Daybreak Gray and the Blues

I see the dawn come slowly and know that I’ve made it through another long night – lately, they have seemed so long – when my mind was too active and wouldn’t let me rest. At four a.m. I gave up on sleep and just remained curled up in bed until that first light, holding on to warmth if nothing else, while wondering why I seem to have a knack for making things difficult for myself. Of course, it has never been my lot to be a sound sleeper, but every so often I do pass out and get a sound seven, as I call it. Not very often.

Ruthless self-examination. I’ve heard those words before, or read them somewhere, but they come to mind now after one of these sleepless nights. The delving into the past, going through experiences again, re-examining details and certain, vivid moments, attempting to make better sense of things, asking fruitless questions. Compelled to do this, it seems, as if being punished for desiring self-awareness, or perhaps too much of it.

I experience a little, knowing sorrow in seeing the first gray light, recalling many similar moments that followed long, restless nights. Tired, yet awake for the day; saddened by what seems like unproductive hours inside my head, and knowing I’ll have to put a face on for the world.

In my fetal position, having retreated under the blankets for a last few minutes of soothing warmth, I think of the Flo and Eddie song, Mama, I Want To Come Back In, and I have to smile.

- m. blake

No More

No more going through the motions
Smiling with the small talk
Nibbling at each other’s nerves,
Dancing, politely, around sore spots.
The act rankles, the bitterness burns
At the point of detonation.
Not a question of love
Or “hanging in there” and being strong
Or letting the “team” down.
No question about it; the pressure
Forces my hand. I should get out
Before wounding myself and others,
Screaming for some truth.

- m. blake

Heavy Days

Sometimes it seems like the weight’s too much,
The reward just not there at day’s end,
Still hearing the scornful laugh
From thriving, thick-skinned, meaty “players”,
Society’s movers and shakers
All too happy to demonstrate the ins and outs,
Rosy-cheeked, big bellied capitalists
Constantly pushing their product,
Rudely inserting themselves
Through the doorway to your thoughts,
Expert at making themselves known,
Laughing as you try and go your own way
Pushing along at your own pace,
Refusing to hasten for the wheeler dealers,
Carrying the weight of the outsider,
Knowing you have no choice, in the end,
Yet sometimes there are days …

- m. blake

Up Late

Was it doom he felt in those quiet, solitary hours?
Just up ahead, was that the backdoor exit for his departure?
For certainly it was his style to slip quietly out
Away from the ever darkening and hollow sounding
Warehouse with its store of insignificance,
Years of details strewn here and there,
Propped against walls, collecting dust in dark corners,
Images piled high in no set order.
His voice reverberates in the expansive chamber.
He sends it in to stir things up
To rouse something favorable (always the artist
Poking about) to his next creation.
But in his vast chamber, uncertain
Amidst the accumulation
Sensing a closing in of the walls,
Hope of any illumination pressed on
In the steady advance of years
Toward that back door with a sense of failure
Fitting him like a custom made suit.
And was that corruption, fear or just plain death he smelled
As his thoughts skulked about in late, lone wolf hours.

- m. blake

The Stroke of Midnight

The chemicals working in there
(Maybe a poem in it)
Mingling in the warmth, the juices.

A midnight character slips in
Under the sheets,
Driven to be efficient.

Some “woman’s” lover,
Whatever she wants him to be
On top or the bottom
Handing it out or taking
In heated, panting time,
The day’s details savagely crushed.

- m. blake

The Old Rebel Girl

The old druggie girl with the lost look in her eye
Still looking after all these years
A mutual understanding still there for us
Said only with the eyes
(Never the right words for the feeling),
Brief intimacy dismissed with a laugh.

Bound to be some hard times ahead
When you took the leap when young
When you knew at fourteen it was all a bust.
When you wanted nothing to do with what came before
Laughing at almost everything and knowing
Who you could let the guard down with
In those moments the baby blues didn’t warmly shine,
Flashed a hard cold glint - the ice maiden.

Or perhaps there was no light at all
The young thing melting with despair,
Tired of hiding from everything “out there”.
Here in druggie bedrooms, respites,
And enough passed in looks and easy smiles
Under the delicious sway of the weed
To know something had been shared.
Not always in the way you wanted
But a little of what you needed.

Now, older, heavier, wrinkles at the eyes,
We don’t need understanding looks so much
As the mutual understanding, the solidity
Of beliefs still there under the thin cover of “wisdom”
The education of long adult years
The things known already at fourteen
(The rebel inspiration burning brightly
As a well-toked bowl)
The reassurance – and you’ll take it these days –
Of seeing another spark in amongst the dead ash
Of knowing, with that old witch’s cackle,
Life’s big hit isn’t beat yet.

- m. blake

Oh So Quiet In a Colorless Head

In the quiet ticking of the clock, scatterbrained
Everywhere, and nowhere in particular
Still sniffing at the leavings of yesterday’s pot dreams
The laughs and delightful foolishness,
Private performances in amongst the old trees
(Witnesses of who knows what over the years),
Mad thoughts scattered on the snow-packed trail,
High cackles carrying through conifer rooms,
Well-stocked on kid-like silliness
We forged sloppily through the afternoon daydream.

