Band Songs - M.Weisgerber

The pigeons flutter over, disturbed by
marching feet; today is the day of battle!

This damn mind slips, engrossed in obsessions
other than passing nights where greased valves,
should signal an act of slick defiance.
The muscles dont forget the steps as easily;
they are torn, wearied from other trials.

How odd that war should take place in this city,
with all the touching wastelands to choose from?

The horns shall call first, cutting their edge,
clustered together as the judge calls forth.
Bass to follow; winds combine to soothe
the spitting spray fly & mucus, joining
the ratt a tat tat along the drum rim.

Its a matchstick struck, then flung through the void,
flame attempting a feeble catch before...

Anger is brewing, abuse of the years
spewed passed lips, then forty feet of brasswork
to become the word called harmony,
set to the tune of loneliness, unique
to all the half children we cultivate.

...and I had forgotten it was today.

This is What Happens When You Know Too Much - M.Weisgerber

I threw out a word and watched it spin outwards, downwards.
Didn't assume I'd regret it later.

Ripples.
The effect that comes from standing on shore and
being unable to control yourself or your destiny as the pressure nears.
Watching it wash over stones, toes, and loves ones.

An imaginary thread that comes from my tounge, and
connects all those around me.
If one should bleed, I will feel it in the back of my throat:
A grinding sensation.



When I was talking on the phone this morning, I
didnt even hear it ring:
I just sat talking for many minuets before I regained myself.
Then the sweating came, and the terror sunk into the sheets.

Eyelids then feeling the same.
Unable to yell or scream, lacking the knowledge to contain myself.
Oh how the heart breaks: it is a 1/16th inch thick hide wrapped, and
then that one word broke through.

Regret will come later, but for now, I'm just glad you survived.

On Horseback - M.Weisgerber

I never tasted the salt marshes,
or was bit by the deadly cottonmouth;
but on horseback, I can pretend.

A six shooting outlaw will ride past
whooping & hollering 'bout gold dust
stashed in the foothills outside of town.

Sloshing his way through an old saloon, looking
daring someone to brawl in the bare streets,
fists gleaming with the punches, bloodstains flow'n,

this, while I ride by.


True, tis no mainstreet, just a path outwards
through the woods, over hill to grandmas house;
my weathered jeans, not homespun of cotton,

nor tweed hat to adorn my brow;
but horseback is not for fairy lovers,
only those seeking hold of open land,

skirted girls who spit fire, brandy. Guilt.
All found in a lazy eye, while wandering.
Stables reached, and with one fair glance backwards,

I am the old man wrapped in a young'ens brow.

February. - M.Weisgerber

---Sometimes I have a telling, story worth;
as always, it sings best by candlelight.---

February. - M.Weisgerber

Clearly, I saw two men nearing on horseback,
one, truly mounted, the other leading both mare
& fellow countryman through the shifting whiteness.
Such signs cannot greet many simple folk,
attendants stuck in the machine age
waiting for their shifts end with weary bones.

Puzzled, I only stood, disbelieving
that at once was there, now presently gone.
That pair, wandering out of a lost age
into a falling rice spectacle
unawares, made this spectator gape
listen to the horse snort fading at length.

The horror that followed, an item of legs
gelatinous forms that flowed as water does,
streamed forward. This creature, it too was led
by a man of simple height, unawares it seem'd
at the frightening steed that followed behind;
he only snatched at the haze before him.

Local petrol stations were not designed
to hold the horror I felt leaving my heart
out through my throat as a whisper.
Expecting the beast's 'lectric eye to turn,
spot my soul naked under the pump sign,
then eat eyes and marrow from my skull.

Like so much wind in the summer barely,
both gone, without so much as a hiss of teeth.
That, all I saw, and then nothing else more.
The star wheel spun, but let simple folk fall
through the spokes; had us endure another day
to enjoy the fruits of our labors only.

