Ray's poems and drivel

FAST WALKER
I cut my way through crowds. moving in and out of people,striding around the fat, the slow, the ignorant pigs. No one usually passes me but when they do I feel angry, and threatened. I don't like to walk with someone. It requires too much negotiating, too many allowances for space. In the elevator, I hit the buttons for my floor and "door close" as soon as I step in. It doesn't matter who may be behind me. They're behind me...I only wish I worked on the top floor.

MY DANCER
She sits alone in a room upstairs
Thinks about dancing, thinks of cutting her hair
She locks the door and has another cigarette
Closes her mind to the thoughts she can't forget
Sometimes she gets angry and sometimes she cries
Starts for the phone and then questions why
She remembers his anger and his selfish touch
and all of his words that never mattered much
Tantrums and teardrops cascade through her memory
So many times treating her like his enemy
She wonders what she was thinking of
as she lays back down to dream about love

I LIKE this one. How come noone will publish it? Don't these cheeseball "literary types" ride the fucking train? This is truth!
SWINE LINES
I see them each morning with their droopy, dull expressions & dim eyes that convey a lumbering selfishness in spite of the lack of activity behind them. The look of forced consciousness (like someone newly awakened from a deep sleep which they were loathe to leave) is temporarily replaced by something less human, more savage as the train comes into the station and they push and jostle each other on the platform like cattle, like swine to slop. When I see the idiot smile of satiated greed on some pig that managed to beat another pig to the last subway seat, it sickens my being. Even worse are the half-lidded, half-asleep faces of the ignorant, as they doze between stations, giving little starts into wakefulness when they tilt sideways from the staggering and lurching of the train. Like pigs, prodded with brands, on the way to the chop block.

MISCOMMUNICATION
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, my friend Ed & I, lacking the creativity or inclination to do anything else, decided to get a 5 liter box of Peter Vella Burgundy. Horrible stuff. We were at his parent's summer house in Fairfield, CT, a few steps from the beach of the Long Island Sound. The day was grey, windy and miserable. We started drinking the wine in teacups, with a little ice, pouring refills from the box in the refrig. After a few glasses he put on some music and we went downstairs into his basement to play a drinking game. It involved tossing a quarter across a long table into the opposing player's cup, and fielding the rebounds and misses. He was better at it to start off, but after a while were equally shit-faced and our skills evened out. The phone rang, and it was Mike saying he was coming over with some beers.
Mike came down into the basement and joined in the game, rapidly consuming his beers and moving on to the wine. The music got a little louder and pretty soon we were all caught up in the antics and screwing around that accompanies heavy drinking, ripping on each other and getting loud. The phone rang again, and Ed turned the music down a bit to hear better. It was some girl, who had the wrong number, and I think she or Ed had an attitude because he kind of slammed the phone down. Whatever. Back to the loosely held together game. A few seconds later the phone rang again. He looked agitated so I went over to hear the conversation. "Sure. Yeah. You're my Mother. Right." Slam. He said the girl was pranking him again. We went back to the table and it rang again. "Yeah, right, MOM, love you too MOM, Stop fucking calling here !” Mike and I were liberally yelling obscenities in the background. Again, slam, the phone goes down.
We go back to the game, finishing off the Peter Vella and moving on (down) to an old bottle of Port that was lying around the basement. Even worse than the burgundy, but down it went. Suddenly, if any motion when you're that bombed can be called sudden, Ed turns down the radio and shushes us.
"Stay down here, I think I hear a noise".
Ed goes up to inspect. It turn's out to be one of his neighbors, banging on the door.
"Is everything OK, Ed? Your mom called and asked me to check on you. She keeps calling and someone is hanging up on her."
Oh shit. Mike and I are rolling, literally on the basement floor, overcome with hysterical laughter, to the point where I am puking in the basinette in the basement, holding my guts.
Then Ed, on the phone with MOM, apologizing, trying to explain that he had been pranked several times before she called and thought it was the same person (though it had only been one wrong number, really)
Ed describes the conversation to me afterwards:
"But Ed, you sound like you're in outer space. Are you just drunk?"
"MOM, I just couldn't hear you with the music on."
"Are you having a party?"
"MOM, it's 7 PM on a Tuesday. There's no party, just Ray and Mike"
"Ed, I don't like this. I don't think you should drink in the house, anymore"
"It's OK MOM, I just won't answer the phone"
{Addendum: I recently had a "housewarming" party, and Ed's gift was a five litre box of Almadden. Some folks never get the hint}