And here you’re gone, and me feeling the solitary monster
Tired eyes and their decidedly un-kid-like vision
Fall on what looks to be forbidding forest
Blackish-green on this gray afternoon.
What a difference a day can make,
No fairytale jaunt through calendar-worthy scenes
No herbal visions for the wonder
Of yesterday’s Sunshine Superman.

- m. blake

The Road, Again

When it calls, your time here is short.
Already you see yourself striding
See the miles eaten on long summer days
See your smile easily summoned
In the sweat of the new adventure,
The unexpected pulling the old tramp along.

Bring your adolescent form along, old boy,
Your personal jukebox sustaining the spirit.
Far from done and you’ll let them know it
Rambling along at your own steady pace,
Leaving the agendas for the ambitious
(This a way of life, not a race).

It could be a big truck rolling or a revving bike,
Or a spring green rolling expanse of hills
Prompting him to push it on beyond
To what fate deals him for the next hand,
On to that next “welcome” sign
The next park or lake that beckons,
The next piece of ground to rest on.

He’s going to get there, despite no help from the law
(It’s best to avoid ol’ Buford T. Justice).
He’ll keep smiling, walking and thumbing,
The miles left behind with the farewells from drivers,
The boundaries crossed and the landscape changing
And thoughts there and gone like passing traffic.

It wasn’t the destination that called to him,
That lured him like some siren, deceptive
(He’d learned that lesson long ago),
It was the going itself, the living in the moment,
Losing the mind clutter that had brought him to a halt.

A matter of survival, he firmly believed.
Like blood or appetites, a part of him
He’ll never be without – the desire to go,
Shedding the all too familiar like old clothes,
Seeking a new feast for the senses.

- m. blake

Annie

What ever happened to Blond Annie?
Blue-eyed and boozy
Wide-eyed and whispering
Wasted.
Painted face and nails
Clown-like
Nightmarish
In the sick yellow flophouse light,
The darling of so many vodka-powered nights,
Jeans “painted” on tight.
Little Annie at eye level with heels
Armed with a cocktail and smoke,
Sharp hip cocked,
Hard little Annie squinting
Through the bleary haze
Of her late night, made-up image,
Holding her own in the tawdry act,
Dancing from couch to couch,
Legs up for countless Jim Beams,
The long line of cash flaunting studs,
Coke chattering cowboys,
Rum filled Romeos
All knowing Blond Annie
With the tight little fanny
A true little rock and roller
Glowing in the party prime time
A good time girl with a loving gleam
A knowing mama who knew all about boys
Who could be tough until the demon claimed her,
Blond Annie conquered in the dim sad morning.

- m. blake

The Killjoys

Some couldn’t stand the fact that he displayed his happiness on occasion, that he let loose with a few drinks in him, or maybe a couple puffs off a joint. Something came his way and he made the most of it; he seized the moment when he sensed potential there – the moment without boundaries. He refused to restrict himself according to another’s standards; in fact, at times, he almost flaunted his disregard for them. The result was sometimes painful, bloody, but in the end, he wouldn’t have done it any other way. In a time stuffed to bursting with laws and regulations, he won’t hesitate, if given the chance, to free himself from even the smallest of them. It is one of the few joys in life for him, the closest to “freedom” he’ll ever come, and he’d be damned if some envious hypocrite would ruin his party. He would blow off like a rocket, leaving them to stew in their pettiness. He had no use for their, to quote a certain songwriter, “measly little world”, which they had the misfortune to be absorbed in. Their anger should have been focused on something bigger and more appropriate, instead of trying to kill his briefly inspired flights. In these unfortunate instances, the ugly and mean little predators they are surface to crush what they can’t attain. They are infuriated that he won’t acknowledge their bonds. Yet he’ll risk a punch in the nose rather than hide his true disdain for their lack of vision.

- m. blake

Here’s To the Blank Page

How many times has he vomited on your clean white lines? How many times have you received the sudden spew from his head (what seems like a necessary expulsion)? At times, it could probably qualify as an assault upon the unmarked page, in that struggle to express himself. You wait patiently for his concentrated stab at the right phrase or expression, the perfect word to fix his vision on the page. It is difficult going for him at times, and you sometimes seem to mock him with your blankness, until that dam in his head breaks, and then look out, baby, a torrent comes down on you, the pen spastically scratching at your virgin surface. Oh yes, you could say there was something sexual about this process, the urge to release something from inside, the aroused imagination achieving a passionate focus, followed by a drained satisfaction. Content in his completion of “the act”. Yes, in a way, it was another performance for one of the many voices in his head.

And so he salutes you, the blank page, ever ready to receive, at any hour of any day, his one true companion over the years, silently accepting his sudden inspirations, his careful constructions, his corrections and deletions, his excellent passages, his various moods, dreams, ideas – his treasured notebook tucked away at his desk. He sometimes wonders what his life would have been like without the blank page to fill. How would he have filled those many hours he has spent with pen in hand? Of course he would have filled them, somehow; yet he can’t help but think he’d be the worse for wear because of it. He would be without any framework to support his dissipations. His being would have long ago been completely conquered by excess. His lard heavy spirit would have reached its final resting place in front of a television set, changing, by remote, the channels of his consciousness. A stunned spectator. A flatulent effluvium in the Cosmos. Aflatliner except for an occasional cry from an empty belly.

