Dust-covered two-lane highways
Catch the footfalls of my meanderings.
Meadowlarks and Phoebe-birds
Sing backup to my tuneless whistles.
Clouds illuminated by God-rays
Paint the sky above my head
And the Man in the Moon
Smiles as I bed neath a willow for the night.

I am a wanderer, a vagabond, a ***.
The iron wrought train tracks
I secretly ride pass through the fields,
The forests, the mountains and valleys,
The cities and suburbs, the small towns too,
Home to so many who choose there to dwell.
But my home is the open countryside,
The fields of wildflowers and bushes,
The occasional oak or poplar for shelter,
With a stone for my pillow
Anywhere I wish to rest.

I am a wanderer, a vagabond, a ***.
I am the outsider.

"Cradle my emotions in the gentlest of whispers"* ~~ *Ryn



Hold me
Tenderly
Make me feel something
Be gentle with me
I've been hurt lately
Despair courses through me
Depression
Regret, guilt
Can you help me?
Don't just tell me
What I want to hear
Tell me what you really feel
Take away the fears
Don't scream
Tell me softly
Whisper in my ear
The beautiful things
I need to hear
Make me feel something
Cause lately
All I've felt is...





Absolutely nothing

She stood, amidst tutts, wore a mini skirt...
(From the first decade).  Took a
Step forward, pioneering the teenager
Long fair hair, parted mid section
Cascading over her cherry cupcakes
Remembering first impressions aren't always
Accurate, they still berated her without
Knowing her.  First appearances were all
They knew and could rely on...back then
Why would she wear a skirt so short if
Respectability meant anything, closed off
They too had been judged, time dulling
Their posture straight backed.  Space lacked
Room to be filled with meanderings of another
Era, balancing her book atop red curls and
Speckled egg skin.  Recalling the longing
Admiration of someone who dared to wear
Their inner choice on the outside

it's raining today
bouncing off the roof and glass
of this 100 year old building
the room is eerily dark
as only faint Sun makes it through the skylight
the ghosts whisper and shuffle about
the cat is timid and disappears under the bed
the hum of early traffic is constant and tires splashing
through rain is irritating
I recall a dream just before I awoke
I helped a friend who's old white Cadillac wouldn't start
she had to drive to Michigan
and in the dream I thought;
'this ******* ain't makin' it to Michigan'
but I couldn't stop her
and now I wonder;
is she broke down and in a panic along I-80?
maybe I should have tried harder
but that's where I woke up
or is that where I fell asleep?
perhaps I am dreaming now
the ghosts love to watch me ponder

4am 4am 4am….
Leftover stonedness
Lonely memories
I can’t figure out what I miss.
Think it’s the calm comfort of tuning out
Even though the tuning out slowly murdered me
Drift beyond
Drift away from everyone
I fear people.
Sometimes I feel like everyone else disappears in the world
Or that they can’t touch me
Like I’ve never been touched.
I don’t think I’ve ever been touched.

The computer glows and I have to be quiet.
My mother is sleeping in the other room.
She’s stressed and hurting
Guilt notifies me that I haven’t helped her enough.

I don’t know if I feel like dying but I feel like becoming mute.
If I can learn to ignore everyone, I can ignore pain and let down expectations
Sweetie eyes and a tall lean lover.
Dark expression knowing my soul
Loving and *******
Soul to soul
Skin to skin
Breathe with every breath.

Lost in the wanderings
Through the ancient paths
Covered in anonymity
Long before they saw light
Many civilizations perished
Unaware wanderings
Lead the heart to unknown territories
Lost in the midst of nowhere
But have found an existence
Uncanny feelings awaken
A realization of the lost soul
Finally, it has found
Crowd of humanity could not spare
From the least known places
The soul has found a treasure trove
Wandering through meanderings
Directed the lost traveler
To a place of wonder and clarity
Herein lies the truth
Immerse yourself in silence
To celebrate the new realization

O! the lives I've wasted
The lives I could have led
If different paths I'd taken
And different people I'd met.

