Herein lies a plan for a quiet life,
Of restrained passion and stolen smiles,
Drenched in moments of still solitude;
Plentiful contemplation,
Abject contentedness.
I do not promise happiness, nor
Do I profess that such a thing can be granted
With nary a twitch towards
Narcotic impulse or deluded blessing.
I do, however, guarantee a life
Well lived, and a handful of
Fragile years on this bitter, dusty Earth
Resplendent, shining,
If you allow the light of the world
Into yourself and become free,
To be who you truly are.

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

Turn off the lamp,
Switch off the fan.
Quiet these voices
Inside my head.
Don’t you lay here with me,
Don’t you tell me your lies.
Just let me sleep,
Alone tonight.
Don’t sympathize with me.
Because you can’t make me love you
If I don’t.
I can't force my heart to feel
Something it won’t.
It is dark in this room,
I can hear your words.
You make your case to me,
In this final hour.
But I don’t, no I don’t.
Because you can’t make me love you
If I don’t.
I’ll try to sleep,
Your face I don’t see.
It’s your body I fear,
When you’re close to me.
Sunrise will come,
And you’ll hold me tight.
Just give me some time,
To distinguish wrong from right.
And you can’t make me love you,
If I don’t.
Don’t you make my heart change
What it’s already been told.
In this dark room,
Your lasting words,
Begging for mercy
In this final hour.
But I don’t, no I don’t.
You can’t make me love you if I don’t.

William Saroyan said, "I ruined my
life by marrying the same woman
twice."

there will always be something
to ruin our lives,
William,
it all depends upon
what or which
finds us
first,
we are always
ripe and ready
to be
taken.

ruined lives are
normal
both for the wise
and
others.

it is only when
that life
ruined
becomes ours
we realize
then
that the suicides, the
drunkards, the mad, the
jailed, the dopers
and etc. etc.
are just as common
a part of existence
as the gladiola, the
rainbow
the
hurricane
and nothing
left
on the kitchen
shelf.

I have tried to ****** Time.
To bring an end
to the movement of the spheres.
I spun counter to it's pull
but fell to the Earth
before the grave deed was done.
I have tried to slaughter God.
To wash the stain from my memory
Cossacks, draped around me,
habits dutifully worn.
Keep the others away from
that one.
He's not the same.
I have tried to fell a Giant.
Pushing back with every
ounce within.
Muscles tearing from the work,
and all the while coming to find
I needed this more
than I would like.
I have tried to drown a memory.
To dig a well so deep inside myself
that the bubbles will one day
simply stop.
As though somehow this one act
would forever redeem me.
I have tried to rewrite history.
Each swift movement of my pen
erasing the things I've done
the places I've been.
This clean slate will be all that
is left of me.
I have tried to overcome.
To find that place
where all is well and
my work,
such labors I have preformed,
can finally be
done.

clouds fill with rain and thunder.
thoughts of you only drift you further.
hopes for sweetness only make me bitter.
my heart is useless when I'm only clutching onto nothing.
dark rings circling my eyes, full of tears.
longing and waiting, but your promise never appeared.
promises made up of empty words.
trust betrayed by lines and verses.
horrible moments can't be reversed.
am I stuck in a never-ending curse?

He is stark mad, who ever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say,
I saw a flask of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love’s hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us Love draws,
He swallows us, and never chaws:
By him, as by chain’d shot, whole ranks to die,
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.
If ’twere not so, what did become
Of my heart, when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
But from the room, I carried none with me:
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me: but Love, alas,
At one first blow did shiver it as glass

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite,
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore
But after one such love, can love no more.

we're old souls you & i.
bound by a need to be something beyond ourselves.

i admire that in you.
your struggles, questioning
breathing new life into stale moments.

we're gypsies i'd say, you & i.
the new beatniks
pushing the boundaries of self discovery
fighting with ourselves & conceptions of identity.

we're moving, always
self destructing
running in search of any semblance of truth.

I've heard the moon whisper,
On several occasions -
Stories and things,
That tell what life will bring,

And what to bring to it.

At dusk, the moon laughs,
With me, in the garden-
We hold hands,
And share our secrets.

The moon tells me who,
I should cling to,
And, I, how the clinging did fare.

We kiss and run after,
The stars - though, I'm shackled to,
The earth, with too much to care,
For.

Rachel’s hair, black as ink,
splatters my blank skin.
It’s a rewrite for bad readers,
a stroll for quick-to screamers,
a phone call at 3 a.m., and
a sickening high that just won’t end.


Rachel’s teeth, sharp/jagged like littered glass shards,
dig into my aged, faintly seasoned flesh.
It’s a feast for lazy vultures,
an eyesore for devout heathens,
a dusty revolver on a Sunday, and
a lone drunk at a flybuzz wedding.

Rachel’s soul, battering ram/sputtering mad,
dilutes toxic mine, leaves only the rind.
It’s a constant reminder for dangerous nostalgia,
a blanket smoldering in fire within winter-without-end,
a handshake and a heart attack for closest kin,
an elevation, a joyous atomic cloud, and
a sky crying elative confetti tears of future me.