A man who:
Takes pictures of himself
Everyday
Won’t have the time for you

A man who:
Leaves love notes on
Napkins
Underneath your coffee cup
Will love you when
You have nothing

A man who:
Declares he’s a great father
For all to see
Really
Truly
Isn’t

A man who:
Tells his children
Over the phone
Next to their bed
Kisses them good night
Where no one can see or hear
Truly is
A decent man

A man who:
Doesn’t make promises
But shows over
Time
His worth
His character
Is someone to know

A man who:
Makes mistakes
But tries his damndest
To make amends
May not see
Eye to eye
With all
But
Respects the process
Of understanding
Each other

A man who:
Writes poetry anonymously
Posts it for the world to
See
Is an enigma

Just know...
He’s had lives & loves before you
Remember that when the bricklayer or the mechanic
Asks for your hand
You’ll receive one flower
Instead of a dozen roses
Picked on his way home
Handwritten notes in your shoes
Instead of Hallmark greetings
Elaborate dinners cooked by him
Where he said he’d clean
Afterwards
But didn’t
Spur of the moment
Road trips
Instead of planned vacations
The opening of windows
For the springtime thunderstorms
Listening to the beat of his heart
While the rain drops
Drip
Drip
I
N
T
O
The drain
He’ll write you with jazz playing
Wine in his bottle
Records in his head
Absorbing you into his world
And if he dies before you
And you bury him
And you mourn over him
Lasting for years
Remember his flower
His notes written just for you
And if you see his ghost
Haunting you
Then the Poet
Has fallen forever for
...You...

The truth about poets
Is
They’re not all alike
Some are derelicts
Scalawags
Lovers
Sisters
Some say they’re writers
Instead of Poet
For they know what that puts
Into the minds of others
Romantic
Lethargic
Gypsy
Some will never write novels
Poems are their Ulysses
Their ‘Love in the Time Of Cholera
Some are sad
Withdrawn
Choose to live there
While some poets
Use their words
To claw their way out
Some have fallen out of love
&
Want someone
ANYONE
to listen
While some have fallen in
the deepest ocean
&
Want to tell the world
What this man
This woman
Means to them

Most write their verses
Alone
Some at midnight
Some at sunrise
Some with coffee
Most with bottles

Most will never see the reaction
Of many
Will never hear
‘I like that...’

And most don’t want to be famous
Or sometimes heard
We
Just want to be
Ourselves

I’ve dug myself so deep a hole
In this life
That I have no choice
But to write my way
Out of it…

One **** line of poetry
After another…

On some days it won’t
Need tending to
We can watch the smoke
Billow & Reach
To the sky
Embers mixed with night

Other days it’ll be at the end
Of our wick
And it’ll seem like it’s dying
Just a whisper of light
We won’t like those days
But we’ll get through them
We always do

And some days will have
Blindness
Darkness
And we’ll need to feel it
Each other
Closer
‘Come warm yourself...’

But the best days
Will be when it seems
Like the world is alight
By our love
&
I’ll kiss every inch of your
Cindered
Skin
Wanting to be burnt
Alongside you

And hell won’t be of any surprise
Because I’d have been
With you...

Don’t ever be the doormat
To somebody else’s life
Whenever it’s convenient
For them

Doormats are used to
Wipe your feet
From **** and mud
And stay just on
The outside of the house

Never to be inside
Remember that

At 10pm
We lie with naked skin
Together
Blue from the moon
She tells me
He yelled at her
Threw stuff at her on
Tuesday
‘I told him that he just threw away
‘All of his ‘I Love Yous...’
She says
As she gets up
Walks to her clothes
‘So he’s at zero?’
I ask
She nods yes
&
Comes over for a kiss
&
It’s passionate
&
I whisper in her ear
What she doesn’t want to hear
Leaves with tears
He gets off at
Midnight
And it’s
1-0
Me

After the Darkness has left...
There should be enough light
For the both of us.

A single thread to warm
Enough strength to carry
Into the sunrise

We can make it
One more day
Together

I have writer’s block

Not in the sense that you
Think it means
Because I could write all day
About her virtues
Her beauty
Her eloquence
Her
&
Nothing but

Only
All the beautiful words
&
Phrases in the world
Put together
Couldn’t make her
HER
materialize in front of me

So I block it out
The only way a writer knows how

By writing it down

It’s a curse

I swear everybody wants to call
Somebody
Their Valentine today
At least for 20-30 minutes

‘Hey...just seeing how you’re doing. Happy Valentine’s Day. Remember me? Got any big plans tonight?’

