Glasses clashing with a clink
Sophisticated men of good health drink
Congratulating one another on a deal
Wondrous wealth the root of its appeal
And laughter loops in-between the night air
Months later a young boy can only stare
As his father returns home with all his tools
Midday heat hounding him as he sat on a stool
His calloused hands covering his face
Tearfully told the family that he’d been replaced
But not just him, every buddy that he could see
Said the job had set sail far over the sea
The young boy couldn’t understand the notion
Ran out the house and threw rocks at the ocean
Yet as the days went on there was one caveat
Prices at the stores did mysteriously drop
So once rare treats became as commonplace
As his father's work shuttling from place to place

What of the young Donna
Reclining with book in hand
A sigh circling her lips
A glaze greeting her gaze
Her thoughts bored of days
Endless days
Depthless days
Where every voice and all actions
Are slowly stewed
In rich stock of routine
And people arrive, bowls in hand
Forming long, bending lines
Like the Depressions of old
Where defeat, distrust, damage
Linger and lay
Within the sleepless eyes of many

We attach ourselves to oblivious ones
Their carefree, we’re careful of acting dumb
They drum up excitement, we listen to their fun
And slowly or quickly we attach to their beings
Refine our perception to make them our dreams
Then reality hits and we never duck
Ruthlessly rattled we’re forced to wake up
Shredding our attachment, our well-being in flux
Then our ears disintegrate making deafness abrupt
Now careening and careless, our feelings corrupt
Learning a lesson that's too hard to instruct
The oblivious ones were us
For we attached to delusions that were destined to erupt

And she left again, another muse
She’s amused to pick up her things and cruise
Like she’s on the sea, and tasting salt, I grab *****
And drink, noting I have nothing to lose
Recounting all of her old moods
Exclaiming to hell with her, I had hell with her
But then again I had heaven too
And remembering that, I pick up her call around two
Drunk and disorderly and probably rude
But she’s right there with me basking in blues
If only we were instruments, that’d be a tune
We’d be married in music a bride and a groom
Playing our vows all over the room

When every pristine picture
With every serene scent
Alongside the most melodic melodies
Joined by teasing, titillating touches
Converge along one path,
Each from a different den
Behold, four fearsome horsemen
Galloping faster than the most energized dart
Towards one defenseless unsuspecting heart

So sweetly sit’s the muse
She’s graced you with a gaze you can use
Lava-like ruby eyes rile and rivet you
But one wonders when she arrived
She came in the dead winter of your sorrows
She came after life harpooned hopeful tomorrows
She came when friends became frigid and hollow
And why? Well it’s your pain that she came to borrow
Her actions lacking rhyme and reason, are so hard to follow
Tears that turn hard thoughts to liquid,
Are the polish she uses to make her crown glisten and glow
Cries that crowd your chest in chronic pain,
Are the notes she plays on her lyre for magnificent melodies
Despair that drips like acid until your soul stews in steam
She dips upon her eyes to see all more clearly
So though we may not know her whim or ways
Mysterious muse will mingle with you on your most defeated days

Light lengthens as you spin upon my thoughts
Blinding my darkness as you whirl like a top
As if the sun had settled on you
Scandalously running from the sky
“Doom” The phrase, raving men of the world scream in rants
The same phrase oozed from the sap of plants
And echoed as well from all animal's pitiful pants
For not a single ray stayed to shimmer

Lifted from the river of routine
Wring from me, the wetness of weary
Let me dry upon the soil of desire
I stand in fields formed by the fantastic
On each vine I spy
Time growing ripe and restless
Hearts swelling in soft feeling
Laughter long and lasting
And everything is in abundance
So I ****, pluck, pick
Accumulating these unclaimed riches
And bottle them into wine
A thousand bottles I store
Then the fine liquid touches my tongue
Delight dances upon the taste buds
And I’m wealthy, in love, in time, in laughter
For years I do this
Learning nothing new or worthy
Banning all knowledge
For even a single frayed book
Could disturb
All of this
Bliss

I paddle as he talks
Of life, and the veil just behind it
The water plops as he plods,
On about the things humans never deserved
Saying we have no true structure, style, or word
All is annihilated by the Absurd
Yet with his nugget of knowledge in mine
I paddle on

When the moth no longer meditates on the cloth
When the fish fails to flit when it’s caught
When the calling crickets lose the will to whip up noise
When the eagle’s eagerness is evaporated along with poise
When all of nature neglects itself, adrift on its track
You’ll know for sure those feelings aren’t coming back

