198
we armor ourselves with notebooks and
cigarettes
tramp down to see the freak show
but there was only one freak
in the cold Southside evening
6:00
i thought it was 9,
but there is music after the night sets in
with strong smoke
and emotive strangling masses
to play themselves out
in dreams at 4 am
hardwood floors and flapping yellow curtains
in them
a summer sky, stained, yet empty somehow
in all that clean vision
without words
just feeling
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
26th Street
the moon sank over the city
a vaguely mutant hand stretched out
grasping at all we cannot see
the street lights change
with the bearing down of nightfall
capturing the orange cadence of the city
lofty stacks coughing smoke
the streets stretching out
endless as gazing
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
cave in all the funeral madness
reduced to the movie detachment
seeing the insides of all the lies
attach
detach
parallel
arguments all over the road
weird Spanish girls
the world is lost
quagmire women
sweet smiling whores
with heads to fix,
life to learn
where do you absorb these lives
without lives
perplexing situations
immense emotion
the end just keeps on growing.
Joseph Stephen DeckerCopyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Cycles
the old doubts and fears crawl back
always just after the distraction
they wont let me rest
i wont let them go
cycling self-hatred
how can i do the right thing
for the right reasons
and still come up lacking?
this ending peacefully
this overwhelming finality
just stretches
out past the length of days
tomorrow there will be
a new sunrise
another day of labor
in the END everything falls apart
ending captures every leading glance
and every learned thing
when we come to dust
as ignorant as newborn babes.
Dust
when you pick up the pieces
to start these new beginnings
wet features on your ideals
drying in the mold
all our civilization pounds us
to dust
dust of our lives
mayhem
drugs
nights in jealous dreams
everything is stripped
to bare reality
no trust
no strings
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Erasure
so i'll empty the ashtrays
remove miniscule traces of your passing
we wanted each other days away
doomed to lie
still in unscorned memory.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Birth
A soul on fire
churning in the middle-ground
the womb of lost ages
opens eyes to a sea of spit
blank angry lies take turns at the cutting
Joseph Stephen DeckerCopyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Fine'
When does the time pay off?
the work and effort,
all the moments spent
edging closer to the finality of
dream
love
life
all the dying moments lose themselves
for or against us
I does not matter to the dying
we only matter to ourselves
we do what we tell ourselves to do
we are what we are
nothing changes but the scenery.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Freedom
Free thinking, freedom,
a hard disease.
when to know, when to run,
learning how to be free.
while everything chains us
we dance
(between the lines)
subverting everything for moments of peace
we are all the devil,
parts of an endless machine.
some of us learn to avoid the teeth and cogs
a jangling intoxicated dance.
we tune in to the truth
we drop away from this fraudulent moment.
we will always suffer to be free.
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Hunting Day
caught chasing the long dream
the sudden genius
laughter
writing
consumed in the night
music earlier
and afternoon naps
for quiet saturdays
we all know the places
we're just waiting on the ride
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Leaving Your Car In Rush Hour Traffic
in moments like this
we must be stronger than life
everything begging to let you down
love sinking; all known
immersed in the twilight lullaby
we flail
paranoid diaries lining our days
believe in the art
the intrinsic usefulness
of the spiteful vision
flagrant lady
she dances on your grave
and brings hope
just as we are failing
to push through
these endless moments
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Lies
always the experienced one
in my lying
always the knowing one
with out a where or a why
when time bleeds by too fast
for us to stop it
and sooner or later
we become ourselves,
whether we like it or not,
and sometimes
there is a self underneath
that is riddled with guilt
and pain
that would never cause harm
or lie
if we weren’t always in the way
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Moon
moon,moon
mother i call out to your cold white heart
in the day's death-hour
filmed and rising
i speculate that she will make me write
or cry
my dying heart screaming for one last taste
from a kiss that might mean something
other than a barren promise
i heave this love clear from me
its too heavy a matter
and run headlong to rejection
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Myself
all hope shrouded in misery
half funeral procession
half freak show
the more real you get
the more unreal it all becomes
when you stand
stark and alone
and walk with measured steps
your own way
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Revelation
genius of notes
to guide us through the withering door
wisdom
keys to the gate
wherein lies our freedom?
this lost hour,
when last we prayed
our spiked pariah danced winds
and sang the mountains
a patient explanation
the doomed go off to die
the misery of our lives winking out
under streetlights and night
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Slavery
this place, unconducive, like home.
the inside midnight of my mind,
fists clench, anger froths to be free
of the pressure cooker.
