I’m drawn
By something…
I hear a melody riding the wind
And its call beckons to me
Like a siren’s song
It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard
I’ll follow it to the ends of the earth
Whither it leads me;
To the shore it commands while mist and fog
Roll away from the sun
I can see the rocks as plain as day
With warnings of danger and death and doom
But all alarms are useless now
My ship will be smashed and crash into ruin
As I yield my life to the sound of her voice
My grand demise because of beauty so fair
But I don’t care

TMC

the rest of it

, shining,
But too, soon to die.

And the sand dunes in the sky
White, and rolling by, slowly
For they have nowhere to go.
But always consuming.
More and more light gets swallowed
And lost in the shuffle
While I think of what color roses
I like best.
Oh! but expectations,
How they’ve dug this hole
For me- I guess I’ll settle
For whatever’s in bloom
And give ‘em one more smile
While I wait for the moon.

TMC

ECLIPSED (though not yet finished)

In the night
when the cold winds meander their way through
and the dew falls from the full moon;
I sit by the fire.
I sit and watch, and wait, for the one thing i've been waiting for,
as usual,
but maybe this time it's one time too many
maybe this time i've pushed my luck too far.
I can't say for sure, but it's getting dark now
and the moon falls from grace, ever-laughing, ever-crying-
who knows which, but it will soon diminish completely
much like the fire that once burned bright; now:
a smoldering pile of heat and ash.
The wood no longer recognizable,
my dreams no longer tangible, though
i guess they never were.
My conjured masterpiece has all but dissipated
mingling with the smoke of the dying fire
and vanishing just the same.

And so I sit,
without the moon,
without the fire,
without my dreams,
without hope?
without you,
without me, at least the better parts of me; an empty shell left behind
much like the former abode of cancer the crab...

©TMC

Death Of An Old Seaman

We buried him high on the windy hill
But his soul went out to sea
I know, for I heard, when all was still,
His sea-soul say to me:
Put no tombstone at my head,
For here I do not make my bed.
Strew no flowers on my grave,
I’ve gone back to the wind and wave.
Do not, do not weep for me,
For I am happy with my sea.

--Langston Hughes

Waiting On Someone Who's Not Coming

The time is familiar, the day is not
And the months come and go
The hour brings comfort, the dawn stands by laughing
Will I make it to dawn this time?
Or will the tide swallow me into oblivion
Where I’ll endlessly reside.
Another day, another miserable downfall
Another death
An old man pondering, a young man howling
And a lonely man wondering why..
But the wise man had it right all the time:
‘What one hopes for is always better
Than what one has’
You should know better, I should know better
But we always fall for the same tricks
If we could only be here now¾
The sad bench in the morning, friendless at night
Craves not attention, regard or respect
It’s just willing to oblige the drifter
And his plea for relief.

The moon has descended past the horizon;
It won’t be long now
Before I can sleep, before I can close my eyes
Without diving into the fires
Of fear.
Before the sun rears it’s head shooting
Glorious rays of light piercing
The skyline.
The cock crows breaking the silence,
And the dark, and the dread,
And I can’t help but smile.
Another day past, many yet to come?
And right now, as always, stuck
In the middle of the only one
I’ve ever been in.

The same shit happens every day
But we like to think there’s something new, something exciting,
Something¾ anything but the mind-numbing truth.
Maybe one day it will be different, and exceptional,
But the day’s already wearing away, and I
Have to make my rounds. I have to see
The barren futility first hand, I have to observe
My disappointments intimately, and comprehend
The word ‘no.’
Before it’s too late.


The morning climax is unsatisfactory and resolves
Into afternoon
Where I again sit with my wooden friend
As a newspaper walks along reading:
Man kills wife, self.
‘Sooner or later,’ I mused to myself
Though I’d have to take a wife first..
‘Who are these sick people,’ from the paper’s owner passing by.
‘They’re Me!!’ I cried out savagely,
But his mind never strayed beyond the words
Fenced in. And the other supercilious subhumans surrounding
Couldn’t give a damn one way
Or another.

‘Well darling, that sunset was delightful
Wouldn’t you¾ but my darling was nowhere to be seen
I was all by myself, still
As lonely as I’ve ever been, watching
The sun set on a life lived
In perpetual fear, as we simultaneously
Go beneath the ground
Posthumously,
To sleep.

So goodnight to the one who I’ll miss
As I dream forevermore
In my subterranean home.
May the stars always shine bright,
Tonight, and whenever you need them to.
They’re hidden now from my eyes
Soldered shut, sealed tight
And never to reopen.
And I’m still waiting on someone
Who’s not coming

© TMC

monday

i did this for rechelda ramirez.