i took myself out to dinner....

......on october 5th, 2005 and had this conversation with pen & paper.


did i not bring you to the place?
boasting the finest women and most beautiful faces
where always the pauper will find a knights bed,
where they all shall bless your body,
by offering their only bread

we dined on our multi-course meals
we could never afford it, but
who should go without the sweetness of this?
the fifth course
most importantly
sweet

you, good friend who's hand was held into the promised land
hasty, I, to forget
it was promised, but not procured for you
i led you to the water, but could not make you thirsty

i am dining along tonight, searching for fare
between dramatic street lights
the weight of a body pressed to the bone
falls heavy on the foot, whose imposition is to carry me there

i'm terribly aware of this all
my hair is matted, just like the hair of a person who eats alone with their self
while the cigarettes spark from the tables of
stock white hands of young lovers chandelier dreams
I do always think
how different this should look
in the flesh
of the real thing

when I was still young, I would go to work with my mother
she was in the business of houses
and finding them for people
my mother and I would enter the still life houses,
the family absent for their display
I learned well the lives of so many,
through carefully arranged photographs and coffee table magazines

within a real home, there was still warmth
even though the family would leave
there were houses and there were homes
and in these borrowed places i soon learned
to distinguish the myth from the real thing

the soul from the speculation
the muse from the machine

and here too, I know the difference well
and that this is no time to be afraid
of manning this machine
for it must be faced to be defeated
finally

(yet)

my hair is still matted
and that fifth course has yet to come
my belly will be awaiting
for your thirst, yet to succumb