Sparky, Pushy and the 10th dwarf bitchy
all crowd around where i spend my days.
my peers are not white collar; they are soiled under my pissing mouth everyday.
but like them i still come, to the toil.
i cant escape, and in the end i don’t believe
there is an escape from the tomb of drudgery.
so, the ones i hate are just different,
and all the ones
hate my difference
so maybe they’re not so different after all.
but the main thing seems to be
not to sell your self into someone else’s
slavery,
and to be true only to your own.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Smoke Rings
I sit here
blowing holes in my life
a circular procession
stacked
with too many events to remember,
to many mistakes to choose lessons
the idea of life
is a layered scar of decisions
a subversive comedy meant
for understanding
and small moments of dying
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Summer's Reminder on Leaving
the desirous nights
longing in blackness
hearing the murmurs of your dreams
lying awake listening
to the folded breathing
the midnight wandering
a soft kiss on your cheek
i move quietly
disappearing like the night
blue sheets hanging
dimensional distortions
dense fabrics weaving, colliding
in heat shadowed waves
the warm green that shocks the eyes
in sunlit days
we dreamt of being rich and righteous
smiling our lives away
transcendence, freedom
loss of life and god and mind
a terrifying mode of dying
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Zen
the dreams are so close and real
even imagining can be self destructive
springing from a long insomniac vision
oil on the ocean
my whole life pouring across the seas
all views are infinite,
a cat stretching.
reach farthest
The Last Poem
your words like axes
cut pieces from me
i, trapped in this futility
the life you cannot yet fathom
do not yet know
you will see
but it will take some living
keep this as a reminder
so, looking back,
maybe you will understand that nothing is in vain
but i am bled dry of caring from the chopping of
your tongue
when you cannot see that there is no fault
when you cannot see the pain you cause
when you only look to blame and beat the
futile circumstances life deals to you
remember this last poem
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Unraveled
words could not serve me to better name you
soft star in the aging night
come we to worship the fallen greatness
come we to worship the moving art
lost in the soft white fire
turning in the love
lust
to break our merry hearts to shards
in all this inertia
we stand through hours
we stand through life
staring into a vast wandering Question
little by little
we untie the knots
unbind ourselves
slow lives unraveling
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Untitled
the spirits entwine
Life,
The Line.
separates
divides us from the breath of our lives
pushing,
her slow grind,
raging pulse,
ragged cries.
knowing we are within the bosom of life,
the religious ecstasy
praying
exchanging breath
hands folded together
eyes open, dilate,
and merge
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Untitled
stoned and drinking
again
so many nights spent in a
half stupor
i always leave alone
i always drink alone
sometimes though,
there is someone waiting
anxious
for this hypocrite smile...
maybe tonight will be different,
but i already know nothing changes
sometimes i must remind myself
on the lonely nights
that i still don’t exist
out there
in the furious melee of life
Untitled
I walked in the night
multi-hued and brightly shining
occupied with invisible eyes
and places unseen
the time will come again
for blackness
and lumescence
a brilliant nodding day
and sleep pursuing
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Untitled
through my eyes
this pen is bleeding
open puppet shows
with the city outside my bedroom
its screaming highways
workplace trolls
towers of work and tension
there is a sense of horror
in the dense city
with media monstrosities
death on every page
and lots of directionless sarcasm
sometimes i think life itself
is humored by all our faults,
its finger-pointing
a random gesture
mocking death,
belief
us
and itself
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Deck
Wisdom
"The hand of god
rests on each man in its own separate way."
i wonder if that’s wise,
or only a copout?
a generalization
instead of a real answer
condensed or ethereal,
our ideals always seem
a little plastic,
gestures to numb ourselves from
dying
or living
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Untitled
The pain is so great, and seems so final,
that i wonder if there is some transforming
clue. some great distinction to frighten it
away. don’t touch the sore places for fear
of truly feeling and understanding these
life-changing instants following the lost
time. the end coming, but not in sight,
always a looming shadow;
a hidden knowledge that nothing is right
any longer, nothing is sane,
and not yet wrong.
all things fall to order without reasons,
and the reasons are as unimportant
as the facts.
the experience as unwanted as the loss.
