the light blue flickering rhythm   of the neighbor's big console t.v.   is basking on the ceiling   of another insomniatic 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 make a pen 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