I'm sure I'll survive to see non-being,
but a man should not perspire so much
before the cock decides to greet fair dawn.
Question existence due to his boarders,
relationships with near reality
that wear so thin were edge joins the middle.

If you dare friend, to question: seek the fields
of the near east side if you doubt the tale.
The grass, you'll see, it still refuses to grow
where such a party sojourned, lost to time,
even as mid march nears, and the flowers bloom.

Burned, sizzled upon the dark gray matter;
I can only imagine what it did to the snow,
a haunted sigul that mine still digests.
...will you believe?

My Take on the Old Ways - M.Weisgerber

Tonight, we're bringing back sky-diving,
horizontal. Exhaust plumes call me home,
while the landscape lips whisper freely
'round parts best left empty or unexplored.

It starts, with one leg over leather steed,
then jack rabbit advancement o're plains. We
two diametric poles opposed: I - one,
the other, a whip of flame in the dark.
Splitting the ground, pulling even the earth
farther, to the nearest edge of twilight;
Mad Men: we exist to drive away night.

Guns burst, smelling of passing fumes, bullet
forms smelted then dislodged from hot chambers.
It's me, screaming as I fly along them,
the back streets. Loggers trails; forgotten land.
Viewing the roots that seek to end my blaze,
dodged with crisp laughter; I know so much better!

Even managed to steady hushed God-calls
in the whir of machinery; a blur
passing, matching the heartspeed and spittle.
This is ours, bird country; a forge that's longed
to create sparks that hiss or fly freely.
We, happy to abblige simple requests.

Peripheral: gone. Forward; meaningless.
It is here, amongst the adrenaline
that we may be allowed to forget all:
simple rose petals catching in the twigs.
Mud-stuck, holding up the fishbowl bottom
of a twisted sky carved of stars, blue shade:
better than crosses drawn upon both wrists.

And I, God I need to see the moon, sun
plucked from the eastern-most sky where they feed.
Drive now, if only to use the windburn
to dry my eyes.

Written Quick - M.Weisgerber

I walked the world today, and did not know I sinned

I saw the world, the world replied, and yet, I know I did not sin.

This they yelled at me, scolded; they even begged

Yet still I skip along with frilly flip flops, and know better: they lie.

The preacher man looked down upon me, while I was on my knees

Because he had the men build his pulpit tall, that’s all.

I don’t know what is in it for him, but I know

Not lordship, only “good lord”. I know.

If no one around me said I sinned, then I would not

If I didn’t believe that I’m a wretched person, indeed I would not be.

Somehow, as I pen these words, I am free

And that is all I need.

In a moment soon in Leaving - M.Weisgerber

"Trouble now. Trouble close ahead."
These words spoken deftly in the gloom,
I, not realizing they were of warning
hidden within a hug.

Three hundred or so dark days show its clear
you don't desire a man who cries
across his soaked fields or mudded wallows.
What about a boy that smiles?

Plays ball upon the sewn long-grass by firefly light.
Now paper child. Framed cute eyes stuck behind the lens,
uncrimped hair, drifting along with the wind.
French perfect.

I merely stand among the rotting flowers
stuffed gaily into another pine tar heel.
Meant to plant seeds of hopes or lover's fruits,
wandering now without a tears to nourish them.
Finding it ironic.

Forgot we dreamers can only bleed daffodils.
Professional fakers, always with an alibi,
seeking the next moonbeam to bend to encourage a grin.
Meant not to breed, or spread the disease.

No wonder itchy feet begin to walk.
I hope he/they/(it?) fits the stereotypes; sellers type.
I am, forever have been a man who whispers please.

Black 21 - M.Weisgerber

Every day, she comes down from the window
walking by the boy with flowers stick-stuck,
looking anxiously at the passer-bys,
catching each in some pose or reverie.

Four times of ten she catches those soft blues
from the eye corners only, refraining.
"Ah, he is 'merican!" says she, in mind
conspiring reasons for abatement.