I’m bearing fruit in drought.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Breakdown
Is my life burnt and disregarded around
lifeless ears and eyes?
is the time lost?
i regained a part of
myself better lost than had,
a never ending siphon stream of lies
pouring from a rotten hole mouth.
please,
let me hold out one more day
to break the last dreaming dying moment
down to its seamless coil.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Church Yard
we murmur in the rotting silence of graves,
standing on a hillside,
the freezing brackish night flowing
through thoughts and flesh.
the thunder rolls
a crack of the white beaming lights of heaven,
a bludgeoning reminder,
(our insignificance.)
the face of mother in a boiling cloud
shattered with lightning.
the blink of instance stops life.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Dead Time
We are burned to the ground
Ashes to be blown away
We stalk our tomorrows, viruses consuming
In the end its all dead time,
spiraling away.
Life secretes death
I saw the whole expanse just flash away
in the moment of a smile.
Dawn's coming soon,
another space filled with promises
But
In the end its all dead time
Venus gloating in the crowded sky,
worlds like coliseums
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Deck
Decay
We shall grind the dirt from ourselves,
clean linen souls, waving in
wide seas of denial
I want to be black
as the inside of midnight,
the deepest place
Lightless-swallowing
Madness-overwhelming
Hatred
Death
The agony of your nightmares
All of your lost hopes
Your last hour.
Envelope
Fill,
only to empty.
Made black like me
Black and boundless
Elizabeth
the elfin princess turned in her dance
(keep this nearer to your heart when i am away)
lights flickered
grew soft
she grew great silken wings
softly murmuring, consumed in the beauty of movement,
sprang flying over the hills breathing with the wind,
its temple of monarchs
and settled as a leaf.
Her dance done, she emerges.
the light awaits.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Guitar
the guitar is salvation,
god,
sex.
a substitute for belief and a path
for healing.
a well
to cry away the tears of existing,
someone to speak for me,
when life and its black roar invade my soul.
deep, it always reflects the picture.
i would that my mouth were pliant and ecstatic
as fingers caressing steel.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Implosion
when we are all burning the world down,
our worlds,
personal realities, meshed so closely
in our perversion-
last instinct pushed to survive beyond our
careless self imposed limitations
of ourselves,
our societies which,
ourselves surrounded by, lose interest-
defying the truest image of ourselves,
the truest form of our nature.
to lie
to kill
to sleep forever, lost in the mists of the
world.
an everlasting solace of numbness
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Insomnia
minutes are eternities fading
and falling through the not-dream
of 36 hour insomniacs mind bingeing
on the waste of humanity,
the burden of a soul.
the 36-hour drooling madness trance
of without sleep.
internal dreams of leaden tons
weighing the sinews of my face,
a heavy lidded, red oculed masterpiece,
seeking a place to lay,
a world to dream
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Kill Me
and black out the sun of a thousand
unreal dreams.
black out the cities of screaming,
pained ideas.
black out the prolonged agony of dying.
black out your worth.
black out your sight.
black out everything,
compassion, lust, wanting, hope, curiosity,
circumstance and illusion.
just believe
just believe
in
everyone,
your own lies
your own crowded view.
do this to your self,
you do this to yourself
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Mother
she was an angel
beautiful even in anger,
wrathfully righteous.
so much that i used to giggle.
i never could control my laughter at anything,
even the bomb about to go off in my face.
she never stayed angry,
just blue.
i couldn’t stop the time turning against her,
or even the last crash.
wherever she went,
i must've gone to meet her
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Nightmares
terrible dreams, under the voice of a madman
ascending the pit, a winding stair into the
night. the insane inside of the 'what we
know' world.
