How do you prove an immunity to
a recurringly exhumed seclusion
when the noise of static, so intrusive when unmuted, easily confuses
and a skewed view produces only illusion's futile ruses?
Can't hands, seamlessly and when misguided, be abusive
from refusing their own bruises and contusions,
manifest and fuse into a multitude of misconstrued, misled misuses?
Yet I will argue choosing to humor the tune communicating through the intuitive music and movement that amuses-
what is heard echoes clues for harmony and hallowed union's
mutual congruence,
even in the crudest beauty and pursuit of human improvement and what we knew, uprooted.
Doubt, when reducing to delusions, always loses when refuted,
and though humility means fragile ****** included,
elusive truths all allude to an absolution through this-
what diffuses, what we keep, and how we do it the conclusion.

What am I between these driving
delusions of all my anxieties, aside?
When every moment is a revolt against
suicide and my steadying decline
and my internal monologue dissolved
into reminding myself why.
Who am I but ceaselessly unsure
of the lens of my own myopic, miserable mind?
Between the shadows stirring
in the corners of these drying eyes
and the alarming cry for predators nearby,
these countless confines multiplying wildly.
How often I find I am fighting my brain every second, all the time
my own excessive efforts led awry
as my uncertainties undermine.
But now all I know is I am finally
freeing myself from being so spine numbingly paralyzed
now that I've realized I lie
underneath somewhere within
the way of still waking up
from this frozen comatose demise.

Perhaps all I can ask is that
I carve a path back to my apathy
although my atrophy's
divorce detracts from me
as my degrade is happening
and the capacity for happiness everlastingly lacking.
What is belief but misguided and
more patiently practiced blasphemy?
Yet here I am left with hands half grabbing,
for words gasping, I am practically asking.
Abandoned with no hopes left intact,
momentum caught in trappings,
vices snapping, I prolong a pain, adapting
and what sort of self congratulatory act is that, exactly?

Beneath the steep valleys and peaks of sheets she sleeps,
auburn strands against my cheek.
Legs entangled, heart beats sweet;
arms embrace for want to keep.
Outside, raindrops release, repeat;
weep and whisper their defeat;
crying skies on drowning streets-
but in retreat, we mingle, meet.
Somber silence speaks, complete-
in just a brush of touch,
so delicate, discrete.

Is this a muse
or more reasons for abuses?
Truly clueless,
mind exhuding a slew,
a room full of excuses
to continue
this stupid and futile nuisance.

Sapling seed of spruce's,
soil spews like vesuvius
erupting abrupt and exuberant,
earth quaking magnitude rifts.

Sprout shoots up
and exhumes it:
mute and fugue,
bereft of youth missed,
solitude's dirt entangled tomb lifts.

Roots, feuding for nutrients
desperate to consume it;
sunlit view askew,
tree grew incongruent,
boughs barren, fruitless,
few nectars and juices
soon turned putrid;
ichor oozes,
residue strewn
as autumn blew kiss-
how could I choose this?

Blue bruises bloomed
crimson wounds
cut contusions,
red rose petal plume proves this;
skin and sinew fixed anew,
akin to knotted, rotting bark;
subdued and losing, I withdrew
as deja vu gripped.

Branches bones
hand hewn and grooved
with last protruding tooth,
Ive pruned all
but that which can't be removed
once I'm through this;
after all I'm only human
in a wilting garden of quietude
who never even knew bliss.

Personality disordered,
untamed ardor explores
every river delta
and corner forked;
borderline morphs.

Formless torment disorients,
roaring torrent force
forging its course,
divorcing arboreal forest floor
into a gorge.

Clear mirror
gorgeously adorned
with floral orchard, adored;
stream looks on in horror, forlorn-
shore a formidable fortress stormed,
water waging war on
brambles, thorny swords,
and flourishing orchids scorned;
armored only by rain's discord
and fresh petrichor worn.

