You're Not You

Hear the whispers through the trees,

can see them shaking reverently,

can it only bend against mind

The winding breath of God?

I am waking for the first time

In many moons and must speak quick

or else you may lose me

like a red dot cigarette tip exit

window, bounce, tuck, roll in the night

highway ride, that’s how.

I am awake and fading fast

Lose me like a single speck of light

among the city smog, my voice

To a crowd, a blaring airline engine

Or lose me to my mind in

the same manner exactly.

I am awake to myself

for the first time in a long long time,

from a sleep, the soul of a man killed

by the nature he’s ignored. Finally,

out of this grey nightmare,

months in the un-waking.

Transcendence is the sunshine

through the shade of the leaves

And happiness, progress

drops of water flowing

Back to yourself, a collected pool

Of shimmering knowingness.

The unexamined life is

for the birds, I like to say

Hear the horns on the streets,

See beautiful people walk briskly,

can only they express to the self

The dazzling breadth of God?

Just like me to throw me

Under the bus, christ.

Kid can go, for all I care,

Waste away in the woods,

and fuck himself. Perdurance.

My ass. My ass your mouth my ass your ear

The mouth of God. My ass

divine mouthpiece. Nice to meet you.

Haven’t we, before? It’s Hal, isn’t it?

Hal E. Tosis. Breath of god,

breathing Ass of God,

Asscrack, don’t talk back.

The creak reveals its true nature

as a packed tight 5pm bumper to bumper

in a six laner. Symbolically speaking.

My forgotten hat, complete with Niners insignia,

and velcro adjustable instantly decomposes

Where the red and gold fern grows.

What is man but a collection

of desires and beliefs? That reads

thick and bold across the bus stop.

You’re only yourself when you’re home,

tattooed across an ex lover’s asscheeks.

A memory, I was just leaving.

Ruffling the covers and see 
in taut bruises across red thighs,

She brought out the real me.

A vague tropical smell

removes the Walden Eye, pop!

California haze, white walls

Red tile rooftops, Catholic reverence

and beach iconography,

San Diego Mission. A new place entirely.

What’s it matter when you’re projecting?

That’s all in the past.

What’s passed is past.

Puff puff pass.

I nod off somberly, saying

“Yes, manifestations, yes

if they have to be”

come and gone, now or later. Presently,

the island drums go…

Surfer licks go…

Waking, I am, first in years.

I don’t have much time, time, time.

I’ve got-to make-you

mine, mine, mine.