Red rose, petals of velvet,
thick and smooth.

Your beauty, unsurpassed in nature,
made even more splendid
by the brevity of your existence.

Hand crafted over the centuries,
but in the twinkle of an eye
your green stem is hewn
from under you.

Your head falls to the earth,
petals close in the fading sun,
not to open again.

If only I could keep you.

But you were never mine to hold forever,
only to cherish in your bloom.

The sun has come.
Somewhere far on the eastern border
of my existence she has begun her
wild haired dance across the sky signaling the dawn of
a new day.
Slowly, I rise.
Feeling every ache and pain and fiber of my humanity,
I great a gray wash environment.
This stillness, haunting, like the watercolor left unfinished in the
closet.
Joints creak like gears.
Rusted from neglect, they scream their displeasure breaking
the silence and solidifying my existence.
My neck strains against
this shackle of a belly pulling from my shoulders
forcing me to notice my feet, almost for the first time in years.
Time has not been kind to them.
Twisted and gnarled like the roots of the tree my
father planted in my youth.
Dark skin, dried and scarred from years of taking them
in and out of socks, sit dumb and silent as mules waiting
for my command.
Toes, blistered from a lifetime of being stubbed on desk
corners and floor boards, reach blindly for the
fine fibers of the blue carpet at the edge of the
bed.
Knees shaking, like the screen door on my grandmother's porch,
from the weight of my distended middle force me to
grab for the nightstand.
Driftwood hands stumble across the well worn surface
remembering every nail and knot and grain.
More than most will ever forget.

This steam feels good against my skin.
I leave my hands to their chore,
letting them travel the same course without thought.
lather
scalp
face
that funny spot behind my ears mama would rub to soothe
my pain
neck
arms, first left then right,
stomach
top of my aging genitals to the deepest portion of
my inner thighs
down my legs
top of my back letting the soap run down my spine
and between my buttocks.

From the corner of my right eye
a face catches my attention.
Not the face of a stranger, no I remember this face.
Like old friends meeting again
for the first time, smiles stretch gently across
our faces.
We reach for each other, tracing
the laugh lines etched deep in our foreheads remembering
the origin of each.
This is not a stranger's face.
No, this is the face that woke me at the dawn of
each new day and stood watch in my sleep.
These
eyes are not my own.
In another lifetime they
smiled at my very existence.
Set in stone, they shone like stars on my first
day of school.
I remember everyone saying I was the spitting image of my father.
Youthful pride denied their words, but here he stands.
Smiling back at me.
Hello father.
My it's been such a long time since we met.
How have you been?

Have you ever seen a fish fly? I don't mean a spectacular leap accompanied by twirls and accentuated by the water dripping from its scales like a couture gown. Nor do I mean the astounding burst of speed a "flying" fish exhibits as it leaps out of the water, expanding their large pectoral fins, and gliding to safety. What I mean by my question is the following: have you ever seen a fish exert the energy required to achieve take off and to truly soar among the clouds and dance at the feet of the heavens. Have you ever seen a school of fish flutter in such synchronicity of purpose and action, they sound as one creature? Have they exited our plain of view in such a flurry of color and sound as to be considered art? The answer is no. They never have nor will the ever behave in such a manner. Why you ask? It is not their nature.
To know the universe one must first know themselves, but are we obligated to follow our nature? As much as I would love to disagree, the past year has presented me with an abundance of evidence that my legalistic disposition cannot ignore. Prior to college, I regarded my resentment of tedious and technical activities as a phase of adolescence that would soon pass upon entrance to college. However, the opposite has proven itself to be true. I have become even more resentful, enraged even, at the technicality and tedium of my classes. While I have ideas of implementation and grandeur; they, the classes, deconstruct ideas until they are merely a collection of uninteresting facts and figures void of life and purpose. In just the past month, I have had my motives and resolve for engineering questioned by myself, my advisor, two professors, and many friends. The question is always the same "how do you feel about engineering?" and my response is equally predictable "I think I'll stick it out, besides there is more job stability with engineering than with art." I am dying! Like a fish out of water, I am gasping for air and nutrients but nothing is coming. My skin is drying and I am left expending what little energy I have left desperately trying to get back to the sea, to get back to art. For all the beauty of my mind, it is wasted on my efforts for this, engineering, is not my nature. I became so inthralled, so utterly captivated by the stark blues of calculations and whites of lofty ideas and esoterica, that I ignored the kaleidoscope of colors beneath me as unorganized and useless fragments of information. I never appreciated the bright pops of corals, greens, oranges, reds, yellow, along with every other color known and unknown to man until I had managed to jump clear past, what I then saw as, the boundaries of art and got stranded on the dullness of solid ground with a sound as dense as the colors. Those bright colors were not merely background noise, those colors formed my world, indeed they formed me.
The time is very late now and I am running out of energy, but I know I have to get back to myself and my nature. I'm not quite sure where I'm headed, but this little fish is going to keep swimming until sea meets sky. Who knows, maybe I'll even grow my own set of wings and fly.

