Today probably marks one of the final occasions
Upon which I will visit my grandfather
Long years have made him weary
A war drawn through many winters
He is deceptively small, hardly more than five feet
But like an iceberg his hidden self is vast
Travelled the world on military campaign
He does not speak of this part of his past
My family makes prompts in asking
How he crossed the Channel, entered Germany
The frontline combat that ensued
Has never escaped his conscience
At the slightest mention of the Battle of the Bulge
His face glazes over, and he is brought back
He relives instantly, right in front of me
The soldiers who died, friendly or not
I never asked if he killed anyone
And he would never tell me
The men of his time were moved to terrible actions
They returned home numb or wrapped in plastic
I cannot imagine such an experience
To be held so near my age
Spent several fortnights living in a foxhole
The bloodiest battle, taken by surprise
My father’s father like many fathers
Did what he had to do
He remains a soldier to this day
My respect is endless for the mighty

Today I witnessed a ****** in the cobwebs
The swift and crafty arachnid ensnared suspended cicada
The cicada several times his size spun into his spindles
Soon a drained addition to the cemetery of exoskeletons
It twitched but with an air of hope long gone
He embraced his fate long before forced by spider fang
The stalker surveyed him, perched like vicious acrobat
About to perform his grand finale among the dust and decayed wood
The drawn out death captivated me, stole my attention
Like the gallows in the streets of times past
I watched and felt the transmission of energy and life
The power to spare a creature, but I let the world turn freely
This one lived and died similar to you and I
The universal experience of limited time
Bacteria to insect to man to deity
Some day we are mummified and disintegrate in the attic

On the eve of early rising, with curious companion
We climbed to the highest peak, to yield clearest view
This vantage point was inaccessible to the common without clearance
The stolen key allowed me to explore forbidden fruit
We stood on the platform under star studded quilt
Quietly we crossed the bridge to another realm
Peered in through the frosted window at laboratory dormant
Followed the black path laid down over rocky roof
Hidden was a narrow hallway, a strip along the ledge
The average passerby unaware and far below
Made our way up a ladder to the top of brick structure
There I found that light shines even in the ***** city

My thirst for conversation has continued to impress me
Fills me with stories helping to shape another in my eyes
Met with friend for a mutual exchange of identity
An interview with questions directed; I asked first
Starting with the earliest formulation of conscious thought
Hers was the return of a sick father
She eagerly embraced him when he arrived home safely
Vividly describes the large red chair present
I transitioned to exchange of reflection most powerful
Searching for a single memory of hers that stood alone
Her face brightened, her eyes shining with nostalgia
Her dog’s name was Max
Max entered her life when she was one year old
On the celebration of her birth in fact
He was the runt of the pack, a ruby retriever
Grew to maturity and average size, with love
Max made his way into her writing in the classroom
His possible harm one of her first worries
He was a cherished family pet, she loved him with all her heart
Being a young child, sometimes she was too rough
Cancer took Max from this world at nine years of age
He was buried under a peach tree in the back yard
The peaches swollen and ripe make death turn to life
To this day they represent the sweetness of his soul

Her early years were full of stress at thought of parental separation
Subject to fickle fears and frozen emotions
Her true panic began in high school days
Developed into distinguishable attacks and episodes
There were never tangible reasons or focus points for fear
Racing thoughts, vertigo chills, imminent death
Creeping insanity and the dry, frustrating inability to swallow
Worsened as college approached and the familiar faded fast
Week one was worse than any panic period yet
Heart flutters, helplessness and disorienting dizzy spells
Friends were far away or had yet to be encountered
Sympathy for perceived insanity ran thin
These experiences require constant care and medication
Hospital visits and appointments with understanding ear
She shared her life with me through effect of anxiety
I shared in turn, but couldn’t help distraction
We did not record the interview so I took it upon myself
Documenting with equal force her story and my amazement