Has he long made up his to travel there
bouquet under arm, to view only the Seine?
A river sprite with good grin, cut features
meant to impress, and almost doing so.

Looking like those that read blog life stories,
then put his on a number; the wheel spun,
landed him on these banks so he slowly,
soulfully may soak up the river smell.

And wait.

She giggles, thinking of writing this too;
her life, and an 'merican boy fused? PAH!
But the days never shift, and he daily
spies at her, always in recognition.

She awakens one dawn to a startling,
removed from a dream where the waters spoke,
long, slow sounds lapping at the edges of
her, her spectacle, and nothing else more.

This time, she scents the roses wafting early,
goes to the window sill with nightgown drawn,
peering; a chance to catch sapphire rising,
with hope, wonder now in heart held.

(Unnamed) - M.Weisgerber

The thought of a train
plunging through the sheathing of this bus, hot screams & soft steel rivets escaping
awakens me from half hearted slumber
with a start.

I must have gotten rest, I suppose
seeing as my blood is cool to the touch, bones refraining from ache.
Lifting eyes to houses along this east side boulevard
I discover it is only winter, nothing more.

Even as my gaze remains fixed, these wheels roll on
causing the backround to shift; I find that I have to keep changing positions
just to stay fixed upon the same point of charred lumber.
But that too passes, swallowed up somewhere "behind".

The image of that house long remains, somewhere burried in my mind,
one built of strong hands & immigrant care.
Proud. Tall. Giving in only to moisture or reprise.
However, it too has also burned, flames dancing in the midnight sky.

Now sits, a sigh; husk of its former life,
surprised that it could survive just one more day of snowfall.

As if houses could feel such things.

Its windows catch my eyes while my face alights in its glazed pitch
for this one brief second; a glance between strangers.
And in that moment, so many sad slow stories pass.

Perhaps they were always fiction,and never will have a chance to be.

Meloncholy - M.Weisgerber

This one is for bill,
for reasons I dont think even I
understand.

(oh yes, and on to the poem!)


Knowing we've locked the Seine in,
begun to choke the mighty Thames.
...but also knowing they will prevail:
how timid it makes the pulse beat.

That their decent into Hades will always remain pillar mark'd,
just a sliver of the smallest fing'rs nail,
stuck into the fabric; everything else swirling 'round.

I'd love to see the earth raunt there bare,
just to examine the curve of the soils breast;
an instant of alarm distributed on this little hill
outside my fair industrial city.

Watch it all with patient eye as the wind sifts
winters breath upon the singed concrete canyons and lessening,
letting the same fug that tatters my golden locks
ushers old dust motes back into the north.

I do not sing to what I cannot swim across,
wallow in the mud o'the banks with tinged breeze
and miss the smell of salt upon the air;
it's a title soon in coming.

Notice the pall rising, yet do not fear it;
there never were ghosts that roam'd the river
near hospital beds, or infect open manufacturing bays.
The only old spooks festering in the mansions

or open pustules that make the streets
whisper the loins of history, not one word more.
They already had their centuries of lore,
and are ok about being forgotten.

(Currently Unnamed) - M.Weisgerber

Every Friday night, I sit down to play a game
If I can live till Monday's dawn , I may actually win one

See, the world no longer seems full of human things
It is sharp edges cut with a green reminiscent of computer screens on mute
Or the look of an ocean after the storm break: glowing lightly at the seams

I stand on one end of the beam, twisting silently in midair,
watching you sway precariously upon the other
Claw the air into a frothy boil while going tiptoe along the rim
Push yourself again and again, ever further outwards from the center; hope?
How strange, because you were once a noble creature, now at the end of your time

All that lies between us is the gulf, an abyss from which none return once entered
Such a shallow hole sunk into the earth crust

You will turn and come back from the borderlands to kill them all; dear pen
let this note draw blood indiscriminately
Will I find freedom in the sky, or instead in the coldness of the liquid torn from it
Hold steady fate; allow me to bide my time