If one is inert
And ten is a breakthrough
You and I, in concert,
Add to a beautiful two.

If red is progress
And yellow is obscene
Us two, coalesced,
Somehow craft a verdant green.

With the earth above
And the sky below
I’d make a pretty dove
And you a peaceful doe.

A lovely tree, so carefree,
In serene tranquility
With it I would spend my night,
And let come whatever might

Red-yellow leaves, sparsely wreathed,
Life into the air it breathes
Dying breaths, it pays a price
Gives its solemn sacrifice

It’s not fair, you’ll soon be bare,
Most will not even care,
At least for now, your leaves so bright
Make for such an enviable sight.

I’ll be your Dracula,
You know all I’ll need is your heart.
You be the wicked witch,
All you will need is a hooked nose,
‘Cause you already cast your spell on me!

Rest your bones, shut your eyes
You have earned this worthy prize
Sweet relief, a deep sleep
Twelve hours pass, now repeat
Everything’s uphill
And likely always will
Your laments avow
You have all the time you needed now
Dream of all that may have been
Never get back up again

Just one, red rose,
Red lips, cute nose,
A smile, bright eyes,
An hour, time flies,
Dancing, the rain,
Car drive, fast lane,
Forget, the time,
Useless, bad rhymes,
A drink, or two-
No, never that few-
The future, the past,
The outcasts, outlast.

If you’d like me to,
I would change my world view,
I’d lift back up the veil,
And learn to see in Braille,
I would cut out my tongue
And leave some songs unsung,
I’d go to bed at a reasonable hour
And adopt some face that isn’t sour,
I’d work a nine to five like the best of them
Till the lights inside go dim,
Get a little overtime,
Follow the established paradigm,
It’s not so big a deal,
So I will make no appeal,
I’ll put on a suit and tie
And wait my turn to die.

When you realize you’ll never seize the day,
Never have the right things to say,
Your judgments are always erroneous,
You’re not Hamlet, but Polonius.
Though you know that all things must end,
It doesn’t spur your torments to mend,
A dutiful advisor,
Who never gets wiser.
It must be so serene
Never having thought you might have been-
“Neither a borrower nor lender be”;
I say, yet fear both apply to me.
“To thine own self be true”;
ah! Long ago, I missed that cue-
And all do agree,
The audience doesn’t need, my soliloquy.
Under all this weight so crushing
And the envy to just feel nothing,
This act’s end, now I’m certain:
I’ll die off stage, behind a curtain.

A name follows you-
Even when you’re made anew.
Neither can you leave your face,
Or entirely forget your birthplace;
We must have done some misdeed,
In a past life, indeed,
Because we’re of a lower caste,
Doomed iconoclasts,
Fighting for nothing,
And eternally suffering.
And when we’ve had enough of it,
Enough of being misfits,
When we realize it was designed this way,
And that there is no “someday”,
Then we’ll venture six feet underground,
To tear a heaven down.

Take it as a compliment
Branded heretical.
Bring on the pyre,
And set it afire;
When they resort to
Crucifixion
You’ll know you have the right
Convictions

There’s a secret path to walk
A language that nobody talks
A different world to see
Another way to be
Irrefutably

The past is not defining,
And the future’s a distraction;
So living here and now,
Is such a prudent action.

When others look into my eyes
They see a thing to despise
I do not know what they see,
I wish they would just see me

I love America
But sometimes I hate the U.S.A.
How do you spin,
Blocking airways?
Two party system;Our United States,
Couldn’t give better delegates?
And I despise all of the
Idol Worship,
Trickle-down culture,
Your distractions, weapons. Change;
not an endless hunt for newer things.
When Patriotism Trumps
Common Sense,
1776,
And we Masquerade our Liberty
Confined in an invisible pillory,
And you accrue,
While we make do,
At this point, if you are asking me,
Then yes, I would prefer shared misery
To your “equal opportunity.”

Truth is found when one can
Reconcile the irreconcilable
That’s why it’s so elusive
And Illusive
Because you can’t,not completely,
At least not humanity,
Paradoxes obscure, but also vindicate,
The all
And everything.
And creation is a scientist
And we are its Petri dish,
And creation is a mystic,
And we are its parish.

Small steps,
Cover more ground.

Quiet voices,
Make more sound.

Peaceful weapons,
Draw more blood.

Ten million drops,
Unleash a flood.

Ask yourself why you doubt,
Why you fear and cast about.
You are heading the right way,
Who cares what others say?
You have no concerns to allay.

What will be will be,
All wisdoms do agree;
Like a lion and a roar,
A soldier in a war,
You will do what you are made for.

“I am not afraid; I was born to do this”,
Your actions are not remiss,
Nor for nothing,
But for everything:
A singular meaning.

Write, and do it well,
And love until your death knell.
Mind your well-being,
Bitterness is unbecoming,
The world is on the upswing.

It’s so plain to see,
Just how you will regress,
How else could it be?
Living in that excess.
And in the scorching heat
You’ll be left dried out,
I bet you’ll overheat,
Consumed by all that doubt.

Locked away, in tower grey,
The crime of innocence;
And in the streets, disarray,
Observed from the distance
Of a somber penance:
A sinister interplay.

Emerson and Fuller,
Thoreau and Whitman,
Again and again, it has been written:
Nothing ever ends, death is no
Impasse;
So when you’re gone we’ll look for you,
In our Leaves Of Grass.