I made myself a promise but it didn’t last the morning
Submit to my illusions yet again forming patterns
Journey down the rabbit hole with safe return uncertain
Constantly I push the boundaries of introspection
I demand more from seen scenery, seek to enhance
For years my body went about and I its faithful shadow
Kept silent and obedient, thinking I was clever yet
Just a jester, a sleeping shackled servant, serf or slave
Life as a dreamwalker consumes imagination
Hollow and endless, a cardboard cutout with a background
Made of muddied shades of grey, filling up physical space
While behind my eyes I could be anywhere
In pursuing solitary silence, problematic fissure to foundation
Radically alters self perception creating warped identity
I linger as a ghost, heart beating cold venom
As I haunt the places where I could have made something of myself
A lifetime spent exploring the deepest psychological caverns
Has left me accustomed to dim lighting, shy and wary of the day
Evolution passing me by; I was hiding in my cave
Inventing fire and the wheel as the universe went digital
To emerge and join the societal stream, be swept up in the current
Would almost surely overwhelm me, leave me submerged and suffocating
I must swim to the surface, escape my dependence
Before the water freezes over, holding me tightly through the seasons

In twenty circles around the sun
I have come near enough to observe
From atop a distant hill I stood watching
The city of insanity
The people moved about with apparent purpose
To and fro running errands and the like
The metropolis thriving with attractive life
Its breath forming clouds in the cold of the night
From my sentinel’s post I had limited comprehension
Of the rituals or values held inside their gates
Near enough to know the man I would be
Far enough to be drawn by mystery
I flirt with delusion behind closed doors
My mistress with a sweet whisper customized for my ears
Similarly I stroll the perimeter of these walls
A rogue on the outskirts considering integration
These gates are welcoming without invitation
Yet they lock from the inside-permanent asylum
Someday I will live amongst this community
Unaware of any world but my own

You used to disappear for months at a time
I was too young to understand but I did anyways
You hurt me like you hurt yourself
The difference is I remember
As children we were sad and tragic misfits
Hell bent on escape of some kind
You used to try to jump out of second story windows
Enough to break eternal but not to close your mind
I found you once trembling in the kitchen
In your pocket was a handful of capsules
Ran for help and with reinforcements recommitted you
You told me I could stop you now but there would be a tomorrow
Your depression worsened and school became your nemesis
You singlehandedly proved how cruel and evil children can be to others
A victim of your instability and chemical imbalance
A social untouchable, they kicked you and you scampered under the porch
The progression across the spectrum of moods made you manic
I could handle you when you had lost hope, but you became unpredictable
Needing everyone’s help, you couldn’t bear to act alone
Always making scenes we were bashful when in crowds
I picked you up after class and you showed me your self-assigned art project
Your room was filled with them, scribbles on the walls
Poetry and carved incantations and letters
Just the way you were when you lived in the hospital
I will always remember when I was first allowed to visit
Your expression dull, eyes dead and voice hoarse but constant
Your babble was brilliant even though you spoke in tongues
Drew me equations, diagrams, promises and master plans
I keep them still and hope that you will make no replications
Reminder of the horror that goes into reparations

In description and depiction
Your face has escaped my words
You defy my understanding when I thought myself well-learned
Like the meaning of life, or death in turn
You are the sensation when I step through specter of top stair
Simultaneously taking my breath away
While reminding me of the earth under my feet
For which I am grateful
You are the rainbow teasing me from the oil spill
Coagulating in the concrete streets
You came about by chance
Filled my mundane life with beauty
You are the simplest of science experiments
Famously reliable
Tested and proven so many times through the years
That I have come to accept you as fact
You are the trust between a mother and infant child
Love growing with each day and smile
A symbiotic synchronized rhythm
So strong that it is natural
You ask me sometimes if your lack of presence in poetry
Equates to a lack of presence in my thoughts and feelings
Quite the opposite; you come to me in my everyday life
Darling I let the beautiful speak for itself