the chiming work ceases in the hour owned in
peace.
all the colors in the blanket of days
mesh and weave, mixing blackout hours,
routine, and small moments of dying.
where does the ending begin?
when we are ready, we terrorize ourselves,
lost in conviction
and the strength of the mesh that holds us
twilight under
where night comes walking
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Pathology
i rent time, its seamless vow of
stale smoke dreams and fumbling etiquette,
to lose one's SELF.
all the image,
all the damage, all the insanity ive
fed to myself.
i eat my own offal every day
just existing.
through everything that ive made
my strangling lies scream out the backs of
my eyes
without ceasure
without erasure
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Self Portrait
hollow, burned out ends of eyes,
crystal clear (the smoke already vanished)
lost in a swirl of black,
a vacant mind caked in rusted gears,
shorting circuitry.
voice like a great bell, hollow and booming,
a rush of wind, an explosion.
voices in my head are highway signs,
leading to the tick tock tick tock
of madness
ringing and ringing and saying nothing
and everything in one tired voice filled
with the dust of one million sanities
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Spent
a blue night,
circular procession of stars,
mapping the misspent years of my delusion,
my addiction's spread.
things get loosely defined
when there’s nothing but a shot in the dark,
a fierce promise envy ground away.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
T
he Long Dream
eyes soft with long dreams
the distance that parts us takes love to stretch
the ends left to fate or chance
the true decisions are the ones we never make
situations without choices
we are pinned in corners by life and circumstance
so, we begin the long fight from the gutters,
we begin our lives.
Sunday School
Paranoid instructors all,
butchered already with their own vision,
their own version.
hammered down by their self-loathing,
duplicitous ways.
a burning eden in their footsteps crosses
the misery of us all,
a blank eyed genuflection,
a bleeding cross on my forehead to
shape the time of our blasphemy.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Supernova Before Sleep
This
is the roughness i desire,
the untightening beautiful revolt
of the senses.
growling wild
the running wolves inspire the dawning
in this stillness i am free
in this uncoiling suffering,
beauty found, god released-
a vast death, mixing and rising
at the souls gesture.
one.
nearer to the heart, closer to god
a burning frustration curing
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
The Abused
Life's half-posed question:
a chuckle fading to a sob,
something vicious in the air.
Do you feel peace? Do you know love-
or anything that doesn’t come with a fist
attached? It all seems so rational,
to love what you'll destroy.
A scene from a bad movie replaying in your
head, something you once thought was wrong
now, makes all the sense in the world.
Condensed to curled fingers, a hammer
to pound out your frustrations your
frustrators, butting a smoke in the tray of
your desolation where a weeping voice brings
peace.
The demons of our lives dance fiery rings,
burning holes in ourselves with each step.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
The Night I Tripped On The Autumn Breeze
Alone-
one more night spent in visual, agonized
motion.
Stopped-
lost in the insipid dream of carnality.
Frozen-
lost from the words i need.
be yourself, they say, but it wont bring
pleasure.
Deny, Uproot-
its the christian way.
the programs of our youth precede our action.
Blame-
from circumstance.
i never,
i mean, really, never had even the simplest
of loves
the easiest of hearts.
To You
it’s too bad
we all cannot free ourselves
from the sad wandering night
when there is no dawn
only a lightening of the grey
no heart to hold
the pieces of our worlds together
when you walk alone
constant suffering a bland companion of the years,
where do you go to find home?
there is no place ive not been
and no person i cannot reckon
with the broken bones of my existence
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Truth
when there's nothing new,
look through.
past the who and the I and the you,
no fingers this time
and no looking behind the grind anymore
just beat the truth out of your mouth;
nail it to the page
and keep on going 'til it stops.
some days are easier, some verses harder,
no rhymes to make reasons for living this way
and no time to decide the right,
wrong or why of living the individual lie,
love, life and god.
the damnation comes in moments when we
believe that we are free.
only free to will ourselves to believe or not
the lies we would sell to others.
when the fact and the fiction all cross,
dreams become
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Van Buren St
the reflections in the glass monolith
are the thoughts of Escher,
some new cubist language
for architects and day trippers.