O! what friends were lost
When just around the corner they lay
Their voices heard but their faces
   hidden
O! why had Destiny to steer me this
   way.

                              II

With my life here in my hands
My impulsive moves and slow
   meanderings
My efforts regulated by my will to
   abstain
In gaining my present position
What have I lost elsewhere
And what have others lost
Because of my absence there.

Befriended street lamps' static hum
Timed steps slashed through electric buzz
Fled from the dawn's grey stain
chased night with anxious breath
                                              erupting
Out­flanked and pinned down
                                         by the days

Strike up the band, roisin the bows.
Compose another tired piece.
I dread the melody
and cringe away
                              from the next movement
I'm only up for burned out wandering.

     Another balance overdue
Took out a loan for time well spent
     Roll out the carpets for the doomed
It's unforgiving turf where our steps are bent

I'll draw these lines
     of ghostly profile night
and coax the specters out
We'll roll on with the tides
     where we can dance macabre
until the core unwinds.

Defend the fort for sleeping ghosts
I'll man these walls until the dawn.
I'll fight these memories
beneath the banner of
                                  some others
Shell-shocked with gun arm
                                  growing sore

Outside, the sidewalks glow red-orange
I throw my shadow on the sparks.
Charred homes on cindered streets
I draw my bow
                           across shaking half notes
Chart out a map of burnt meanderings.

     Default on friendships I misplaced
I'm wrapped tight in familiar fear.
     But I'll warm to those familiar strains...
Because it's 5 o'clock somewhere, and Summer's here...

I'll cross the lines
     into the ghostly night
and wake the specters up
As fires kiss the night
     so I can sleep real sound
and let my core unwind.

fem in isms,
i imagine Sapphic eyes:
bad *** advert coruscates elite
fairness sensing slavish blind
in gestate calm affirm
in genders More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--
O harsh judgement foiled,
as a foil, as unknown truth
foil-doubles in the brow,
abject symmetry to systemize
a fertile lack of sterile barrenness,
i am a mediatrix rend,
nirwaan, hijra wonderment aside
from transemotion's ground swells
demeaning to be understood.
i celebrate and face the same
to be what paperwork tests being
normal being, freely chosen
atom each belonging moves
an asterisk of paths
of mutate art of nature social darwin maze.
i imagine Sapphic eyes,
ginko soft they pile up all cobble
memories themselves concretely
cloistered  fame
spray of salty waves,
macho screams symbol
for dismissal ease
for tearing at an inner unsaid war
with lists offense of proper taste
to what posterity intends
an undulation womblike seeming nourish safety sounds.
i imagine Sapphic eyes
past
debauched
meanderings
where hyster-clarity rejoins its titular
and reliable escapisms curl the lips
of maleness found
here and there  smile  sneer love
i imagine Sapphic eyes
linguistic pirouettes
congest that wisdom nonetheless
the moment passed  on to a
feigning truth in pretty rhyme
ornamenting time with fine  meter  fine
vernacular chimes peter in
to juggle perspectival paradox,
redichotomize the twilight idols,
resolve the conflict like a dawn
Aurora,
i imagine Sapphic eyes
running plastic with Alaskan wolves,
toga floats to snow
to let us see the purest fairness form
a ****** circle,
Hypatia ascends from tenebrous grave,
Impregnable of Eye is pregnant now
with Wollstonecraft revered
in liberation's fount
families held exemplar gaze of
Taylor, ******, Cady,
Anthony resanctified
to vote entitlement's
empathic origins, waxen mold
of nascent categories,
narrow hands spread wide to panoply anew
the manifest evolve in true unknowns

