My mother never said ,
"I love you" to me
That's OK .
I think it's better than being told ,
"I don't love you anymore."

Someone far off , I can't see ,
lives in a graveyard
in hopes of reviving
dead dreams .

You can't lie like you used to
Your eyes do give you away
So your going out for something
On this bright and beautiful day
But I have known for a long time
Another heart has stolen you away
It grieves me so but what can I say or do
When you're making me feel so blue
And it hurts to see you lie to me
When once we were so close
So go . . . go on. . . now be on your way
Your heart sheds not a ray for me
The Sun burns the face of the moon
And leaves wasted traces of love
I'll be on the darkest side in grief
Where I wish the stars above

Is it right for you to be angry ?

How that question reveals our heart

Who told us we were naked ?

So that we must cover up sin from it's start

Who taught us fretfullness
by creating fret that invades our heart ?

Is not Mercy the shade over Jonah's head ?

To be given and taken away at God's pleasure
if we go astray

Anger cannot discern what the right or left hand will do

That means it is best to let God judge what is really truth

Answered are not found by searching for them

They come from living them

Answers are not found
by searching for them

They come from living them

Hot as the sand's
breath upon my back
The eyes of the Anunnaki
like a duststorm
welcomes me back

There is an inference
. . . a deference
. . . and a resistence
to their age

There's a shadow of energy tingling
against the skin of my bones
They are dreams that didn't stand but stumbled , fell ,
faded
. . . and now they are gone

There the sun's constant echo in the canyons of desires

But all I hear are the wails of Ululation of the outliers

Sand , Sand , Sand
Crushed into dust
Buries the ashes
turns truth to rust

Mashelem

Time stands still for no man

Stop the train ! I want to get off !
If I can't be anything more
Then let me scold and let me scoff
Please now just open up the door

Your pretentious pretensions
Pause and place me inbetween
Take your dreams and nightmares too
I see the truth there in your gleam

Let me off at the next stop , please !
Just let me debark from this strife
I have no need of solicitations
From the perpetrators in my life

Just back away from your misgivings
Keep them all for yourself
I have no use for the falsehoods
So put your book back on the shelf

A poem's a poem and nothing else
As they stand they will never be a tree

Even by God's decree

A poem's nothing more than the mangled thoughts
Spilling out of our heads
It's not the future that I see

Nor was it meant to be

Though I do admit
at times they tend to make me cry
And sometimes on the inside
they want to make me die

And again they give me hope
Even make me want to dance
And I come close to love and God
And they give me sense of balance

The world could do
without the poems
that funnel through our pens
But what a sorry lot we would be
without the freedom that it brings

So let the words flow like water
over Niagara Falls
Give our hearts the magic words
that make our spirits sing
Let us gain the unattained
Poems , and poetry is the name

Apolo-goes as liars do
Attempt to bury the wrong you do
Had you done the right thing first
you wouldn't be under an evil curse
Apologies are the refugees house
Where lies go to hide like a tiny louse
From there they irritate the host
Haunt and itch and blacken like toast
Apolo-goes as liars must hide
truth be found on the next low tide

What ! Where ?
            are you . . . gone ?

Funny the difference of the two

   One seems right
           The other wrong

            just gone

Feathered clouds , white on the sky blue
And I alone thinking of you

        . . . always alone . . .

                                        When I do , I do
                  Falling into traps made by you
      
                                            Shame on me
                                           Fool me twice

  Double shame on you if you do me thrice
                Shame ! Shame ? Shame ,

I spilled my seed on frozen ground
     I shed my blood . . . again and again

It's the life in death
           That must go on and on . . .

                   Forever again

Giving someone the shaft

"You have severe arterial fibrillation . You need attention now or you may have a stroke and die ."
I said Doc , "I'm not afraid of dying . I'm afraid of living."