I got
sixteen red bars criss
cross this arm 'cause
sixteen times I've
played this song on the forearm of my left violin.
Felt the blade bite my skin
as red half notes dot marble white sheets.
I felt my heart sing its melody
as I poured myself onto the page.
I remember the first time I played.
My hands shook with anticipation. I
was so excited,
my hand slipped on the first note.
The blade, grazed my skin,
cut just deep enough to keep me coming back for more.
I got a few scars from when mama
told me she didn't love me. Those scars
are hidden deep inside, etched into the very
fiber of my being.
I got a few more scars when the
kids at school told me I was too
dark to be something. I remember running
blind into bathroom stalls, hating these hands for what they were about to do.
Hating these hands because they were mine.
I played my solo for an audience of none, one if you count God looking
down from heaven begging me to stop.
I remember looking through fogged over eyes as the
world shuffled by. They saw my hand under the bathroom stall
and they just
kept
walking.
No one stopped to rescue me.
I got a few more scars from the first man I gave my heart.
He held on just a little too tight,
left marks where his fingers were.
He took my wrist and held it too tight.
He started to play but it wasn't right. He didn't
understand the
fine nuances of my
tendons and ligaments.
He pushed the blade too deep,
snapped chords and left me unable to play.
I think he left the deepest marks. They
still haven't completely healed, and some days
I can still feel blood trickle
down my arm.
I got sixteen red bars criss
cross this arm 'cause
sixteen times I've played this song on the forearm on my left violin.
I think seventeen would have been the end.

Turn out the lights.
I want to dance in the darkness of my sin.
I want to let down my hair
feel its length run wild down my spine.
I want to feel my arms reaching out into the nothingness,
want to feel the touch of the shadows
as it burns my flesh.
Turn out the lights.
I want to dance in the darkness of my sin.
I want to hear the silence of my solitude, hear it screaming
at me from the pinpoint horizon
I can't actually see because I
turned out the lights so I could dance in the darkness of my sin.
I want to feel the void
at the very center of my being
shaped like the soul I sold to a devil disguised as angel
disguised as man disguised as devil.
I can't tell anymore. Even in this
darkness, it hurts to keep my eyes
open. Even in this darkness I can
see the outline of my nakedness shining
like a beacon out to sea.
But this is not the beacon calling
to lost ships like mothers call to children.
This is the beacon that blinds my eyes
and reminds me of my imperfections.
So again,
turn out the lights.
I want to dance in the darkness of my sin.
Please, just turn out the light
that burns within me. Cut out its source
and let me fade back into the darkness.
Turn out the lights.
I want to dance in the darkness of my sin.

A bird is a
Peculiar thing to me.
They hop, and flit, and twist about
and pick at every pebble
and crumb upon the ground.
But an even more
Peculiar thing
is in the way they move.
Effortlessly across the sky.
Calligraphy in motion.
They have the power to n'er come down
Yet they dwell upon the ground.

But an even more
Peculiar thing is love.
I do not know from whence she comes
or where'er she shall go.
A dainty hand leaves a lasting mark
bruise
imprint
a scar.
Never shall I understand
this
Peculiar thing of love.

Bleach white
Bone dry
the desert of my heart.
the rains have gone
and come no more
a dry spell's come to stay.
the sun bears down his hateful rays
chipping up my heart and
scorching everything in sight
love don't prosper here no more.

a river's come
black as tar,
more viscous and all consuming,
has etched a ribbon through my heart.
by its banks the soil is dark
and the fruits of love are blooming.
close enough for me to touch
yet too far to partake,
this river through my heart

The fog has rolled across
The land, blanketing
My senses.
Surrounding me in
Its icy maw. Her breath,
It chills my spine.
I feel so empty without
That shawl, outside the
Mantle of death. Here is where
My spirit lies, here is my
Domain.
The tears of death revive
Me, her chill embrace
Enraptures me.
If only I could spend
Eternity in her sweet embrace
If only, oh if only.
It wont be long 'til I
Am there with her, in her
Of her, until I am her.
Her fog has rolled across
The land, blanketing
My senses.

