Like an angel
With clipped wings
You've fallen so far
Down to this menial life
Touching the same ground as I
Breathing the same air as me
Crossing paths in a whisper of a morning
Catching the eye of all that was
You are such a beauty
Like an angel
With clipped wings

Your body is an addiction
I crave your touch like a high
Find time to caress my veins
And make a grave of my insides

Your puzzle piece thoughts scattered
around dining room table,
when you click-clacked your
way out of our lives, Bullet in cereal bowl,
was not the surprise buried in the box,
Momma says I look just like you,
Sometimes she replaces my name with yours,
I have to remind her of last november,
And all the scarlet in the morning

Scars on my knuckles,
too many fist fights,
both eyes blackened
from all of the beatings,
stuck on the rope
looking for an escape,
blue from the bruises,
I can not last another round

Oh land of mine, harvest my labors
Lay waste to the sorrows of the spring
When the storms held heavy
And the roots of my grandfather unearthed,

Oh land of mine, teach me patience
How the sky nurtures the infant soil
Before the stalks knew to rise in thanks,

Oh land of mine, hold me gently
When the hour of my end comes near
May my body rest in the earth I loved
And let wild flowers bloom above my casket.

**** a love poem
Or those love to **** poems
I don't care about my heart
Or the desires in my bones
This is neither of those.
I met a woman last night
With a laugh that sounded like spring,
Eyes that smiled when she blinked
And the allure of a goddess.
I've never known such charm
But ******* you made me come alive
And every single person there that evening
Felt the same way

Don't know how we got here
Got lost on some side street
Forgot all about the freeway,
Tell me your address
I will send you postcards,
All the places I touched
The ones that touched back
The intersections are all green
So proceed with caution upon this heart

Raise my hand in class,
Raise my hands at football game,
Raise my hand for hellos
Raise my hands to show my surrender,
Raise my hands for mercy
Raise my hands for prayer,
Raised hands at my funeral,
Raised hands on street corners,
Raised hands across the ocean,
Raise these hands to send a message,
Raise these hands for justice,
Raise these hands for peace,
Raise these hands for the next of kin,
So they may raise their hands to dance,
So they may they raise their hands to laugh
So they may raise their hands to remember,
That these hands were raised to rise.

My flag is raised white
This field of my chest
Covered in boot prints and gun smoke
Avoid the shrapnel, the left over explosives
I know I have lost the battle,
Ive lost the war,
Take me back to your golden kingdom,
I am yours, do with me as you wish
My heart could not have it any other way

You are the ink in my pen,
The words of these pages,
All the rhyme to my reasons,
You with the smile full and wide
like the country, or the backwood,
The inspiration behind all this,

I’ve carved kingdoms out of my heart,
A fortress in my chest,
Raised my flag in surrender,
Gave way to your love,
Rule as you wish,
I do not want to defend myself anymore

It's been weeks now
The wantings have gotten the best of me
The taste of your skin so golden
Every twilight bares the thought of you
I promised myself not to give in
But that oath is long gone
So I'll retain my distance
Leave no trace behind
The path to our encounters
Remain hidden in the leaves

I flew home to that city of ghosts from years prior,
The walls in every room glared at me as if I was some broken thing,
I was never broken, merely trying to fix myself,
So I drove all night, passed streets where I once stumbled home,
Back when my winters were a fistful of pills
and a bottle in my back pocket,
Back to those years where the demon inside burned like the liquor,
And he screamed his song from within my ribcage,

I remembered all the memories I laid to rest,
They left postcards in the mailbox of my childhood home,
I wished to go back to the heat of the south,
Where my body would sweat every time I moved,
And all the things inside me past due would float into the air,
I was happiest there,
So I’ll leave the corpse of my younger years up in Baltimore
And fly home to Baton Rouge

Taking off the shroud,
Enough of the bandages,
I'm steady bleeding,
Been that way for awhile,
Running red like a river,
Cold as your winters,
Up there in New England,

After you left again,
I cried tears like the river
Black as the styx
Dark as my demons,
Below the surface
This twisted arms race
What a contorted love,
Be my bridge,
I fear of drowning,
All over again,
In the safety of your skin

These words will never cease,
Repetition of the syllables,
Over and over and over again,
They flood the notebooks,
bleeding their way from my pen,
Singing their notes in between breaths,
Their taste as they roll off the tongue,
All of the confessions, These sensational sins,
Oh how they broke me,
These words of mine

These late nights and early mornings leave my mind wondering,
Examining the complexities i leave behind when I wake again,
Something about where the birds learned their songs
Or how the rivers knew which direction to run in,
I've dissected the smallest parts of myself,
Cut them open end to end to see what contents they held,
Hoping that somewhere inside myself held the answers,
I am learning the ins and outs of the thought process
How one triggers another, what a shotgun conversation,
Playing target practice with paper and a pen,
Writing in ink so I can't take back the past outbursts,
Rambling is easy when the mind is alive and the body is deceased.