The depthless darkness
Sighed as it seized
The hairs of greybeards
The cries of newborns
Seeing them as funds for a festival
In the district of destruction
Hosted by hollowness
And all of agony would attend
Enjoying endless examples of extinction
Melancholy would come bearing a broom
Sweeping up the sea of scattered skulls
That this crowd had dropped as mere debris

Born from dove like divinity
Eros emerged in the freest fiercest forest
Far from the sights of man
And it effortlessly enchanted all it ever met
The branches, critters, air, and ground were,
Consumed in continual craving
That only Ero’s fair gaze, sweet touch, serene scent could quench
And for many eons Eros ran and reigned
Until by chance it happened upon a new source of light
Stepping closer, it saw the outskirts of an outpost
Running into the town Eros encountered the children of mankind
Lamps, roads, houses, wagons, and strangest of all, animals bound
Then finally Eros met humans
At first they were awed by it to the point of freezing
Then snatching back their senses they all sought to win her
Men and women, babe and elderly,
All wanted a piece of Eros
Overwhelmed, Eros tried to explain
That it could never dwell in a place so compact, close quartered,
Constrained
But their ears were clogged by lust, and
Eyes clouded in heat to conquer
So Eros ran, later referring to civilization as,
The Champions of Chains

Falling past those that wish to press
Compress, and arrest their feelings
Along with mines because it’s appealing,
That life seems easier when others
Conform, like twin sisters and brothers
All crushed under cotton like cover
Dealing death to any trying to discover
Uncover
Recover
Through Boredom's layered blubber
A shining, soldiering, standout that streaks star-like then ruptures
I'ts shimmering strangeness slicing stale structure
And showering all souls in a serene we seldom explain
Only calling it a brilliant boisterous big BANG

All was peaceful in the young realm
Just and Un-just had finished erecting their epic statues
The tree of Taste had begun to bear fruit in the royal courtyard
And youthful bliss ruled over the realm,
With jewels of jubilance, adorning its crown
But from the ghetto’s rose passion and puberty
Together conspiring to rouse the masses, their words infecting,
Each sector of emotion and thought
Eventually swarming the grand palace with its paltry guards
The twin rebels lead a crazed crowd that crashed through gates
And toppled the two statues, burned the tree of taste
Finally poor, pitiful, youthful bliss was dragged from their throne
The crown jewels of jubilance replaced by emeralds of angst
And now Puberty and Passion ruled
Under new banners of maturity

The pasture lays abandoned
The barn is bare
The fields grown overripe
Fences lay fallen
Roads returning to dirt
Not a single tool lifted
Nor a single human whimper
Nay a cry from any creature
Had been heard for many eons
And one may wonder
Of the perished and of paradise
For Earth lay singing
While all else is silent
And some long for music
And some long for quiet
And all long for something
And some long without knowing
And some long for things long gone
And some long just to go along with others longing
And some are just so winded from being long winded in longing
So longings lengthen,
Filling us to the brim with hollow wants
And this perfect paradox becomes
Pandemic

On park benches next to the elderly wise
In the library where the University lies
At seminars hosted outside for free
Or lecture halls with Professors facing me
In all these lands
My mind expands
For,
I lean in to learn where wisdom won it's wreath
And come away with a sword that knows no sheath

Eros walked into the chamber, garnering all eyes
Lust and Limerence walked by her side
They stopped before a panel where Venus did preside
And Cupid next to Venus, gripped his arrows like a prize
And the Muses made up the rest
And all muscles in the chamber braced for unrest
Glances and gazes did continuously dart
As all sported lockets of fire by their hearts
Venus declared mankind must suffer in pain
For all efforts to show the world love have been in vain
And to continue gifting love would be insanity, a chore
Cause they’d take their piece of it and still declare war,
On themselves and on one another
Slaughtering their self-esteems, siblings, fathers, mothers
Yet Eros objected, keeping her eyes peeled
Declaring love has always been a battlefield
And Cupid fired an arrow at Ero’s way
And Lust led the limp arrow astray
Then those enlightened ones lit fuses that day
And the shrapnel from that fight still makes it way
Through hearts of men and women with feelings at play

She picks my veins like chords
Tunes my tongue to record
A melody she’s been working on
And I sway along as she plays her song
Then she says the pitch is wrong
Starts to repent
Leave’s me to play another instrument
But once alone I sip whiskey and recline
Waiting for her to set up our next studio time