Branches just above me
Gold leaves like mother's jewels.
Surrounded by the sages of days gone by.
The wind was my instructor, my best and favorite teacher.
Her boughs they hid me from the world, but not the
World from me.
I felt the very beat of Earth
And basked in the embrace
Of the littlest maple tree.

I am a poor man
sitting on the corner of
Your Conscious
and Your Reality.
All day everyday
I sit in that spot and
beg for change.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to water my feeble hope, thorny rose
rooted in concrete hatred.
Roots, like my fingers,
too feeble to hold anything
but this patch of dirt to remind
me, I exist.
ALMS! ALMS! ALMS for the poor of heart!
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to wash away the muck kicked in my face.
A cup of change
to cleanse the wounds made
by verbal bullets shot out of nine millimeter mouths
wielded carelessly by boys society has deemed as men.
I sit in this spot and fester,
like a dream deferred.
My skin, cracked and brittle
like aged parchment, hangs over my frame
like sheets over antiqued furniture.
I sit in this spot with
arms open wide, heart open wide, eyes open wide
BEGGING FOR CHANGE!
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to strip the lies and propaganda
from the decrepit facades of your ideas,
storefront workshops left from the age of enlightenment.
My body yearns for nourishment
but I can't afford your lies.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
Now I'm not asking for a Jesus on Galilee moment,
just a cup of change to feed what's left of my soul.
But who am I to ask for anything?
I am just the poor man
sitting on the corner of
Your Conscious
and Your Reality.
All day everyday
I sit in that spot and
beg for change.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.

I locked my heart in a silver chest
and threw away the key.
I set it out upon the sea
to sail away from me.
For if my heart had disappeared,
the pain would follow suit.
But it seems my logic flawed,
that misery still walks with me.
She lays with me in bed at night
and diligently, so faithfully, walks right by my side.
Her steps, they leave no guiding mark
and I alone can see her.
She whispers softly in my ear
That she will always be here.
She takes her hands,
such dainty things,
and wipes away my tears
leaving only the faintest lines,
ravines across my face.
I locked my heart in a silver chest
and threw away the key.
I set it out upon the sea
to sail away from me.

Dimly the light above
me flickers,
feeble,
like my heart.
Dust sparkles, diamond like
in the fleeting beams
of cold lights.
Antiqued books, with yellowed
pages and worn leather skins,
cratered by clumsy fingers,
line the dark oaken bookshelves.
A fine veil of dust covers their
naked skins.
The walls, they were once
beautiful, exotic vines crept up
their lenghts, punctuated by vivid
blooms.
But now, now they bare
a natural face.
Garments pealed and faded
blooms rest,
fragile and wrinkled,
at her feet.
A dark, gray room
in the final throws of death.
No life survives,
no light...
no pulse...
no thing, nothing save a
single
red
rose.
Summer
Spring
Winter
Fall
evermore she blooms.
Her thick oily petals
are smeared into the glass.
she was there
before I came.
She will be there
when I'm gone.

I can hear him,
Hear him long 'fore I sees him.
Can hear him stompin
Stompin 'cross the ceilin
Of the earth like he mad at the world.
Mad at us for just bein.
Rain Man stomp so hard
he send the wind runnin
runnin hard runnin mad
kickin up dust an' pickin up leaves
Screamin at the top of her lungs
Pull down ya garments
and shut up yo hatches.
Call in yo chillun's 'cause
Lawd I declare
The Rain Man comin'
 
I can see him now
sees him off in the distance.
Talltoweringhulk of man.
Skin real dark.
But not that niggah-baby
kinda dark what look
like somethin dead been
drug through the mudndipped in tar
with fat uncooked sausages for lips
like they got in the picture shows
an shoppin books.
Nah this that pretty kinda dark
Night sky kinda dark
dark so deep
ya get lost in it and find God there too.
Yeah, he got that pretty dark.
But he got them eyes,
them pretty white eyes
sparkle so hard like God
plucked the North star and the Pointer star
right out the sky and stuckem
in his face.
His hair, thick black coils of hair,
grow like kudzu stretch down
his back and move in the wind like
snakes with minds of they own.
He turns his head backnforth
sendin them vines
flyin
stretchin stretchin to forever till
CRACK
they snap back,
snap back so hard they like to
split the air with fury
that shook me to my soul.
 