DAILY DRIZZLE
My walk to the subway is short and usually uneventful. About 15 minutes of bleary-eyed wakefulness and painful motion on the way there, as I struggle to shake my hangover and get my mindset back into docile, working condition. It's the same on the way back, except the weariness is fresh, not from an overnight accumulation. The most exciting aspect of the walk is crossing under the train trestle. I have to run a gauntlet of fat, nesting pigeons that sit overhead in the beams waiting to shit down on me. I have to be quiet as I pass and keep a wary eye overhead to avoid getting shit on in my work clothes. Lately, I've had a chest cold, and the walk has provided me with a mostly private forum within which I can hack up and spit out the contents of my lungs and throat before boarding the train. The exertion from walking usually stirs up my phlegm, and it leads to a nice session. But if you so much as cough once on the train people shun you like you have the plague, so it's good to get it all out on the way there. I mean, what the shit? Nobody on that train has ever coughed before? Bullshit, half of these foul bastards have TB, anyhow. Those seconds under the train tracks are tense. 15 footsteps of fear and anxiety. 'Cause I know and they know. One day I'm gonna spit out a lung, right under those pigeons, then it's gonna be bombs away. The little bastards are just biding their time, cooing, eating, shitting, screwing and doing that insane head-bobbing thing they do, content knowing that one day they'll get me. Their moment's gonna come, white, hot and sticky.

LONG DAYS
war over the soul both sides pulling the tired body is the victim bearing the consequences looking for respite marks only showing behind the eyes

EXHIBITCHIONIST
Keep telling me it's on my time. That I'm who I want to be when I want to be, I sell my impulse personality. Go ahead and get ahead. I'll dance in my debt and fuck with my destruction. I can still tread this thick, black water while looking up at you in the sky. And you just keep trying to push me under, telling me how I let you down.

I'M BLOWN
You think you're an innocent, trembling
You're more like a storm that never ends
I'm blown off course in your sea
throwing overboard tiny pieces of me
To stay aboveboard, I lower my sails
as you shiver my timbers with your nails
My ship grows battered, never was the best afloat
your salted looks sting in my throat
My eyes are blinded by the spray
the fiercest wind in what you say
Can't hear your heart, not a single sound
just your waves coming crashing down
My mast, now broken, it once stood tall
could not withstand your raging squall
And now I paddle in your calm
still in your sea, though you moved on

ROBERT MOSES
I walked down to the beach on a grey day. I stood in the mist, on the sand. I stepped out of my clothes and walked a little ways into the water. I wanted to swim out as far as I could and sink. To become part of the hugeness of the ocean. But it was too fucking cold. And I was too fucking small.

FALL
Looking all around me
From the tiniest foothold
Everywhere I look is the fall
On the highest point
Scared
The bottom has dropped out
Everywhere I look is the fall
Scared to even look down
at what it is I'm standing on
Afraid to reach out for anything that might help me
for fear that I'll lose this balance
Fall

WORDS IN PROGRESS (bullshit)
the chosen one of a forgotten son
in his reckless arms you came undone

WALLS
I don't know how to start again
I don't know who I am again
You were my lover and my friend
Now I'm filled with holes again

I'll make it out of you
I'll break right out of you
and then when I'm through
I'll smash what's left of you

(AND that's as far as those go....more like sentences in progress than work, really)

MANUALLY BELABORED

standing in the water scrubbing
scraping, scratching, tearing, rubbing
hands grown numb, can't feel the stone
rub my fingers to the bones
eyes closed, head down,
listening to the ripping sound
of rock and flesh brought together
twenty-three years of life, forever
the grime runs deep, but washes away
knowing tomorrow is another day
to place its choke-hold on my skin
to crush the seeds that grow within
the dirt swirls slowly around my feet
each night the dance, the fight repeats
my hands are stained, yellow and brown
I watch the water wash my life down

QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS

I don’t feel like I’m living my life. I feel like I’m living a distraction. Spending my time and energy on earth, time which I believe is my only time, failing to recognize or possibly even avoiding my purpose, masking my emotions and denying my self. I’m not certain that I even have a “purpose”, or eliminating the possibility that such a purpose would be an individualistic rather than universal thing. Nor do I feel that I am consistently able to identify what my true emotions and motivations are. I don’t know about you, but the notion that I am unable to define who or why I am scares the shit out of me.
I am constantly nagged at by this feeling of waste. I feel there’s a sense of urgency to my youth, to my whole life. I try to immerse myself in as many things as possible. I go out all the time, talk to everyone about everything (I talk all goddamn day), read and watch everything I can, I try to be like this, because I’m terrified of missing out. Missing it. Often, I am left with a lot of experience and very little understanding of what it means. Maybe I need more time for reflection, but I’m not very good at sitting still.
I don’t understand people. I can’t understand them. It seems to me that most everyone with any self-awareness at all should be doggedly concerned with the meaning of their life, and collectively, that of life in general. How can one not be? (Although from the blank looks on the faces I see on the street around here, it still doesn’t surprise me.) Of course, not everyone has the luxury to sit around and philosophize. I sure don’t. I don’t mean to suggest that we should withdraw and everyone should sit around eating rice in orange robes until each and every person reaches enlightenment, but not to consider it at all ? Ignore the question ? Deny it’s importance ? Write it off to philosophy ? Just for dreamers ? I just try to somehow incorporate these questions into my life, whatever my schedule may be.
Young people, at least a lot of the ones I know, are becoming their jobs. Being defined bhy thier job titles. We are raised to do just that, it seems. Go to school, get a good job, have a family, retire and die. And I’m not saying that sounds so bad to me. Along the way, we become distracted with mortgages, car payments and bills. We try to lose ourselves in drugs and alcohol, searching for a respite, but from what ? We try to build self-esteem and release aggression in physical activities. And it seems that people are content. “I don’t know the meaning of my life. I have no idea why I am alive, but I have a great job. I make a lot of money. I make a comfortable living.” Or “I love my family.” Or “I have a un-hittable fastball.” So what. Isn’t there more out there?
Religion? Whew. Tough stuff. It seems there are so many different ideas out there about creation and the meaning of life. I was born a Catholic, went to religious schooling, made my Penance, was an altar boy and was Confirmed. I went on church every Sunday until I was about 14 or 15. Now, I hardly go, even on the holidays. It occurs to me more and more that I was a Catholic simply and only because I was born into it. It was indoctrinated in me since I was a child. If I was born into another family, in another part of the world I’d most likely be of another faith. So, is religious belief luck-of-the-sperm ? Fate ? Religion does a lot of good in the world, I know. It provides a moral guideline for living. Charity and mercy and love. Fantastic stuff. But what is the end result, qualifying for Heaven, an eternal life of happiness. “I know the rules and I try real hard not to break them. This way I can die, and then I’ll be happy.” Your whole life is a qualifying heat ?
Government ? “These are the laws you must obey and this is how we are going to arrange things, these are the services we will provide you with, these are your rights and this is what you owe us for this.” Well, Mr. President, I’m very excited about your position on the environment, but could you please tell me why the fuck I am alive ? Do you have a position on that? Are you a philosopher-king? You govern, you try to keep things going and keep people from killing each other and from starving, you perpetuate this forum within which I live, but to what end? And growing up in this world, this country anyway, it gets really hard to look beyond those parameters. We grow up trying to fit in and be comfortable.
The physical necessities are food, clothing and shelter (and sex). A roof over your head and a chicken in every pot. Then there are the emotional necessities. Being in love. Family. Friends. Feeling cared for and caring for someone. Being moral and compassionate (and sex). These things are all wonderful, but what about knowing why you are alive in the first place ? Do people really believe a fat paycheck is the answer ? Or that helping others, a life of charity, is the meaning of their life? Then what is the purpose of the person who provides you with a paycheck, the meaning of the lives of those you help, or the value of a system that puts people in the position of needing a paycheck or requiring help ?
Family provides meaning. Paycheck provides meaning (very little meaning, in my case). Charity provides meaning. But I can’t help thinking that the true meaning of life surpasses these things. I realize it sounds a bit ridiculous that I am sitting around writing about a question I obviously can’t answer, but it bugs me. There must be more to life than this. And there are so many distractions. Bars and cars and movies and guns and trips and sports (and sex).
The meaning of existence, as it seems to me, gets distorted from whatever it may be and evolves into a struggle for survival, and beyond that comfort. Fuck comfort. How can you find any peace of mind without meaning? (This would be a good time to tell me, if you know.)
Well, is that what we are here for, to get through it, comfortably if possible ? To adjust ourselves, our words, our thoughts, ideas, actions and ultimately our souls into something that fits. Do we simply learn to manipulate this way of being, of interacting and socializing in such a way as to put us up the ladder as high as possible, some being better at it than others?
What if it’s all wrong and we are really blowing it?

ANTI-

gotta blow right out of here
right through the cubicle walls
time of being a drone is over
gotta answer deeper calls
sap my personality
out of my fingertips
as i keyboard your
mindless bullshit
suck my youth like some industrial
vacuum and paint
my days with the broad stroke
of your mediocrity brush
i dance with you now cause i'll dance on your
memory tomorrow
and i'll put “go fuck yourself” in
the suggestion box
this is no end for a fighter
no glory here

NO NAME

Sometimes, riding the subway, when I am tired
and want to drowse the for the rest of the ride
before I put close my eyes and let my head loll forward onto my chin,
I will abruptly glance up and down the length of the car
hoping to catch some beauty that was watching me as I was reading,
to find a gorgeous young woman, paying me notice as I sat,
trying to see my face,
trying to make out the title of the book I was reading
wondering about me
who I am
where I was coming from and where I am going
what I am like
checking me out
and then my eyes close, and I check out

NIGHTS AT THE SAVOY

I can see by their clothing
by their mannerisms
by the way they sit
almost statuesque
I watch their motionless shoulders
at the bar
seeing the age & drink
the weariness holding them there
holding them down
wasting them away
and then i think
maybe they're no good
anyway

MORE STUFF I’VE WRITTEN

Thanks again for visiting, Now Go Back HOME