Fashion this as liquor to give spirit to
a song in write.  Seen seldom to weigh
words at play in search, sewn
expensive for time spent in trust and
recite.  Penciling not for profit so
rhythmic this may show.  Find in the
presence to open and reflect our
woes.  Only prescription for
uncommon those in write.  A same
those who compose.  This on display is
the compromise of sheltered dreams
and the soul, of rhythm in gentle prose.


This is the allure of the jewel of
life.  Sent as promise a same a
wish.  Stem those genes and make
heavy this vision and prayers in
might.  These are our rays made ink, to
weigh the pressures of waves constant
in cycle, to detract from nature’s
Heavenly sight.  Lost we shall dream
and ever so patiently grow old ~ but in
heart live bold.


Rugs were in Persia mathematically
correct and with an Indian craft
colorful, Heaven sent.  Only captured
in a metaphor this day, so men do
master, so simple this way.  Simple this
as to measure the years past, shudder
away tears, for the river purifies our
passions commandeered.  So culture
our gardens to prosper and replenish,
in the green untamed, and natural in
wonder, behold.


Today we thimble a sew for tomorrow,
for our craft is spared only to simple ~
ness of editing, not journeyed journals
to an ever-changing composition.  
Perhaps unfamiliar this vest, this
life.  Sample the living, in books that
inspire.  Dismal I think the desire to
purify a pen in this heavy practice, a
dance an art.  Time lends a flavor,
marinating appealing to a fashion so
write.


Always calm to prolonged righteous
reason, modern making, yet captured
still as storytelling.  Uncommon
to cues, but refreshing at leisure, is now a
computer who makes simple what once
was wasted time.  Measures made in
this art are laborious, the passion is
for the pen, reel it in as your tool,
rations will in turn ~ give as a well and
nature and sow, the seed of the write.  


Refinement ~ un-forsaken, notes of
detail, must reinvent and inscribe in
ink.  The bank of intuition lay tender as
our diction.  Replenish in the soil of
our Native grounds to seed another
tool, the luxury of our lingo.  For
inspirations may befriend or become
uncharted if left in the cold.  Sold but
without a surrender to all integrity, we
will call for many souls to ship and
receive what Forefathers intended.  In
over our heads, over watering our
behaviors, half unknowingly over
diluting our mental treasures, is this
the liquor of life, all too fancy in
measure but it was the tea of rebellion ~
and so I toast ~ to a drink tonight.


Inherent as memories of a generation
now surely within time, we will fill the
promise within crafted lines, and
file away ~ many promises ~ many
revisions ~ many times.  In spoil we shall
not surrender our bounty of honesty
and wisdom, so gray in years we
mend.  Dent our self-serving self ~
respect, make and justify the wheel in
role common.  Like a beard in keep,
intention is relevant.  Surely women
refine makeup as to show beauty in
character.  Thus what we intend to
refine is an endeavor to unwrinkled
and celebrate the qualities of growing
old.  Time is of new defining, for the
times are naturally at all times in
ritual of change.


Memories to grace the gift of sight ~ are
the shades to carry our reflections
away.  One, who trusts and so cares,
lay in the daydream of light.  In a wish
sent salient, reference to eyes unveiled,
patiently as a seed shall ripen, the
flavors of life will flower in springs
day.  We hanger ~ thus shelter, the rags
made clothes, best when leather to
weather firm and tight.


Regift the promise, to harness the
wind and make words potent as those
before did without regret.  Today in
general we lean and conform on the
fundamentals, too disciplined, mirror
of stale literature.   Similar to wood
varnished but without the stains of
life.  First revision is not for giving,
only what is taken, luxury of
time.  Color your copies of the wood
you talk in and pencil in your
pressures to relieve the pain, simple ~
ness and cold feet lay sold, as buttered
bread to fill.  But imperfect, so
forthcoming, wills the literature of
today ~ finding promise in ceremony
by charting drafts and revisions to
send in message to those young in
read.  This voyage is regretfully gentle
as our host made monumental any
verse, so breathe within the soul and
hearts of men, to find new styles to
milk the mind of reason.  Leafs from
the tree of intuition ~ censure the
picture, sell in the filter of Freedoms
fight, not first drafts ready when
write.  