I can feel him now
feel him as he wraps me in his arms,
what seem to be made of steel, and
pull me into that chest made of
mountain stones firm
firm like the earth I ain't no
longer standin on 'cause he
picked me up clear off my feet
no connection to the ground but him.
I wrap my birdy lil arms round
his neck and bury my
bony lil fingers in the
layers of his hair.
I can feel the warmth
roll offa him in waves
waves like the ones cornfields
make when they kissed by wind,
or maybe even waves like them from
the sea as they reach out for land to
save them from drownin just 'fore
they fall back into the sea, I just
know that he feel good.
 
I can smell him,
smell every bit of him as I
bury my head deeper into his neck.
He smell warm like the earth,
like red clay smell after he and sun
done made out all day, warm like a
man smell after he done spent
all day hunch backed starin
at the earth tryna trick her to
give'm just a lil somethin to eat.
Even his clothes, holey rags they are,
smell like smoke but not that
cold angry smoke what come from the
factory, not that black stuff what
puff itself up to block out the sun
like he mad at her for shinin so pretty.
Nah, his smoke smell like that soft
gray smoke that drifts lazy-like from
daddy's shed after he done bled a
pig for us to eat during winter.
His smokeyness smell like earth.
 
I can taste him
taste every memory of him
as I kiss blindly startin at his
neck workin my way up
tryna find his mouth.
Every inch of his face taste sweet,
like the caramel candies them old
ladies at church carry round in they bags,
made even sweeter by the salty tang
of each bead of sweat as it tumbles
down his face and drips on my blouse
stainin the pretty lil flowers.
All I know is he taste good.

The sky smelled like rain today.
Thick with the promise
of relief. Thick like the scent of
your body that seeped into every
letter you sent promising you'd
come back today. I still have
those letters, all twenty. Twenty letters
from twenty days all promising the
same thing, seven pm tonight.
Everything on earth just knew
the rain was coming. For the first
time in months the trees played
their song as the wind danced
in rhythm. Even the dust jumped
higher, like it was reaching out
for the rain that hadn't come.
 
The day drug on like time stood still.
But the sky still smelled like rain.
I heard the birds singing about it.
They weren't the only thing singing,
my soul was singing right beside them.
 
Six o'clock came and the sky got dark.
The rain was almost here. The air and
my heart were heavy with expectation.
The winds danced faster and the trees
moaned louder as they welcomed the
rain.
But my song ended because you weren't there.
The clock struck seven and the sky cried
out. Seven times he screamed at the top of
his lungs.
gongBOOM...
 
 
 
gongBOOM...
 
 
 
gongBOOM...
 
 
 
gongBOOM...
 
 
 
gongBOOM...
 
 
 
gongBOOM...
 
 
 
gongBOOM...
and the rain came down,
all night long sky and I cried.
Cried for different reasons but we cried together.
All night sky cried the joy of release
and the world cried in relief.
All night I sat by my window and cried in disappointment
because you never came. All night I watched
for you, but your shadow never darkened my door
but your absence darkened my heart.
 
The sky smelled like rain yesterday.
Thick with the promise
of relief. Thick like the scent of
your body that seeped into every
letter you sent promising you'd
come back yesterday. The rains came,
but where were you?

I feel like I live in a little glass box.
Can you hear me?
Can you see me?
Most days I don't remember
if I ever existed.
I walked into a crowded room
and I thought I said hello.
But not a single head was turned
as if my words were never heard,
they never left my mouth.
I drifted lazy 'round the room,
smoke from cedar pipe.
I passed between bodies statuesque,
really more like trees,
ne'er a word was spoke to me
ne'er a soul had noticed.
Just as quick as I'd appeared
I made my silent leave.
A leaf dropped on a placid lake
a ripple gone unnoticed.
I feel like I live in a little glass box.
Can you hear me?
Can you see me?
Most days I don't remember
if I ever existed.

I am,
just a surragate
the Universe chooses, at random,
to impregnate with
the ideas of time eternal.
This stick of lead, the narrow
birth canal through which these
words must pass
as I, with trembling palms
and sweated brow, force my hands
to shape the words as quickly as I pass them.
But my hands are clumsy things.
This paper is the birthing towel
on which these words breath first life.
And when I step to the mic to
speak these words,
release these words like one million birds
set free from cage
one butterfly break of cocoon,
each one set forth with their own intent
to heal or harm
to love or kill,
I pray these words remember the time
I spent coddling and caressing
chastising and correcting,
shaping them into the
clicks and tones and dips and moans
you will recognize as poetry.
Simple words clothed in similes and metaphores.
But my words
are week.
They hold no power outside of intent
can't hold you captive without your consent.
For when I speak these words
into existence,
I send them off as dandelion seeds into the
wind to land where they may.
For I am merely
a surrogate the Universe chooses, at random,
to impregnate with the ideas of time eternal.
I am merely a poet.
Nothing more
and probably much less.

