If you can understand
the power of perception
you can understand
why it's important
to have right perception

When I say you are my light
I mean you are a soft glow
Gentle for the moths to gather round

Love is like a lemon
it's sour and it makes water taste great
when you want it most
when you're sweat is gripping your shirt
it is the perfect thing
for that sweet relief
of exhaustion, desire, yearning.
Love is like a lemon, you do not need it
but
it does something to your tongue like nothing else can

Looking back
on all our
past memories

I'm convinced
we were in love
in a past life.

I've been fighting so long
In this awful, ****** war
I'm deeply tired
Wounded, scarred

I want to surrender

The voices screaming
"Give up," "You can't win"
"You'll never escape this"
"You'll never escape us"

I want to surrender

But there's this force within
Keeping me breathing
Swinging my sword
When my own strength fails

I want to surrender

I am reminded by it
That I can't give up now
There are better things coming
My fight cannot end here

I want to surrender

I suppose, there must be
Courage inside of me
Because despite its allure
I have yet to give in

I want to surrender

And it is the act
Of overcoming this desire
That proves to me
I fight with valor

Being a star-crossed lover isn't all it's cracked up to be.
It's a lot of hurt.
But God,
I'd rather be hurting for him than not have him at all.

I should apologize
The waves in your eyes
Caught me by surprise
I didn’t think you where like other guys
But I am your prize
I guess now’s the time to say goodbyes
The life left behind was the ultimate price.

Sorry

I don't know if it's
you or the Heineken but
My heart's on fire

I think about you all the time.
You’re the first thing I think of
When I wake up, and the last
Before I go to sleep.
And I’ve started dreaming of you
More and more; you’re never not
In my head
And it’s suffocating.
But in a good way.

Frustration like knots in a perfect string of thread.
Only i know what it's like to feel that dread.
The vicious creature will deprive you of the truth.
Now the audience will only see me as aloof.
it seems I'm the only one that is sincere.
But none of them listen as they all adhere.
I now fabricate the knots on my perfect string of thread.
As now all the hope in my heart has been left dead.

I know that you  are nervous
I know that you are werid
I know that your smile makes me happy
I know that all eyes are on me
I know that your lips are mine
I know that you put blame on yourself
I know that your damaged with pain
I know that your quite
I know that you have unspoken words to say
I know that you want to rebuild
I know that you love hard
I know all of that and still have love for you .

When I asked you what your name was
You replied and said, “It’s Love”
Then I asked you what your song is
You then sang the song of a dove
Please chirp to me your fancy
Make me rock to your lullaby
Flap with wings that dance free
So we can sing that Love does fly.

tell me a story
one where we're so in love
& make sure the ending is a happy one

because I'm exhausted of turning tear stained pages with shaky fingers
always hoping
this one will be different

I’m acting on feelings that I don’t have and
everyone around me it's trying to convince me
that I'm playing myself by not listening to
them.
They're forcing them down my throat and
blaming me for not being good enough for
him.
It's actually that I've realized I'm
living someone else's life and that
isn't right.
- breaking free.

to be young
and free
what I would give
I am already young
I've heard 18
is a such a tender age
I've heard
that it's ok
to fall in love
with everything
to stay out at night
to watch the sunrise
what a beautiful philosophy
if only I was free
but I am not
the chains that hold me
are too strong

my love burns brighter
when i must reach for my lover’s hand
my heart grows fonder
when the distance between us expands
my wants burn with desire  
while my haves are lost to the fire

I wish I were made of stone
So your words would never hurt me
I wish I were cold as ice
Then maybe I wouldn't be lonely

I wish I were made of steel
So my strength would never waver
If only I could turn back the clock
To a time when I felt safer

But I'm only flesh and bone
And your words have left me bleeding
My heart is torn apart
It's a wonder it's still beating

You made up your mind
Given me your final answer
What we shared is in the past
Time to write a brand new chapter

I will fix my broken heart
Some how glue it back together
It may never be the same
It'll bare this scar forever

But I'll be strong, I'll be alright
Though I'm not as hard as steel
And I can't turn back the clock
In time....my heart will heal

someday it will
come again.
someday someone
will come in.

a star
with the deepest depths in the eyes
with the gentlest of breaths
and endless soul in the smile

one day
i'll forgive this pain
not forget -
forgive.

Here comes the sun little darling's
We all get burned
 Is it your turn
     "U-Turn"
Oh! Where I thou
"Green light Diner"
It's telling us to Go
    *       *       *
The Earth beauty faces
I will be your direct sunlight
In plain sight to the daylight
her blossom tree
All I ask come for me
Her face could eat
The divine flower laced

French brie
Tie a yellow ribbon on me
We have so much to see
Let it be sun-face Moms
apple pies
The Sun  "Watchtower"
Someone knocks you off
Your "Bill" on the Ice Queen

The Goddess rodeo waitress
She got you roped in between
The cigarette 1940 case hostess
             "Rose"
I suppose the sunflowers every booth
her smile sets in place

The stain-glass window Notre Dame
Rock and roll hall of fame
The earth kids rainbow chalk
Sun-fun treetops like a beanstalk
Napoleon Elementary Watson
New Jersey Diner capital admission
The Peking duck *** luck