“you shall carry my bones up from here” (Genesis50:25)
yea Little nymph of numbers has six teeth each with ******-chic epiphanies
protrusion of epiphyses thirsty for a fresh bonejuice deathblast
stringy strung theoroized skelecoded out arieal fractal sonix
lix hits antigravity dreambeats chew on infra-red-infractures
to explosively burn constellations out into dust bowls all heavily cranio-******
up with a soul narrowed down to a skelleconex technoillogical prototype
a freshly teased nanoNymph_2.0 osteo-tissue paper thin prototype
designed to bemuse, amuse and be a muse to forgotten infinite epiphanies
endlessly download digitisternums, clavicles whatever desired by the cranio- ******-
enough to risk phantom organic pain in time to playback biofeedback turnt up to deathblast
It’s the artificial cardiaudio arteries show featuring manibrium marrow leakage from infra—red-infractures
and six skinny feminine femora to sing blackened covers of diva demeter love sonix
diamond data mapped thick with smokey persephone bloodkiss shadow sonix
peruse the meanderings of the nanoNymp2.0 a double(triple) pianissimo prototype
fragile: prone to falling (ie) misunderstanding sharp blades pulled from infra-red-infractures
***** bonebuzzed off nothingness nectar numb drunken epiphanies
triangulated ossification between 1st 2nd and 3rd eyes lead up to deathblast
fossilized iconoclastic forethought will achieve status of cranio-******
this poem has no need to lobotomize fetal craniotomies; it’s all cranio-******
betwixt BANG BANG banging is clatter clix scatter bone-dance sonix
electricity sings in the key of major deathblast
crack open a bone on a nanoNymph skelleconex system and a replacement will be sent of the latest prototype
well calculated little nanoNymph’s all programmed  to know as why approached one, X approached ∞ -of cracked open epiphanies
triangle shaped fire, ▲shaped heart, equilateral to a dead sea, sacred geometric infraRed-infractures
biowired endless visions of these infraRed-infractures
Anthrenusverbasci (carpet beetles) eat away at bleached bone clean cranio-******
vertebrae of the Ouroboros eating itself epiphanies
grinding jaws brittle scurvy romantic-suicide die sonix
son of nyx an erubus have mercy installation psychopomp prototype
bring on one more broken septum to end =sempiternal deathblast
“bone of my bones” (genesis2:23) indeed; bring on an ablazed deathblast
fragmented spiraled and inside out infraRed-infractures
every one ends up broken, every bone of every prototype
smashed open coronal suture in everyone cranio-******
thanatos shadow between eros supraorbital sonix
godless and wandering without but epiphanies
soulless nanoNymph burns into dusty nothingness of a prototype
and the emptiness of silence is the deathblast sonix
some exposed spine litter vallies of dry bone epiphanies

No service to all westbound destinations due to flooding . . .


At Ravenscourt Park, it rained apocalyptically.

Then, God said:

‘Let go of point-to-point.

Paddle properly, like you mean it.

Hear the gentle song of the hummingbird.

Sip the sweet cup of the orchid.

Steer clear of the piranhas that are possessions;
Swim away from the caiman, who can drag you under.  

Take it stroke by stroke.  Do not splash about.

Go with my flow.

When your meanderings meet the mighty ocean of my love

Be ready.

This is just the beginning.’

There are times where I don't have to
carefully construct metaphorical honey glaze
I can just slide my mottled skin from out
of this tagged and tattered shell
and say, "I'm just as thirsty as any of you"
These strange dichotomies, of shyness and openness
hatred of self, and longing to lift the self up to heights
craving peace, yet seeking disorder
If my cells could vote
there would be a recount
and then another
and another
another
perpetually cyclical self-realization.
Such a frustrating way to absorb you,
through the intuitive tunnels
clogged with judgmental plaque
and grimy windows
that only allow flushes of dusty yellow
to emit.
Loneliness bites, yet I seek the wisdom
only blessed by meditation
and introspective psychedelic meanderings.
Lovers split your ribs, yet my eyes quest
endlessly for you.
These strange dichotomies,
pepper and salt my atrophic throat
until I entertain a curious gaze instead.

