A mute man serves his sentence as one with brilliance on the tip of his tongue
He learns that his light was never meant to be shared
Even if someone cared to know
Any and every act of aid he made was poisoned by wicked words
Doomed for eternity to be birthed from the mouths of others, serpent speech
His voice hung itself on a drunken whim, left no letter to explain
He wonders sometimes what his own vibrations said before the quiet came
The conscious tone that narrates his thoughts and rules his brain
Is but a whisper, a soft song contained and never known
The void of language was filled instead by perception for significant sound
The mute heard every heart and cared for the ignored and the wretched
He never said I love you, he never complained, never thanked what luck he had
As a satellite in space, he drifted and no one could hear him scream
Pity; a common response for the miserable who live below the veil of gray
Who stew in festering pain, though their wounds make life shine the whole terrible spectrum
They feel the richest colors as they soak the everyday-easel
He will be his story’s rainbow, though he will tell no one

We brought a warm, vegetarian dinner to the homeless in a Christian shelter
The steaming pans burned my thighs for the duration of the ride
Our host was a self-described anarchist, married with four children and a dozen guests
He had participated in hundreds of protests; countless arrests
Travelled all over the globe to the site of genocide and hate
Saved lives one at a time, noble and tragic work
His first mission was in his early twenties, to the Gaza Strip alone
The night he arrived he slept in a friendly home
Woke to gunfire, screaming bullets and children, and mechanical roar
Get down! Said the Palestinians, closing the windows and doors
If you look outside
They
Will
Shoot
You
Israeli helicopters scanned the streets and mowed down pedestrians
Dropping massive glass beads
Marbles, they called them
These spheres would shatter and leave sharp edges for scared feet
Once impaled there was no running, blood trailed and so no hiding
Tear gas canisters cleared the capable, my host watched one enter a house
Inside children cried and begged for safety from war and smoke
A doctor huddled with my host heard and acted on a hero’s impulse
Leapt from his roof to that of the yelling young
Dove in through a window and snatched all three, along with the stinging source
The elder two were scared but saved, handed to the Palestinians
The baby with them had suffocated
Too late
The doctor gave my host the canister, still warm
You brought this here, he said
And he was right
Made In The USA
He brought the story back, called every major newspaper
No interest in anything he had to say
This stuff happens every day they told him, boring
Last week twelve Palestinians were killed by a bulldozer
Now there’s front page material
Something
More
Unusual

Nothing beats the moment when you discover that someone you love
Doesn’t love you back
Felt by anyone who has ever been angry with the sky
Or any man that gets attached to hired ***
Any snot-nose whose parent or puppy never looks back
Any loser who can’t unglue his gaze from a return to sender stamp
Reading an old poem can be like
Calling up an ancient girlfriend
I can’t
Believe
I wrote you
No more affection; at least the feeling is mutual
I tend to throw myself fully into things, making commitments
Passion, they call it
I feel more like a drunken hockey player bruising himself against the boards
Any love I harbor dries in silhouette of unread poetry
My words will one day hollow
As my body spirit follows
But sometimes
Ink sinks
And paper lives longer than bones
I remember everything anyone ever said to me

Coral is an organic entity
Even though it looks
Like a rock
And is often mistaken for elegant stone
Its waves may be subtle
It may settle down for life
It might host parasitic fish friends rather than wading through unseen waters
But it comes alive and survives and dies
Allowing sensory input to penetrate coarse armor
It serves a full cycle
Rather than fading like stone
To pulverized sand
Sorry sediment sans une vie

Today I bled the ripest magenta you’ve ever seen
Before the O2 red poisoned it
Luckily I scar in the shape of morals
I once pressed my digits to the stove on a dare
Until the rounded flesh sloped flat
Guess I’ve always learned by experience
Don’t touch hot stuff
But if you do
That’s ok
It all heals, and
You’re a little funny looking after
But
That’s it

My fist crushed his angry eye
A desperate mother begged for my sixteen year old assistance
Her egg whites rolled back into her vomiting head
The personalized presents I picked out still unused
Clotting never came, I passed out dripping blood on the toilet
She screams for help at night, though now it’s less often
The ****** wore off and she found herself in an empty lot, **** recent
You cried when your knees failed you on each stair, each day
The irises never grew this year, dead roots
It was a freak accident, no way we could have seen it coming
He was mangy and homeless, but man was he resilient
They took paid swings at each other’s hairless faces, we filmed it
The bottle left my fingertips, I heard her yell in pain
Money is easily removed from unprotected leather
I probably said some things god wouldn’t forgive on a good day
She tasted smoke on my lips, boy was she ******
I wonder if people can hear the evil **** that lives in my brain
Like ugly sea serpents mulling about in an aquarium getting restless
Little kids with sticky hands pressed against the glass
Thankful for land legs and transparent barriers
No one would swim with the sharks by choice
Except an equally wicked leviathan
I imagine they will roam in circles
Until I die

I would wake up after never having slept
Early
And drive morning-drunken-eyed
Fast
To see the kids
Two great young boys with
Sweet hearts and
No darkness
The little one needed to be clean:
Scrubbed his skin raw, showered for hours, avoided the bare ground
Worshipped soap and wanted to be good
To the point that he sat in tears
Over his irrational fears of germs and overuse of terms
Like sorry
Fred the bully ruled his developing mind and made him
Worry
Scrub
Fear
Apologize
Repeat
Together his brother and I helped him build
Muscle, reason, confidence, eventually
Control
The more we exercised as a unit, sweating and huffing
Through endless repetitions, the more force he felt
Always doing a few extra reps to show that he cared
He told me he wanted to push Fred into
A pit of lava, using a tsunami wave
Cool
He came to terms with *****, stopped sleeping at night
With cleaning chemicals clutched consciously in his hands
Progress in learned steps, he sought to impress and emulate
The boys were great, we played board games and ran outside all summer
They were digital entertainment addicts, electronic fiends
Every day we shared a healthy lunch and stories from our schooling
I made silly noises and
They echoed healing laughter
Funny how fast children transform, their habits altering
Any positive message soaked and internalized
The obsessive behavior begging to be eased
We all got a lot tougher that summer
One boy lost weight, gained shape, and had courage manifest
One boy had many fears that one day he will put to rest
One boy was made to fall in love with his first test
The day I left the boys gave me
A cake, cards, origami
Their favorite stones
Hugs
Memories
Experience
Motivation
Stories
On the drive home I fell asleep on the highway