We are the ashes of our stars


. . . ☆ . . .  


traveled great distant ages to be where we are


. . . ♡ . . .


but like the DNA of our hearts there remains that once distant spark . . .


. . .


We may breathe the air of Earth


. . . . . but this not the place of original birth


. . . . . .We still feel the eternal tug . . .


the pull from home . . .


the universe that once embraced with hugs


. . . ☆ . . ☆ . . .☆ . .


Star light , star bright
How I wish upon you with all my might . . .


I wish I may , I wish I might . . .


Remain the ashes of your light . . .
           . .
             .
            ☆

I see you wither on the rocks as a seed in your despair

The fire of depression burning away all that you had for which you cared

I squat beside flames as witness to the lack of any warmth to share

So burn away the moments as I ask was there nothing more so rare

Nothing now dear poet remaiins other than the ashes upon your lips

But this Phoenix will not rise anew to this world today

Something I will learn to accept that you chose to go , not stay

Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
The words of the poet
Don't mean much
We forget the thought
But not the feel
How each poet
made it all real

X

I still search

beyond the ruins

of your smile



collecting

all the letters of love

turned to ashes



sweeping into

little piles of sorrow

I will discard eventually



like watermelon rind

in August

And I don't know
if I can do it

once steps were so fast and secure . . .
now as hollow as the footsteps to the shadow of heels

All those beautiful colors . . . blend to white water . . . falling apogee . . . the crashing culmination of what dreamt to me

In disgusted fall
leaves rusty and dirt brown too
Reminds me of you

I reside in the walls of blue
Whenever I think of you
The tides and time drops
Endless , never stops
Wearing into the creases of my brain
The rails run on wheels like train
Penetrating the wholes of eye
I swear , I kick and lie
Saying I don't miss you .

I reach out . . . sadlessly
I preach out . . . incessantly

when time comes asking who ? . . .
what are you ?
it will catch you grasping

I took the answer book
Maybe eleven years of age
Put it in my desk
Forgot it in all it's page

Then the squirrel I shot
with my B-B gun through it's ears
It fell dead and in my regret
flooded into a sea of tears

Life and death swirls around me
My eyes leaving me with no surprise
Tomorrow is heaped upon me
All yesterdays materialized

The answer book was found
I pleaded guilty without a sound
Tried , convicted , sentenced
To no crime was I winched

I buried the squirrel
Said a prayer asking forgiveness
For all my wicked sins

That life is so sacred
That without some kind of repentance
I would never be allowed to win .

Jesus came to me saying , " It's all right , I forgive you of your sins."

Even under forgiveness
I felt little of a relief

God said to me ," My son has spoken , it is
one of belief ."

I see the squirrel
Sitting in that tree
One moment alive , breathing , free

My choice to make
My grace to be
I pulled the trigger forever changing me

I reach out . . . endlessly
I preach out . . . repentively

When time comes asking who ?
Then I know what I am

Left to cross
your state of Maine
Mile upon mile
of New York dames

Looking to where
I've been gone
The fade away to
the end of the song

She had
a Wyoming smile
A casual easy
up opened style

I was Delawarian determined
No my ancestors were
never German

I railed across the rose of Texas
On to more expensive , exotic places

I was deeply burned and brutally browned
by Death's Valley namesake crown

Got as close to smell the salt
But the no show Pacific
was all of my fault

I turned and went east with the gusty west winds
Across the purple mountain's majestic bends

Down from the Pikes
to the highest plains
Got soaked in Kansas by Colorado's rain

Across the seas swelling in motion
cresting in golden grains an ocean

Then I crossed the truest continental divide
That ole man river on a Chevy Impala I drived

But once full of Tennessee whiskey
I had no direction that fate would kick me

I once thought Florida held the Keys
But the state no longer has any bounds on me

Soon I was running
fast out of land
I was looking for a place
to make a last stand

I ran out luck
before the gas
Came to a stop on Maryland's grass

So I've been up , over , and beyond the past
Here's where I raise the flag up half mast

They fall gold ,
bronze ,
copper ,
and brass


"n" emeraled ,
amber ,
rubied ,
Jeweled like glass

The days of my life
fall autumned ,
sudden ,
and fast

They fall . . . gold ,

         bronze . . . copper . . . and brass

Jeweled like glass

         'n emerald . . . ambered . . . and rubied

The days of my life

         fall autumned . . .

               sudden . . . and fast

The page ,
wet in rage .