If I were a real poet,
I’d be second-cousin
to Charles Bukowski.
If I were a musician,
I’d be a nephew of Tom Waits.
I think that it’s
a pretty safe bet to say
that the best tracks
on any album are track
#3, #7, and #9.
The best one of those three
is always #7.
Fall is the best time
to listen to jazz
and drink coffee
laced with bourbon.
It’ll get you drunk,
but you’ll be wide awake
at closing time.
My step-daddy
should be Hubert Selby Jr.
I can never sleep past 6am,
even if I go to bed at 2.
Sometimes baby,
the only thing better
than biscuits and gravy,
is you.  
*
-JBClawell
© P&ZPublications; 2015

And is this—Yarrow?—This the stream
Of which my fancy cherished,
So faithfully, a waking dream?
An image that hath perished!
O that some Minstrel’s harp were near,
To utter notes of gladness,
And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!

Yet why?—a silvery current flows
With uncontrolled meanderings;
Nor have these eyes by greener hills
Been soothed, in all my wanderings.
And, through her depths, Saint Mary’s Lake
Is visibly delighted;
For not a feature of those hills
Is in the mirror slighted.

A blue sky bends o’er Yarrow vale,
Save where that pearly whiteness
Is round the rising sun diffused,
A tender hazy brightness;
Mild dawn of promise! that excludes
All profitless dejection;
Though not unwilling here to admit
A pensive recollection.

Where was it that the famous Flower
Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding?
His bed perchance was yon smooth mound
On which the herd is feeding:
And haply from this crystal pool,
Now peaceful as the morning,
The Water-wraith ascended thrice—
And gave his doleful warning.

Delicious is the Lay that sings
The haunts of happy Lovers,
The path that leads them to the grove,
The leafy grove that covers:
And Pity sanctifies the Verse
That paints, by strength of sorrow,
The unconquerable strength of love;
Bear witness, rueful Yarrow!

But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation:
Meek loveliness is round thee spread,
A softness still and holy;
The grace of forest charms decayed,
And pastoral melancholy.

That region left, the vale unfolds
Rich groves of lofty stature,
With Yarrow winding through the pomp
Of cultivated nature;
And, rising from those lofty groves,
Behold a Ruin hoary!
The shattered front of Newark’s Towers,
Renowned in Border story.

Fair scenes for childhood’s opening bloom,
For sportive youth to stray in;
For manhood to enjoy his strength;
And age to wear away in!
Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss,
A covert for protection
Of tender thoughts, that nestle there—
The brood of chaste affection.

How sweet, on this autumnal day,
The wild-wood fruits to gather,
And on my True-love’s forehead plant
A crest of blooming heather!
And what if I enwreathed my own!
’Twere no offence to reason;
The sober Hills thus deck their brows
To meet the wintry season.

I see—but not by sight alone,
Loved Yarrow, have I won thee;
A ray of fancy still survives—
Her sunshine plays upon thee!
Thy ever-youthful waters keep
A course of lively pleasure;
And gladsome notes my lips can breathe,
Accordant to the measure.

The vapours linger round the Heights,
They melt, and soon must vanish;
One hour is theirs, nor more is mine—
Sad thought, which I would banish,
But that I know, where’er I go,
Thy genuine image, Yarrow!
Will dwell with me—to heighten joy,
And cheer my mind in sorrow.

Remember everything that you have heard and learned
And feel the wall of insecure illusions fall apart

The vagrant sat on the side walk with his coin cup in a state of wondering

As nine to fivers walk by

“Why do all of you waste your time chasing your own tails?”
“Why do you all want to be someone else instead of attempting to be a better you?”
“Your promises, your wishes and your wicked words are all components that make up who people perceive you as”
“How could you expect your ex-lover to return when they themselves are damaged, confused and riddled with uneasy outcomes they must determine on their own?”

There is no sun in the mirror
Insanity is sobbing
Barefoot run down unpaved roads going downhill hand in hand

Summer time sunshine kiss
Our peace is at risk

Summer time sunshine kiss
We’ll soon not exist

Summer time lover
The afterlife is much safer

Summer time lover
Our kind is endangered

Wake up every morning
Thinking
Drinking
Remember the times
Evade the nightfall
The cold spirits return
From granite gardens

The ****** plugged the culvert.
Overnight.
Again.
New growth, cut short.  Chewed short.
Grasses.  Mud.  Stones.
Branches and leaves and muck.
Roots from the far-below.