Like a window smashed,
waxing accidental cracking of glass;
canyons mapped as light refracts fast,
captured through snapping fragments and gaps.
Hung unintact, procrastinating its shattered collapse,
stress tracks have the last laugh
as paths from impact form webs and traps.
Gilded, a net of gold wraps as fractured attack grasps
before being scattered and blackened to an abstract mass of countless unmatching halves.
Tangled, travelling passions cast into a savagely scratched mask;
mouth closed, asphyxiated, and afraid to gasp.

Often the intensity of my emotions sickens me;
nerves diseased, tangled fray of countless neuroses
dragged through fragments of debris,
frustration’s fangs still teething-
bones betrayed, befittingly treasoned,
in suffering, seizing for reason.
Unrest, can’t relieve between tension’s jaws
starved ravenous and thieving;
symphony of knives all slicing,
incisions slashing, screaming.
Lost through leprous lesions, lacerated,
logic left hemorrhaging, flooding, and leaving;
broken blanket of my flesh bastions nothing but
absence for strands unweaving…
and yet I must gather ground by leaning on aggrieving.
Capitulated into the dark of evening,
for want of sleep and tomorrow towards reprieving;
surrendered into night for dreaming.

Heart ache,
invitation to communication
breakdown I take,
stakes it’s claim in
vacated real estate;
warms after winter
with a shiver and shake.

Laying naked, awake,
my eyes on the nape
of your neck as you slept,
every breath held the depth
of a lake.

I stay;
mouth, a maw agape-
brain a cage no animal escapes.
All these words in mind,
I still can’t find the right way to say...
can’t we just lay around another day?
I know you can’t stay
but I won’t let the memories fade
and I would trade all the sun for the shade
if only one more night were made.

Weathering the desert storm
pouring forth sand sharp as glass;
skin torn and muscles cut by countless thorns,
each one a mark left keeping score.
A violently dehydrated form
staggering in search of water’s shore
emerges from the static-
dry eyes sore, could have sworn...
but it was just mirage, playing waves of warmth,
dancing heat eating me like a carnivore,
bleaching bones below the sun to their very core
and yet I will walk until I can’t anymore;
searching for what I adore, knowing Ive seen and felt relieved by rain before,
towing my weight, dragging ever onward toward-
though corpse and carrion I am, the pain I must ignore;
each drop of sweat a loss I can’t afford.

Spring spent
as a sprout
bedridden
in sediment
then edifice jettisoned.

By summer
roots ready,
tendons threaded,
a frenzy of
appendages,
extremities extended.

In autumn
stem shedding feathers,
fallen flower petal treasures,
emerald essence surrendered;
amber bled,
blood letting red,
settling
in ephemeral orange embers.

But winter
December veteran
still remembers
fledgling seeds spreading
instead of this,
condemned
to frigid tether
then again severed
and unfettered;
sun's warmth,
tender benevolence and pleasures
if ever through
the coldest weather
and snow yet treaded together.

A new day breaks,
same ageless sun comes dawning;
its tender touch enough to stir landscapes lush and sprawling.
The morning’s warmth breathes life,
illuminating colors young and still crawling;
the frost of nighttime evaporating and slow thawing
awakens anticipations, dewdrops naked and still yawning-
a newborn alienation in the face of creation, left fawning.
Holding onto what it can while free falling,
ambiguous mist collects then forgets
what it reflects is its own longing;
capturing, refracting back,
confusing light diffused as itself when recalling.
Condensation grips, flips image and slips,
fights gravity and hangs there stalling,
and yet it is not prolonging its inevitable dissipating, dissolving
as indifferent heavenly bodies keep revolving,
dusk recurring and always resolving.

Tethered, fluttering wings shedding feathers,
panicking and fretting but never bettered or unfettered;
talons tremble, tremors tell of pain remembered.
Desire tightens wire’s hold strongest before severed-
clouds and claustrophobia weathered,
sails to shimmer under sun and kissing wind as one, together.

