Money won't buy you death.

Love
is wasted
on the loved.

My existence flickers,
but only in my own mind-
I seem to be forgetting reality,
and the memories I've captured
are finding ways to escape the jar.
I chase them through the dew-speckled fields,
but they deceive me every time.

And sometimes I stop,
and fling myself to the ground -
roll to face the stars,
and nearly drown in my own tears,
and ask

"Why?"

To live as an artist,
   but die as a man

Dust forever chasing
  —what heaven began

(Center City Philadelphia: January, 2015)