And this time.
A lotus flower.  Sprinkled in dirt.
But alabaster otherwise.
Atop the waterstop.
Brilliant as a clear mind.  White as an,
an as an an an anything overexposed to the point of
newness.

Bees in the rain.  Tending to purple
spires that no one planted.

A hawk in the birch again.
Green heron plummets toward the pond’s
edge.

10:08
Outdoor shower in thunder.  It calls.  She calls.

Poem ends.

those of us in the middle muddle,

do not know from sides, boundary lines,
drawn by others, right-sided, left-leaning,
mean nothing to us, who seek something solid
upon to rest, when the clarity others profess,
more than evades us, even escapes us, and
the muddles of life seem to require simplest,
middling answers that are unacceptably refused
by grail seekers whose cause for cause, means
cause to cost others regardless, for regard for
the middle is disdained, by two-sided posts,
the know nothings, and the know betters

irony of irony, the rigidity of imposition makes
me more adrift, more aimless, and the task of
meandering through seems almost holy, for the
obstacles of society, requirements of modern life,
are so damning, wild expectations superimposed,
truths not just hard to find, almost indiscernible,
so I lay my pen down hard, awaiting for the
whatever-while, for to return, to go walking with
only the simplest grids to guide, meanderings in
general directions, ahead, always ahead, keep moving,
keep touching and when optimism returns,

I shall be relieved
once more,
I shall be released
once again,

good words will be caught,
released, returned back
into the atmosphere so
they will grow in size by
the very act of sharing



undated
————————————————-


Everyone must leave something behind
when he dies, my grandfather said.
A child or a book or a painting or a house or
a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.
It doesn't matter what you do, he said,  so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.  The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime. ~Ray Bradbury

(Book: Fahrenheit 451)

ginko soft they pile, strewn on cobble
memories themselves concretely devised
cloister inward, revise, revise, revise:
debauched meanderings fully marble
escapes to curl the lip, adorable
here and there, whether smile sneer incise
linguistic pirouettes or paler lies
congest that wisdom indefinable --
the moment past moves on to feigning truth
with pretty rhyme, for ornamenting time
with myths to filter in an Avalon,
juggle perspectival paradoxic ruth
with fine meter fine, vernacular chimes,
and resolve the conflict like a dawn

Riot because it's expected riot because they want to arrest you riot because you are angry and full of righteous anger riot because f* the police and f the government f the a** in the white house riot because you don't know what else to do riot because they left you no choice riot because they'll shoot you with a gun riot because you can't defend yourself right because they fear you will riot for the dead babies riot for the crying mothers riot for incarcerated dad's riot for ****** parents riot for grandparents raising babies riot for the Foster system riot for abusive families riot for church goers riot for God for the saints and martyrs riot for the devil  riot for income inequality riot for mcmansions tenement housing section 8 and for interest only predatory loans riot for Wall Street stock fuckery riot for corporate radio where you feel what they want you to feel for the tail wags the dog riot for censorship for shitz and **** and f* and ***** and art and
truth and unpopular opinion riot for truth and the lies told to hide it riot because it feels good right because it hurts riot because that's what society requires of you riot by the seat of your pants Riot because no smoking no drinking no chaining up dogs riot because dogs chain you up by their wallets riot because cancer ate your insides and religion ate your soul riot because your brain belongs to science and 38 other corporations and legal entities riot because they stole your land and burnt down your family riot because they stole your voice tainted your poems your songs and water and water down your truth riot because the carpet bombed your town city neighborhood reservation farm ranch plantation in bomb shelters riot for pacification dancing shows and discotheques riot why not? F them riot because you ain't caught anything all day except maybe ***** riot for free titjobs and overpriced b* riot for unemployment riot for well-connected fraternity brothers
and elite ******* riot for fake morality and pregnant stepdaughters riot for empty nesters and growing too old riot for peacekeeping military envoys and well-armed diplomatic missions riot for philosophical differences over which college football team wears the right color uniforms for racist mascots for trails of tears of many a harassed and violated person riot for tears and fears in general and sanity of society riot for ***** streets and clean suburbs riot for privileges you never had....

