got to eat them as they darken
reddened ruby to black constant opal
berries will rot quickly if you don’t
or they’ll taste real gooey and wierdy
if you let the drupelets’ colors get
unsynchronized like summer and fall

...why am i telling you this?
because i learned that the hard way
and the days go away in the gleam
heavy showers and peak-a-boo sun
the east barely bracing for the storm
and the sweetness decaying like the leaves

keep your eyes closed love.

           e     t      
       m           i
    o                 m
s                        e  
                            s     all you have to
                                                                ­
                                                                ­ l                  is to what the sound
                                                           ­      i            n
                                                  ­                s           e
                                                               ­          t

                                                              ­                               v
                                                               ­                         a        e
                             ­                                          of the  w               s
                                                               ­                                       
                         ­                                                                 ­            tells  you
                                                                ­                                        to do.

I let the sun
Give me freckles
So I coule share
A piece of sunshine
With someone in the dark

and to think of your breath in someone else's ear
makes my chest feel bruised and beaten and i fear
that i'm losing you.

i'm losing myself.
i'm losing my sense of stability under your fingertips that roam on my skin like a traveller finding their way across a desert.
i am undone under your thumb, struggling to breathe.
struggling to think about anything but you.

Had I but an endless eve,
if darkness were my friend
and sleep my enemy,
I might have stayed awake awhile
and found the answer true.

But summer sunsets silent fall;
I heard it not at all.
And my soft bed
like a siren called:
I could not think it through.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

Blessed with,
My strengths are what you bring out the best in
I smile when we're texting
With you there's no need for resting
I fight and question,

Where  are you, what am I left with
Had the same goals, you were my best fit
But we were driving the same car and got off at different exits

Imagine a society filled with wind of you
Furtherance of peace and progress for posterity abound
Suppressing ethnic differences and selfishness
Breeding everlasting coexistence
Oh, tolerance!

Yesterday I welcomed a new member to my little family,

Another furry baby,

He is four months old and feisty as they come,

Now begs the question, ‘when will I welcome a human baby into my life?’

I just haven’t found the right time

That sweet orange juice
dripping from your
rosy lips

makes me imagine how addictive
their sticky taste
could be.

Quinn

She gasps for air and fights with all the energy in her soul
But slowly her strength dwindles and the smoke begins to rise
Her body becomes limp as her once vibrant colors begin to fade
She is a warrior
But the bottle claims her broken soul once more

You tend to me
in a way
no one else has before,
letting me grow
anew.

i anchor
myself
to the back
of your mind
you wish
me away
but here
i still linger

I wanna die
Maybe then I'll be able to breathe

Avicii; was/is a genius--beyond his years.
Very brilliant and talented!
I miss him as much as the world does!
Calling out to anyone who needs to talk---
I AM HERE! YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
In this world, we are in this together!

If you could read my mind,
You’d see a thousand papers
Filled with broken poetries
And deadbeat proses
Full of woeful verses
With mournful pieces
Of unfinished stories
That are yet to be written
And failed to be spoken;
If you could read my mind,
You’d hear horrible screams
And earsplitting weeps
From shattered dreams,
Kept in a nasty notepad,
Scribbled on a bed
Of bloodstained words,
Ringing in my head.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the shadows
That lurk within me;
You’d hear the bellows,
Screeching the words
“I’m tired,”
“I’m a failure,”
“I’m stupid –”
I know it sounds stupid,
It’s pathetically foolish
And seems too *******.
If you could read my mind,
You’d feel the tears
I had ever failed to cry;
You’d see the people
That make the weak weaker;
You’d see the monsters
That consume my head;
You’d hear the hollers
That failed to be freed;
You’d see the heart
That still bleeds and bleeds.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the face
I’ve failed to show back then,
The face I’ve faked back then.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see a character
I had ever failed to become
If you could read my mind,
You’d be able to read
A book you never wished
To touch and read,
But sometimes I still wish
Someone could read my mind.