Soaked ,
in pain ,
cloaked .

Confined ,
torn ,
truth unkind

Dismal
bleak ,
so visual

The tears ,
rejection ,
fears .

line ,
after line ,

the fruition
of time ,

the thoughts
unconformed ,

nerves frazzeled
worn . . .

Goodnight love
until we
write again .

Winter is our reward
for the killing
of the
warmer days
For basting
in sunlight sauce
For holding
condensations
on the glasses
of the ways
Now we embrace
the cold
bare
naked in the trees
wet is their
slimy armour
dampened
by  dismay
by all
our needy greed

Walking hand in hand
Long wet kisses in the night
Laughing over nonsense
Reading love letters by candlelight

Breathing in the salty ocean air
Walking through the pastures
with wild flowers
everywhere

Holding the love that holds yours back
Making future plans
without a future
Sort of like the life
of the trapeze *******

Back and forth
until one day you fall

If I close my eyes
so tightly
If I let my grasp
of reality flow
then I can step on the
stepping stones
of yesterday
Back in time I go

I can relive
all the good moments
grieve for what
was then evil
Hug all the thoughts
and all of it's people

It is in the end
that it finds us
Face to face
with Heaven or Hell
I stand on this side
of deliverance
wishing you ever so well

I wish you well


"If your cup is full may it be so again"

Before the dawn's display
Before the rooster calls
And horses neigh
Hot coffee on my breath
Wearing an old hat
that's old as death
I set out in silence
Into the dark
Full of grit/pure providence

Wearing a backpack
Full of life

I cross the faceless row
Feel empty blackness as it weeps
Dark moon has the sun in tow
As the cold icy air
catches on my lungs
Freezing my nasal hair

The frost makes step unsure
I cross the boardwalk
The distance is my lure
I came prepared
I came to my senses
I feel freedom in the cold freezing air

Wearing a backpack
Full of life

You may have been born poor
But you lived rich in poverty

You may have nothing now
But accept it with equaminity

You dance on streets of dire
As if fairytales of fantasy

Catch you the diamonded dew
Your ring of superior simplicity

It was a normal two scorpion and one rattlesnake day at 112° in Wichita Falls , Texas .
Texas . . . they made Hell out of the good parts of Texas and the rest of the state just went there . Fortunately my parents only went there so my little sister could be born there . We left the great state of Texas and moved to the incestuous state of Alabama .
Where the impossible will always remain the same . And the possible will be banned , outlawed , and perpetuated behind countless barns , toolsheds , and the outhouse known as Montgomery , the State Capitol . Called the Heart of Dixie (it should be called ******* of Dixie and thank God for Mississippi , for they have wrest that title away from us . But we gave it a-hell-a-va-fight .)
We are a multicolored society . We have white (the pressence of all color) and black (the absence of all color). Which is strange now because the black people are called colored and the white people are called all kinds of blacked out names (usually on court documents).
Alabama is proud of it's educational system . We measure one's intelligence by how soon they leave the state for better opportunities . In Alabama an educated person is a four letter word , like ******* , or worse . Oops !
Let me see now . . . one , two , three , four . . . got to tale off my shoe  . . . five , six , seven . . . wait a minute . . . ******* ? . . . is that one or two words .