"Acid City"
with fractal steel zebras,
rows of ellipsis yawn sideways two stories.
the sun is going down and soon we will not
retrieve this picture
of happens to be,
painted slick across the sky.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Visions Of Home
keep thinking, a quiet state of grace
changing pace, some slow day, a walk through
the afternoon sunshine, just diminishing like
the twilight. Glancing over a burdened
shoulder, staring through tears at someplace
to call home. every possession carried in a
heart worn down with the weight of memories
that never passed; the woman, girl, wife,
brother that all had their places. they only
called good-bye at the crossroads. everyone
leaves broken hearted to wander the road
toward home, but nobody's home.
just a discarded woolen overcoat carelessly
folded across a chair, one candle flickering,
the darkness closing in to loom and twist,
dancing in shadow.
welcome home.
voices echo through empty rooms.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Tv
life happens this way,
in moments and miracles.
bled in technicolor dreams
to entice the young to believe
in the entrancement of life
the value of sewage.
the perfect story
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Long Distance
the time that lapsed between our visits
grew shorter
fall passed and winter dove in.
we'll burn each other infinitely,
we just don’t know it yet.
the future bites down with claws in my back,
and one million
lives
chances
errors
spun 'round from all perspectives
erroneous, but possible
searing my mind to flailing and weakness
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Morning
everything is drowning in the cool sluggish-
ness of rain at 4am.
already the twilight is rising, glimmering
at the last tatters of nights cloth.
mornings are beyond peaceful
a singular wholeness falls on car crowded
streets and black houses.
a rolling stillness
dreams
falling rain
the wind skating wet pavement.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Outside The Door, Waiting
feels like the world is getting smaller
ready to crash around my ears.
the more i build, the chant of my fathers'
voice grows so loud
i cant feel the worst of pricks.
cold calculation studies a tired dreaming
rhyme.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Eureka
all the earth pulled down in tight bowls
evaporating
the green mist of late spring
a time with friends
apart
lives vanish with solemn stillness
faster and faster
Untitled
kill the pain to start again
curious storm of whys;
uprising;
our sad delirious lifetimes,
how staid.
as though we were not aware
that we would ultimately surpass this life.
there is imminent arrival for the spirit,
yet, we sanction our lives with time
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Doorways
Riding out of the doorway to eden
to a place where i mesh into the fabric
of the world around me
sitting in a blossoming stillness
twilight masks of springs
sex in the almighty wet weather of night
spinning dreams of filling raiment with straw
the end of the sorcerers loom
in our youth we make love to our dreams.
trailer-dwellers grasp at their underlings,
scream the names of their possessions
the flashes of their prettiness
abating with seconds like blue years,
rusted out cars,
lost souls
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Dawn
Ill just write until morning
shakes it from my head,
the everyone uncaring, the petty world.
for we are all bland and aging,
lost
in the injection molded world.
I'll kill the last screaming ego,
anticipation ending
on a fine line of nighttime
us yearning for reaching
on doorsteps complaining of the heat.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Crashing
willfully staining the way
with poignant times to inspire.
a lost gambler's mask stretched wide
across him
cuts all your options down to denial
a self induced blindness to the options,
im engaged in the sinking of my own ship.
i lay dreaming a wide blue sea
at the end of my days.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
What It Meant
writing books of brooding pages
layered with all my secrets, even my blood.
things i spoke only to my self with sealed
ears and eyes sewn shut.
an unequivocal masterpiece of ignorance
and delusion.
a useful tool in times of lost direction. is this the world i feel ending, or am i beginning?
