When life gives you lemons..
Make lemonade..
When life gives you ****..
Fertilize your garden.

one man lies down cold on cardboard
another man in a warm feather bed

one man suffers for his art
one man steals another's ideas

one man gives it all he's got
another takes all he can

some folk reach out a helping hand
while others count the cost and do nothing.

First, what I thought was the only
Young. Eager. Stars in my eyes that shown just for you
Planets aligned along with bittersweet poetry
Bringing our moist, teenage palms together
Late in March of our senior year
Back seats of both cars steamed up
Pleasured cries that thought then "this is it"
Our laughter on late nights still stands out in stark relief against our subpar coupling
Although you had it in you
It was me that needed it in me

above the naked sea,
the wind’s blue
castles
raise their
drawbridges
of air.

We are not the personal property
Of some person who proposed
As always I oppose
The subjugation of our identity
In pursuit of marital bliss
This institution does not fix ****
It just repackages old ideas
In modern consumerism
In love I am not yours
And you are not mine
But I am not blind
To the stunning visage
The gift of your existence
I just don’t think real love
Requires ancient legal and religious
Assistance

I said I love you in the field of honor
and she was like a colt, her name
like the moon caught in my throat,
she was water I held in my hands
like the canoe I worked through the river,
and she was a flash at two-thirty
in the morning of the suicidal knife,
and she was a fire of pine cones,
a butterfly that lit on the float of my pole,
and she was like the night herself.

All of life,
everything we shall ever know
is found within the gardens

Pulling weeds and the cover crop
*** them under or pulling them up
I never remember

The soil crumbling between my fingers
Perfect for planting
All is hope and promises

The gardens are a cycle
You've have to add excrement to begin again

The seeds are sewn, the starts transplanted
Water slightly pooled, dripping down into
the rich dark soil
A red worm winds its way down
Life begins again
Vulnerable

The  light of the sun, so warming
Cosmic love radiated our way
Life is an urge, it finds its way

The lettuce, the tomatoes, the zucchini, the artichoke, the cauliflower, the raspberries,
a blue berry or two
Medicinal herbs, oregano, cilantro, too

Fruitful youth
A flower is a plant with a hardon
The juices running right down my face
Taste
Nourishment

It feels like total summer forever
But football and school come every September

The days get shorter
The plants turn yellow and brown
Outgrow themselves
Wither and die

Purgatory lives,
along come the cover crops and weeds
In winter all just try to survive

The garden know its limits
It knows what being is all about
All of life, everything we shall ever know
Is found within the gardens.