Mustangs , best beasts on hooves
Fly all day without wings
Tough as a Rocky Mountain blizzard
Unforgiving as any rings on reins
Tough as any ******* rider

I tame my phillies like Mustangs
With gentle persuasion
And kisses of sugar
Hugs aplenty
Make them my best friend

I whisper softly , come here philly dear
Let me whisper in your ear
I am cruel , hard , it appears
Soft unto your soul
Make me your fool

With whip and rope I pace you
Around until I mount you
Taking you by your mane
I will make you
Make your mind , mine

My you strut your stance
You do dance untill
I take you by force
And of course
Make you whinny

I was poured copper pure turned green with age
Stripped bare down to the ink on the page

Lashed with cat o' nine tail lies and accusations
But I gritted my teeth and made pure my persecutions

Though I burned heartwise for revenge I was told "Revenge is mine "

That I must wait my time .

Now , I feel relieved
no longer grieved .

At least I can smear ink on the page and blot out the pain .

You shape in a drape with bright disease
Claws sharp , Dixie fried , everything plus
Focus your audio gin mill cowboy
Hanging paper while interviewing your
brains , no place to jungle up
Know your groceries lead sled
Until you noodle it out keep it
Mason-Dixon line
It's all off the cob .


Bass drum knuckles - one who loudly over shadows anyone else , a bully .

A shape in a drape - well dressed

Bright disease - to know too much

Claws sharp - well informed on a variety of subjects

Dixie Fried - drunk

Everything plus -  better than good looking

Focus your audio - listen carefully

Gin mill cowboy - a bar regular

Hanging paper - playing with forged checks or documents . Liar .

Interviewing your brains - thinking

Jungle up - having a specific place to live or to be

Know your groceries - being aware , do things well

Lead sled - a classic (older) car

Mason-Dixon line - anywhere out of bounds regarding personal space

Noodle it out - think it through

Off the cob - corny

All the above except title provided by Adrienne Crezo .

Always was always
So certain in it's way
Never could you change it's mind
Or how it would have it's say

Her eyes are made up of sunsets
But she holds the Moon at bay
Her eyes are waters
But the sea is receding away
Her eyes are full of Shadows
She questions every thing I say

The Gemini was born
But three days past the Bull
In a land full of richness
Down hill from the sugar mill
Where illusions are surely
Cut , dried and pulled


Her hands are empty
The wind begins to blow
Her hands are fingered
But I see no rings aglow

Her hands are waving
But I am so far and so . . .
Her hands now falter
Over a heart so full of grief to go

Her hands are longing for touching
And some pure belief
Her hands are lingering . . .
Reaching for some peace

The ships come into
The safety of the Harbor
Then dock and rope
There upon the warf
The gang plank unloads it's cargo
Tons of sorrow and remorse

But this widow stands
Not among the chorus
She twists and turns in a black laced
Chiffon party dress

And the bayed back moon
Is peeping through the shifty clouds
Humming a song of freedom
Before the clouds get it moving on along

Oh . . . oh her eyes were sunsets , sunsets !

The air was warm , the warmest day so far this year . The sky was bright and blue with a brisk wind that made everything bearable . It was short and an unremarkable tribute that lasted merely minutes . No songs , no tears , no shame , and all unbearably lame . They don't lower the caskets in the presence of the attendees anymore . That's really a loss as no one can toss any dirt into the grave . I'll go back in six months after the grass grows over and the footstone has been placed . Then I will leave the state and never return . When the circle has been broken then you make a square and put a headstone over it .

From sunrise
to sunset
we learn to
make our way

From dusk
to dawn
we lay in
the bed we've made

We rise
to fall
That's the only
way

No one
escapes their fate
except in their dreams
while on the bed they lay

Where everything
is made right
from wrong

to the bed
of dreams
we've gone

I've been there before
Can't look you in the eye
I have no answers for
all your questions why

There is nothing in my defense that I can say
All I can hope to do is
live to walk away

First instincts is to run
But where would I go
I can no longer lie
After all you know

Everything is falling apart
Dictated by your icy stare
The reality of it all is that
you no longer care

I've been here before
I'll never learn it seems
If you turn over paradise
You cash out your dreams

What thoughts in word
reside beyond the dimming
of your eye

Were I able to read your commandments engraved
behind your disguise ?

