To devote one’s words to the eyes of another
Is to devote one’s thoughts to the mind of no other,
For, in my mouth and out yours,
The words are all there,
But the thoughts none.

And everyone thinks
That everyone thinks
That anyone thinks
At all.

We fail to attend to our own thoughts,
Only the thoughts of those others,
Who have the thoughts of none.

United in silence,
Thoughtlessness,
Who really has won?

The face
That says it all
But gives nothing,
That went to hell,
But didn’t come back,
Knows all languages
But speaks none,
Traveled all depths -
Not once in motion,
Sees right through you
But needs no eyes.

Puffing and puffing
The cigarette is delighted,
Youth burnt off
The face.

Here we are again

The war it’s always been

And though we’ve always tried

Though we’ve always sinned

We’ll come back alive.

We’ll be back to win.



Well here we are again

A battle for pride

Through which

No one is proud

Nor the victor

Victorious,

But held with self-doubt.



And here we are again

The war it’ll always be

I’m getting tired now

Flesh and bone you’ll see

Oh so tired now

Don’t be thin as me.



Cause here we are again

The day that wouldn’t end

Said ‘You’ll come back to life’

‘You’ll come back as kin.’

And to think the word that left us

Was ever our own, ever ours, it becomes.



Words grip the iron teeth



What mawkish

We caress,

Projecting enmity

On false enemies.



The movement of the mouth

Makes no ideas

But the air speaks

To shut us up.



My breath

Smudged in writing

Lies dying

On a paper



And of this Dwindling

Fluid in escape,

Evaporating into the

Wind of our breath,

The breath of our word,

A word is not yet spoken,

For it forever dwindles.

II.
Not some single figurine, some deity,
Not a constant, but personalities -
Building character unto this display.
A display which at any point may contain
Agents of democracy, agents of duty.
Patrons of lore,
Willed sacrifice, shameful enterprise
Composing.

III.
The possibilities, never outcomes nor complete,
The regrets and the hopes – short precedence.
Hungry for more, a bitter taste,
The bit between my teeth
That I cannot remove.
The celebrated in silence,
The onlooker once looked on.

IV.
The transgression vivid
Septic and Skeptic,
Motioned,
A reference to nothing,
A vision in memory.
Seer who seeks
Motif.

I.
My body
And
My ghost
Are fighting
For
My soul.

A clinging cycle
Between the sounds,
Death and despair,
Fonds the armor.
Like a secret
That does not yet exist.
Like temptation
who's buried six feet.

V.
And who am I?
Who
Witnesses
This public protection
Against a native affair
Reflected across waters?

A mere escapee,
Who once fought on
The front,
Until I stole
The enemy’s name
Whose last murmur was
"You."

We hold poems
Like tiny hands,
Reaching up to pull God down,
One hand after the other,
Endlessly
Grasping,
Glorifying our existence
By shaming our downfall.

Yet, these hands do not see the hand that
Dismisses,
The hand that points outward within,
The hand whose mercy
Must be fear,
Putting us in our place
As definite and temporal,
As the scrubbers of his golden feet,
Shinier with each polishing.

Trembling before him
I tug at his robe
Begging him not to let me fall,
For surely at this height I will fall straight
Through.

The night gobbles
My mind
Convincing me of
Who cannot be fiend,
But how can they not?
They that stare from windows
They lying in open discussion
With legs spread apart
They whence
Committing crimes.

At dawn we eavesdrop
On bedroom secrets,
Someone's prayers
As they kneel.

There is longing
In the caressing of sheets
Viewing dim light
Slow
Breath.

Wood creaks
Another has
Left with
Your silence.

The silence floods the stream of consciousness

Tiny bubbles wash up sea foam

Into an ocean of nothingness where poet

Alone and at peace from adornment

Swims in their own faith.



It enters their eyes

Down to their bones

Vast, with no direction.



Ocean’s waves approach

Selling stories of past voyages

While poet empty’s their travels

Into faith

Hoping that one day

They’ll meet the sun.

Free fall

Winds slice

The angel that descends

The astronaut come-home

The parachute nosedive



A naked soul

That remains only

In no mans land

Sprout your wings
They’re a sky,
A guise that
Holds you down.

(Words are only weighed and written
To carry our attention,
Else like the paper
We would fly away.)

Some Hummingbird
Humming its say;

All the poetry is up for grabs,
Only a translation from
Thin air to modern day.

And soon the condolences to
the skies
Will stop,
And as there is none for me,
Soon there will be no hum for the wind.

As if to simply
Acknowledge our presence
I flew by.

Looking through the window,
I saw him lying there
In his coffin.
Dressed to impress
Royal fools and vermin
In disguise.

We are scavengers
Picketing at dead religion,
Eating what is left -
We are left.

Niche-nest negated,
I will make a nest
Of my heart.
I will steal the spider's web
Whose absence is dismissed
Whose silence is understood
Whose presence is disagreeable.
And one day birds will fly
And lay their eggs in yours.

These hummers will fly blindly and without direction,
And though they'll find another nest,
Save the nest that is
This poem.

There are tongues
That speak to us more
Sincerely and closely
Than ever could one’s mother,
Than ever dared our brethren
Among us.
There are signed confessions brought forth
One can only make out
To a stranger,
Determined secrets revealed
Without our knowing,
While attaining from them
A self they will never meet.

There are jaded glances
That replenish us anew,
Hold us still and
Challenge our humanity,
Resetting the game in no-one's favor.
There are backward stares
Looking forward beyond,
Beyond our eternal place of hiding,
Stares that read,
‘Do not be fooled
By my looks,
By my gaze
Be fooled only
By my relinquish.’

There is transmission
Of silences
Carrying moments
Of speechlessness,
Moments of honoring the dead,
Moments of waiting one’s turn,
Their turn produced you.

Lying empty  

In this pile of rocks

The soul

Pounds up the rocks,

Not yet disgracing

The sun’s embrace,

Shortly preceding  

the downbeat of Life.



What distance is

Drawn

From boiling blood?

Whose verdict

Made me

To spill

And to stain

The victim’s grasp?

When the words will reach,

Will speak,

What voice will ring?



The voice of the hidden

Who dedicate themselves

To hiding in plain sight

Making their home

In other people,

Their lives

Of other lives.



The voice of the warhead

Who battles for pride

Though

No one is proud

Nor the victor

Victorious,

But held with self-doubt.



The voice of the mute -

Selective of course.

Reminding others that the

Silence they bare

Seeks to scold them.



The voice of the  

Starving child, overfed

With humility. The one

Whose nibbles were not enough

To break the chains round  

His ankles, rather those

Pearly whites of his, once

Replaced by yellow commodities.



The voice of the Concubine

Whose lust has been traded for more lust

Whose dresswear daily resembles

Peace by piece, bit and bit,

Her master, whose love of himself

So great, he seeks himself in her.



The voice of the somnambulist

Who is weary of dance

And game.

Who if awoken

In the middle of his act

Will not know it.

Some Talking Stories
Hold a face
That tells
A story
With no words.
These Talking Stories,
Some longer than others, Sum to another,
Attached somewhere
On a Self.

Everyone knows
A different
Sum of
One,
That is, all
That is, oneself.

The Self
Is a Foreign Invader
To a homeland
Guarded with
Tiny Heroes
With huge egos.

Each of them
Armed with a
Burning desire
To be.
One Ego
That all
Subsequent Selves
Participate in
Called We.