Though dulled and faded with age
Memories of violent encounters demand service of a scribe
The enemy ambushed the amicable, interrupting instruction
Plans were made and location changed to find a fitting field for fight
The mob moved through streets dusted with white
Settled prematurely in a small public clearing
The challenger caught my friend off guard, his temple struck
A sickening thud rang out over the posse screaming madness
My confidence waned in shock but before my thought completed
A mighty counter rocked aggressor’s jaw, knocked unconscious
Dumbfounded he slumped to his knees and made grapple for support
Thrown to a defenseless dorsal pose awaiting beating
Each strike from my friend’s boxing fists landed with force
Dynamic demolition; I could hear the snap of bone
Again and again the primal chanting of the mob
Was overpowered by noise from blunt trauma to a damaged brain
Authorities arriving cleared the crowd with their sirens
I dashed to wooded cover carrying the victor’s possessions
To my astonishment, joined by the badly bruised
The flesh of his ebony face stained sanguine with defeat
He felt his tissue for lumps as his pain set in at last
Adrenaline disappearing, ears bleeding from concussions
An infamous day to me as brutality yet unmatched
Performed for barbarous and sadistic spectators, I among them

Water and death; the grand unifiers
My descent from glacier-like nimbus
To emerald elevation
Teaches me
The Mexican mountains fast-approaching
Barren, hills enveloped in mossy fondant
To think man festers in our planet’s orifices
Unable to sip the trickling life for fear of illness
Spreading death like gossip
And I, cramped in drifting craft
Soaring in the former future
Am safe
If Da Vinci could see me now
We’d have a **** good laugh
Comparing ironies

Paradise
Men falling from the sky using parachutes of peacock plumage hues
The professionals plummeting in perfect spirals
The novices sheepishly prolonging their gentle, gliding drop
The salmon shade adobe dwellings with their thatched, lovely roofs
Shelter me in their auspices from an unforgiving star
Handmade tiles of authentic design line each steep stone step
A covert staircase leading nowhere, we lounge near the pool by day
There I observe a couple through a sour tequila haze
A scarlet clad native and her sometime American lover
Their hands never leave each other’s guilty bodies, sexually charged
His absence of wedding ring betrays his intended affair
In the distance crushing waves claim territory on the shoreline
I underestimate; in a death roll I lose all sense of direction
The blushing sky with rosy smile watches over its children
A lighthouse by its lonesome guards the cliffs from clumsy ship
Locals sell their wares by approaching fair-skinned tourists
Necklaces of beads require long hours of work
Their labor goes unappreciated, sells for meager dollar
Popcorn man blows his lonely, dissonant horn forever
Into the deaf night

From the beach my group departs for a deep sea fishing excursion
Huddled in a fiberglass vessel known as the Barracuda
Captain Alberto is a burly man with dark skin and a silver tooth
Operating the motor is his young apprentice and amigo
The captain has his children’s names painted on the hull
One of them, Estrella, rings out in my mind
The boat rocks me nearly nauseous in the bobbing motions
My excitement builds as I photograph a variety of species
Fish would breach the surface, birds would swoop and dive
I even saw a whale
Distinguishable by tail
We slowed down for a better look at century-old tortugas
Circled round a mating pair, voyeurs to procreation
An engine boom and acceleration meant there was a bite
Alberto took the rod yet handed it to my party
The Mahi-Mahi swam and pulled with all its mortal strength
Its yellowish body shining and shimmering while it leapt
Our captain unsheathed an instrument for pulling the fish aboard
A candy cane shaped hook with a fine blade ending the curve
Impaled the marine dweller, pinned his body to the deck
It flopped about violently seeming to spill blood by the gallon
I found the creature’s face to be both hideous and handsome
A long bony bridge protruded from its forehead
Here, Alberto beat the beast to death with a wooden bat
It died with dignity
Fed a family
I thank the sea
For this gift

When I was a kid, and my family would complete puzzles
Together
I always wanted to be the one to put the last piece in
Alone
So I would steal it, then hide it
And forget where it was
Making sure no one had the privilege
Including me