and riot for those that did riot for broken glass and free TVs because they've been held in captivity for too long riot for the oppressed under-represented the ghosts riot for the conspicuous riot for the helpless riot for The helpful riot for those without love in their life because how can you live without love? Riot for the hate and the bigots they need some love upside their heads riot for peace because the cops and soldiers and guards and troopers won't stop on your account jackboot goose-stepping to the tune of some other a* riot for children locked away in cages treated like stray dogs and not given dignity riot for SWAT raids on working people riot for students shuffle around like cards riot for slavery riot for greed riot for substandard manufacturing and quickly thrown up housing riot for Hovels and vacationing rats and financial advisers with your money riot for the last gasps of fresh air and pure clean water riot for fresh food and grease pits riot for those people stroking out with arrhythmias and cats and bypasses and dying by insurance Representatives riot for the toe tags and the death certificates riots for the school's not teaching truth riot for profiteering from necessary services riot the Dead the suicides The Killers shooters riot for Injustice for public ****** riot for probation cost and fees and the cycle of poverty...

riot for love for life for death in multiple baptisms that just don't take because it's all guilt and superstition riot for the sweat on the browse the stains on the t-shirts riot for the calluses on the hand and the holes worn into the jeans riot for the roofers in summer and the ditch-diggers and winter riot for the clergy with the best of intentions riot for judges and cops bought off by other people's money riot with a pitchfork and a torch and a cause riot with a fire in your belly and a Love in your heart riot for wars of aggression and preemption and murdering children with bombs we manufactured and we sold and profited from and took that blood money and put up walls between us and those in society different from us because we bought into the fear strategies riot for fear riot for the ashes and the pine boxes and the crocodile tears and the false sentiments the thoughts and prayers riot for Dharma and karma and car alarms and superficial meanderings and musings riot for Riot's sake riot for dead babies riot because we all did it and you feel guilt right because they don't riot because of love love riot peace riot righteous riot

Back home, the snowflakes    flitter
                                                         down 
                                                               languidly
as if avoiding the sameness of the blanket below.
 
The fragrance of black coffee,
a conversation in subtle tones, and
Miles Davis’s smoothest meanderings
waft in from the study.
 
Bruise-blue flames give the room
a soft glow, lending a gentle luster to the cat’s
matte black fur, spine arched in luxurious mid-stretch.
 
Back flush to the ground, I take it all in with
young eyes, young ears, hungry for those
sensory delights. Soon, the flames
 
fade into simmering, lightless embers,
as the final barely-blown note dwindles.
She whispers “goodnight” in that familiar, hushed
voice, ending a vivid memory with a sweet refrain.

Suddenly it feels numb
My body restive
My words gone dumb.
Muted grievances against the window pane
Are wiped away as insane.
Something inside, yet miles away
Resonates a perfectly eternal dismay.
Sweet are the tears that embrace,
Coursing down the contours of the loving face.


I ask myself,
“Why can I never write about important things?
About Philosophy, Politics and similar meanderings?”
Reasonable things.
Inklings of promising meanings.
Instead I struggle with my tempestuous heart,
Unimportant to the world, yet the most excruciating art.
The pain and the glory
Is the never-ending selfish story
My childish mind can recall.


Despite all this wondrous melancholy,
I always choose to repeat my folly.
Up and about to write I go,
There’s too much heart material to forego.
I lie under those dry lifeless branches,
Sit, stand or walk around in hunches.
Only the grass understands
Under the skin in innumerable strands
Pain is the only conspicuous poison
Reigning the veins, arteries,
Defining the venison.


