fading before my death
becoming a ghost
trapped inside
flesh and bone
and beating heart

and who was I to be...

before...

before I invited all this misery
to comfort me

who was I when
I once dreamed
a dream
that I believed

that love was the only thing
we need
to find our way

to the fields
below the stars of eternity

We send our children off to war
to make men and women of them
and too often

war

sends them back as ghost

both living and dead

Happy is the king
who keeps
the rivers running red
without ever getting
blood on his hands

How lucky is the gun
that never has to feel
the pulse of the blood
that it spills

how lucky is the gun
that thunders so loud
it never has to hear
the screams  of the futures
it steals away

how lucky is the gun
to know no guilt or sin
that is left behind
in the gunpowder
that now stains our hands

Violence waits in the cold barrel of a gun
foaming at the mouth
waiting to erupt in a flash of anger
to pierce the unexpecting rhythm
of a heartbeat

too young to know
any of the languages of death
that will soon be spelled out
in the blood flowing from the holes
that bullets will bite out of its flesh

someone’s child smile will fade
as a mothers tears
will water a garden of grief
whose flowers will never go out of bloom

and in the silence of our complicity
we will pretend there is nothing we can do
but wait for the metal of the barrel to cool
as the violence continues to grow
as we quietly wait for the next eruption

she turns black thread
into silk verse
and writes poetry
with every sway of her hips
and the words linger
in the movement of a dream
and even the moon
can’t wear the night
as beautifully
as she wears that dress

What good are we
in flesh and bone
when we ignore
the wisdom of the songs
flowing in the blood
beating from our hearts

what good are we
in flesh and bone
when we walk
through troubled times
as nothing more than ghosts

Let no law
let no pride
come before your ability
and your decision
to feed the hungry
to shelter the poor
to protect the helpless

to turn your back away
to bow your head down
to be purposely blind
to those in need of help
is as immoral
as it is cowardly

We can thrive as a planet
or die as a species
and our egos may argue otherwise
but it will go extinct and wither
quicker than our bones will dry
and all the false currency
we gave our time to
will crumble in its uselessness
as life will go on without it

and those who thought themselves
immortal under the grace of god
who thought their sins against life
forgiven by the repetition
of hollow words
while burning down
the home around him
will drown in the waters
of their meaningless baptisms
and life will go on without us
as it had before
and as it will long after
any memory of our existence
has any light or thought

and yet today we still breath
today there is still hope
still a chance
to thrive as a planet
to survive as a species
to stand against
the ego of our minds
and follow the wisdom
of our hearts

with nothing else
to fill their bellies
the mice went back
to eating poison
and the ants in search of crumbs
came back with nothing
but death on their backs
to feed their queens
and under the light of the stars
we crumbled

the murdering of crows
was made legal
as the color of the doves guilt
was decided to be more pure
than the blood of a dead mans heart

no matter the weight of his innocence

and all this could have been stopped
all this could have been avoided

none of this...

none of it...

had to happen

but we heard the screams of kindness
we heard its cry for help
we saw the hands of cruelty around its neck
we saw the hate foaming
we saw the dreams bleeding out

and we did

nothing

and misery breed
and filled the streets
and slept in our beds
and made its home
under our skin

and not even the light of the stars
was enough for us to remember
what it meant to be human
back before we abandoned joy
in the pursuit of the wealth of greed

There’s nothing left to say
that isn’t another cliché
flags flown at half mass
because last months solution
was less than half-assed
more dead kids
more thoughts and prayers
and the mountain of *******
is only dwarfed in comparison
to the pile of money being made
by the repetition of violence
but dont worry your pretty little head
as long as its not your kid
lying on the floor busy being dead
just give it a week or two
and all that guilt will fade
until the next gun loving
american mass shooter decides to
rinse
reload
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
...