Yes, to you the blank page, a grateful thanks for getting him through the many solitary hours when he tried to define something about his experience, offer some expression of who he was, even if it was, in the end, a mental vomit. He could always say it was a needed cleansing, which led to a further understanding of himself.

- m. blake

Breakfast of Champions

Rock and roll morning, and how fast the years go.
A Bonham beat over breakfast and though on the downside of 40
Impossible to have the blues this clear spring morning,
No lead zeppelins hovering over your refreshed outlook
No grim shadows from the headlines.
You were done long ago
With being in the know.
If they didn’t look close someone might see
The schoolboy in those movements,
Raring to go.

And why not, he muses,
Playing a bright solo for the birds.

- m. blake

Bon Appetit

There were times he ate America up
Couldn’t seem to swallow it fast enough
Chewing big gobs and pieces,
Ravenous on every new highway
A little this and a little that
Licking greasy thoughts
(Not ashamed of being a pig)
Gorging as the miles went by,
At the peak of his strength, it seemed,
A man who couldn’t be stopped
As he had plenty of fuel to burn.

And just as it was bon appetit,
and keep the courses coming
Keep feeding him what made this country great
He takes a closer look at what’s on his plate,
Feels more than a little sick
Gags and staggers into the bushes
Where he keeps an emergency bottle hidden.

- m. blake

Here’s To You

Lonely places
We know them
Big girl.
A vastness lends itself to them
A large nothingness
The bland “same old”.
So as not to be
Like tumbleweeds
We cling to eighty-proof anchors,
Flushing with fired-up life
Hard laughs
Sucked off into the vacuum.

Big girl, I miss your round red face
Your booze expansive gestures
Or sudden fits of pique,
The knowing cackle of an old veteran,
The late night lovey dovey .
A pro, girl,
Playing the game right along with me.

Across a thousand miles I still see
Your forty-ounce breakfast
Your scattered pills on the floor:
Medicine to bring the “tough old bird”
Through another day.
The slow, groaning rise
Of the arthritic bulk,
A muttered prayer to some vague God.
Maybe no phoenix from the dirty sheets
But perhaps summoning a little fire
However brief
In those tired red eyes.

- m. blake

untitled

On the outside looking in
(Bright rooms and big TV screens)
Troubled soul on its neighborhood prowl
Pretending, at least, that moon
Has some kind of sway on his sluggish blood
Pulling him out of his lethargy
Guiding him down that magical path
(Perhaps under milk wood)
Away from recliner and well-stocked fridge
That movie so dull it had him reaching
For his lonely pecker –
“Hey, remember me?” –
A little amusement before the cushions
Swallowed him forever.
It was that little friend again
Got the wolf perked up
For his outdoor hunt,
Searching for the wild and intoxicating
Red Riding Hood of his dreams
Girl who is bare-assed under that cloak
Not one of those prim heroines
On the big screens flickering in windows,
The laughing pixie dancing under the pines.

- m. blake

The Winter Electric

Guitar flutters
Guitar screeches and tears
Guitar scrapes at my nerves
Drills me to my seat
Peppers me with buckshot
Pricks me with hot needles
Rips into my quiet day
Wah wahs me into all kinds of shapes
Pulls me this way and that
Punches me back
Clouts me down
The delicate touch of the slide
Reduces my chaotic feelings
To a fine note
Of quivering poignancy.

I jump from my chair,
Stomping the demons from inside,
Fret board madness dancing in my eyes
The worst case of guitar driven cabin fever
They’ve seen in some time.

In an ecstasy of Hendrix fast leads
And Garcia-like twinkling humor
I offer myself up to the moment
The great God
Guitar.

- m. blake

Rich Man

It’s always like this
I kiss
Consciousness.
Suddenly seeing
Again
Plenitude.
Blessed today
I would say,
A temporary richness
As bold and full of contrast
As the tree green,
As delightful as the blue
Above that.Relish it, man, for your wings will no doubt be clipped within hours. Yes, you know how brutal the killing force can be; you don’t even want to think about the weight of the harness.Now you know what to treasure
As the birthdays click by,
Your coin and jewels
Fragments of a story
Chapters
Paragraphs
Brilliant sentences.
Oh, and the rich, deep chuckle then.

- m. blake

Out And About

Time to go out and get dirty and sweaty again
Broil in the bright sun,
Oozing all those house poisons out
(the sucking in on myself behind the walls)
Having nowhere to go but inside
Until I’m as bitter as my black coffee
And know it is time
To feel the breeze in my shorts again,
To stick my thumb out at passing humanity.

I have no answer except to simplify.
People spout politics and solutions,
Spinning in the unnecessarily complicated.
I take my few things and walk
And watch and listen. Consume.
And no money in my pocket.

- m. blake