Battered but purely by pace and
meager beginnings, the wave of
procurement in the arts of linguistics
will saddle and shelter the idea
profound.  Don’t toss away the raisin
of a pen in hand,  for we lean to easily
in bits and bytes.  Promise of Heaven's
pennies falling in rhythm will sing
tonight.  


Majestic in find, common in ground,
gift a find, in leisure, in time.  Gather
they guard and uphold the greater
good, not to entertain but inspire.  Just
as ones soul is when right.  Humbled
in behaviors so chips in clever may
fall.  But poker face we have become,
once centered in earnest of essays in
rent, now owners of ideas
embellished ~ in verse ~ our native
treasures.  Second we charter the raft
of ideas in mend, to conceive works so
aspiring as the poets and linguists of
historic claim.  So riddled ~ so
mastered.  Surely a new discontent
shall offer, in a pebble of examples
met, but with practice and structure
our youth will pen.  


Demand must be patient, for
procurement in the arts of linguistics
will nurture and mother our future
Leaders to a discipline in their own
right.  Never forget the days of past
generations for they marveled in the
arts ~ and in rain it falls in our hands
~ to luster and defend.  Poetics are too
political if not in share.  Protection of
this is how Freedom was rung.  The
hungry will maintain its resolve and
rightfully so.   Riddled as sow ~ these
lentils, this meal, these feathers, this
ink ~ shall fuel the fire.  A dance in the
pillows of night ~ shall brush the painting
in the Autumn of ones days.  Flaccid in so
many ways.  


Glorified by the shadows of
protection, but only one day is stored
for this intention.   Freedom is in the
work engraved beside it, within it,
sharing we celebrate it, and our Brave
provide it.  Celebration comes by way
of duty and hard work, and is rises
high and early in the dawn.  Yes, on
the Forth Day of July.  Food and
pleasures are gifts for price paid by
our Soldiers and Agencies who protect
and defend our freedom and intelligence, and
calmly watch over it as we carry
along.  All under the calm watch of
Gods umbrella.  Future dreams are
blessed a same, for all under this Flag
by notion alone, seam and dress and
hence sail ~ with solemn truth.  Trusting
the winds of reason to keep us Forever
Free and on course to replenish the
soil, for those young in years.  Students
in the day dream of life are in the send
to allow their pen to charter this
peaceful but daunting Nation to one of  
peace and prosperity.  Willingly and
calm the lion stares afar from
American shores, Democratic in nature and
always reinventing in this idea we
call ~ the American Dream.

The swing set was an old thing
like the brittle bones of an elephant
so worn that it had started to forget;
that's what her Gramma said, at least.
But Calpurnia Gray loved it
sat in it
till the seat sagged before she sat down
inviting her to rest.

Calpurnia Gray preferred the city
but the suburbs were what she got
and the swing set looked over some deep gulch of the woods
where even the suburbs ended.
Wilderness.

It filled her with such strange fantasies
of leaping through the trees like an ape
tearing off her clothes
and chasing down game
like some odd Tarzan with cobalt blue painted toe nails.
That would be the life for her if only she could go back
back
to the wilderness on the other side of the suburbs.
To the place where concrete monoliths lit up the sky at night
and rivers of asphalt carved always changing paths
for some intrepid explorer
to find a new bookstore
or museum
or something strange.

But Calpurnia didn't have either.

She had the suburbs.

And the swing set.

The swing set that always sat there, that never got away
the swing set that was crumbling with time and stagnation
but at least it was what she knew.

The shock arrives one day.
A parent is gone.
After a time,
You will find for no reason
Emotions will overflow
No rhyme, no reason.
It may be a smell,
It may be a sound,
It may be someone on the street.
Memories carried in heart and soul
Trigger tears.
For a time you will cry,
From deep within.
Slowly they will moderate.
Special days, a picture
Some things will always bring tears.
This is natures way.
Always remember,
They are a part of you.
If you are still and listen deep
They are there.
Memories help you along.
You are the total collection
Of the genes of those from before.
As long as you remember,
They are never gone.