If you know the mechanism
And you’ve survived all
These years
I
Applaud you

Men have it in small doses
Of rage
Barroom fights
Or when someone harms
One of their children
Understandable
Mechanism

I’ve seen & felt
The mechanism
3 or 4
Times in my existence

Where her eyes turn
Black as night
Like a shark
Ready to devour

Stabbed my food
‘I DONTWANNAPLAYRIGHTNOW!!!!!!!’

Tried running me over with the car
Threw a baseball at me from 3 feet away

Knives
Guns
If they were near
I probably wouldn’t be here

When you have that
Mechanism
You can shut off
Consequence
And the space in front
Of you
Becomes the most
Violent space
On earth

It’s not till you become an adult
That you reflect on the ******
Adults of your youth
Waiting on our dad in the car
As he attends his AA and court ordered Domestic Violence class
And he comes out and lights a cigarette and we have to wait another 5 minutes
He must’ve been mid 30s then

Or my aunt
She never worked
Had 13 cats, a hallway and
House full of stuff
We’d go by and there was a
Path to get to her bed
The rest was trash
Self help books and
A dozen or so roaches
Self helping themselves to
Her leftover Twinkies
She must’ve been in her
Early 40s then

Or my uncle
Who we’d tag along with
Cause he was a free babysitter
And he’d collect his unemployment check
Take out a little pipe and
**** on it and blow the smoke
Out the window
&
Look at the jobs that were
Offered to him
‘Oh **** that...’
He was fond of saying
I’m guessing he was in
His late 20s then
Never really holding down
Any job

And now I’m an adult
Working 70-75 hours a week
At a **** job
With a **** boss
And a **** ex
Who just ***** all over everything
I do
Maybe if I had beat my kids in a
Drunken stupor
Or allowed myself to be sad
To let the roaches in
Or was perpetually high all
The time
I’d have time for metaphors
But I don’t
I’m raw
My words are too

And I wonder what my young ones
Will say 30 years from now
When they’re adults...

I am...
The living breathing
Cigarette smoke
Centrifugal mud
And cheap drinks
Made up of $10 wines
With no opener
But alas
I had a $150 bottle once
Along with a $3 can as a chaser
Only because I know
Of no other language
To speak
No other blanket
To put around me
Bad kisses
With bad teeth
Cigarette smoke
No other
My dear sweet love
Power over

The most beautiful compliment
I’ve ever received
Was when she showed me
My words
Tattooed
Upon a body that I no longer
Called home

It’s okay to ruin someone
With love
It’s never okay to ruin
Their trust
In people

If she says it first
Believe her
Ruin her with love

All those wanting your
Attention

Let them fall into the abyss
Ruin her with love

Not just flowers
But everlasting
Devotion
&
Compromise

Dedicate with impunity
Kiss her little toe
Let you be her drug of choice

ruin her with love

Cry with her
Argue with her
Make up for days
Hide things for her heart to find

RUIN HER WITH LOVE

And if you can’t do that
Then leave her where you
Found her...

Plainly...as best as I can remember
My grandmother
With her grandmother hands
Her grandmother
Way
.....
As we walked
So young as I was
Trailing behind
Mid afternoon sun
Up in the sky
So bright
So yellow
.....
Then without a cloud in the sky
It began to rain
Small drops
Big drops
Little drops
,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,
....
..
.
Then none

grandma why did it rain without clouds?

Grandmother stopped her walk
Turned around and looked down

because the sun can be sad too

The sun can be sad too

Tell you I’m afraid of heights
Dont look down
You say
Inch by inch
Out on the ledge
Wind is whipping
Peek my eyes open
‘No! No! I can’t!’
I say
im right here
Take my hand
Into yours
So warm
i love us
And I love us too
A
N
D
W
E
J
U
M
P
O
F
F
The ledge
Together
And on the way down
You pull me closer
Whisper
ive got you it’ll be ok
A
L
L
T
H
E
W
A
Y
D
O
W
N

Single at 40
Welcome to the lurid world
Monica
Kay
Lecia
‘It’s pronounced Leesha’
She says
FWB
Pictures
Texts
‘Can you come over now?’
Veronica
Ginny
Stacy
38
32
35
41
29
All ages
Who’s number is that?
‘What are you doing right now?’
NSA
‘You want to go to a movie sometime?’ I ask.
She looks at me funny
‘I don’t have time for a movie. Same time tomorrow?’

I have just one question for all:
Where were you when I was 17?!