You have everything to gain,
I can testify,
When you cast away disdain
And let the ego die

This is where our course had led:
On your bed,
In my head,
Your errant thoughts were read:
Why is it we so dread
Joining ranks with deathless dead
When they their mortal cares have fled?:
These thoughts you gave to me unsaid
As our blood was shed
Beautiful, crimson red:
To new horizons tread

I died.
Old and weathered by the sun
  Knowing that my race was run
   I was not contrite,
    I knew my time was finite
     But my story was told,
      And eventually I grew old
     A kind reality,
    Hopefully awaiting me,
   I did not know what my life was to be worth
  To a new and unknown earth
Kicking and screaming
I was born.

In their beauty, an unparalleled race
From a higher, supernatural place,
Driven to hidden, underground refuge
When mans’ cynical wars the earth deluged-
Leaving only the slightest, unclear trace.

They knew no pain, nor any suffering
And the world is darker from their leaving
And we are left to pick up the pieces,
While our own ambivalence increases,
Seeking to find a singular meaning.

You may call it naive wish fulfillment,
But I will search for reconcilement.
I will upturn the soil and the roots,
Until I may procure some lasting truce
Make amends for Ill-judged revilement

And then mankind again will have a guide
Some holy beings to gift us back our pride
What a dream, to again have dignity
To direct our kind to benignity
So we may be pulled back from the wayside

It’s all very romantic, isn’t it?
That some saviors will see us fit.
It takes the blame off us,
Makes our apathy superfluous,
Proves we are not hypocrites.

But maybe we should fix our own mistakes,
Go outside and clean our own ******* lakes,
Stop hiding behind flowery language and care
Waiting for a savior when they are rare,
Before our zeal irreversibly breaks.

I want to live in an age of letters
Of horse-carriages and cobbled roads
Maybe I glorify the past too much
But nowadays it seems we’re always in a rush

Blood is thicker than water,
But blood dries and crusts up and stains
And inevitably turns a dull brown,
While water flows forever
And wipes the stains away,
And when it dries it’s only a matter of time
Until it rains again!

It’s true, I’ve thought it
Through,
It isn’t right to feel this blue-
You told me too, you always
Knew
I shouldn’t have thought the world of
You

I don’t want to put off living
And I don’t want to put off experience
I want to have everything life can give me
Be everything I can be
And I’m real sorry you don’t know the difference
Between being alive and simply existing
Hide these thoughts behind worthless rhymes
They say a coward dies many times
So you keep your eyes straight ahead
I want to die only when I’m dead

If we can never sail the ocean
We’ll still dream of the sea;
all have their own notion,
Of what it means to be free.

Feeling warm again:
Clouds, making way for fresh light;
wheels will turn themselves

Patiently waiting
There, in the next world, where you
See all coming things.

A simple dream
Where decency was found:
The low were raised to high esteem
And the wealth was spread around

I had an interest in archaeology,
Sorting truth from lie,
‘Til I realized those remains,
Will someday be you and I.

A simple solution
To all the world’s problems-
Have you tried turning it
Off and on again?

Colorblind, you see in mournful grey
You speak of all you rue,
Commiserating, I try to say
For you I’d paint the skies blue.

You think yourself invisible
But you are heard, you are seen
Know your fears are divisible
Try and let the grass be green

Quiet your incessant mind
Erase everything they said
Think of all your ties that bind
And don’t let your blood run so red

I haven’t the strength
To be the change I’d like to see
I have only just enough
To simply just be me
These shoulders were not made to bear
All the burdens of the earth
Only room for my own trials
Ordained from my birth
It might be selfish
But it has to be this way
Otherwise I’d crumble
Or else be spirited away

Coal dust, pressure-diamond,
Blue men, horse people,
Pretend we’re Cincinnati-an
Some old Baptist steeple
Appalachia,dying slowly
Educashion, all flunk
Accent, speaking drolly
Moonshine whiskey drunk
Class traitor, transgression
Fly-over, fat food
Pensions, Matt Bevin
Impertinent, cancer brood
Capricious, whimsy seasons
Quaint house, rusted down
Leave, many reasons
Stay, familiar town

Take this pain, as a token
To trust the heart, is to be broken
The mind alone, sets you in motion

Everyone you ever knew
Is really just a part of you.

There’s still places, I’d like to see,
People I’d still really like to
be,

A hundredth chance; in theory,
I really love
humanity,

But there’s a voice, in my head,
And it says everyone wants you
dead,

It doesn’t matter, where you have
been,
Nobody gets to go home
again,

So what’s the point, no one will
tell,
They’d rather see you live in
hell

If you raised those downcast eyes
And opened up your mind
You would quickly realize
You were one of a kind

A heart lying cold and numb, black to its core,
It was so lucky I had a thousand more
Tucked away in a little drawer
Ready for when I needed more
So, not that I’m keeping score
But each time pain knocks at my door
Or else my spirit is knocked to the floor
My newest heart tore, my body sore
I take a look in my little drawer
And again I find, more and more.

Hollowed out dreams
Cracking at their seams
Still grasping for the star
Which never seemed so far
Still searching for that fire
That shields from all that’s dire
The cathartic placation
When you satisfy inspiration
The iridescent heat
That comes when lovers meet
It must be real obscene
To be this routine
To stretch that errant prime
Into a lifetime

A change of locale
To boost your fallen morale-
A false rationale

Verse and poetry
Is an emotional release
Pristine and beautiful.
So wonderfully simple,
I don’t know if I could ever
Write a novel

Like a shadow upon the wall
We don’t mean nothing at all

A dark scene, somewhat mean
Lines between
Oxycarbazepine.
Sounds acute, ***** boots,
A room bare
And destitute.
Now my friend’s clean
And serene,
Skies blue and flowers green.
Astute, cute,
Plays the flute,
Sometimes you take the longest route.

Cast out your hate
And cast out your sorrow
No matter how bleak
There’s always tomorrow