The True Story of What Was

the light blue flickering rhythm
 of the neighbor's big console t.v.
 is basking on the ceiling
 of another insomniac spree
 and outside sleep's open window
 between the drops of rain
 history is writing a recipe book
 for every earthly pain
 oh to clean up the clutter of echoes
 coming in and out of focus
 words spoken
 like locusts
 sing and sing
 in my head
 and thing is
 they often seem
 in my memory's long dream
 to be superfluous to
 the true story of what was
 cuz
 real is real regardless
 of what you try to say
 or say away
 real is real relentless
 while words distract and dismay
 words that change their tune
 though the story remains the same
 words that fill me quickly
 and then are slow to drain
 dialogues that dither down reminiscent
 of the way it likes to rain
 every screen
 a smoke screen
 oh to dream
 just for a moment
 the picture
 outside the frame
 then in a flash
 the light blue horizon
 spanning a sudden black
 is sucked into the vanishing point
 and quiet rushes back
 to search for the downbeat
 in a tabla symphony
 to search in the darkness
 for someone who looks like me
 (though i'm not really who i said i was
 or who i thought i'd be)
 just a collection of recollections
 conversations consisting
 of the kind of marks we make
 when we're trying to get a pen to work again
 a lifetime of them!
 cough... cough... ahem...
 i say to me
 now here listening
 i say to the locusts
 that sing and sing to me sitting
 now here on the front porch swing of my eyes:
 i hereby amend
 whatever i've ever said
 with this sigh