Warmer wind blows,
rain drops
clapping lachrymose;
spring-lit spirit sprints
towards summer solstice, awoke;
green leaves,
emerald embers stoked,
emitting dandelion smoke.

Trophy bouquet meadows
of romanceless nosegay
and posy mosaic laying apropos;
seeds evoked and thrown
from my own torso.

Emotions
forwards flown
to almost certain vertigo
then swiftly sunk in undertow
from only breeze's uneven strokes;

No thing hallowed,
corpse bloated, decomposed;
worms hunger and burrow,
tomorrow sowing unknown woes-
soul harrowed as if I chose.

Like a lonely rose
froze to stone,
heart hardened to marble
below a coat of snow;
barbed bones grow
labored and slow
but red petals
still radiate, aglow-
posed not quite open,
although not quite closed.

Weary gaze's attention
drifts between dimensions,
mind eyes' pensive lenses
pondering past tenses,
my five upended senses
blended somewhere
in suspension.

Memory's tender reverie apprehended,
seeking splendid spring times
sweet scented;
garden's greener entrances
no fences,
nor damage from
relentless tempests
long since lamented.

When did
rhododendron's appendages,
flowering in a tremendous energy,
ascending to a trembling crescendo
end in
sour fruits of limes, clementines, and lemons?
Tulips' two lips
now whispering a slender mention.
Who else had rose blossoms befriended but their bodies' ornamented thorny brethren?
Men, lent their every hands extended
left with wounds weeping,
wrenched asunder, rended,
recoiling resented.

Pen's river runs
in quintessence,
drenches in each sentence;
blood can't cleanse
despite dispensing in
perennial attempts
as if gravity's
contention depended,
gentle tendrils built
tall walls defenses,
stems became cemented,
and how long have I been
within this glen hidden?

Heart beat, bruised
bittersweetened, bent;
passion’s capillary action
relaxes then contracts again-
a seed beneath, muscle
fatigued, toils and spends;
roots, a web of arteries extend,
branching tree stemmed,
leaves shedding red oxygen;
veins shredded to the thread,
frayed strands bleed,
unweave and unhem;
rivulets spill, unquenched,
hemorrhaging hands,
their fingers search to mingle, blend;
a crimson cardiac attack, defend-
for a moment, pressure wavering, suspends,
then pulled back, we cauterize
and mend our loose ends;
every line a vine of growth we tend-
surrounding blossoms rose gardens.

Heart beat,
bruised bittersweetened, bent;
passion’s capillary action
relaxes then contracts again-
a seed beneath,
muscle fatigued,
toils and spends;
roots, a web of arteries extend,
branching tree stemmed,
leaves shedding red oxygen;
veins shredded to the thread,
frayed strands bleed,
unweave and unhem;
rivulets spill, unquenched,
hemorrhaging hands,
their fingers search to mingle, blend;
a crimson cardiac attack, defend-
for a moment, pressure wavering, suspends,
then pulled back, we cauterize
and mend our loose ends;
every line a vine of growth we tend-
surrounding blossoms rose gardens.

Feeling a dryness filling my sinus,
altitude ascending,
rising mile highness
in the quietness and silence.

Incline scaling side of
this piled detritus,
climbing mountain of vileness
just to see off this island.

Blindness fills irises
seeking lands and their tyrants,
kingdoms fighting
incited by shining diamonds;
but all eyes can spy is
skyline's vibrant twilight,
clouds bathed in violet,
stars aligned with waves
riotously violent.

Wind bellows,
gusts choke,
ocean's gushing spray
a ghost;
fog in throat
a storm's smokey omen
then
supernovae explosions
of morose emotions.

Juxtaposed,
atop, afloat,
a lone lifeboat
rowing,
going coast to coast;
rain soaks,
thrown to and fro.

Cold, piercing, potent-
rosy nose,
hands exposed,
fingers frozen,
spirit comatose,
bloodied knuckles
bursting bones;
both broken open
and all so hopeless,
struggling
just to keep oars,
boards oaken,
devoted to
a stroking motion.