Our hearts become abandoned churches
housing the broken stained glass colors
shattered in the reflection
of who we used to dream ourselves to be
while being afraid
to face what we have become

and we have become monsters
much worse than any of the ones
we use to fear
living beneath our beds
and in our closest
and down dark alleys

men who ****** truth
children who **** children
mothers who grieve for attention
fathers who hope for death
clergymen who stalk prey
prayers of hate
spoiled milk and rotten flesh
no longer the kin of kind
only the kings of misery

and then petition the empty sky
for the answer of how we became so cruel
that we would abandon our hearts
with the churches along roads
too overgrown to find or travel down

looking for the devil at the crossroads
so we have someone else to blame
for the shameful mess we have made
of who we use to dream ourselves to be

What’s is it that we are looking for
as we stare blankly at the sun
pretending to not be blind

what is it that we hope to find
in the lost space weaved
throughout the colors of our eyes
is there anybody there
we would really want to find

what is it we were thinking
when we lost our train of thought
I can’t remember were there
even any passengers on board

what is it that we are waiting for
before we can see the white
of one another’s eye
is it the lost meaning of the life
we are about to take away

different god
different country
same pride
same loss

killing in the name of who created who
the last whisper of a man praying
to a god praying to a man
pretending to not be blind
as he stared blankly at the sun

All poetry is horrible
the same way all babies are beautiful

you can’t say
what happened to that babies face
they same way you cant say
that poem made me cry
from places I didn’t know I had tears

so yea

your baby is the most
absolutely cutest thing I ever saw
and your poetry is garbage
pure garbage

but just like people
who can’t stop having babies
ugly babies
cute babies
adorable babies
not so adorable babies

we cant stop writing poetry
no matter how bad it gets
no matter how horrible they are
just keep writing

I mean we can’t just be *******
to make babies
there’s more to ******* than that


right?

She peeled off her skin long before
she ever took off her skirt
and I sat there watching
her heart beat beneath her ribs

  mesmerized

  listening to it beat

  watching it

      rise and fall

         rise

          and

            fall

I don’t remember that night ending
but then suddenly
it had been days since I had seen her
and then months

and I thought

I would never see her heart beat again
and then she was standing before me
dressed to the nines
more beautiful than a ten
her bones still exposed
her heart somehow even more radiant

  beating

    rise and fall

       rise and fall

and we danced
and then I could understand
the language of the stars
and I heard each one whisper her name
they were all making wishes
and saying their prayers

she smiled gently to the sky
and answered each prayer
and granted each wish
and then looked back down at me
and slid her hands beneath my ribs
and up and over my heart
and pulled it out

and then whispered

the meaning of life

and all the secrets

the universe had to give

and then in the language of truth and love
she pressed eternity between our lips
and I became

a schoolboy falling in love

an infant being born

a new leaf on an ancient tree

a flower blooming during autumns last breath

an old man lying on his deathbed

  smiling

   looking back at his life

   well lived

   well loved

and then her skirt came off
and my clothes
and the rest of her clothes
and the night felt long and endless
and so did the kisses
and the love we made

and created

and shared

and then morning came
and the sun smiled
and she smiled
and I smiled too

and even now to this day
I can still hear the stars
say their prayers
and make their wishes
and I smile again
just knowing she is out there

somewhere

Making this world more beautiful
with her heart beat

   rise and fall

     rise and fall

      rise and fall

We might all be made of stardust
but no one shines like you
and the only time I hear
the angels sing
is whenever I hear your name
and when those same syllables
fall from my mouth
it feels like the slow pour of molasses
and it reminds me of when
the gods first created love
and love created life
and then life
made sweet sweet love
on beds made out of sin and poetry
and if you are not
the definition of beauty
then beauty has no definition
and all this stardust
is being wasted
when none of us
can shine
quite the same way
as you

I walked past a half dozen cockroaches
scurrying on the sidewalk
and I thought how odd
we see them as filthy disgusting bugs
surviving by scavenging through our waste
when we're the ones turning the planet
into our own private trash bin

Love poems are all horse **** or hindsight
it’s either all made up
or not realized until it’s walking away

and what an *** it has
so ****** beautiful

and we don’t see it until it struts away
leaving us dumbfounded and drooling
counting our mistakes
instead of sitting next to it
counting our blessings

Falling in love with you
I imagine...
was a lot like being born

that is to say
it was like I wasn’t
and then suddenly I was

as if before you I didn’t even exist
as if life didn’t begin until I saw you

that the sting of my first breath
didn’t happen until you breathed
love into my lungs

then suddenly I became
painfully aware of just
how beautiful life could be

It was a late saturday night
and you had fallen asleep
on the couch with your head
in my lap
I was watching something on tv
and then it happened...