Life is unfair, comical but
beautiful as a whole.

all my life
i've been preparing faces
to meet the faces that
i've met

friends
family
the man who delivers newspapers
at our doorstep each morning

i've laughed at their silly jokes
as they tossed their heads from side to side
in naive stupidity and their sheer ignorance
a pompous lot, the human race i tell you

i've acknowledged their staunch morals
and tried to make them my own
as they scorned at the girl in a skimpy dress
and chewed on mutton bones gluttonously

all my life, i've been trying hard
to blend in
with people who've shown me
that i don't belong with them

and tonight when i shed gallons of tears
i have only my bed and pillow to share
i've learnt that my sadness
is my very own

Mom asked me a simple question
'What do you want to be?'
So I answered proudly
'I wanna be an astronaut,
simply because I want to thank every each
of the stars and the galaxy,
for taking care of you and letting me have you
in my humble life'

Human beings require no blood sacrifices
no white marble altars, no ornately garbed
intermediaries--nor even, the pious mumbling
of prescribed words. All we need for the proper
worship of God, is to regularly offer Him
a grateful and contrite heart.

Life is something that no one can explain
So mysterious the sun moon an rain

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.

under a cloudless sky
in this city of inconstancy
a perfect half moon
dazzles

the dark half
my tamasic nature
the bright half
your sattvic smile

forget not
any light thrives only
in the depth of intense darkness
cos my crepuscular complexion
alone absorbs thy fiery splendor

darling ambika!
having given
every pore to you
nothing remains

(to be continued....)

© 2019

You know, it's funny
We never anticipate the ways
We're gonna isolate ourselves
From the ones we care about

Your touch was
e l e c t r i f y i n g

I feel it still
On my face
On my neck
On my arm
On my back

I can't even remember
What we said or
Where you touched, but
I feel it still,
And it was
e l e c t r i f y i n g —

boys look like boys
girls look like girls
boys look like girls
girls look like boys

people look like people

and that is all that I see

every single beautiful soul
worth living

especially the bus driver
who just flicked me off

she’s more deserving
than most.

It's all about
The attention you get
Not from poetry

That's a bath
of unmatching
Angst

Uncounted syllables
and unrhymed
utterances

Splashing about like
some lower form
of soul

Raisins are needed
to offset
your parched

Appreciation and
foregiveness
that suicide themselves

in that barren
self
you call home

messing up.
this time it might have been a deeper cut.
i was left with scars down my arms, that i thought i could cover up.

i left my zone.
i left the love.

and of course the poem was about you

and suddenly im back where i was before
and you hit me harder than it was before.

I want to write about what hurts because I think it will
Stop me from hurting. If I put these words on
A page then they will be easier to digest.
Poetry isn't curative by creation, it is
Just confession. Still, these remedial
Lines are what I turn to when I am holding
Too much in my hands. Right now, I feel
Like I am overflowing onto the ground below me.
For the first time,
I don't want to write about what hurts. I want
To keep it inside of me and let it burn me. I want
To carry it in my palms for as long as I can.
I should write
About how we've said goodbye so
Many times that it turned into a threat, a weapon
We made with our tongues.
I should write
About how I lied and got away with it,
How you got caught with
Your hands tied and no one to blame.
I should write
About how it was over before we waved the white
Flag, and I know what it means now
To hold onto a sinking ship.
I've never had anything to die for.
I should write about how I've never wanted
Something so much that I devastated it completely.
We loved in harsh conditions, under sun and darkness and
I don't know how to write about how
The love didn't save us.
I don't write about letting go as much as I write about
Holding on, and I want
That to change.
I don't want to write hurt just to feel it.
The next poem I write about you will be
About me. About how I held on and how I let go.
It won't be about your love, it will be about
Mine. It won't stop me from hurting, but
It is how I make it out
Of my love alive.