Tonight still sounds like some sort of
phantom limb; we don’t have
to hear it — it’s pulse is that
sputter in the clock.

We count minutes. We miss seconds.
We count minutes; we don’t count
drinks.

Anne’s still at the bar, next stool
over from, “give me a call,”
but who can dial anyone up
when there are shadows of
rejection she still can’t drink
free from her veins.

The lack of interest is only lack of self,
of course she’s flattered,
of course you’re cute,
buy the past is a virus, & though
she hopes, liquor hold no cure.

But it is tonight - it is still tonight - and probably
always has been. We know it
always will be. Not one drop of
anything will quench this thirst.

You know that boy, in the booth just there,
he glowers like you need it.

Yes, Jesse stays still : he stays still
where she left him because
his thoughts have no history.
Every pinch and puncture
what lands inside his head
was born, but just before
any of this.

The jukebox sputters like the
victim in recovery — 10 songs
we wish we could unhear
and 2 we wish would turn
everything to OFF.

And Anne is swallowing poison
because maybe this time —just maybe — maybe this time
she will finally drink him &
him & him & her & him
out into the space s he
does not occupy.

The lights dim down within
insatiable noise ;
some one wants to set some
sort of secret mood.

It is not for us or you or her or me
but some one wants to feel,
to transform the one next to
him. Transform? Into what?

The empty booth still holds
Jesse, and he holds hope
like maybe the cancer’s
cured & maybe Adjacent
Flirtation will spin back
into a pumpkin. But we are
not fairly tales.

We are parts of our own reflections,
soured by the breath we take,
far from being much of anything.
We are ghosts -tumors tucked
into our own blood.

We are ghosts. We stand, smiling,
the dying parts of all those
people we did once learn to love…

(by process of disintegration OR the last time before the next time, by jesse daniel blaine, 10/26/2009)

“God damn the stars.
God damn Los Angeles.”

[ Old Man Charlie’s album, “Bad Life,” is available (in its entirety) for free listening and/or purchased download at http://oldmancharlie.bandcamp.com ]

I am endothermic endings.
I hate you.

I am 12 million miles from all of us;
we were never nothing. We’re
forever nothing.
Nothing more than
all that’s left —
i was once that reason.

i was, once, the only lie you told.

And I miss missing
because I am spilling out— out
of myself, from now on;
from now on & back to then, again.

I am such spillings. It’s
over.

Crime is in the crying, but I tick-took
the crooked clock;
i took everything. i always will.
i took everything back & forth &
forth & over-all, I fucking wanted.

I only ever wanted͵
to be someone to love you,

to be someone to…

(doug martsch movements, or: a helicopter, lonely by jesse daniel blaine, 01/04/2013)

spidermen and the Dancing Undress,
fallen things & shadows shuttered,
we were all of it everything… just once.
Now, walk me out and turn me over;
say your swears & duck for cover—
we shouldn’t know to have a choice.
We shouldn’t be here right now.
We shouldn’t be here again. Again,
I’m gone. I’m gone, and you’re still wading there;
it’s all of it syrup: cough-drops on over to nonsense.
We were with us when we were;
we were nothing when we weren’t, for sure…

(sputtered-up another awful; fine. by jesse daniel blaine 12/18/2012)

I did what now? And when exactly? I’m always fuckin’ doin’ things I don’t even know about…

I know there are planets
what are those
who keep the things
they love.

They are but to be only themselves. They are substance—
substance as it shines. Or
else,
we’re lying. And I?
I hope you are well.

I hope.

I hope…
I hope so many things.

So, now say, “Fuck it.”
We will dance. We will
dance and take our bodies home again.

Listen. Listen.
listen.

I hope,
and there are planets with things that they want most
to own.
And there are planets.
There are planets.
There are so many planets.

(so many unaltered faces; a corpse bought breakfast by Jesse Daniel Blaine, 10/22/19)