you farted...

and I smiled...

and I wondered
how did you fit an entire choir
of angels into your ***
because it was
the most beautiful sound
I had ever heard in my entire life

I still remember our first kiss
it was all of eternity
passing between our lips
it was wild flowers
blooming behind closed eyes

it was a field of dandelions
exploding in a windstorm
and then becoming
all the stars in the sky
and every star
becoming a wish come true

it was the first time I realized
heaven wasn’t a place
for the dead to go
it is a place for the living
it is here on earth
heaven is the sound
of a heart that stops beating
because it has
learned how to sing

that it is a moment
that goes by too fast
that stays forever
in our blood

and there it was
waiting on your lips
a lifetime of love
quite and trembling
in a single kiss

it is still there on my mouth
even though it has been years
since we last kissed
said our goodbyes
gone to our separate lives

I can still smell
the wildflowers that bloomed
in your eyes that night
I can still feel
your hand on my heart
I can still hear
you whisper “it's ok...”

it hurts a little now though
but it is still ok
it was a once in
a lifetime love
a fairy tale
my heart still sings

a dream time ago
that is still as fresh
as the sunshine
of your song

and I can’t help but smile
through the pain
because it was and is
the most beautiful pain of all

We are allowing ourselves to be manipulated
by a false narrative of structured thought
that strips us of our natural intuition
to find joy and happiness
in the basic and simple things in life
We are born creative and loving and kind
and that is slowly stolen from us
as we are pushed through an educational system
that programs us into a belief system
of follow a path of repetition to find success in life
We are branded with an artificial
definition of intelligence
these are the important facts
and these are childish whims and hobbies
Do this and don’t do that....

work play
work work play
work work work play
work work work work work play
work work work work work work work work
work work work work work work hard enough
and maybe one day save enough money
and then you can afford a small vacation
and then back to work work work...

know the facts
past the test
find a job and repeat the same thing
over and over and over....
then some where along the line
find someone who is comfortable
with having the bare minimum
of what you are allowed
to believe we deserve
date
****
marry
buy a house
a car
reproduce
and push those offspring
through the same structure of repetition

When and where along the line
did we become so numb and negligent
to think that this is a life worth living for
worth fighting for
and at our very worst moments in history...
worth dying for?  
Nothing about this
is a natural way of living

We are prisoners to a vocabulary
of useless ideologies
that we have built around our own minds...

the caged bird sings
only because we allow it
to see enough of the blue sky
to dream of flight and freedom
and then while it sleeps
we secretly trim its wings
so it can never venture past
the bars of the only home
it has and will ever know...

and this is what we have given up
and continue to give up
our ability to dream
is our ability to do better
to be better
and yet we settle for a life of something less...

What do we know of life and death
   ands time and love
when all we truly have is this moment
   how does tomorrow
      ever become today
         and what happened yesterday
       ten years ago
    is no closer or farther away
than the last syllable echoing in our heads

so what is time other than an illusion
   and a thief
     and a liar

do we breath in just to exhale
or is there something more important
to the function of our lungs
is there something more than oxygen
we need floating in the air
something that is as easy
and important to give
as it is to take and receive

Is the secret to this life
we so often abuse and neglect...

is the meaning to it all

so simple that
it is so horribly cliché

And with what great arrogance
we let our egos
crown ourselves intelligent
and place more worth
on our wants and greeds
than any other living thing
and then like a vicious virus
spread like a plague
and destroy anything that is in our way

we are smart enough
to see the end coming
but somehow lack the wisdom
and courage to change our ways

out with the good
double down on the bad

So what do we know of life and death
   and time and love
     as we long for immortality
        in our deaths
     some existential heaven
    of an afterlife
  a divine blessing
of unending love

yet waste this moment
   waiting for tomorrow
      to become today

She was a plague of desire
a dance of syllables
just out of the reach of his tongue
a name that was a prayer
written on the skin of his heart

a language he couldn’t speak
except when  lost in the trance
of a dream boiling over
with the lust running mad in his blood

a fever burning inside his bones
to feel her tremble against his lips
and wandering fingertips
that travel the forbidden paths
along her spines skin of pleasure

the quite hush of gods making flesh
to be blessed with the secrets
of honey and blood
to be poured over
and flow from the pulse
and the rhythm
of the lost art of making love
while dancing in beds
made out of the shadows of sin

a quite lullaby roaring
from under his pillow
that made his ears desperate
with longing to hear
the songs that play
from within the cage of her ribs

a place of hunger
that could only be satisfied
when left with wanting more
of the blood and the flesh
and the body of her rapture
when lost in the euphoria
of finding love under blankets
woven from lust
and where no pleasure
is stained with the guilt
or definition of sin