I couldn’t look at you much
Since you drank from my cup
Travesties of my past break-up
And chose to inflict it upon me again
To see if our old life
Could be regained.
But nonchalance has a way of defeating you.
It looks odd on you,
Like an unaccustomed parvenu.


Love wrecks your heart like the shivering of an earthquake.
When my insides tear, shrivel and menacingly rake.
You realize that your nonchalance was odd indeed.
I was the friend in need
You fled the deed.
That could have saved me
From depression.


Earthquakes don’t mean any harm.
They simple do their job
And leave destruction in the wake.
Naïve.
Nonchalant.
Dilettante.
They are not exactly wrong.
No culpable intentions.
Only humming a deleterious song.
Yet
We seldom recover when the grounds from below
Shake.
I thought you were the soft breeze, drizzling rain.
But turns out,
You are an earthquake.

The way of a man with a maid,
Solomon said,
Too much for him to understand
Too much.
A snake crawling on a rock,
A ship moving across the waves
The motionless soaring of an eagle
Too much to understand.

I have come to grips with a snake's scaly progress,
undulating,
cupping,
twisting,
hugging,
movement upon a rock.

I can nearly sense a ship's purposeful meanderings
on pathless seas,
driven by compass-aimed sails
and the science of sextants and stars.

I have accepted the Bernoulli Principle:
air currents rushing under and
meandering over
curved and feathered wings
producing lift,
defying gravity.

But still I cannot grasp
the way of a man with a maid.

Though I have studied
oxytocin,
endorphins,
hormonal urges,
a man and a maid
who walk through life
past beauty and prime,
surviving the vagaries of time,
seeing in each other
their youth long spent,
still straight and tall in the other's mind,
though old and bent...
must always bring me wondering, to a stop.
Such things, the Wise One said,
Are far too wonderful for me.

Long live love.

rest easy, sauntering children that inhabit these streets, marching endlessly with youthful rouge upon your cheeks. the ambient orange glow encapsulates your city's sky, enrapturing your scattered minds each night.

you search with strained and bloodshot eyes for the silver lined heavens
that hibernate behind blankets piled high and heavy with pollution.

you stalk these streaky sidewalks,
hands in your pockets, cigarettes dangling between crooked teeth,
billowing from your gaping mouths,
forever treading onward, gazing upward
at the luminous orb who emerges each evening,
floating thoughtlessly in its spiraling yellow haze,
glancing down with an occasional giggle at your mindless meanderings.

you venture through man-made parks, but make not a single mark of any personalized passing.
invisible, soundless.
walking not in the sand or the honest salt of the earth,
but on glittering concrete,
disregarding your worth.

you wandering specters, dragging your aching cancer ridden bodies through tireless voids,
fending off your tattered emotions that clasp their bony hands around your fleeting ankles,
begging you to stop, to engage. your shoes remain bare and battered,
lacking more and more sympathy for your simplified selves with each step.

you push onward, noiselessly.
your brittle fingers wrap themselves
around the spines of wine glasses-
clinking, clashing.
you smile and kiss surrounding strangers,
your loneliness ever consuming those enlightened, empty minds.

The aching way my back will bend in
The unwanted gratitude
From bones maladjusted
Somewhere they could say im on
My way to victory
Behind every moment suffered
lives a note
A gift
with no other purpose
simple and fickle
With wounds on the hilt
Everyday they say
tommorow will begin anew
with little evidence
of any empathy
the blooming day
a slander on proportions of aptitude
gives no meaning to these endless meanderings
the timeless thoughts of generations

What if you are
what can I do
this worries me
it should worry you,

Some out there
for whom
E only equals the square
should wear a sign
constantly
but they're
mass
communicating
with the other idiots
who are waiting
for a
sign.

It's been a long day
not longer than yesterday
and nearer tomorrow
but still long,

I'm still going strong
my constitution was built
in the North by
craftsmen
wrapped up in cotton
by the
mill men and force fed
cold porridge by
the school ma'am.