What
A little
*******

I come-to from a nightmare, full of dark detail
But already slipping like sand through my hands
Walking down Charlotte street past stacked apartments
Shouts from afar past the rows of parked cars
A man whose face is now a blur makes me a promise
“*******, I’ll **** you”
Call the police, no answer, no help, no reassurance
Cut to a scene in an empty hallway, sensing his presence
My face is badly mangled and drips from lacerations

Fear and helplessness are real emotions
Even during REM cycles
I woke screaming and clutching my face
Still unsafe

Went to visit grandparents, decided I never want to be old
I have trouble keeping up as it is:
Technology is too fast paced
Phones are too small (and who needs one when they’re seven?)
Movies have too many explosions
All my music is from at least twenty years ago

While I’m planning my eternal youth I forget I take up space
I feel four hard smacks on the rear
Apparently I was blocking an elderly woman’s wheels
“Sorry for the love tap, you were in the way”
I wasn’t sure how to feel
A bit violated perhaps
It might have been, well, kind of nice
If she didn’t predate Christ

For lunch we sat with a kind couple
Marjorie and Phil
She wore all brown, with a necklace of whittled wooden giraffes
He was dressed like a lumberjack, pants mid-torso, flood-ready
We talked about a few things…
Mahler symphonies, Latin, obscure mountain villages
Both of them seemed perfectly content
You know, old age doesn’t seem so bad
As long as you have someone to share it with

I am an incredibly wealthy man
I value each second, each thought and breath and beat
Well beyond any man-made measures
My brief years outweigh all currency of current economies
Interpretations can at times make me sublimate and evaporate
Occupy any two spaces as I see fit
Falling up and making fool of constant ‘c’ in practice
My sorrow has created a vast void
Which when reversed
Is towering
I am a pillar, an obelisk
Altitudinous shrine to my own embryonic ego
Somehow I will save the world
Yes, I am that naïve

I was so tired that I fell asleep with my jacket and jeans on
Fever spiked, woke up at 3 AM sharp
Drenched in a cold sweat and clammy to the touch
A night terror that returned me to childhood with its hallucinations
Starts with the distortion of size through warped dimensions
The knowledge required to become a skilled piano player
So vast that it expands and fills the room around me
I am crushed and suffocated, claustrophobic in the company of giants
My thoughts erupt
Someone saying something somewhere
Shaking, sweating
Even silence shouts at me I can’t control anything
I watch myself as I move in fast-forward, possessed
Voices in my head blast lunatic symphonies
Even the air around me swells to dangerous proportions
Can’t sit still, dying, I am alone and become a spirit
The physical realm long ago abandoned me on a stranger’s doorstep
Condemned to be a psychotic loner in a post-apocalyptic world
Dead and decayed from nuclear holocaust and I as its final freak
Beg for an end to the raving, burning, ringing and crushing forces
A phone call is made to my love and reality anchor
I stutter through my symptoms, regain some control
With her advice I find some calm and sleepwalk downstairs for water
The vending machine is deceased for the night
No favors
Just my luck

I have
A million
Or
More
Things
That I need
To say
To you
Before I die
But I’m not going
To say
A
Single
****
One

I stole from you and you never found out
You ripped my hat so you sewed it back
And bought me a new one
Fitted (hid it in my locker)
You made fun of me as a young child when I spoke to myself
I decided with you to treat each day as new
You lied to me and told me fantastic tales of hidden caves
I defended you from hungry wolves when you met with the masses
You told me you loved me before you met me
I broke your favorite toys
I carry all of your secrets like Atlas against the Earth
You helped break my hand and now we don’t speak
You taught me how to breathe music and be rhythm
I wrote you a poem but you didn’t seem to care
I would meet you late at night in the cut-through by the river
You brought me everything you had as a gift when I was sick
I used to make you laugh in class with every word I said
You gave me a drawing that you spent hours on
I have always looked up to you and not-so-stealthily idolized
You make me really, truly, irrefutably happy
I fell asleep on the highway driving home after caring for you
You saw me dying but you laughed and kicked me instead
I have my fondest recollections about your bounds and welcoming waves
For the longest time you were the outlet for a developing imagination

