The ripples in the pond,
formed by water bombs,
shimmer brightly under the street lights.

Sometimes green,
Sometimes red,
Sometimes white,
And sometimes,
                            like you.

A red streak highlighted her crooked nose
as she caressed her head on the window
outside a *****-tonk called ***** Crows.

One hand in her pistol bag,
the other crumpled up the ends
to her black velvet skirt.

Then she licked her upper lip
while pushing her shoulders
forward.

Did her eyes have color?

I don't remember,
'cause my world took a trip
with the wind out of L.A.

When I asked for her name,
she uttered with the letter, K.

It came upon me in silence,
covering the ground and frosting every earthly lip.
Its mystic flurry attacking
the air and space I kept.
With each striking of the clock
the blanket canvass did grow
seeping history into the landscape
using Its flying ghosts of snow.

Perhaps, it is only to survive
these treacherous days,
contorting, amid our delicate time.

To take what other form should we proceed,
suffering always,
while keeping meaning against this battle?

Carrying faith forever through crisis,
willingly alone,
until hatred reconciles with peace.

That Endurance shall be tested constant
with our undoing,
proving challenge to rest in our demise.

Survive, survive if living is
too great a task now,
tonight we’ll pray Hope gives birth to Mercy.

I dream of fleeting moments desired,
juxtaposed along side of time already expired.

Gold beaches lined with floating palm leaves
billowing up and down in the warm Spring breeze.

Mesmerized by swaying hips dancing to the pounding
of drums and ***; my bliss I've found with every orange sun.

That world destroyed through paper thin walls
and every car crash and shop-lifted items stolen from the mall.

A stray dog barks and highways howl,
this moment I stay dreaming for a better now.

Like Bukowski
and like Langston Hughes
I've been consumed
by the midnight blues.

She took to sleeping,
He took to drinking.

Why sleep? he thought,
Dreams only remind the waking eyes
that life is better shut.
Depression. He supposed.

Drinking!
Now there's a remedy. He believed.
Live life and attack the bad parts
with a vice. Shut out the wallow
and bathe in the horrors of strife.

He thought, drinking from the bottle
of malice and spite.