Nothing savored Nothing cherished
Chewing wood, spitting silk
Hating every creeping moment
till darkness lowers and laps at my toes
Blessed darkness gives me a cave
where I may retreat from all hateful, glossy life -
oblivion with eyes wide open
Monumental sorrow grinds my guts to dust
Hopelessness, a ******* that licks my ear,
whispers obscene melodies.
An ache to take out the tools
used to mark my hatred on myself
Hope is a lie believed by fools and sinners
That baked desert called my mind
spits dust on dreams
Trapped by iron bars
bleeding despair,
my face, a pale moon of desolation
peering out on savage scenes of normalcy.
Fingers tremble on the keyboard
longing to smash its plastic against my head.
Some say how sweet and gentle I am
I can’t wait to escape and laugh at their gullibility. . .
had I an ax I would chop off my haunting countenance
and hide the pieces in brown paper bags
flung into back yards around the town
Am I sweet and gentle as they say
but refuse the treacle of the words
Or have I acted upon the stage so well
I have become what I loathe to be

Transformation

Ebon night is seeping away,
like spilled ink slips on satin.
Curling its toes, yawning wide
and ready for bed and sleep.

Quicksilver shadows dart
like lightening bugs in August.
Knowing their end is coming
soon, they scatter to hide away.

Little stars tiptoe off to their room,
dragging slip streams behind.

Mother moon counts her children,
tucks them in in satin blankets,
kisses their cheeks with pale lips,
and then taking herself by the hand,
climbs the stairs in the wake of dawn.

May I go in grace at my time,
slipping into that dark black void,
never knowing fear or panic
May visions of sweet memories
bring me peace for my hour of death
May I soar with what angels come
to guide me to that place waiting
where eternity will carry me
Let there be good I can do then

made myself a promise
no more men for me
then in a moment of self-pity
your smile was there
spreading hope
over me
like warm jam

Journey

I have often bent my head
to rest on a pillow, not linen
and feathers, but concrete
and small squalid stones.

Like the breath of
a thousand butterflies,
a little wind has covered
my exposed and tested bones.

My lips have often whispered
in God’s ear, and He has
answered with a bit of stale bread.

Now I sit quietly in corners
listening to the gossip of honeybees,
whose wings are translucent
in an August sun.

I watch my skin grow thin and fragile
as sheets of onion-skin or the wings of moths.

It has been a journey - harrowing
and flush with revelation, leaving me
gaping at the wonder of it all.

Memories hunker behind
a door marked “Blessed Oblivion”.
The key is under the mat.
To choose one, open and peek
inside would be
a foolish flagellation.

Secrets simmer in cannibal pots,
lids held down by tenuous fingers.
Some truths deserve to be buried.
Some memories must be held
as closed as a spinster’s knees.

Doors opened less than judiciously
trigger popping puppets that scream.
A mind is only as strong
as its most heinous memory.

Some minds are olios, badly stirred,
their orts floating in a brine of insanity
that needs a pinch of salt.
Reality paints itself as a circus clown,
and changes the rules of life
without warning...

I woke up this morning in
an America I did not recognize
So many years of just drifting,
certain of her elasticity
her ability to shake off
the parasites and naysayers
Now I see a buffoon where
lesser buffoons have capered
Why do I imagine that under
that bleached wave, are the
numbers 666?
Wake up all you who have
slept beside me, drifting
in the false safety that is not
We must dust off our shoes
and march again, doggedly
and without reservation.
We must demand justice and change...
peacefully and forcefully.
For this nation is one person
who stands up and says - "Enough!"
My wheelchair and your legs
must gather others and refuse
to be silent - evermore.