We pulled over against the snow bank
Mid-journey to band practice
On a one way street
Allowing traffic flow
A white van passed us by
With a behemoth packed inside
Mess in excessive circus dress
Outfit of a clown
Spotted red and yellow gown
Round nose and everything
Like the killer from “It”
Next to him was another
Man
With
Down’s
Syndrome
The pair stared at us like we had
Two heads
Glared, really…
Then they peeled off
And we jammed

Some days I feel like misshapen clay
A child’s inept attempt at sculpting a shoddy piece of pottery
I crack in the glaze phase never attain proper consistency
Clearly covered in artisan fingerprints that were poorly masked
I live a lifetime as a bowl, barely holding water
Raising as my own planted seeds who grow too big for me
As trees
I occupy a dusty desktop where I am keeper of an arsenal
Of pens
Enveloped in now-dried pigment from early school art class
One day, I am accidentally elbowed off of the kitchen counter
And fall to the floor
Shatter into fragments
Bits and morsels
Chunks and crumbs
Shards of misshapen clay

You melt my stress like
The first hit
Or
A solid set of pushups
An honest act of altruism
Seen or completed
(One thing I am remarkably good at without even trying is
Being kind of big so
I’ve been pushing cars out all winter, you should try it)
You interrupt my thoughts
Even when I’m telling a story and
That’s impressive
Knowing me
I’m known to create soundscapes with the echoes in my dungeon mind
Lonely compositions
Full volume but drowned out by you
Sometimes I become completely detached
To any idea I’ve had or action I’ve committed
But you bombard me with the beauty of mistakes
And the merit of being proud
Catch me slithering into my hole
Stomp on my tail and drag me into the light
You make me transparent but
I love it
To the universe, I am murky
For you
I am clean

Several little junkies, tweaking in a drug house
One was too ambitious and shot a lethal dose
His friends left him unconscious, hurried with their stash
Quickly numbed so cops would find no evidence of dope
Only when every spoon was cooked did they call for any aid
Kept him awake as best they could, sleep meaning death
The unspoken creed to save yourself from trouble first
Addicts and fiends from all over envied his potent product
Several junkies, all waiting to die

Today I stared straight into the sun
But I felt no warmth
No reassuring gravitational pull
No light of day
Merely ultraviolet radiation
Ionized particles of the solar wind
Cancer of the skin
Burnt flesh and not an attractive tan
The inevitable burst and the destruction of Earth
Years after my demise
Blindness looms for spotted eyes
And the stubborn who cannot avert their gaze

She was a mixture of red and blue
Combined before violet ensues
Awfully thin for such a warrior heart
Exchanges scraped the ocean floor from the start
Parents that lived for getting high
Father left her by now-sober mother’s side
Aimed to please, affection needs, she looked for other’s best
But found the rest
Men can fake charm and kindness for selfish sake
Target women who were overlooked and dangerous attraction make
Convince that they are necessary, isolate and break all ties
Slip chains in women’s drinks and let hidden hate thrive in lies
My shackled friend was weaker then though now you’d never know
She broke free from abuse of *** and beatings made her grow
Her skin is thick, her thoughts are quick, and any pain she can endure
I am so proud of you, flowered friend of fiery azure
Burn your hurt to ash

You have a presence that shakes the air around you
And I imagine everywhere you go
Subtle music is beautifully vibrating
Sometimes
I
Can
Hear
It
Slow and mournful
You make the song that
I want to listen to at my
Funeral
From above
Weeping strings fade to black

For every good thing I’ve ever done
I must have done at least
Twelve bad things
I hope God
Or
Whoever
Doesn’t think in ratios
But in intentions