Was it love?
Was what we did last night really love,
or were we just fucking?
Because your daddy is screaming
that we were just fucking to be fucking
and that our little three minute excursion
couldn't amount to anything.
Something inside me, call it foolish pride,
wanted to say that it was actually closer 
to twenty-three minutes.
But if you take out all the pauses of
trepidation and uncertainty then you're
probably right.
Your mother's crying her baby is a whore
her baby is a whore whore whore.
But see I'm confused.
When I hear fucking, i see two people
throwing caution and their clothes to the 
wind as they gorge themselves on carnal delicacies.
But what we had was different.
What we had wasn't a mad dash
to the sensual finish line.
What we had was more like a slow
stroll through the garden of ecstasy
as we sampled the fruits of sensation
our hormones whirling and singing
about us like nightingales in the pale pale
moonlight of your smile.
I still remember the soft cotton of your
comforter, a stark contrast to the 
hard facade I tried to hastily construct.
A boy trying to emulate the icons of
masculinity.
So I tried on Usher's bravado sitting
legs splayed wide. I even licked my
lips imitating LL Cool J. But they
didn't fit me. They hung around my
awkwardness like the boots you were
wearing hung around your slender legs
more suited for running scared into
your daddy's arms than trying
to walk into "womanhood".
Each step infantile and uncertain,
uncertain of yourself and the situation at hand.
And if you hadn't been so scared,
you would've noticed that my
walls, hastily constructed of sand,
began to fall with your shirt to the floor.
And you would've noticed my
eyes darting back and forth in the sockets
pacing like the scared animal I really was.
My mind weaving webs of confusion with
each tendril spinning off into the possibilities.
What if I'm done too soon?
What if she laughs at me?
What if I'm not big enough?
What if I get her pregnant?
Will I still love her?
Do I love her now?
What if I don't meet her standards?
Wait, she said she was a virgin she wouldn't have standards yet,
would she?
What if she isn't a virgin like she said?
How would I know?
What about STD's, we did get tested right?
Yeah, two weeks ago in a clinic on Panola Rd.
Were the test negative or positive?
OH SHIT.
Her bra is off and I've never been this close
to a naked breast before.
Well when I was a baby, but then I was more
concerned about what was coming out of them
and is that a freckle above the left
nipple?!
And in that cacophony of confusion
you placed one finger on my chest and
quieted my storm
like mother to child you calmed me down
like Jesus on Galilee you quieted my storm.
I placed one hand on your chest and discovered
the same staccato pulsing through you.
And as I penetrated your inner sanctum
we both inhaled
sharp
deep
invigorating
as we breached the surface of the sea of
infatuation and breathed the life giving air
of sexual awakening.
Our heart beats raced
like Sea Biscuit at the Kentucky Derby
with the intensity of one thousand
birds in flight
until they began to slow and find their pace.
Our bodies followed suit, mimicking the rhythm
of two hearts beating as one and rocking
back and forth
back and forth
back and forth
as we rowed through ecstasy having the
best fucking time of our lives.
But there goes that word again,
and I'm still confused so you tell me.
Was it love?
was what we had really love,
or were we just fucking?

Have you seen my God today?
It seems that i have lost Him
and cannot find him anywhere.
Not in verdant fields
nor rolling hills
or leafy trees He lies.
I search and search
And search
But still I cannot find Him

I searcheth high
and looketh low
but I do not find Him.
The oceans roar in consternation,
the ponds have no reply.
The rivers, streams, and little brooks
whisper He has died.

Where is He who has said
He's all encompassing?
Without a compass or a map
or even astrolabe,
He's lost in His design.

Drip drop
pitter patter
the sound of kitten's feet.

Woosh Swirl
the wind tells
the sound of secrets sweet.

BOOM BOOM
thunder claps
the sound of sweet release.

Flash twirl
lightening dances
across the city streets.

A bridge reached out across the water,
gnarled metallic fingers
Connected to a fractured concrete arm.
Rain has washed away your face, left mascara down your side.
Neglect has robbed you of your
grandeur, stripped you of your garrish ornimentation
your ribs jut out from beneath
the skin, or the patches that are left.
Sunlight dances playfully in the
bullet holes burned through by Time's gun.
Forgotten by man and time alike,
consoled only by the gulls and pigeons,
even they leave their mark of
defecation.
A squalid end for one once so beautiful,
to die an old maid,
slowly falling
bit by bit into the foamy wash below.