In search of a post,
a place to tie a rope
but I'm a skipping stone
about to slip below.

In the dead of night it was like
we were the only souls alive for miles.
Contrasting dark, a flashing spark,
a passing flame igniting smiles,
twilight feigned but bright remained
in colors running wild.
Invading silence, each word soft violence,
a welcome for exiled
lingering upon your lips and staying there awhile.
But fleeting, momentary time
could not be reconciled;
these holy seconds’ sanctitude
decayed to dust, defiled-
each grain of sand from hourglass
swept slowly from the pile;
in morning, born from memory,
nostalgia and daydream’s child.

Internal monologue,
to self, a note:
prose and poetry
I wrote
to what I loathe,
every word I chose
a potent seed of
grief I sowed.

Sturdy oak's
branches, limbs,
and stoic bones
turning into woes of
a weeping willow's roots
overgrown and exposed.

Grain of timber groans,
bends and bows
in billowing wind blown;
a coat of leaves
in ribbons, clothes,
cloaking grove and
hanging rope below;
around my neck,
coiled and closed,
asphyxiating, chokes.

Ungasping,
thrashing throes,
no breath can flow,
slowly losing hope;
devoted to
an unspoken oath,
towing this
floating ghost and
shadow of an ego
dangling alone
on threadbare throne,
only home
I've ever known.

So what, to this world,
do i still owe
and why can't I
just
let
go?

Breeze bellows,
leaves echo in
quivering psithurism,
dithering like
unbroken smoke,
this approaching omen goads.

Dozing crows
slumbering in rows,
droves of locusts'
silenced drone,
almost comatose in repose;
nighttime overtones
choir of toads'
raspy croaks
answered by alto
of crickets' orchestral strokes.

Gust encroaches;
robed boughs
cloven open,
bring into
scope and focus
me juxtaposed,
suspended apropos.

Although motionless
and petrified in stone,
provoked by zephyr
coaxing to and fro;
swaying pendulous
and no longer frozen,
locus gently thrown.

Death rattle moan
evoked from throat,
reflex can't say no
to rigor rigidly posed,
final sigh in silence,
awoken vocal,
expelled and disposed.

Smote by
morose emotion,
gun loaded then exploded
by neurosis,
now bloated
necrosis decomposes
into gross ochre.

This trophy
and this ode
both an opus to
my inability to cope;
romanced i proposed,
eloped and betrothed to
my own
inappropriate composure.

Pocket full of posies
plucked when luck bestowed
and tears in a cup, a toast;
crying copiously,
tempest runneth overflowed,
eyes swollen and soaked.

Dipped my toes
in the coast
of this ocean's
amorphous folds,
gripped by undertow
holding control of my soul;
swiftly shipwrecked in
shallow shoal,
an old atoll.

On sandy floor,
water burrows roads;
digging, carving, roams
through unmarrowed
silica and sandstone
eroding into a cove.

A host for
opal geode trove,
enclosing a
technicolor rose,
from the depths
a glowing mosaic shone

Unopened lotus floats
on foam
of lapping waves,
a boat;
prone to no
grandiose notion
or motive,
adrift as wind stokes.

I suppose
this only shows
the total corrosion
into which I dove,
the only foes to oppose
are those of burdens, so
only weightless can I atone-
I must let go.

Rain falls in sheets for weeks,
ceiling springs a leak;
from the weeping breach
the waterline soon creeps,
stream flooding in furious
flurry of worries, deep.
Innumerable leagues beneath,
unfathomable meters and feet steep;
wrapped in the blackest and bleakest grief
wreathing my neck, I can no longer breathe.
Stifled, I can plea and scream,
but this abysmal void eats me
like a parasite, a thieving leech
suffocating, siphoning my speech,
bleeding my body weak
until all that’s left in this sea
are clothes to blow in undertow
like shredded leaves
and bones to be part of some unseen reef;
into the yawning depths of this sleep,
death swallowing every secret to keep-
I close my eyes and hold my breath for relief.