It now comes to my attention
that the fourth or fifth dimension
got mentioned in the
scientific news

I never knew a nano
without a particle in its pocket,
shove that up your rocket
is that science enough for you?

I want the twiddle you hear
in lil guitar songs.
The ones that twist your heartstrings
and make you sigh with relief,
with pain and shame and passion.
They hit you like the music notes that
promise big dreams and whisper sweet nothings:
a ton of bricks with good intentions.

Get the heartache out of the way first:
do the hard stuff first
and take the joyful meanderings, eventually.

Take this beating, breathing, seething, seemingly
lively thing and EXCHANGE it
make it feel and not think
let me follow and follow and not lead me
astray. Show me, don't tell me.

I am your poetry 100 class, and you
need to constructively criticize my
existence in to sense.

there are no more words to speak
she is everything, i could ever need
poetess perplex me
with complex inflections, i don’t dare speak
you utter lightly
and parts of me alight, blindly

she sings in memories,
broken symphonies

she writes in lucid dreams,
her inner meanderings

she dances in emptiness,
the space between realities

the face that nature gave her
the eyes that hold untold favors
sweet scent of honeysuckle
light is her medicine bundle

she says:
use your head to live
use your heart to be happy

firelight swimming
amidst a sacred poison
i fear nothing so i run
come be one with me
its our only itinerary
which needs no reiteration
when love is cheering you on

cherish the dance alone
forms are swiftly forming
remove the stones from your imagination
you are not too far away from home
comb the shores of our emancipation
lies are abundant in these hills
and jobs are more scarce than sheep
but its still the thrill that turns me on
you come home and wipe your feet
and leave the dirt out in the street
life is without a center really, she said
come home, i've made you something warm to eat

Loosely withheld fascinations,
Glimpses of mindful surrender through the rustic, burnt, glowing-hot-stove, honey-crisp-apple,mommas-pumpkin-pie, milk chocolate, and old-tractor-yellow colors,
Falling around my clouded Monday morning meanderings.

The jack-o-lantern's toothy smiles,
Mock me,
For someone's cut out their heart,
And left them empty,
And they know, I too, will be hollow soon.

A giant maple sheds, slow, sticky, tears,
As he watches a years work fall beneath him.
He fights the seductive slumber,
For he knows he'll dream of sweet spring.
But to him I say, we all wither in the cold.
While he wonders who could love his bare branches.

But he doesn't see his leaves falling, along with tidbits of seasonal nostalgia, being kicked up by frosty winds,
softening my steps, landing in my hair,
Easing us all into our own winters.

Neighbor Jon has come
to grace my flat
with hollow body guitar meanderings,
working the old rocker
like waves at the seashore.

Big chords come at high tide,
washing up under the boardwalk
as we board the haunted house car.

Small pluckings roll in at low tide,
when we take the little children into the breakers,
breaking them in to the concept
of salt water sea foam
for the first time.

Neighbor Jon
is the upstairs patron saint
of guitar tides.

A position he is about to accept.

Crazy people never think they are.
I'm open to it, but don't think I am.
What does that mean for me?

Pulling me back
in the arms of Mr. November
Time moves unfamiliar
But still I am

Longing for the known
thinking of fall cold
every corner there I was
unfamiliar

The melody moves unfamiliar
strange comfort in delight
of nostalgic rediscovery
But unstill I am

Unrelenting release
naive meanderings
Through the fall
into spring
but still I am

A figment of my imagination
Is all thats left of reality
In thinking and drinking
My base tendencies depict
A bleeding edge as uncertain as the truth
Its the end of an era
Of bewildered meanderings
I treat my thoughts
As provoking triggers
Whose indiscretion
Brings delight to my awareness
I look for the most sedimented mountains
In the vast plethora of rocks
As a diamond from the dust
My pursuit is of a grand illumination
Which opens the door to the corridors of power
That takes away any existence of mediocrity
Choosing in anticipation that my efforts will lead to success