He's got a mouthful of rain.
A dead goose in one hand, a sharp axe in the other,
lying crosswise on the flooded lawn.
His breakfast was feathers and catscratch.

He's ******-minded about the whole thing -
  his rotting toes poke through pastel orange New Balances
  and are perched on the edge of forgettable.
He says he's daring God
to **** him or give him a dollar
  but really
he shouts catastrophe at traffic and fluid dynamics
and if somebody gave him a rose
he wouldn't know what to do with it
except chew it
petal and thorn.

I'm close to him because I, too, am going to die
eventually, and between now and then any home I have
is a coldwater solitaire flat
  - beans and egg and cheap cheese and salsa -
and when I look up I drown like dumb poultry
looking for a pair of fingers:
  snap
  snap

My breath rushed out of my lungs all at once,
an ocean of air flooding from my mouth.
Shock waves crashed over me.
The pure wonder that enveloped me was like
wind.
All sensation, with no time to think.
Just pressing,
flowing,
feeling.
In the moment I felt helpless.
Lost at sea,
wave after wave pounding,
pushing me from the surface.
Trying to breathe,
gasping,
flailing,
desperate.
Panic seized the depths of my mind,
each a sharp needle,
stabbing,
digging into the flesh of my brain.
I began to crumble from the weight of it all.
All of the expectations,
secrets,
lies,
mysteries,
everything.
Everything.
T­he weight of everything crushed me.
Dust to dust.
Nothing more.

In that fleeting
moment.
He caught her
eyes in his.
It's like the
universe itself;
Has been aligned
for them.

-HIY

Hugs....
How you've known I needed
Them I will never know,
But what can I say, I do.
And when I read your reflection
On my words,
I cam stop what Im doing
And read my poem again,
And then I cam hug myself,
You calmed my climatic
Mind from shattering
Its self against the wall
Of my own making,
And that wall,
Well I can calm it down.

What is it about Patty M?
A simple seemingly pure
Heart in a world where fake to
survive seems to be the order
Of the day,
And when her words
Like mine, I can hug the
World again,
Because Patty M hugged
Me when no one else could,
Her words are not metaphoric;

She heals my broken self,
Because she meant it,
And I know that something
Is real about that,

So here's to you Patty M
From the Ded Poet:

H.    H.  U.     U.   GGGGG
H.    H.  U.     U.   G
HHHH. U.     U.   G.    GG
H.    H.  U.     U.   G.        G
H.    H.  UUUU.    GGGGG

Take a picture
Make it perfect
I never want you to
Forget this moment
And when our hearts are broken
Remember that I loved you
Even if I wasn’t worth it
we were at least picture perfect

Every year is the same,
same people,
same places,
same time,
same faces.
They bring me their labeled tickets,
the same ugly tan-colored, black-inked tickets.
Bent and smudged as if it went through their wash.
No time for conversation,
not even small talk,
only the same old.... hello.
They sit, they smile, they leave.
They sit,
on that same old boring brown box,
"Feet placed where the red exes are please."
You think they'd already know that by now.
They smile,
tilting their head to the right,
their eyes looking directly at the lens,
looking as if they were hypnotized.
They leave,  
the camera flashes bringing them back to realization,
they release their breath,  
"Goodbye!" They say,
"Have a nice day!" They say.
Who I wanted to be is who I am not today,
who I wanted to be is not where society has placed me,
who I wanted to be is what society calls a joke,
who I wanted to be is free.
A photographer.
Not here working for life touch taking pictures of the same bland faces,
I imagined myself... flying,
Like a bird traveling around the world,
Capturing every moment I see,
Where the natural light glistens across the landscape,
where i can direct the poses of my subject.
But instead,
i'm stuck here taking pictures for life touch
of the same people,
at the same places,
of the same faces.