In All sincerety
Modesty
Accolades
And so on so forth

I hope you find a singular
Voice
Underneath all that rubble
Of life
That single
Spark in the forest
That brings it all down
The gold brick
In the Great Wall
Titanium pebble
In the Saharas
Extinct prehistoric fish
Swimming freely in the
Aegean
I hope you find
Your voice
Your stature
Your lungs
Your foothold
Amongst the selfish selfies
The boss
The Instafaces
Greedy
Nonchalants
Unenigmatic
Drunkards and Takeaways
You’ll know them
You’ll break Bread with them
You’ll dance with them
When you’re younger
Know when to get up from
The table
And feast upon yourself

Wars have a way of turning men
Into poets who thought they would survive to write about it...

Took the
PAST
&
PRESENT
doused it
All of it
Stood back
Two steps
Three
Dropped match
Turned around
Walked away

Closed eyes
Could feel the burn against
My back
Then a hand
Your hand
Walked me through
The Darkness
Of
The
FUTURE

So often at times we
Become preoccupied with
Self improvement
Self examination
Self awareness
Maintaining
What others think of us

That we forget that there
Are those willing
To run into battles with us
Spread warpaint
Across our faces
To hold us in our nightmares
But not to wake us
Cause they know we need it
To know
They’ll be there at
First light
Ready sword
Slaying the demons
Of our past
&
Those currently tormenting
Our present

Don’t ever try to cage
A free soul…

They’ll eventually escape…

And you’ll never hear from them
Ever again…

I’d make you wail every morning
If I could
Put your tears in my coffee
To have you inside me all day

Like your scent on your pillow
Inside of your coat
Towel

Your Black Ocean swallows me whole every single day

I begged, pleaded, with the above
To relieve me this
From you
Your ******* dark lipstick
And now I enjoy my imprisonment of you
This chamber of you
I find myself in

Or shall I say lost?

Leave me here forever
It’s all I have
It’s all I want

Lost in You
Lost in Us

Do you look to the South
The same way I look to the North
When I think of you?

One of the most wonderful things about life is discovering that the cause
&
cure
For that ache in your heart
Are one in the same

There is no hole
To crawl under...
No cave from which
To escape and dwell
In peace...
No desert to traverse
By which a tranquil
Oasis resides...
No rainstorm heavy
Enough to wash away...
Not enough words
To form sad poems
In requiem...
To dispel
To dispatch
To run the lengths
To sleep in relative quiet
Without waking in tears...
Once
You’ve lost
A Beautiful Love

There’s an empty space where
Your heart had it’s nest
Fly away it has gone
My arms cold
Your side to never be made
Again

There’s an empty space where
Your words once had a home
Now just a blank piece of paper
Ruins of cities we built
White canvas
I’ll never return to

There’s an empty space where
There once was a girl and a boy

There’s an empty space where
There once was a raging current
With all the fishes of the sea
Where I float upon it now
Waiting
For the piranha
To come and feast upon my
Pain

Where there once was sunshine
Now there is a curtain of thunderstorms

Where there once was happiness
Now there is infinite sadness

Where there once was flowing
Beautiful words that matched
You
Now there is nothing
&
You
Are
No longer
my world

My Words are my own
Now
You don’t have those rights
To see what I’m writing
Anymore

‘You’re lucky...’
I told her
‘Why am I lucky?’
She asked

‘You’re lucky the stars are far out of reach...because if they weren’t, I’d bring one out of the nightsky
everynight...just for you...’

I don’t miss you
Anymore...

I miss us
And what could have
Been...

An officer is
Educated in war
Combat
Conducive to Compassion
Leaders among men
Knows even when he doesn’t
Delegated
&
Dedicated
To the cause

The dead were many
On this side
And on theirs
One stood out to the
Officer
As his enlisted ripped
Toiled
&
Dismembered
His lifeless
Body

Arm broken
Skin under his nails
Riddled with bullets
Innumerable number
Of the officer’s own
Around this enemy soldier
Face covered in blood
The officer wanted to know
Why

Then it came out
The Letter
Written by him that morning
The officer unfolded

‘By the time you read this it’ll be a week until you are my Mrs., my have and to hold...my forever entrenched...’

The officer folded it neatly
Placed it back where it fell
&
Ordered his men to clean the
Soldier
As if he were his own
Who fought
Valiantly
Not to leave this world
If
Only
For
Love

‘I wish we could all fight for a love as beautiful as this...’

I recognize this vast
Sensuous sea
I find myself in
Been here before
Swimming paradox
Within myself
Those seas were
Black then
The only color
Was the reflection
Of
The Moon
Now I see it differently
Hues of green
Sunrises
Bring about orange
Waves of red
Yellow
Fishes I never noticed
Salty sprays
Upon my lips
In purple
And blue
Sea horses
Sea turtles
The hammerhead
I see it all now
A storm
Ahead
Lightning reflects
Upon the water
Like
God
Dripping mercury
Into the water