These are voodoo days
When monsters have their way
With the good people alive
So the evil people can thrive.
This is a time when madness
Roams the land to pillage
And rename the boundaries
Of our fine global village.

Children once went to school
And we made sure they learned
What had happened to us all
When dissenting books were burned.
Then too many scary people
Got by with lying to us a lot.
They didn’t have us in mind,
And didn’t care what we thought.

So, their Halloween costumes seem
To only be visible to the eye
When you listen to their chants
Instead of just passing by.
If you listen closely to the words
And not just campaign speech,
You quickly see dictatorship
Is not far out of their reach.

When your friendly candidate
Starts sounding like a Mussolini
Standing up and calling them out
Does not make you a ******.
No, it makes you more of true
Patriot caring for your country
Than guys in expensive suits
Who only care about their money.

Ronnie couldn’t talk
And be rhymless at all.
He could barely walk,
I'm pretty sure he'd fall,
Unless he was rhyming.
He said to me, “You see
The thing is with me
It all has to do with timing.

The cadence when I walk
Become words I hear,
The beat when someone talks
Makes a poem in my ear,
Then the rhyming begins
And seems to make good sense.
The words like magic appear
Poetic possibilities immense.”

All of the time I knew him
It seemed to be the truth
He rhymed almost constantly
From his very verbal youth.
He was like a Hallmark card
Sometimes saying pithy things
That fit the moment exactly
And had that ***** ring.

But other times his utterances
Were acerbic and very witty.
When it came to sarcastic tilt
He was the Mayor of Snark City.
Or he could rhyme endearingly
And paint pictures with his words
Saying some of the nicest things
That were ever put into words.

Yes, he was Rhyming Ronnie,
A poem for any current thought.
You couldn’t stump him even once.
At least not that I ever caught.
Ryan was amazing for sure
And some found it rather vexing.
But oh boy in the internet age
It came in handy when texting!

In the fifties in the USA
It was sad, but at the time
It was a rock solid fact;
Flamboyance was a crime.
I had to wear a coat and tie
The uniform of every day
Behaving quite the normal guy
In every conceivable way.

To be a good Samaritan
And genuflect at the altar,
Wear the collar of a puritan,
And not shame your father
By being some kind of fool
Who goes against the will
Of a society that longs for
A conformity inducing pill.

I gazed longingly at clothes
Of fashionable panderers
With the color matching garb
That triggered the slanderers.
But more than their profession
I saw their ability to strut,
The fit, the material display,
The magnificence of the cut.

And I had trouble being
That kind of person they craved.
To me it was a boring ride
From birth, right to the grave.
I could not understand those
Who felt life was not for living.
What good were the gifts I saw
If I refused their very giving?

Not for me, even when young
To spend my time mud crawling.
I would rather spend my efforts
In verbal social brawling.
I rejected insulting phrases that
Proper people so often employ
And chose instead the descriptive
And openly proud ‘gay *******’.

I refused to let the common man
Who was afraid of his own crotch
Insist I be mute while he insisted
That I should stand and watch.
No, I would be who I was then
And reject their false packet
Of wearing the coat of social balm
Which I called The Straight Jacket.

a hundred years of rain
drops down the tall, tilted rooftop
towards the porous landscape below,
as love soaks, the dust settles.

dreams of fluid summers
in the nineteen hundreds,
children's laughter echoing
through candle lit halls of timber,
front porch rocking chairs squeaking
after grandpa's dinner
where this happy home
is a dream you'll remember.

i had a dream about you last night.

i’m wearing mismatched socks.
my face, bruised and ******
my body, slumped
in the corner of the handicap stall.
you’re standing above me
smiling, happy even.

“not happy, just killing time”.
your voice so soft, so sweet
the perfect lullaby
to put me to sleep.
i pass out from your love.

i woke up this morning
phone cord wrapped around my neck.
felt like a noose,
felt like you.
“i didn’t mean to hurt you”
(but you’ll do it again).

cigarettes in the backyard.
crossed legs on the patio table.
it feels like my stomach is filled with acid
and my head is filled with smoke.
you grabbed me and it stung like a bee.
i want to drink ’til i forget you.
i want to get so high that i forget myself.

i’m no angel.
i’m just a little dolly who gets broken easily.
i’m an artist using their own body as a canvas,
razor blades for brushes, blood for paint.
be a disaster with me.
ruin me with your eyes,
fill my soul with *****
and break my bones.

i’m feeling emotionally dead inside.
like forgotten flowers in the attic,
unfilled holes in the ceiling.
i’m hollow.
like vintage television sitcoms,
trap doors in old houses.

the chambers of my heart are filled
with cobwebs and spider eggs.
eyelids swollen shut.
mud up to my ears;
i’m choking on worms.
you’re killing me
but a very muffled “i forgive you”
still manages to escape my lips.

there is no remedy for a sickness quite like this.

They will tell you
All poetry has been written
There is nothing new
Under the moon
But let me tell you
They don’t know you
You are as unique
As the DNA that exists
Within your frame
The ripples on your thumbprint
No one ever had the same.

Listen...

You have something to say
Say it proudly
Say it boldly
Never let them scold you.

Never let them make you go away.

Death is a cruel lover

for he cheats on me
with the people closest to me

I think of a soul
consisting of many fragments,
all bursting to be released
and letting millions of thoughts
shine vibrantly.
They don't all have to make sense,
they don't all have to be original,
they just have to be true to me,
the me I chose to be,
the better one, the best one
out of all of them.
I have grown in many ways
and found amusement
in things I once shunned or thought against,
for instance, lying to myself
that everything is okay
but it's alright to do that because
if you make yourself believe
hard enough, then everything is,
and sometimes,
that's all that you really need,
having faith in a dreary, bustling,
forgetful world,
full of people who leave you behind
and people who pick you up
and take you to their
warm homes.
Bit by bit,
I've learned that change
isn't always a bad thing,
that some things are meant to happen
no matter how hard
you will them not to,
because it's your way of growing,
a forceful action wrenching open
clenched hands and
eyes squeezed shut, head afloat
ears trapping out all sounds,
then I realize
it was me all along
dragging myself down to lay on
a blanket of self-pity and isolation,
and change was
the only factor
with the ability to wrench open
closed doors.
Now I hear sounds that in turn
make me see, and seeing,
makes all the difference,
not just in black and white,
but also in vintage, sepia,
color.