European beauty hunter's menu
Any luck this will be awhile sip "Starbucks"

1-Antipasti cute Shiba Uni
2-Consomme Chicken soup
3-Sun-face to the soul fruit loop
4-Chicken pepper Salsa
Sun-face lights up Visa
5-Hearts of Artichokes Mona Lisa
6-Soy ****** salmon
My sun worshiper man

Fish tacos hummus
St Thomas
Rome was not build
In one day
The windpipes and
the tablecloths Oh! yikes
Full of dream pipes

Sun tan stripes and zebras
Couscous salad big star dipper
Egyptian Gods camels back
Sun-face diner no time
for the sun-chip snack
Diners from 1920-1940
Sun-face air force dresses

Medieval times two swords
Holy lords Easter parades
" Ice-cream Spumoni"
Dinner in the sky
Robin red breast fly
Italian artwork Coliseum
Look up in the sky
It's a bird shaped
Paper plane bad romance
going insane

Waffle House  jukebox rock and roll
Hall of fame whats in a food name
Cowboy steaks American Flags
Cajun chicken legs fruits and figs
At the caboose Ladybird jet lag
Valentine Diner chairs
got footloose homemade goose

Purple rain Prince maple
pancakes
Bananas and strawberry fields
lake sun in shape of a snowflake
Forest Gump changes to
Presidential Trump
Vitamin C  honey bunches of Oats

Yummy floats of egg cream
Open table Sun-face dream
Eggs light she's not finished
over easy
Pristine of carrots with
artful daisies
Thanksgiving turkey

Rings of napkins holding
A time well-bred marriage
Well known landmarks of
Carats
Long ago time she saw the light
Daylight Knight like a scale to weight

Whispers of wine and grapes
Sun face courtesan love escape
Sun Faces trillion times mansion
Sun-faces never go out of fashion

I want to swallow myself whole
and feel this pain implode on itself.

I want to bite my flesh
and spit poison on the street.

I want to claw my face off
and look the way I feel: an old onion.

I want to die now
and take this weight off these tired feet.

It beats,
It breaks,
It loves,
It aches,
for you.
Only you.

Constantly,
Consistently,
Continually
             you.

I'm  lost
in a  sea
of   you
    and
know I'd
   rather
drown in
    your
shadows
    than
swim in
someone
    else's
    light.
                                                                                     Jon York   2019

Don't speak harshly,
Your words will form swords in me

Touch my cheek; speak gently,
And they will form worlds in me

My bed is a box, filling with water when I least expect it
I am asphyxiating
I was fine until I remembered that there's no one here
Being alone is like

There is smoke in my lungs,
But ice on my skin
The fissure in my heart, the great divide
Why does it even bother to pump my blood anymore?

This is not the kind of poem I like to write

Reflections of trees
Dapple afternoon puddles
Drowning and thirsty

Sometimes, I still see you.
And no matter where I am,
I will always cry.

This ever-growing exodus
of one-hit-wonders
drifting through the air.
A single word
away from obscurity.

Perhaps it would be better
to never rise, only
to hit the ground with their tears...
and, most importantly—
follower count.

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

For once, the day was okay.
For once, my soul wasn't at dismay.
For once, the sky wasn't gray.

The darkness had faded into happiness,
And the sun came back to life.
The garden was no longer filled with dreariness,


And I
Began to live

Once more.

~for those who will read this and weep~

the quiet ones,
the silent Job ones,
who quote not from the
Book of Lamentations,
but author their own,
based on-the-Job experience

localized versions of cryptic elegiacs
accepting the wooden crosses borne,
stepping up to the
unrequested unforeseen,
then buried under, burnt alive,
yet never relieved by dying,
nailed by words, stronger than iron,
promises sworn, promises kept
with no ending date relief,
promises by and to themselves,
but not for themselves!

the wearers of crystal glass shackles,
adorned with decorative locks for which
no key did the maker make,
nor any divine creator
dare conceive an early release,
never no escape contemplated,
for the lock human, unrepentant unbreakable,
a decorative useless metaphor gesture,
a blunt “life *****” advertisement

I compose amidst a
bus pond of mismatched city folk,
a tapestry of ages colors and differing views on god/no god,
none would believe that as the bus sways me,
it’s in rhythm to holy choral music,
hundreds year old,
divinity masses and motets worships,
where one human can hide temporarily
a safe house,
to calm his questioning relentless
from the horrors of no answers,
for when the mind has no solution
to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement,
the poets desperation equals theirs

summon eagles to transport these imprisoned,
but the shackled refuse,
I come to them but they wave me off,
I go crazy for once I was enslaved,
thirty years war that left devastation,
from which so many poems created

so I speak with heightened regard
of one who planned futures for others where his
non-existence was a founding father (ha!)

but the day came and
I was released by my own inactions,
but means nothing until a way to
away found
to release the yet bound early

got a couch, airline miles, hundred dollars
in my pocket and an unrelenting need
to save them, a consumption disease,
the glass shackled, at ease,
won’t rest till all are freed
this my creed
no one left behind

these cyber words do not mock
for they are unbounded, set free,
when
the flesh connects and the needs of the flesh
are stronger for they are in heart conceived