Rain falls; licks, and tastes-
drips and drops from contours, traced.
Lightning's lash, electric laced;
anxieties anticipate
but under clouds bears no escape-
and here I find my fury: fate.
Twisted bouquet of buildings placed;
no windows, stares an eyeless face.
Hollowed husks commiserate,
though storm will wash and dissipate.
These diseased dreams lie dead, disgraced;
tombs for what I desiccate,
and blood upon this dead landscape;
but hurriedly, its here I haste
for fear of losing steady pace.

Ocean's brine collides
and threatens to capsize
my entire island.

Wild tides violently writhe,
striving for sky highs,
waves and wake
annihilate horizons.

Darkness disguises,
only outlines
for tired irises
to try finding
while dilated
behind eyelids,
hiding nighttime's crimes
inside blindness.

But guiding signs smile,
morning's light shining
still reminded;
so sublime
when stormy seas I've survived
have finally subsided.

Daydreams-
scattered clouds
of feather down
radiating gold around,
lacing outer bounds,
heaven sent
and proudly crowned;
profound and renowned,
astounding throughout-
I bow, devout.

Drowsy, I arouse
raising brow
wondering about
shadows casting doubt
like a shroud.
Thunderstorm
announces with a howl,
sky’s wide mouth shouts,
with a sound devours;
growling gigawatts
of gouging power
on the prowl.

I cower,
loud as a mouse,
counting the amount
of seconds I allow
to slip by every hour;
scavenging and scrounging
to find a route,
I flounder
until I found
a seed endowed;
forged in drought
and valor.

Spouting fountain,
dousing the ground
in a shower;
unwound, this sprout
and boughs will tower;
a house beneath
its blossomed flower.
I build a mound,
even if I can't surmount,
my spirit is scoured-
and I vow this garden is ours.

Diaphragm expanded
like the cigarette burns on the empty wood floor
from when I left the mattress there and didnt care anymore,
started laying down beside the beaten, weathered boards;
these decades in the grains of timber grew towards-
I lie inert, my bones the weeping willow's withered roots now stretched forward
to sunlight creeping in the windows through daybreak's drunken disorder.
Dehydrated, tormented, and long tortured;
regurgitations reemerged, restless, pushed shoreward-
dysphoric dreams; no rest beneath intoxicated border.

As dawn's fog yawns
exhausted jaws call upon
tomorrows and beyond.

Pondering somnolent solitude's
honest and solemn qualms,
the calm before
ancient eons old atomic bomb;
clouds becoming bells of bronze,
air a balmy sauna,
strands of photon blonde
don tree awnings
and lush bladed lawns
strong enough to rouse flora,
fauna frolicking along,
faults and all their wrongs;
summer sunrise,
curtains, drapes are drawn,
phenomenon a drama
of God's pawns,
audience applause
the crawling pulse
of this cosmic throng.

But chronology's period
more like a comma, pause,
as falling autumns quick bygone,
then a wave of frigid wand
and winter's frostbitten trauma haunts;
maudlin waters frozen wanton,
fossilized to icy ponds,
ossified swans mourn silenced songs
their unspoken sonnets
for want of
warm renaissance.

Adjacent places in space,
alternating waves
and fluctuating states
encased in ancient clay
taking vague shape
creates and unmakes
its own paper maché face;
portrayed,
gave name, draped-
vagrant flame ablaze,
nascent and awake.

Into the fray,
blades flaying
flesh agape,
my skin scraped,
nothing safe;
I must leave no trace
and base no faith
in erased slate;
afraid,
higher stakes played,
will I pay?
No way to relate,
what could I ever say
to convey?