Let me peel off your sunday best
and dress you down in morning light
over the curves of your soft skin
and paint you in a day dream
of little black dresses on a friday night
with lace stockings and come here

and my

     my

   my high heels

that bring kings and fools down
to begging on their knees


I could worship every inch of you
no matter the view
if you were the sun over heaven
or a grain of salt carried by an ant
a saint or a *****
queen or a vagrant
dressed to the nines
or down in the ditches
I’ve seen you in places
where beauty is found under the illusion
of the flesh worn out over our bones

I want to devour you
and give birth to a new emotion of lust
with hands capable of dissecting
the last layer of skin
on a heart beat
                      
                        beat
    
beat me into submission
let’s ride out this transmission
beyond the hand and touch
of what only mankind
would be ****** enough
to label as sin
and be the stars in a home movie
not safe to be watched
by minds lesser than gods
swimming between limbs tangled
and blurred and penetrating
while turning blood pumping
into the sweetness of honey flowing

      and drip
  
    drip

  dripping

into polls where we
transcend the limits of our imagination
and dive deeper than a last breath
and urgent gasp
of lost and found pleasure
outside of times understanding of mortality
and the endless sight of eternity
and the true nature of life’s lust is exposed
as nothing more or less
than the survival of love

She wove the morning light into a dress
the colors of daydreams
and smiled a mischievous smile
full of wonder and love and magic
she could steal your heart
with just a glance
and when she did
she would treat it
only with grace and kindness
and give it wings
and place it gently back in your chest
lighter and more beautiful than before
for having been held by her hands

Sometimes I wonder...

   if you and I...

     would be comfortable...

       being alone....

         while just sitting....

          near each other...

            breathing easy...

             slow....

              no destination....

                listening to the silence...

             in between the sounds...

           of our hearts beating...

         a solitary pair...

       alone together...

     no love to feed...

   no human needs...

  two players...

on a single stage...

no winds of worry...

   no words of rage...

     no climbing hope...

       just sand slipping...

        starlight fading...

          dimming into darkness....

         wondering...

       why...

     are...

   we...

  all...

so...

comfortable...


  being . .  



          
       alone.

She made the little black dress
more beautiful than it actual was
and it became more than
pieces of fabric and thread
cut and shaped to hang and flow
over her body as she walked

it became the sound of music
found in dreams where the night glowed
in the slow burning embers
only found in flowers that bloomed
from the heart of eternity
and love was a ship lost at sea
with no destination meant to be found

and the passengers rested easy
and drank heavily
and danced freely
and laughed heartily
and wrote a story in a language
only they would know

She did more than
just wear the little black dress
she wove it into magic and wonder
tore it apart at the seams
and reconstructed it
to a blanket of night
and a dream of stars falling in love

Dear friend... I know I don’t call as often as I should... and lets be honest we can just about say, I dont call at all and I am sorry I am not better at keeping in touch.  I know we all get tired, we all work and a lot of us have jobs we don’t necessarily like, but we have to survive through the ******* parts of life to get by.  So we put in our forty hours a week, or more... and the end of the day comes too soon and we still have too much left to do and we fall into the routine of tomorrow, I’ll call tomorrow or for sure this weekend... and **** comes up, not important ****...just small distractions and maybe a little insecurity or excuses and we don’t or I don’t.... and months go by and years turn into more years and I haven’t heard your voice on the phone or in person and I think, this weekend... this weekend... but then the weekend ends and next week ends and its been another year.  And trust me, I ******* miss you, I really do... all of you.  And maybe I will call... one day... but if I dont, know that I love you and I am grateful for whatever time we spent together that allowed me to become your friend, for whatever it was that made my heart open and grow and forever hold a space for you to be a part of it.  I can still hear your voice as clears in my memory as if you were sitting here now and it brings the same warmth and comfort as any hug a grandmother might give us.  I hope we both live long enough to see each other again, to talk about absolutely nothing important and to laugh about the things that seem to big and cumbersome to hold on our own and I hope I don’t forget to tell you I love you when we do.  When the day comes when we have no choice but to say goodbye, to whichever one of us escapes this life first, to whoever finds out what comes next next, I hope of all the things we might take with us... I hope it will be the love we shared.  

