Uncaring minutes are but passersby
disregarding my wails.
They hear me; they offer no help.
The bastards.
Though, with only sixty seconds to exist,
why would they stop for me?

The hours pound against my skull with intent to smash their way in.
Such constant clangor resonates through my consciousness
disturbs my ego,
dislodges regrets,
the agitation seems to sieve out
tiny jealousies from among other thoughts.

The Days...
Oh those god-damned Days.
They see me confused and seize their chance;
they pull out my feet
right from under my frame,
and helpless, hurt,
I collapse to the earth.
And here time really sets in.

The Months form gangs called 'Years'
and The Years take their turn
breaking my joints, my fingers, my knees,
all my snappable, crackable points.
Curved, crippled,  and creaking,  
I languish in fantasies of what's supposed to be,
oh, and the 'might-have-beens'.

Time makes things worse.

A dark shadow moves over me.
I look up  as far as a heavy, beaten head will allow
only to see the massive, soul-crushing weight of the decades
seating their backside;
oppressively,
down to rest upon my twig-like spine.

And throughout the abuse,
I crawl, cringe, cower
as safe as can be in a low lying state on the ground,
(which is still six feet too high for all that time cares!)
I hear from somewhere afar
an unfaltering decree
from my maker to me
"Stand up straight! For Heaven's sake!"

This life I live
Just seems to be dragging on
I'm depressed every time I wake up
14 years, and I want to give up

I can't seem to look forward to anything
Friends are drifting away
I'm tumbling down into a gully and being forgotten
14 years, and I've lived long enough

Whisper to myself to suck it up
Appears that only the talented throw their lives away
Done trying to save myself, cause it's not working
14 years will be on my tombstone

This Memorial Day
Will be a Memorial for me
My legacy, and how I ended it all.

Against the lavender of a Capricorn:
less chubby at age fourteen than at eighteen,
produced at the wrong time.

Her stars are their least private in December,
moths pick up ovaries and eggs
from below her dress
left behind from relationship number one.

A lesbian curse, no offspring
for her girlfriend was a Capricorn spirit too.

A nymph who took ten seconds to leave
though eight years to disappear:
nurses say, “it just hurts for a moment,”
but needles ruin your whole goddamn week.

But out of two Capricorn women,
one is sure to get pregnant.

The first’s not heard of powdered milk,
nor would she have any,
calcium-deficient so others break her bones.

She has a cabinet of amber orbs
held with sickly insects, a million years old
and brown hair in like tiny balls of yarn.
Some parts of a person can belong to another.

This was not their cornflower-eyes
but an ability to bear child from straight sex
female parts tangled like herbs and stars.

Holy Crap,
They Sold My Name!

No big deal, your name, your email, bought n' sold daily,
Like a baseball card, your picture and vital stats are on the internet,
Your credit card in the fine print tells you they love you much,
But the data they collect, might get credited to such and such.

You're fair game if your sign up for anything.

Now I know I am getting on in years,
Tho spry rhymes with die, I flatly deny
Any notion that
My great beyond is just around the corner!

But Holy Crap,
They Sold My Name!

Got a color brochure
Suggesting that when my travels are over,
A nice place to rest my head might be
St. Michael's Cemetery.

St. Michael's Cemetery
7202 Astoria Blvd, East Elmhurst
(718) 278-3240
Friday hours 7:00 am–5:00 pm

In case you want to check it out too...

Tho I live not in the Borough of Queens County,
My zip code but a hop, skip and jump away,
The cemetery adjacent to the Grand Central Parkway
Which is actually quite thoughtful of
The mass marketer who dreamed up this scheme
(And got paid a plentiful amount of bounty!),
My kids could wave as they drive by,
On the way to LaGuardia or JFK airports
And say, guilt free, they visit me regularly!

Sadly, their plot foiled,
I will be buried in
New Jersey soil,
Near to my pop, who liked the
Wide open spaces of suburbia
And shopping on Route 4,
Where the selection is great
And there is no sales tax.

But Holy Crap,
They Sold My Name,
And I am now target marketed,
Niched, pretty soon the boys from AARP
Will come calling, reminding me of the gap
Tween Medicare and the poor house!

Ok ok,  grow up you say, tho your hair is full,
And not even a hint of baldness shines forth,
Nonetheless, its color is zebra striped gray,
And when someone says they got my back,
I think, please, please take it and keep it....

Oh yeah,
Dear St. Mikes
You might ask for some of your money back,
Cause this sily scribe is a member of the tribe,
Some call "those dirty (hint: it rhymes with mikes),"
It starts with K and ends in yikes!

But thanks for thinking of me anyway.

An unsound disorder takes host
In a body for years I’ve loved
Memories becoming all but ghosts
Cell by cell with blackness she rusts

In each vessel of her sclera
In each fold of her fine vocals
In each tear of her mascara
The feat of a smile totaled

From a world all but brightening
Living in walls crafted by fear
Each breath, a scream of lightning
New evenings; old muscles speared

The feat of a smile totaled
Amidst an eerie, white speech
In each fold of her fine vocals
A desire for love beseeched

I look at the legs of older men
Aged, with their imperfections
showing more visibly every day.
Clustered veins bulging
like roots from a tree
climbing from under the dirt.

I look at the bodies of women
who have lost their youth
from passing years and cigarette butts.
Their faces sagging and folding over
pressing lines into the skin,
a new flaw every year.

And I'm haunted that one day
my body will be decrepit and tattered
like the rags of a skeleton's suit,
and I wonder who will love me
when I have nothing left to show.

I have been running for years
Tub full of tears..
Fighting dozens of fears
Betrayed by peers..
Trust issues ..
As I sit here and clutch tissues..
How can a man cry blood.
Pops killed as a kid life of a thug...
Not me but he..
I am a lover not fighter.
Guess that's why at one point I was a womanizer..
Liquor licked lust until the night expired
I ran from my calling..
Taking the wrong shots I failed at balling...
Realized the love of the Messiah
Sin check my rap sheet I had priors
Should have been put in a hellish prison
Embracing conviction.
Jesus Christ gave me redemption

I belong to
the stars. My
soul should
float freely
through the
evanescent light
given off by
the flames.
Instead, I am
stuck. Stuck on
this planet to
rot for years
and lie my
feet on this
polluted ground.
Society has
revoked all
beauty from our
once lovely home.
Now we rest
our bodies inside
a contaminated arena
where love has
been banned and
only hate and gore
are present.

My X kicked me back here, to my home town
I thought it was his greatest revenge
Every crack in the sidewalk was a painful reminder
of the years of silent suffering with a smile pasted across it
I call growing up and
as I'd the therapy habit now, begun in LA and
reinforced and practiced in New York in the Therapist infested Island of
Manhattan
I got one here, and strange things started happening and
the sand of the filthy beaches started to sing to me and
my old high school looked like a pleasant nursery
and I started to groove here again,
feel strong here again like I'd never had
and I learned to love
my home town
after 500 years of therapy