Nearly Dead
still
left breathing in the short psychotic dawn
souls full of abandoned freeways and cars.
the lost title of time is calling me names
at short range.
the beast of infection grows without cells
to consume.
i have more mouths than breathing,
more eyes than seeing warrants.
the upside-down son of my father,
growing older
the slow bleaching effigy of time.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Smiling And Screaming
true death is a host of songs
that will go unheard.
passing the silent winter,
we dream of our dreams.
do we really know what entitles breathing
or even sanity in our blind moments
tripping over the clods our minds leave
in the open spaces.
between the smiling and screaming
life seems cavernous-
a body cavity in road kill
squirming and shifting, roiling with our decay
our sickly sweet breaths
cadaverous grins.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Wet
Bare-chested with satin white smooth skin,
my boxers, and tender kisses.
she's so entwined and meaningful.
we talk of nothings, something.......
trying to rationalize this bizarre moment
and still keep ourselves distanced.
i can see the pain coming on,
a black tide, tsunami,
obliterating the things we're building up.
so it goeth..........
the cycle turns against you and me again
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Jeremiah
poor old drunken fool alcoholic
not yet 25,
already slid halfway to dead
on the road of dreams.
having talent,
but lacking soul
no luster eyes watch vacantly
as the world twists by.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Colorado
a raging waterfall of pines
starting from the beginnings of the sky
tumbling between the crags,
spilling into the valleys,
they turn into aspen and grass.
broken only
by the periodic man-made obscenity:
a house, road, power lines.
the mountains,
grown downward by mist and sky.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Even In Dreams
sometimes
i lie asleep and dream of waking
dream of days truly filled,
like
madness
a strange form of deceit, these dreams.
remembering past future flames
licking at desires unknowable.
the conscious thought flickers and all at once
awash in a red glow,
is devoured.
seemingly important nothings come and go,
the bitter salt of life sticks to me,
even in dreams.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Ego
Battles rage on unnoticed by
the closest one.
behind closed doors,
infinity smacks its lips and devours
the morsel of time you thought was yours.
the plate empty,
a dry lake.
dust covered days blowing wind
across the lips of past ecstasies.
"and in time the fruit of the vine
shall be replaced and we shall
drink the new wine."
gluttonous in our cowardice,
fearing the unknowable, and unchangeable.
destinies flutter like moths on wings of
spirits and timepieces.
god's bright eye lying in pools
of blue wisdom, littered with the stardust
of a fool's vision
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
New Beginnings
Its milky blue today
the late spring turning summer
air is thick
like plaster
mixing with scents of oil and pavement
hinging on decisions about life
and other beginnings
trying to plan
ways out of hopeless odds
but the day is filled with dreams
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Money
these dreams were simple
harmonized with youth
embrace your pasts
to reveal slow grinding futures
ah, the paper that we need
our survival depends deeply on our greed
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Try
lately it doesn't seem like there's
much left but the fighting;
bearing down on dead chances.
so young and so old
i can't even relate to myself
in January. this claw filled winter, though,
will bring the spring.
punctuated less with debt and pain
what does any of this hold for hope?
Just Fight.
its more insipid,
but at least you know the reasons
for the battle.
noone ever wins. its the same plate ive
fed myself for five years.
its just getting worse:
faster and less easy to hold;
an uncontrollable shattering.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen
High
a young child weeping silent
in the long darkness:
my expanse of black days
the endless pursuit yields little
but ends are coming
slow and dainty drops
of inspired moments
coalesce and dream together
the world endlessly relaxed;
docile days waiting for the sun.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Again
lies
empty and endless
ramblings of the trance
procession of circular days
stopping only to watch
the weather change
a sunset
everything is stretched so far
we cannot immerse in the holiest life
and capture the unseen moment
we need rapture
to live
in these sightless black days
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
'Round The Clock
life is too certain
of its ultimate contradictions.
when i asked the waitresses for sex,
they declined.
(some not so graciously)
how can she reject me so sweetly?
i guess im not her breed of tramp.
can we ever reconcile our desire
to this thin moral lie?
we should accelerate
and smash the roadblocks to living.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Life
sometimes these truths
are barely enough to dream,
grinding ourselves up
a bit at a time.
bleakness filling an expanse
a wastrel: time
left slowly
then quickly
behind
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Relationships
While the insightful rest, i dream of her,
one that i should give up.