It's Strange to think
How things will change
Tomorrow doesn't smell
Like yesterday
And things I love
Will start to fade
While others will follow
To the grave
And seasons will change
The things I crave
I fear will never be the same
What I believe
You may find strange
Yet the answers might linger
With some for days
And my life will leave
The surface grazed
As I often failed
And so remains
Years and years
Of years unscathed
And who will teach
My son to behave?
Time went and came
And I its slave
The mystery
I felt in waves
Learned less in a lifetime
Than in a day
It's strange to think
How things will change
So go on, now,
Be on your way
And forget not
To always pray
For life is still waiting
Let your path go Astray
There's still so much to see

Northward bound with hound in circle round
In a neighborhood known as home
We climbed a hill, and he’s a puppy still
So he pulled me the whole way down
We saw a lit, empty vehicle in a driveway, sitting idle
Traversed a cloud of fog through narrow haunted lane
Heard creatures roaming out of sight, taunting those in the light
A shadowy silhouette ahead of us darted out of range
Then came the rain
Gentle like a kiss
I removed my cloaking hood for I didn’t want to miss
Precipitation in spring is a wonderful thing
And livens even the darkest of moods
I often store parts of myself in the tangible
And this walk filled with the familiar was dense
Once all I knew, now so distant in time
I have come to spread myself so thin
I wish some days that I could gather and save for the duration
Each trace of existence and instant of life
Yet the scattering will continue as more memories form
The mound of me divided into clumps of dirt and dust
Like the lining on the floor as I enter the basement
To hang my coat
And the leash
And think
Everybody dies

I was born a magnet
Capable of ******* shrapnel shards
Out of the aching bodies around me
Heat-seeking pain pieces reach me with a purpose
To be transformed into tolerable troubles
Eased by a new outlook and positive spin
Stories need to be told, so strongly so
That at times they burst out unplanned
I carry them like Giles Corey
Demanding more weight
For other’s sake
Lives can be changed if you set out
With the conscious ambition to do so

The porch light barely illuminates the overflowing ashtray
Moon, abandoned home, smokestack, alleys: view
Orderly circles of leaking lunar spectrum serve as steady sight
Otherwise torn by my mouth like a hooked fish to the angler-night
The streets are full of holes like the stories of conspirators
Kitten of gender nondescript plays in the corner, jubilant
Clouds pass and pay no mind, don’t associate with our kind
I hope she doesn’t find me foolish when I interject
Approached by vendor of the thieving sort with stolen radio offered cheap
Promised to turn potential customers his way as I planned retreat
A character amongst graffiti and gritty blacktop, the type I always meet
Nobody waited for us as we signaled from the crosswalk
Back to the quarters, friend needs a ******
Try to concentrate and write despite the bang on the walls
Distraction from *** I’m not having; she’s a screamer
Dark brewed beer is a bitter taste for bedtime

I missed you before we ever met
And dread the parting words
You were the pawn shop for my trinkets and baggage
Assigning palpable worth to the unimportant history
One man’s trash and tragedy
Is another man’s happiness attained
I traded my pain for gold
You’re the best story I ever told

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

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

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

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

I'm wide awake
The TV tells me why I place no bets
The forecast tells me the storm is here
But it doesn't pose a threat
So I listen while I watch outside
Not surprised
My TV lied
The wind was strong enough to rip the morals out of men

The people ran for shelter
And the rain kept coming harder
This storm we found upon ourselves
Turned rebels into martyrs
They tried to somehow wait it out
They hoped it would subside
We saw the storm from miles away
And all we did was hide
I'm wide awake
The storm is worse and somehow I'm not surprised
The forecast seems to have noticed, too,
I hear they changed their minds
The day we decided it wasn't worth fighting
Something in us died
Someone said questions can't be answered
Well someone also lied
As the people began to worry, they asked God what should they do
And somehow all I cared about was wondering who he prayed to

In our world,
Dogs will learn to love their cages
And forget they were ever free
In our vacuum
Pigs of war and God
Will fall at equal speed

