i spent a year as a ghost and when the equinox came i choked on every sunset i had seen and passed out in your attic, i'll just wait here until you realize the chains don't rattle anymore and maybe you'll wonder what happened to that unwanted guest or maybe you'll just be thankful it's gone, maybe my ectoplasm will drip through the attic floor and into your bed and with  a passenger in your dreams they'll be even lonelier than before i'm sorry i keep corroding a hole in your heart but i can't help the way my ghost-self falls and when it's gone altogether you'll be a ghost of your former self, walking in the shell of your life glazed eyes glazed words glazed world a ghost with a body is the worst kind of all cause they never fade away to heaven they just linger and linger and linger until they ROT and you can't forget that a ghost was there not with that body on the floor and could you have helped them it's hard to tell you never were an exorcist but maybe if you tried hard enough you could have put some of your life in that body or just ripped the ghost free and ended the misery, heart corroded through and i in my ectoplasm will wait in your bed wait for your shell-body to give up the charade each night and with my arms holding you you'll be lonelier than before - i spent a year as a ghost and cried over your bright eyes every night, i spent a year as a ghost but now, i the ghost of a ghost and you the living ghost in a breathing corpse, we're a modern romance horror story of the eternal kind, and when your heart's corroded through i'll hold you so tight but for now i will wait in your attic, putrefying ectoplasm and bitter sunsets, i never felt this much when i breathed and now it's caught up with a vengeance out for blood when i have none to spill i'll just lie here and choke and wait for this to pass this will pass this will pass this too shall pass, you move below and gam zeh ya'avor i pray this for you that your bitter life shall too pass, i spent a year as a ghost and watched you moan every night i spent a year as a ghost and watched you curled up on linoleum the only thing i could do was sink inside and try to absorb some of what you felt but i think all i did was corrode you further, i'm sorry i'm so sorry that my body is acid and my arms just eat you through, i tried to be your friend but i just made you lonelier your dreams are so empty when you're held by a ghost, they say you only dream of people you know so it's no wonder you dreamt of nothing everyone disappeared so fast it was hard to believe they'd been there at all, a mirage a puff of smoke you never really knew and that fled when it got dirty and dressed in all the white clothing you owned you laid on the bathroom floor and breathed smoke you laid on the floor and ground your knuckles into your eyelids as my ectoplasm dripped into your open eyes and cupid was a demon that ripped at your chest and laughed cupid was a demon and you brought that demon to your bed for nights and nights i cried i cried and you bled from all the scratches in your chest and s i g h e d, cupid hissed and snarled and bit but you know everybody has their flaws so closer and closer you held cupid till cupid ripped straight through to the other side and i tried to warn you but you just sit now on your bed with your back against the wall and bleed from your hollow torso you sit on your bed eyes blank eyes glazed and bleed bleed bleed and my ectoplasm drips in your chest, i tried to warn you i tried and tried but now i'll just lay in your attic and wait because the chains don't clank anymore to give you some kind of company in your empty house empty life, maybe you'll notice and here you can find me - the floor of your attic was always the closest i could get to heaven.

And then the kisses stopped,
And you faded away
---------------------------------------------------------
The evening sun was providing some
Light thru’ the netted windows.
Your shadow gently falling on me
With you not far behind
I held you on my breasts
And then I could not breathe
Your face so near I could hear you think
I dared not take a breath lest
My lungs collapsed.
And so I held on
As you lost yourself in my kisses,
But I shudder as I open my eyes
For what seemed so real must have been an illusion
Coz’ you are not here now
And perhaps it was only a dream
---------------------------------------------------------
The kisses stopped,
You faded away.

To sleep -- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
For once your life's candle is but a nub
Your fate has been decided and you cannot run
And you wonder what happened to bulletproof weeks
In your arms, just building sky-castles of words
And as you open your mouth, the raven first speaks
Telling of cabbages and kings, and gentle demon birds
Playing an asphyxiated song of angel's wings
Leaving me intoxicated and feathered with silver crowns
And as the breath from my lungs makes rings
Of vapor in the air, the mist settling on ancient frowns
The future runs through me now to capture
Absolutely clawed leviathans, found in rapture.

half a dead pigeon has indented itself in the gravel lot next door
and every day at dusk, when i run my sacred shower,
(with the lights off and windows open
and otis redding echoing through the empty house)
i have to watch the black static tide of flies
swim around one of it's upward bent wings.

the first time i saw it my jaw dropped and repulsion choked my throat closed-
disturbed by it's total disgrace,
i slammed the window shut
and preferred to gaze at tile grime to pass the time.
but from the days that followed,
i managed to muster up respect
and acknowledged that this
battered half of a bird
was now a variable in my scenery
(praise be to impermanence)

and now
the sunset drowns everything in it's hazy blood orange
and the wind floods the trees and fills the underside of the bridge with sound,
and i stand naked in the warmth,
singing boldly out of key, twisting hot water out of my hair,
as the summer breeze politely invades my privacy.

so i salute the pigeon, say i wish you the best.
and embrace the weight and fullness of my happiness,
and know well i am more than body and voice,
and watch it sink further into the arms of the earth each night.
grateful to know that death doesn't end life.

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.

Shadows cast without a sun
No light, no energy, impossible to run.
Soulless stalkers surrounding, engulfing,
Every corner filled with endless screaming.
Take the blood and write one last letter;
Actually, maybe the pen would be better.
One last bath in petals and bubbles,
One last light of the scented candles.
Climb the stairs to the 14th floor
Feel the cold breeze from the open door.
Or instead the door opens to an empty heart
Trying to find it's missing part.
Take the snake and wrap around,
The thick, breathing trunk of sound.
Tiny bumps on thin organ pale,
Shivers, fear and fated to fail.
Raining clouds and skies of black
Missing warmth and a growing crack.
It's a never-ending journey
Of anticipation and horror, so lovely.
Trying to escape this demon;
All I can do is run from everyone.

What is this?
Why am I here?
Eyes barely open
Nothing to fear

Questions without answers
A dark and blackened mind
Goals unachieved
Dreams robbed blind

Is this really absurd?
Or is absurdity the norm?
The feeling of emptiness
Like thunder without storm

Barefoot she went walking to the store.
Her father had sent her to buy bread for dinner even though
There was plenty left over.
It was a three mile walk to the nearest community shop.
Far away from home she saw a bunch of soldiers nearby.
She was preparing  a shy smile when
She felt them approaching her.
As she heard them spitting at her half spoken phrases
With half spoken words, her legs froze.
Next thing she felt was their breaths full of liquor and lust.
When she could finally lift her head
She saw the image of a girl.
Perfect reflection on a mirror hang on a muddy wall.
Her body naïve and vulnerable.
Her eyes full of stupor and disbelief.
Their odor and saliva possessing her.
Through a half opened window,
I see the seesaw of the sunset lifting the moon,
My father would be looking for me I think, soon, soon…
Hours have passed.
The men are exhausted but will not stop.
Suddenly, I hear a familiar voice!
I open my perched mouth yet manage to overhear
My father bartering away
my childhood, innocence, will and trust.
I am no longer me, I am an image in a mirror.
On object destined to serve.

seems like our perception
is flawed, subjective
to base influences
such as our current
digestive state
or the nagging itch
that cannot be reached


there exists no open
invitation of opinion
yet, views appear and enter
every conversation
people rhymes wit steeple


sans wit, the year ends
as it began
with the ground thrush
pecking at the lawn