Ascending shadows free frigid forest
From silently stalking sylvan guest
Lilac light lilting songbirds astir
Crystals cascade from ruffled fur
Halting hoof crinkles tinkling grass
Seeking silver trickling under glass
Softly stifled step echoes eerily alone
Tickling giggling reply from icy stone
Drinking doe darts sight unseen
Elusive as spring in this snowy scene

I like to take a second to think about the things I say.


Unfortunately, this usually tends to occur after I say a thing...

Lonesome pair of warring stars each toiling against the other,

Immense gravities shadow-spar, the sky-fires tide and tether,

Spiral waves of brilliant sparks spin out on the edge of never,

Shining light gives way to dark, the eyes of heaven stare as ever,

Embracing entropy eon-stark yet twinkling twice as clever,

For that which forces stars apart is that which binds us together.

I stood looking up under that same moon
More desolate than the lunar landscape
More isolated than the furthest galaxy
More nebulous than any constellation

I stood looking up under that same star
Heart blacker than the void
Love brighter than a pulsar
Tears tailing like a comet

I stood looking up under that same sky
Missing you

I've cut open the corpse of this love
So I could crawl inside to survive
The eternal cold night of this loss

I have wings,
but no feet.
I am escape,
without retreat.
I am surrender,
but not defeat.

Worn photograph clutched
Tightly in the mind's eye
Faces faded, edges rough
Light preserved by hopes lie

Lush garden terrace
Woven through with thorns
Soft smile turned sharp grimace
Scarcely healed scars torn

Fairytale truths delude
Poison apple dreams
The really-real world
Seethes behind the seems

Dark mirrors reflection
Bends reality
Echoes of connection
Charm eternity

There's something amiss in my desperate laugh,
A misty, wistful wish, an algid disparate draft,
Finest thread of dread winding its way throughout,
Vines, verdant, spread, binding my hope to doubt,
Booming drum shaking foundations made of sand,
Tinkling of breaking glass creations out of hand,
Spilling out and over, released lest the dam burst,
Consuming as if lover, heedless of best-verse-worst,
Best nightmares, worst dreams, in the end, it's all the same,
Unheard cares and thoughts mean, play the grandest games.

Let nostalgia and what-ifs,
Should-of, would-of, and could-of,
Be no longer curses, but gifts,
Not the pain of loss, but the memory of love.

Let the years seem kind in their passing,
Let me revel not in the present but celebrate in giving,
In helping, in loving, in laughing,
Not just one closer to death but another year of living.

Let these words ease angst,
And soothe long-suffering sorrow,
Let the past be wreathed in lights, not pains,
Not days passed but another chance at tomorrow.

Today I've decided I've outgrown these tears,
I'm yet younger than the mirrors wrinkled clues,
So here's wishing you all the best of my years,
With a wink of these birthday blues.

I took myself down a dark road,
I strode into the desolate cave at its end,
I found, deep within, a still, cold pool.
I sank below the surface of the subconscious,
Past the primordial muck of this life,
I dreamt of nothing.
Devoid of even the concept of darkness,
I did not reach out to it,
Because I did not exist,
For that tiny eternity,
I felt nothing.

Ice blue chilly
Shadow dark
Trapped in memory
Entropically stark
Struck by epiphany
Zeptoseconds for a quark
A self-fulfilling prophecy
Bitten by its bark

Be careful
I forgot to mention
my heart
is proximity-activated

I just wanted to say I love you before
I'm not forty-four anymore
Cause 44 = 2 x 22
And those numbers mean you

Bury me beneath assumption
Obfuscate me behind illusion
Crush me under false proof
I'd love to be lost in your confusion
Where each epiphany and every realization
Is you

So many people
diggin in the dirt,
lookin for a rock.
Can you see it from space?
I see one,
it burns so that people can travel speedily.
Chasin their shiny destruction
to the Earth's end
You used to be able to see it from space,
when there was still clean water.

Where's the point in sharing half a truth
Intrinsicly wasting time misspending youth
Why set yourself into the role inanimate
Waiting, willing, indifferent, and passive
Why torch your life in search of a match
A net-wielding dragon with fire to catch

Circumstance-severed ties
Shine like fugazi
Labor under lies
Instead of being, set free

Smothered in shadow
Beneath that Giving Tree
Struggling to let go
The aftermath of deceit

Falling for the untrue
Failing my destiny
Calling out for proof
Smoke-signaling my sanity

If I were to tell me
My much younger me
That I'd be a druggy
Well, I'd probably believe
If I were then able to see
This handful of boring
Well, I'd think I was crazy

In a pinch, you can use a pen to stir your coffee,
Thus proving that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
I mean, seriously...
Have you ever tried to stir a cup of coffee with a Claymore?

Two politicians standing around the grill in Anycity, USA.

"So wha'd'ya want? Heart or mind?" Asks the first politician.

"Mind," Answers the second.

"A man after my own heart!" Chuckles the first.

pocket puppet
people in power
hands in pants
razing the tower
climbing thoughts
clinging ivy
emotions a-twitter
prey for thee
my country
'tis of these

My unintended snark
adds terminal velocity
to my words sometimes,
like when Captain Kirk
slingshots around the sun.

Maybe I can use Kirk's
Slingshot Maneuver
to travel back in time
and apologize for each one.