(im not a rational person though)
caught between
love and grief
never knowing which to run into.
i write hate letters to my old man
and disguise all the knives in his back
with language
and promises.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Faded Now
And i still remember everything
the way you laughed, cried
and touched my hand
on days that seemed endless
rifling through
these past memories
how you sat,
eyes shining
holding hands
walking through time's long corridor
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Every Song
i wish i could sing you a slow blues
in e minor
of stars dancing broken dances
in an uncaring sky,
to wash away the red world.
tell the stories of times past
with wandering words
tones of an angel's wings
soft upon the air
in a symphonic rush of whispers
every song
ever.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Ending
ive seen today ending
since early morning
train wrecks and injured bodies
lying in the snow
the sun
pale and golden against the winter sky
somewhere on the side of a mountain,
a future died.
lives are soft whispers
hard to catch
melting in crimson snow in the sunset
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Ending
ive seen today ending
since early morning
train wrecks and injured bodies
lying in the snow
the sun
pale and golden against the winter sky
somewhere on the side of a mountain,
a future died.
lives are soft whispers
hard to catch
melting in crimson snow in the sunset
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Pasts
bludgeoning myself awake with half-remembered
dreams, sold by the subconscious
for a day's wage of pain
bought with spite earned from laboring
over my own suffering. i leave nothing
unscarred, nothing untouched by the unfeeling
hand. i wash my eyes in blood
shed for ignorance, and see through
it
the child’s reality i scorn so ungratefully,
etched upon my very soul,
carved with a thin line of steel
clasped in a shaking hand.
myself, destroyer of my own innocence,
torn to pieces on the altar of adolescence.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Hate This Me
did i just need another heartbreak?
a poisoned wind to break me back down again?
some sad lesson, the limitless repast
of echoes,
visions of the end, always coming.
no way back but the beginning,
the trail of memory
stirring ghostly images best left
on the forgetting side of mind.
im made of memories i found in a dream.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Fool's Logic
"Didn't i tell you it would end up
this way?"
said one fool to the other,
"you and i are in the same predicament........why would i heed you?"
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
It Is Accomplished
you are twisting inside me and
you don’t know it
your words are my knives
and desperate times
my heart, a thing
coal black
yet
for you,
and me
i am bleeding
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Alone Again
a new and wet soul inside
aches like fresh wounds
fine razor lines
a slow dragging of lips on burned skin.
thick and weeping,
words last forever.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Tap house Lullaby
so far gone from themselves
they start yelling. its early on a saturday,
the bar is only half-full,
the rooms are separated by more than walls.
here, the business loser set
the alcoholics at the bar,
the young drunks in the pool room...
they come for company
i come to be alone
(no wonder...)
society and i,
slowly poisoning ourselves
happy only in degradation.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Platform
angels silhouetted against the white hillside
waiting for a train
thoughts are heavy
how strange this sex opposite,
all these lost mysteries;
sexual fervor: religious ecstasy
mind has turned ignorant, unyielding
there is only blank expanse
i feel run through with a vast drowning
in all this space.
there are answers in this mixing parade
of life. yet,
that guarantees nothing.
Hope is a rotten joke.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Untitled
a prisoner of scrambled internal debates
all morals washed clear
depravity showing its teeth
the blind truth stumbles between
an intimate moment in the right or wrong
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Aching Moments
what is left
but these tender, aching moments?
memory binds us to fettered lives
cluttered with worn photographs,
pornographic still frames that lead us
into traps.
singularity is aching for a last resort,
i am wandering
love is looking for a home
alone is terminal
and the night long without soft comfort,
wet breaths and warm naked thighs.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
Sutra
Timeless hours pass
tasting white-hot lust.
it rolls in the mouth,
a sticky secretion.
sweet kiwi
sliding across fingers
a messy fire
slowly trailing tongue and chin
an ecstatic haven,
kissing life.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Laundry
there is freedom in small moments
standing on street corners in
early morning,
watching the world flood beside
waiting for laundry.
grey sleepless skies,
silent rushing dance of exhaustion.
there is freedom in being aware you are alone
no crutch and no net
reduced to an observer
all the world falling around
in the same satisfied pattern.
Joseph Stephen Decker
Copyright ©2003 Joseph Stephen Decker
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