Dan Gray

I wouldn't be lying
If I said you came to me in a dream.
Everything was gray and cold
And you set the colors free.

I wouldn't be dishonest
If I said I've been dying to show you
How my primal being yourns for you
And this feeling isn't new.

Can you tell me that you want me
In the middle of the night
When the harshest storms row
And you hold me in sight.

Can you tell me that you need me
Because maybe you're incomplete
And maybe you can complete me as well
While my dreams of you repeat.

It burns. So deathly, so excruciating.

It's like a never-ending, heart wrenching feeling, that separates all other emotions, all other pains, and all other scars apart.

That feeling of regret and fallen memories, colliding with each other and dragging you down so low that Hell appears to be Heaven.

Why? Why after so many years?

After so many others have managed to steal my heart, even if it was just for a moment.

Why? Even though I know those days are over, that they could never begin again, that there will always be a broken link and I will always shatter, fall, and crumble once more.

Why are these emotions still here? Why do they linger like a black cloud, suffocating me and chaining me down like a wild animal?

I know that you are only a memory, so then why are you still here?

Why do I think about you, dream about you?

Why even though I know all of your flaws and your undeniably inexcusable actions do I grip at my heart and say "I still love you"?

Even though time after time I have told myself the very opposite.

Time and time again I have banished you from my life and yet hoped there was still a chapter left of this dark story.

Why after so many countless times where I have been defeated by you, where I have fallen once more for the damned games you play,
twisting your black fingers around my spine and seeing how far you can go until it breaks?

Why do my forsaken eyes mistake you as an angel, when you are the devil himself?

Must I continue to have hope, wishing that I could try again, even though I know you're going to once more watch as I lose all sight of the truth?

Sinister and vile as you are, relish in my delusional state, knowing you have me in your claws which scrape at my back and leave scars that not even God could heal.

Do you even know how disgusting, how sickening and maddening it feels to know that you can't even see the pain you have inflicted on me? Sure you can see the bandages, but are you really that blind to the truth of their nature?

How deep these scars truly run? How badly and desperately I screamed and begged for help inside as you dug your claws into my flesh and carved them out yourself?

Can you not see the depression, the hopeless battered soul seeping through my eyes?

I pretend I am strong. I live every day breaking at the cracks and somehow manage not to collapse into a pile of broken pieces.

Tears are dried out and the ache of a heart that has been stomped on so severely that it bleeds gray is only a small burden compared to all of the rest.

I walk on a path where there is a light just in reach, but the path vanishes once you have come close enough to that hopeful light that you can brush it with the tips of your fingers.

Do you have any idea what it feels like to look in the mirror and have to remind yourself every single day that you were never good enough?

That you are a wasted canvas, painted beautifully at first but then crumpled and thrown out because you never had a chance at being satisfactory.

You will never understand that my own emotions are poisoning me.

You have grabbed at my throat and shaken me so violently that I am unable to move, paralyzed in shame. Paralyzed in sorrow.

And yet, as I look into your eyes, I am mesmerized by your face, I fall into a trace, trapped in your spell. Trapped in this deadly cycle.

You have dragged me down into this pitiful thing. This choking, lifeless relationship where I struggle to stay alive while you climb higher on your pedestal.

And despite my previous errors, I willingly fall into your hands. Blinded by the false light you shine above your head.

forever and a day,
with you i'd like to spend.
with both gray haired heads we've gained
guiding our memories.
we'd walk right past the centuries,
with both our hands entwined.
giggling at the passersby,
as we recalled our young sweet time.
the fire we have within us will need no kindeling,
for our love keeps them burning for all of eternity.

Don't look now

I'm fading away

Into the gray of my mornings

Or the blues of every night

Is it that my nails

keep breaking

Or maybe the corn

on my secind little piggy

Things keep popping out

on my face

or

of my life

It seems no matter how

I try I become more difficult

to hold

I am not an easy woman

to want

They have asked

the psychiatrists . . . psychologists . . . politicians and social workers

What this decade will be

known for

There is no doubt . . . it is

loneliness