Steven McNamara is a retired ferris wheel operator.  He made a bet with TedEvan, our faith-healer, that he could raise the dead first.  Steve is actively pursuing that and is winning as he travels from island to island. 

a barroom moment

he was wearing all black again
with some obscure seventies rocker t-shirt
complete with deep eye liner and long hair
so everyone naturally had their preconceived notions
when he stepped in front of the karaoke screen
the 56 year old lush with her big hair and heavy blush
the young guido in his striped collared shirt
the girls who think to much of themselves and their jobs
the bartender
were prepared to ignore
3 to 4 minutes of loud screaming
off key
but all that went haywire
faded as a smile does
when the intro to Prince’s “Kiss”
cued up
and in came his unexpected falsetto
and I saw a dark skinned woman begin to dance
and later people got laid in hotel rooms
and beers cracked open in the dark
and the heavens know what happens
in barroom moments

fall in the amusement park

clothes covered in the dust or the ghost of rust
porcelain horses laying slain or asleep
one more coast of deep red paint
in one more off season
wondering about the myth
of a life after jersey

Wine Bottles and Brownstones

I went to Brooklyn tonight
and saw fire cast shadows of you
in the faces of every girl in Williamsburg
I saw the brownstones and wine bottles
you played with in your slow told, tongue rolled stories
thinking of foreign California
and the vegetarian foods you were
learning to cook there
you without wine bottles and brownstones
you with all that ocean layed out

I thought of that time
you rolled a car in Tennessee
and the quilt you wrapped yourself in
and all that stolen time

now who visits your brother in his orange jump suit
who does Roger fall asleep next to
who's drunken eyes listen in my dashboard glow

and the night you dangled out the car window
yelling in french to your mother

I went to Brooklyn tonight
and saw fire cast shadows of you

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like incredible people and great musicians

a light snow never

sticks around long

enough to get filthy

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in perfect worlds we dream
but only half believe
the horizon's crashing down

A Toast

tonight
beneath a thousand stars
let us sleep as beasts
one with this earth and these trees
but
at first light
let us wake and live
as gods
with thunder and lust and majesty

demands

fuck poetry
fuck dreaming
fuck the romance of breathing
but above all
fuck this numb sedentary life

where's our neal, our fire, our amphetamines?

visions safely in our heads
and no sounds of feet shuffling

i want to dance all over this crazy world
with an audience of stars and gods

I want to slaughter gazelle with my powerful jaws
and sleep with the flawless torsos of women everywhere
cry myself to sleep with the light off
move and be moved
play stadiums and sideshows
not just in my head
drink authentic mountain spring water
not like the commercials
clap cuz i mean it

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immaculate night

holy glowing cigarette cherry
nature's hesitant inhale holding off dew

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yer sisteen chapel eyes
make me wonder about
grabbing yer hand in a breakneck moment
draggin u out wordless
of this black and white movie life
burnin a handful of tomorros with u, instantaneous
cuz i got no reservoir romance for u, babe
but what i do got
is a cinematic vision of 120 minute frantic love
a car that does 90 mph with some gas in its belly
and yer sisteen chapel eyes

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for a moment
it smelt like snow again
now i don't know
if thats because of
some late winter weather pattern
or the ozone ions let loose wild
as the spark jumped
from her bottom lip to mine


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oh, neil young
and bob dylan
where are you now in 3014
after the NEWBOMB has stripped the earth
and changed the color of sunset
this should be the new age
of the troubador
and our fusion technology
brings new definition
to electric guitar
i want to see the way
yer internal rhyme
would treat
these apocalypse born beasts
and worm hole machines
we need a folk rock
of shining silver space travel
and mad government lab
gene splitting

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blankets,
like bandages
for our
little kid
souls

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i want to write poems
about the old gods now
how Thor is nuclear powered
with an atom splitting belly
and Saint Christopher
became a half diesel 18 wheeler

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these indy rock
cliched chord combinations
winding in my brain
with a sex drive
lend a hard edge
and not enough
danger

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he might have been a mystic
and a gardener
she might have been some myth
in some animal world
and maybe with his shaved head
and silent one word enlightenment
he could of painted
her stealing stars
from the night

match head love

hey girl
i want a one night stand
the way lit match heads kiss
and then that sulfurous flare up
eats us both whole
and if its just right
we'll wake up
feeling like charred wood

in the night

she was black trashbag plastic shine
i was hood ornament metal gleam

and nothing else

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BEINGandNOTHINGNESS
and
BEINGMOREandNOTHINGMORE

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we were all
james dean's sideburns
and tight jeans
in the flare up of sunrise sky youth
but maybe on a holy longshot
we can be
historic tragic car crash
combustion
while the last credits are rolling
for entirely to long

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i don't believe in the motions of the planets
anymore

all we are is the memory
that we exist
and we gotta live with these disasters
sometimes
and the halos and the aftershocks

i tell myself lies
about the mercury in my hands
you see,
mercury is fluid and self propelled
why can't we all be conquering generals and drunk kings

for an eye blink instant
i thought i was the big dream
but i was a billboard
for the fiction of the whole human race

all i see these days
are science fiction moonrises
and miracle children
and that ain't so bad

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she told me about
superstition
all the stars and cards
cracked turtle shells
brittle bird bones
and then how my birthday means nothing


we build myth
straight up
5000 stories from the ground
and you thought the moon was something
just wait

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they'll all be at the bars tonight
with dollar drinks
these holy ghosts
and empty eyes
girls that sway
and moonlight
and sweat

a feeling

driving through sunlit afternoon. the sky shattered with painful silence, cracks running light speed to seek and kill the four cardinal directions. chest emptied into the vacuum for lack of atmosphere. the whole world took on the moment and static of cocain sunrise. the lights came up fast over the credits and the images and fantasies weren't any less real, they were simply past. now i don't know if you believe in the past, i don't know if i do either. but the decision still stands in this dull now light with the rows of theatre seats and the popcorn spill to the left. outside that fire exit door... Sarte mumbling about fear and trembling.

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i saw old redwoods
whisper
secrets of forgotten religion
out on a california highway

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enshrouded in the grey hangover
of her snakeskin eyes

they always said
there were dreams deferred
and all the old poets
died with a smoker's cough