Earth quakes
cities vacated and razed
as heavenly body vibrates
reasserting reign;
tectonic plates break,
fissures snake,
aimless traipsing fingertips;
hastily laid basement's
pavement caves in,
labyrinthine maze
of narrow,
harrowed straits
dig my grave.

No escape from this cage, I pace-
my weight betrayed
limping and lame,
graceless skating
figure eights
pirouette rotate
as frame decays to waste,
body aches
with age and dismay,
lines tracing pain
I await the day
and for whose sake?

Chaste,
craving a naked embrace
to kiss on the nape,
just a taste
could stave or slake;
gazes trade-
sudden sun rays,
through clouds grey laced,
my eyes dilate,
invading the gates
of my brain.

Breath bated,
taken away;
fates interlaced
or am i only
swayed astray
by another wraith
that will fade into shade?

Emaciated,
to be slain by my own starvation
and hunger pangs?

Will circle of veins
be exanguinated, drained
as seedling baby daisies' chains
are spewed and scattered into May
in springtime bathed in sanguine rain,
by summertime a scarlet stain?

Will I be jaded
to a hue of navy blue,
will foray turn beige?

But I gave chase and prayed.

In holy hollow, head reacts-
bodies, bathed in black, attract.
Shredded shrapnel scraps attack-
muscles move, skin contracts.
Hand advances, arm retracts-
concrete coma cracks.
Sigh in silence; stolen, strained...
In darkness, nicotine nerves still remain;
in subtle movements, we shift blame.
Unbridled, no refrain.
Consciousness in conflict, I cave-
but wariness stays, gained and saved.
In morning's mourning, mind a mess-
condemned in quiet, I get dressed.
To bedroom door, reason regressed,
from stitch of pain so firmly pressed.
Not a single moment's rest.
Temptation's torment, just a test;
in contrast, crime I couldn't confess-
though none to give, I've something less...

Tensions wind with
sea's rising tide
then curtains' delicate divide.

Tongue's unsung syllables rhyme,
body's language replying in kind
its secrets, inclined to confide
in human passions
humid, dripping liquefied;
sweetness seizes and slides-
a taste inside
where nectar, ambrosial, resides.

Blurring in a flurry
of your nerves and mine
as if designed
to collide then combine
for a time,
you and i intertwined;
lying supine, your
spine obliged to writhe,
legs around head,
softest vices tightly bind,
hands on thighs,
slowly grind
upon this throne you ride,
crown for the divine;
unifying flesh and minds,
higher towards sky
you climb.

Then knot untied
leaves skin sweat soaked-
satisfied,
described only by
a sigh.

Tip of my tongue, numbed;
words, unsung, heavily hung among my breathless lungs.
Trembling, assembling, three syllables still stunned;
through listless lips, slipped, stammering- stung.
Precariously, so perilously I plunge;
on precipice long perched, i freely fall, fast from.
Ephemeral and fleeting, my crumbled fear succumbs;
days ****** to darkness, now dawning sun's undone.

From atop lofty thoughts,
dropped off softly;
so often, I lay awake
turning and tossing,
internal monologue talking,
masochistic sophistry blossoming
as it ought not to be.

A colossal cloth,
silken plume,
ink blot shades of grey
spread, peacocking;
this offering of pebbles brought
a monument
to all of the impossible
rocking before toppling-
comatose and claustrophobic,
I can exert no reverse inertia
to stop this cacophony.

Anxious, fraught,
my worries stalking me;
distraught
and tense posturing;
I fought to hold,
my fingers taut;
knuckles knotting,
vices tightly throttling.

Locked between
clock's tick and tock,
every second,
hands painstakingly wrought-
caught up,
sudden and shockingly.

Crawling awkwardly,
clawing at the walls,
coughing from the noxious oxygen
of my own rotting sarcophagus.

Insomnia fostering this paradox,
mocking me;
sleep deprivation walking,
no elysian veil to cross for me;
my own exhaustion
the coffin accosting me;
awful volume of this noise
ultimately just grains of static
all for naught,
frothing
and washed to sea.