Religion watered lies with cultivated fears
Pure liquid guilt methodically poured down ****** ears
Harnessed young thoughts to grim shadowed years
Harvested dumb belief in blood, sweat, and tears

Constant torture over the soul's fate
Hideously murdered that innocent state
Contrivances uttered with no trace of hate
Whose venoms still stain now balding pate

Taught to fear what we fail to understand
The devil himself possessed the idlest hand
Preferring instead to let us hang ourselves
Ironclad morals dragging us down to our hells

The plains-stretched sky soars sullenly,
Graceless sans hills, lonely less trees.
Starkly exposed tending swept-grass streams,
With naught but sparse clouds to mask modesty.

Let me glimpse the sky peaking playfully behind arboreal eaves,
Branches breaking blue monotony with autumn-bright leaves.
Show me a valley mid-winter-doze, cozy between mountains steep,
Sleepy sun-shadows shifting on snow as the sky climbs for her peek.

I'm sorry for the snarky outbursts
Posing as poems
I'm beginning to think of it as my pain
Getting a good look at itself in the mirror
Tears and broken glass and all
It's just that it's not very pretty
And I apologize

The problem I've noticed with anger born of hurt
Is that I have developed this habit of running with it
A kid with a kite, swept off the ground, whooping in delight
Only this kite does its best to carry me to a dismally dark place
Where everything that hurts ends up turning outward, hurting those I love

Have you ever seen that video where they put food coloring in milk
and then they drip one drop of liquid soap in the middle and
it pushes all the food coloring away?

You do that to my nightmares.

I think I could
Hold together
I think it would
Knowing the truth
The center should hold
One would assume

There's an underlying group
Trying to do what's not right
They're pretty ****** good
At hiding in plain sight

I was never sure if she was
locked away in a tower somewhere

Or if she was the dungeon master
and I was the one on the rack

Cord our arms with steel
Bolster our hearts with fire
Fill our minds with light
Drag the veil from our eyes

We have endurance and strength to fight
We have mercy and we have passion
May we learn the wisdom to choose what's right
May our eyes weigh, measure, and ration

Call it hope, poem, spell, or prayer
May it be a boon for those that care
To rise and challenge, to stand against
Control by precedent and ******* by consequence

Forgiving doesn't always take away the pain
As if washed away by some mythical rain
Generously applied truth is the only salve
Duel-edged and sharp enough to cut us in half
Pain-reaction, recoil, trauma response
Defensive action, budding trust is lost
This is normal human behavior
PTSD drains, Hope is savior
Catalyst for anxious dread
Water in the desert when nearly dead
Grateful hands lift life to lip
Thankful for the sandiest sip
Kindness inspires compassion and understanding starts
Enlightening dark corners in sun and healing the heart

Her star is her spirit
Her heart is my light
Weather, far, or near it
Illuminates my night

The cost of a soul is never cheap
A heart broken whole sleeps ever-deep
Healings toll is inclined to be steep
Heaven toils, devils reap

Pick yourself a poison
Goin' down town's lucked out
Cry yourself a river
Stroke it back you've swum out
Bust in the driver's window
Metal that pedal you're spun out
Tip back a fat jar-a
Moonshine 'til you're plum out
Hear the siren? Fire drill!
Get your holler on 'n jump out
Let your hair burn
Rip a roarin' scream as you run out
Stop, drop, rock 'n roll
Stomp that beat drum it out
Why waste time
Dyin' in the heat when the sun is out?

I would rather have lived in a trailer with you,

Than to have lived the rockstar life without you.

She was shopping

I was sold

I have only my soul as sextant,
Life serves as map and almanac,
Destiny plotted by wave and wind,
Without your star to guide me back.

I want world peace and hoverboards too
But those ain't happening anytime soon either
So much for childhood dreams, I suppose

Although to be fair, we do have watches that can make video calls.
So I guess that's 1/1000 or so.
Yay the future! 😕

Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Everything must go!
No offer unreasonable! No price too low!

What's that you say? You say you're just not buying it?
You don't like its looks and you're just not trying it?

That is cheap and this is ******,
What is this, plastic? How gaudy!
Everything you have to offer is beneath me,
Is this the legacy you thought to bequeath me?

My apologies, I do not possess the prowess to hold your interest,
I hope you'll forgive my hubris & this foolish idea that I should be honest,
In fumbling, stumbling, pedestrian prose & ****-poor rhymes like those.
I suffer from multiple isms you see, I must've been having a schism, truly.

It's not my custom to put a tag on things so dear,
Nor, had I a choice, would I place the price so near,
To nothing that I shiver at the cold cost, this chilling fear,
That even if I were free I'd be too much to bear.

When one's life has hit rock bottom
At the ripe old age of nineteen
When the apple of life has gone rotten
And hopeful plans wither to faded dreams

When one's confidence is shot
And one's hope has slowly waned
When one's faith in love is all but lost
And one's self-esteem's been drained

When one's spent their life to overcome
The pain of losing their one true one
When one's reached out to touch only ice
To be judged and rejected once, twice, thrice

When one's messages are deleted unread
And pictures cannot fill the hole in one's heart
When the only chance to hear your voice is in one's head
One begins the onerous process of falling apart

When healing has begun and the dull throb doesn't beat one jaded
When the sunlight breaks the clouds for the first time in dark ages
When the black hole ***** a little less and the stars aren't so faded
One will still be here waiting to hear an answer sought by fools and sages

TL:DR