Everything from this afternoon
1. I do believe that moths are just distracted butterflies
2. Butterflies may also be distracted but in a way others find acceptable
3. Have you ever wondered why stop signs are red?
4. Between all these thoughts, your face and name remain somewhere infused in them.
5. There are so many waves in an ocean, some that swell and break. One day, I hope to count them all.
6. My father taught me always to listen to understand, not to reply.
7. These eyes float full and heavy, I Pray the rain holds off just a little while longer. Enough to embrace you one last time.
8. I wrote this list, everything that was worth writing down. I've been trying to give it to you with hope that you will read it sometime.
9. If you're reading this I hope you see it was never really a list, just trying to tiptoe around the fear of losing you. Honestly, it is the only thing on my mind.

Glory be to the morning
Amen to the rhythm in every breath
This life has gone and made music of my body
Faces come and go all carrying the same song
A hymn of forgiveness,
Sunday ran over into the rest of the week
I still hear gospel choirs on thursday afternoons,
What a world this is, what a life worth living,
I’m not one for prayer but the concept of god intrigues me,
Still asking the questions with answers I know will never come,
Still counting the days since the people I love have passed,
Praise to the children who are searching for their names
Praise to the ones who stared into the abyss
Praise to the wise
Praise to the poets who spoke words as great as myths
The ones who built cathedrals in the empty of their palms
And glory be to the night as she lulls the world to sleep
Awaiting the songs that we shall sing in the morning

Of all the things to remember,
Put my name somewhere on a list,
Place me next to the smallest of dreams,
Burn the pages, they are only words,

Of all the things to forget,
Start your engine and push the throttle,
Racing down the boulevard,
Too fast for anyone to love you the same,
I heard you don't even see the red nowadays,

Of all the things to cry for,
Push your pencils into my chest,
Neither of us can undo the past,
It unfurled onto our sofa cushions,
and rested it's heaviest of hearts

Of all the things to smile for,
Raise your glass,
Whiskey flavored livers,
Sang songs till the moon howled back,
Thank you for this

This back and forth,
The static on the screen
‘In rainbows’ on repeat,
Hoping this videotape,
Will roll the credits,
Waiting to hear the words
The hero never spoke

Louisiana drowned itself when those clouds came to stay
All the photographs sank between floorboards
The street signs dotted corners like buoys,
That way we could still remember where our doorsteps stood
The interstates became names of rivers,
And the side streets creeks.
Those iron birds removed bodies with their
Metal wings spinning above,
But the horns still sing
And the people still smile wide and full of hope

I swallowed the photographs like vitamins,
washed them down with rusty tap water,
I’ll tie bows on the parts we gave thanks for,
One day the roar of the atlantic will pull me under,
Make fishbowls of my lungs and fill them past the brim,
Leave this body for the fishes so their bellies stay full

More than anything
I want to feel your touch
To taste your remembrance
This powder on my gums
I miss your simplicity
The tremor in my hands
The longing in my throat
Speaks only of you
I've sold my wanting
For a love that holds me dear
Remember my temptations
When the lights start begging to fade
And my heart starts to tremble
This ignition in my bones
Burns for the thought of you
And the love for her.

We drove across the country
Back to that coast you call home
Through the plains where
The sky seems to stretch forever
And the stars shine like diamonds
We traversed through cities of machines
All pumping that liquid gold
To the men in suits who hold too much
Crossing bridges over waters who's
Names I am not familiar with
Back to your small town by the seaside
Where we drank till the sun came up
And the breeze kissed my skin
As if we were two old lovers who found themselves once more

Back to love poems
Been so long now
So many months of winter
So many barren harvests
Until you came like spring
The water to this sandbox of a chest
Breathing life back into
what felt like a funeral