Locals said it wasn’t far from here
So I track its trek by a trail of tears
And spotting it, stealthily lift my spear
Towards monstrous, mutinous, FEAR
It’s skin morphing more than vanes of weather
Being draped in every conceivable displeasure
Dwelling in women and men without distinction
Here I hunt it to extinction
It sings like swans, I’ve finished my mission
Firing off celebratory pistons
Later discovering, it was vital to my ecosystem

Hearts polished like porcelain
Shined so peers perceive no flaw
Then placed upon the shelf
Perfectly perched and priced
And in struts the buyer
Fresh from running with the humans
A mass of muscle, tail swaying slightly
Hooves as shiny as the horns
Brandishing upon its neck
A great ruby scarf
Won in a fierce and frantic fight

With filthy fingers crusted in mud,
In ignorance we blissfully rub
Precious people and meaningful moments the wrong way
Until reflecting in our catalogue of memories one day
We see their true worth, the staggering figures of what they cost
And wisely lament on our poor loss

She said with much respect
The memories of us were like Marie Antoinette
I imagine she smothered their screams
Before leading them to the Guillotine
Guiltless and why shouldn't she be
She wants change, revolutionary
So long live her new Nation State!
And no, know, it doesn’t bother me
I’ll simply change my foreign policy

A trembling leaf, lifted
By a passing truck
Where a Mother and daughter
Sing in vaulted out of tune tongues
Their hands salted in sweat
From a day of numbing unnamed work
A strand from each of their hair
Floats out of the window
One flying into the forest
To rest upon a fallen tree
That had seen enlightenment
In the darkest most obscure storm
The other strand floating
For many miles
Into a crowded city,
Sampling each sound
Gesture,
Pace,
Before landing atop a door handle
Savoring the touch
Of so many souls

Her Royal Highness Passion, swirling and sipping molten fire
Then spills its drink into the chests of mankind to make a pyre
The burning of diverse ribs can be seen in streaks
In national and foreign streets
Resonating throughout the strong and meek
Yet all eventually meet
To bend the knee before Passion’s Royal seat
Unable to stand the staggering celestial heat

My gaze remains unrequited
Yet I spy smooth skin without ripples
The smile that arrives when you wave
Your hair that flows about in currents
Yet my gaze remains like statues
My passion seated in cement
Seeing what moves others but remaining still
And how the others, for you fall
As you come and then take leave
With amber eyes a flush in autumn
Yet my butterflies have been grounded
My stomach suspending their flights
So that emotional baggage is delayed

I’m a refugee from the greatest part of me
I’m free range cattle that’s never truly free
I’m a poor scholar banned from the library
I’m the guide without a compass leading a company
I’m deaf but I heard all the things they said I’d be
I’m the one that didn’t vote but protested in the street
Yet even I realize there’s stranger things in reality

As I scale the *****
I note the melody of the wind
With its sweeping symphonic shifts
My nails grind against granite
Before flaking and falling into the abyss
Yet I persist
Upward along the lone path
Where the air recedes like tides
And frost forms fellowship upon my eyes
Before seeking to turn my sore limbs, frigid
Icily assuring each ache is anchored in anxiety
Which stems from the worn clothes of society
Yet as I climb, the fabric is discarded
Like old styles of yesteryear
Now basking in all my naturalness
I finally summit, my thoughts thankfully descend
My heart lifts up its scepter and then my chin
Beating with Brilliance it grins
Furls up it sleeves and wordlessly begins
The work of healing from within

Pleasures spiral and sprawl outward
Escaping the small chamber your parents regulated it to
Devouring dollops of your time
Until you become sick and restless
Fevers, blankets, and soup for recovery
Seeking madness once you’re rested and wrestling with boredom
This ruinous routine is never naturally rundown
Only perishing once true passion is found

Ancient Seat of Versailles
Sweet shimmering palace
Place of majestic mirrors
Reflect the grand beauty you store
So that each vision
Is distorted and deformed
Yet still retains the brilliance
Of picturesque perfection
Like Capitalism unsoiled
Or Socialism Unspoiled
A duet of ideas
Promising the good life
The great life
Heaven, before it was hardened
By revolutionaries of reality