I catch the morning's light
in the rays of reflection of
your lack of dedication

It takes a while to fall from the highest tree . Longer still to hew it down .

How can I read your poetry
when even in silence
I fear the most
Life , a twisted cornucopia
of blood , hair , bone
I hear the prayer calls
and hide in the shadows
The narrow streets
have eyes hidden in cloth
always watching . . . in silence
Even in my disguise I stand out . . . a foreigner
I smell different , walk different , am different
The white hot sands are covered in ashes
The ashes of dreams and the lives that are no more

How can I read your poetry when I am living in the bowels of the words

The lines become those narrow streets of hostile intent

The paragraphs become those eyes always watching me everytime I turn around

Here on the rooftop late at night there's that **** silence as thick as the sticky heat that I can't escape

How , I ask so disconcertedly , can I even get beyond the title

Maybe the plane won't be delayed tomorrow

I pray a Christian prayer before first call

. . . . how ?

I see you stirring
out in the far southwest
Just now I feel your wind
licking my face
I see something so awesomely
beautiful .
I want you to come home to my place

I see your naked thighs
shaking your hips of desire
I am amazed as you snake
through my ruins
Throwing kisses of debris
Stripping off the bark
of my trunk

I long for your twisted breath
in my hair
as you pound my foundation
to the ground
You splinter my resistance
My bricks fall into your embrace
Your black hair goes flared

Be my tornadic love affair
Stay with me until your thunder bares
All lightnings charge
making me glow everywhere
Twirl me , separate me ,
take your toll
I lie under your spell

Well I used to pick you up after work and we would go drink beer and eat pita bread sandwiches while we played pool all night long until closing time .

You had a Martin Guitar and a voice to sing that made the angelics cry . You were friends of Maggie's fame , the Angel from Montgomery . Together the two of you would sing and stun the audience . The people couldn't believe it .

You were my Girl Friday next to Sunday's release . You were good enough on weekends but the rest of the week not .

So sing The Song Of The Turtles as Blind Joe Death dances away . I found out the hard way it takes seven days to make a week .

I hold what's left of your
moments
Bwtween the fingers of my hand
The gold chain and jem
I caress with my fingertips
Where no anount of tears
can wash away the pain
Nor do I want then to

Walking on the streets
I used to know
In the cold night's winter air

Stepping back in time
to see if I
could recapture those
moments I lost there

In that tall oak
of baren arms uplifted
Where once kisses were freely gifted

And the cracks
in the sidewalks
makes me wonder
did I break a back

Way back when
When I claimed
these lands as
mine

Now I am a ghost
of what I was before
Without merit
Disinherited

The cold my constant
companion
A bank of ever
widening cracks

The cold
is hungry for
my heart
It demands my soul

Bill Baley bought the bank down on Boulder street
He rode the bus to work
years for every week

He always sat his
orbed *** down
upon the same old seat
The one you know with a view that was always so oblique

He liked the way the wind would swirl and
blow the trash around
It was a poor man's cheap ballet
but without the sound

If threatened . . .  with change . . . then he'd begin to fret
Just considering the consequences always made him sick

(Sometimes he'd get so riled he'd became a ****)


No one robs a bank these days
nor steals a railroad train
They'd illegally transfer digital money
and that's how they've named the game

If you stroke or tap the key
you'll become a millionaire
Join the frequent flyers club and go mostly anywhere  

Well Bill's bank on Blouder street
had all of its money drained
They took out everything
turning his blood icy in the vein

Bill then lost his everything . . .
His bank his house his cat
Even had to give up the blue Siberian Yak

He became a homeless man
and drifted with the wind
He never knew tomorrow or the troubles it would send