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

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

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

You are the only woman who could fill
One of my notebooks
In a run-on-sentence from cover to cover
And still demand several sequels to ever be complete
It’s like when you know a movie is your favorite
Because it doesn’t get boring after a million viewings and
Knowing every line is the best part
You bring an ironic smile to my face every time
I think of hand cramps or dead pens or insomnia pangs
Worth the stiff muscles, you hardly waste the paper
And I would rather describe the face of morning I have loved
Than propose likeness with any concept I could dream
In endless possibilities and with resources unlimited
I would never find your equal, so why bother

My happy is a sneaky state with the tendency to lie
Directly: You will feel like this tomorrow
Or by
Omission: Positive hindsight
My happy, I have found, doesn’t captain a galleon in a bottle
Or dwell in a smog cloud at the cherry tip of hand-rolled disappointment
Filling an empty room with cancerous nostalgia
It doesn’t have a neatly labeled treasure map like they make you think in school
You can’t earn it, buy it, sell it or even steal it
My happy doesn’t taste like nectar or dye my mouth blue
It isn’t linear or logical or convenient or fair
Sometimes I forget about it altogether
I hope it isn’t Haley’s comet with one chance and only that
I try not to talk about things I don’t understand
But this has been a recurring issue
So far my happy appears to burn at fourfiftyone
Mate for life, and yet
Forget its own face like a spinster in a house with broken mirrors
Elusive friend of mine, my happy and I
Have shared a wonderful affair though the rendezvous were scarce
I have learned to live without her and make meaning from her ghost
It is when every light on the surface dies that the stars and moon shine most

We no longer acknowledge each other’s eyes
Or speak unless addressed explicitly
But our energy reaches like wild tentacles, grasping to be mutual once more
Tangles like vines or still-learning shoe strings
Strangles me but sympathizes in the final few when I get sky-face
I heard your laugh from behind your back and knew I would
Never cause it
Again
It surged through me like an electric shock, not
A finger in the outlet, more like a toaster bath
I have never found currents to be painful, just warm
Even as my limbs fell limp from voltage
Your complexion kept me calm down to my copper core
Now each indication of your amusement ****** me, emptying weary veins
Acupuncture from untrained hands, reckless medicine
I never thought you would be my nerve damage
Chronic companion, my endorphins still have your toxic taste

I want to go back and witness the creation of the first mirror
So I can experience the invention of vanity
My ancestors hunted by hand and sharpened tool
Today I shop from an assortment of pre-made fatty meats
Love letters used to travel by horseback to the patient hopefuls
When my text message to my girlfriend is too slow, I get ******
Most of the casualties in war came from infection
The hospital is a ten minute drive in heavy traffic
A lifelong journey across the globe
Can be done in a day by plane
The heavens used to inspire; a mighty muse
Now most stars have names
I want to go back and witness Goddard and the Wright brothers
So I can watch them shrink the Earth with their imaginations
Gravity began as a headache, therapy as a ******* addiction
God as the human need for comfort, lysergic acid as mind control
Though appreciative of all that has been done
And the work that has yet to be completed by moving man
I have difficulty with the label
“Progress”
People have always been and always will be superbly flawed
Across cultures, continents
And most of all
Time

She slapped me across the face and said
I’m never speaking to you again
Then she kissed my still rosy-raw handprint cheek
And kept me up all night
Tells me in one ear that I’m special
Painstakingly chosen, gifted to speak unique
In the other ear I hear about all the others she treats the same
Her visits and her calls are haphazard and irregular
I drop what I’m doing to channel her gospel
Which later reads insane secular
Sometimes inspiration is hallucinations are inspiring
The weight I wrapped in tender embrace no more with morning ‘riving
Each time she leaves me with a stuffy mass of lines
A messy page that she lets me keep for life, and before
I even finish reading, she’s out the door and with
Another I don’t even
Know if she’s
Ever coming
Back

I never got what I should find
In essays and equations
Secretly, we’d always hoped
There’d be another way
We burned our books
As we decided
We’d learn right in our garden
And so we worked against the sun
Building our fortress of better days
Knowing every seed we planted
Could someday teach us Everything