A lone tree languished
In the world’s oldest
Forest
It being the first
Tree whose branches
Had been butchered for a book
Creating clean, crisp, pages
And how the tree moaned
It’s voice infecting the wind
Howling throughout the night
And lingering on into the day
Causing the others trees to shun it
They were content to merely sway
In the breeze
Or basking in high noon
Concerned with nurturing
Their own nutrients,
Their sap preserving their old ways
Until the first library
First bookstore
First College
Came to claim them all

Carrying me upon the path
With cracked and calloused
Hands
I sing merrily
The least I can do
Yet I see the obstacles ahead
No need to struggle
With them
And
Me

How great Venus’s journey has been
How she’s dabbled in pureness and sin
And confused the concepts again and again
Doing bad in order to win
Doing good only for it to turn sour in the end
How tired Venus has grown of tripping over many rules
Let her rest upon your heart, to dream and drool
Don’t dare wake her slumber, for it will keep away fools
And to senseless burning passions, her soft breaths shall soothe
Eventually you’ll see her sleep enlivens, all that is you
So lay out a hammock, lay her on it, and swing it softly too
For as long as she slumbers upon thy, your feelings are true

I’d conjure Fall leaves to follow you
Bright hues, radiant in gold and plum
And they’ll speak of what magic I’ve done
I’d seem like a great wizard tis is true
But such magic would barely compare at all
To your gaze which causes my chest to fall
From Helios heights where frost doesn’t thaw
Where lust and love’s leaflets languish like law
Where passion’s ruthless river is rushing raw
From this endangered emotive environment I fall
And naturally I then tumble from my studied reason
But luckily Fall is my favorite season

Desire watches through the tall grass
Blades skipping past her face with no class
The target sipped from the stream of routine
Believing itself well equipped
Sometimes all alone at other times in a relationship
Then the wind whips, and desire is quick
Chasing down the target till it’s in her teeth
A struggle ensues but is brutally brief
Suddenly through the air a shrill whistles soars
Desire retreats to its master, happy with its score
And there stands a childish figure, famous from lore
Sensing the mayhem, from above cry the sparrows
Cupid winks and says “I don’t always use arrows.”

Rough cobblestone betrayed stealthy shoes
As she rushed inside from fierce winds that blew
Turning on the kettle with ease
Stirring inside her mug the tea leaves
Reading and waiting in relief from the cold
Seated, solitary, sound in her soul
Future’s Phantoms and Past’s Pesks
Were barred from activity duty, assigned to old desks
And she was contented with brilliant bows
Placed upon life’s box, wrapped in serenity’s gold
For she held what birthday’s usually see
Or what others place under a Christmas tree

She pulled up her shawl and left the house
Gone to get more tea
And all the people passing by
And all the noises eating at her ear
Could not grasp her attention
Attending only to herself
Brilliant and Boisterous her thoughts
A majestic melody of their own
So how could she not be secure?
In her soul’s symphony
The strings vibrated her vessel
The horns heckled her heart
The drums beat down her darkness
And wisdom conducted alongside grace
Matching one another’s pace
Astute in one another’s ache
At conducting timelessly, never being late
It was almost as if their union was fate
Almost being key for it surely did take
Tireless effort, and sacrifices to make
The two into each other’s esteemed mate

Someone knocked on her door
Shaking her shawl as they thumped
And slowly she moved to see
Who could be so bothersome
Her iris inched across her window
Spotting a man bouncing upon his feet
Anxiousness infecting his face
Unable to keep his body in place
These two rhythmic observations stilled her
From moving towards the door
For what awaited her
Could not await itself

Laughter and Loneliness
Fill the streets of towns
Some cuddle in comfort
Or
Linger on the lone ledge
And these events are caused by
Those that bury their heart in others
Those that bury their heart in emptiness
But remember
We all must carry shovels
So don’t mind the blisters
Or the uneven handle
Or the dulling of such a tool
For we can dig ourselves
Into anything
And out of everything

With windstorms littered with snow
Failing visions know not where to go
While the inches accumulate and grow
Man’s spirits follow the temperatures so low
However one flower lingers on
With pristine petals that were never torn
Swaying in bliss, so out of season
Defying logic, repelling reason
Inciting all who see to the hall of mystery
These pupils receiving lectures on life’s inconsistency
But the wise walk out of class, truly see
Sometimes it’s best to let things be
To greet such sights with eyes in awe
And a wordless mouth that’s left ajar