Someone stole the shoes
he wore
while he was drunken sleep
and he became another refugee begging on the street

As far as survival skills
he was worse than even lame
Most people avoided looking
thinking he was all to blame

Poor Bill Baley froze to death
On one of those freaking polar nìghts
The frigid northwest winds made sure he was frozen white

They took his remains
down
to the mortuary
The city had contracted them to dispose of indigents
with their crematory

He was torched by flames
that rose above the city
Now at this point and time I say purely it's a pity

For after all crime does pay  
yet it kills , ruins lives
and slanders
And we are the goose looking on stretching necks to gander


Now-a-days no one sits
on the bus
that Bill would use to take
The bus route run there was decided that they'd eliminate


Now nothing but black faces blankly stare when you're staring back
Those are the people who were born with no claim to either side of track

And as for Bill no one remembers now except those who lived aback
And not too many live that long
When you're tied down to the track

There is no moral to this story
No bands or whistles or
parades of glory

For what little we have will be taken away
. . .
when they open up the gateway

I wanted to be Baptized in a birdbath
Overjoyed like the birds
who dipped over and over

Unlike the birds I was baptized behind the altar
I rose shedding water
and religion

The old man walked up and sat beside me
On  the city bench inside the park

"Whew !" was all he said and gave me a well worn cookie cutter smile

I nodded an annoyed smile hoping he would go away

Then he got up and smiled and said ,"I will come back later , I see you are not ready ."

Puzzled by his statement
I looked straight ahead
only turning seconds later
to find the old man had disappeared

She gave me cake and a kiss on my cheek
Took my hand and led me away
To a wood where no one could see
There she kneeled down and begged me to stay
So I sat down amid the clusters of white clover
Then she leaned forward and over
And kissed me on my lips
Causing me to shudder

I had never kissed a girl before
But something beyond my fear
Said I wanted more
She kissed me again
This time I kissed her back
I think she was startled , and taken aback
She put my hand to her bony chest
"It's inside where my love does rest"
I was confused and did not know what to say
"It's all alright , it's all ok"

We lay down in the clover thick
I smelled clover and perfume at the nape of her neck
She lay her head upon my skinny chest
I put an arm around her there at her waist
We lay looking at clouds
She twirled a button
I tugged at a sleeve
Then she put her hand on the side of my face
Gently stroking , trying to trace
Then the warm sun put us to sleep
And I dreamed dreams never before or since
But then we awoke to her mother's call
"Coming Mother", as she ran away with all
Then through the years in class or hall
She would throw a kiss , a smile to beguile
Then one day her family moved far away
I didn't know it then but it was the ending
of my poem for today

From the womb of the night
Births the Sun ,
Admist the wails of rays and light
Overshadowed in might the night
Slips away in amazing grace
And in good graces goes  
The last fleeting breath
of our last night's dreams
The epimonic clatter
We hear year after year
"Goodmorning to all far and near"

Let's cut to the chase
She was up in my face
Like the alcoholic eyes
And her bottle of mace

She lunged at my lips
But I was too quick
She fell on the floor
Smearing lip stix

Then she begged on her knees
"Why can't I fill all your needs ?"
She looked so pathetic
She was certainly not steez

Then when I had turned away
She grabbed the knife off the tray
And came at me
Before I could say ,"Hey !"

But she did stumble
And took an awfully bad tumble
And the knife point pierced
The heart full frontal

So the police were called
They arrived without stall
They asked "How did she die ?"
"Strangulation ! No lie !"

Handing out smiles
weak after week
See the bitter in the sweet

The agiest lie about their youth
When falling asleep
they slip , tell the truth

Keeping your wits
at sticks end
When the walls wail
you learn to bend

They paved the path inside your brain
with asphalt , potholes and sewer drains

But you scraped down below their truth
Investigated it like a common sleuth

Discovering the real way
you turned off the sound to what they say