Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you

Weekdays - we wear cattle trails into the green-space because
They taught us the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
They told us to stay in school.
We made ourselves fit into the small boxes with bunk beds
Like the kind we always wanted as kids.
Now we nod to the cement snaking around the dorms - residence halls -
and erode the grass underfoot, single-minded.

Weekends - we stumble-snake on sidewalks because
They give us a straight line to follow back to our boxes.
They told us to get involved in the community.
We let ourselves spill outside our borders and backpacks
Like our cattle trails will fill out overnight.
Now we laugh at the cement moving in waves - or staying still -
and breathe on the stars, multi-minded.

If my skin were a curtain
I'd pull back the drapes
at the corner of my clavicle.
the breathing, feeling organs
of my torso would reveal
what you never see.

the clenches in my stomach
when I catch your fleeting glance

the double-thump of my heart
relishing your bare shoulder

my lungs frozen--suffocating
under your cold, soft touch

shrinking with the biggest sigh
as I watch you walk away.

But I always wear my skin
two layers too thick
and hide my delightful shame
of delighting in shaming you.

I look out the window
Into the mirror
reflecting the window
which reflects
the vague forms
of trees we’ve passed,
and every fifty feet or so-
another power-line.
Sitting there
Watching the reflection
Of the reflection
Of those trees-
I saw me
When we passed
Through shadows.
And,
When we passed fields
The reflected reflection
Was that of clouds,
And when tall trees
Cast shadows
From our other side,
I saw myself
Swimming through clouds
In that blue sky

©Brandon Webb
2012

He touched
           a woman
                        once,
   she gave him
                         a look,
                                              he took it in his heart for ever.

i lie awake thinking of you.
Numb with the emptiness of my soul.
i no longer cry, for that is weak.
no need to scream, no one to listin.
gotta stay strong.
no one can see my pain.
all i can think is....
why can't you love me?
why.....?