Such a light and stealthy feeling
It enters you by peeling
Through layers of your hardened skin
Then pushes past all beliefs you hold within
Before finally arriving at the porcelain cage
Which all free flowing blood call center stage
And having journeyed it settles down to rest
Yet when that person comes back around, it awakes feeling fresh
And slowly crushes everything inside your chest

So many scream and cry of the worst
Those people inflicting hurts that bubble and burst
Yet I’ve encountered ones who are much crueler
Who invite madness and chaos by unmeasured rulers
They are the many who never really care
Whose emotional cupboard lay blank, bleak and bare
Who raze instead raise their kids, like barbaric hordes of old
And the kids grow to be monsters that don’t even know,
That the many screams and cries that they’ve heard for years
Are derived from the neglect that nested between their ears

Internal winds that wail with might
A sudden outpour of downpour
Distress accelerating
Into regions physical and mental
Untangling its hair of horrors
So that miniature hells hail
And free will and free thought,
Take the brunt of the damage
Now paralysis is peppered over all
But with one sneeze vigor is awakened
So see all is interlinked
For natural disaster
And natural remedy
Are naturally destined to occur

Straps encrusted with family crests
Dutifully straddled the masculine figure
Armor affectionately clasped the broad chest
The sword nudged in between calloused hands
The helm longed to greet a rough beard
Now all suited and lusting for heroic feats
Yet when such attire
Came upon the visage
Of man's unequal other
Night did descend in haste
Blotting out the irises in mass
So that heroine’s, Great daughters
Drowned in the depths of darkness
Choking in fits as they sunk
Until their feet sampled the sand
Of history’s vast ocean

She danced but also instructed
The feet of small girls, some being reluctant
One two, One two
Rhythm resting within her joints
Her toes spinning upon perfect points
One two, one two
Sweat soaked in a speck-less studio
Where the sun went to and fro
One two, one two
Yet to the beat, the rest of her life couldn’t adhere
Outside of the studio she oscillated in fear
One dismal hiccup before a panel of judges
Two points off led her life to the drudges

How I’ve trekked with muddy boots
Through superficial swamps to arrive here
Where Apollo’s apprentices laze about
Though slicked with sweat the air here is sweet
Where muses pull on poets like reigns
And all dreams and delusions are bared
And all hope and hell shines without glares
And all our secrets slither from our stoic stares
And all are cradled in a community that cares
Oh how I’ve trekked with muddy boots

I sigh for the many awash in despair
My attitude attuned in a devil may care
All clamoring for Poe not knowing of Baudelaire
Or that Ovid’s Bleak Black books of exile are out there
Content to coil in their own content of the unfair
Not understanding that Depression’s hosting a centuries long fair
So rejoice for others have long paid the fare
And like starlight from afar your suffering is fair
And through artistic labor, you set tables of tantalizing fare

Dilapidation sunk its teeth into you
Shearing off your softer side
Exposing your skeletal essence
Which had cut off calcium from cows
Long ago
Leaving it on the brink of brittleness
As if the blow from a kiss
Would deconstruct to dust
The bones that once bore the strength
To love without fear

I know you seek adventure don’t deny it
I see it lying in your eyes, the resting riot
Pupils pricked with perilous desire
Gaze situated on a blaze of blistering fire
I know you seek a way from the baskets of bores
That life delivers upon every person’s door
Hoping to enslave all who lift it, to routine and chore
So don’t grab at it, slowly walk away
Instead be a muse for a poor poet for a day
But what my lips will never betray
Is that if I make a masterpiece off of your life's lever
Then you'll be a muse who'll be mused about forever
But don't get your hopes up cause I'm rarely that clever

If I’ve ever known truth it just chaffed at the neck
I’ve been suffering all the symptoms of a lack of respect
So I must reflect then deflect all the gloomy flecks I see
Then reflect again on the lifestyle,
Of the wild life inside the childish side of me
All in effort to be free
Not free falling
Not roaming from a new ideal, to new ideal like a new calling
I 'd rather have a grand New Deal like Mr. Roosevelt's
And swim easily in this sea of changes like Michael Phelps

With lantern strung high on a pike
I searched for an Empress of poetic might

Whose symphonic verse
Both elongated and terse

Would meld all the muses into one
Beauty tipping from the tip of her tongue

Scented in roses she’d carefully grown
A flower no gardener could own

And seeing the vile and valiant in all people
Thus never seeking saviors, only equals

Awash in wisdom that attracts locusts of love
And shining nay shimmering like a lantern from above