And on a side note, I know I rarely answer my phone, but if you call and I am awake, or if you wake me up, I will and I will be happy to hear your voice and I will tell you I love you...

Death stops by to remind us
how beautifully fragile life is
and with her
you have gone away
and yet you are still here
in the quite moments
between my heart beat
and the silent space
between the tears falling
and I can still feel the warmth
of your laughter
and still hear the comfort
of your voice
I know not where you have gone
or if we will meet again
so what luck it was
what a privilege it has been
to have had you in it
my beautiful friend

You where there last night in a dream
laying down in a bed
made out of moonlight and stardust
and your lips painted the warm colors
of hope in the empty space below my ribs
and whispers murmured
from the faint beat of something alive
inside of something I thought was dead

you kept your name a secret
and stole mine
and gave it away to a bird

with black feathers

and black eyes

and a black beak

and it chewed and swallowed
every letter and every syllable
and I became a nameless prayer
on the tip of your tongue
and a helpless beggar
and fool on my knees
and you wrapped around me
like a snake squeezing the last breath
out of its next meal

your skin was a blanket
made out of the soft heat of the sun
and it covered and held together
all the broken and lost pieces
of all the things I had forgotten
use to be part of me

and your heart filled all the emptiness
that I had been carrying in my blood
and your eyes where painted
fields of flowers and flames
and you sang a song that had no words
that told all of the truths
of what it was to find and know love

Dead men have their grieving wives
and oceans have their graveyards
and all I have left is an empty sky
and time barking at my heels
and I wonder what happened
to the young man who once painted the night
with the stars from his dreams
as he slept upside down from the smile of the moon

I wonder if he’s dead

I wonder if I killed him

because he was better at imagining love
than I was at talking care of it
I wonder if I pushed him from a high cliff
and quickly retreated before his screams
became a flat thud of crushed bones

I wonder if I buried him under dirt and fear
under the obligations of failing to try
I wonder what could have been
if I had gone right instead of left
on one of those long cold nights
when the road was going nowhere

I look in the mirror
and nothing stares back at me
not even a ghost
just an empty world
inside an empty room
trapped inside empty eyes
that have lost their color

and I wonder if
he is still better at imagining love
than I am at taking care of it

Most people are blissfully unaware
of just how much we are all alone
one by one by ourself
drifting though the day to day
   just another night

            life

letting the world turn
into something disturbingly ******
as everything spins out of control
bullets fall from the sky
and we brush off the deaths they cause
as if it is just a light drizzle
no need for an umbrella or panic or change
everyone is breathing in and out

   in and out

      in and out

         in and out

******* without rhythm or reason
other than to pass the time
and pretend that we’re still human on some level
but no one stops to notice if there alive
or if their heart is still beating

as long as we make the right noises
it’s close enough to love
the abuse that is
anything to keep ourselves
from the appearance of being lonely

     life

our numbers keep growing
as the population only knows how to expand
death cannot keep pace
with the rate we procreate
and we will devour this earth
down to its core with our ignorance and greed
and then where will
  
        life

go without us....


                           it will go on and on and on

and it is hard to argue against
that it will most likely be better off without us

Broken we sit and dream alone
in a world that won’t stop turning tragic tales
into melancholy doses of strange beauty
and the winds only whisper of love
to the lost that have never known
the way or comfort of home

and the road is deserted of everything
but heartache and dim scattered moon shadows
and somewhere in the dark corners
of hidden forests creatures lurk
with false promises and bad breath
pointing out suspicious short cuts to happiness
with the path littered with the bones of dead innocence
maybe some of our own
maybe some of the ones we left behind
on the way to adult maturity and shame

as if believing in ourselves so little
wasn’t enough of a burden
we had to make a list of the what not to do’s
when it comes to finding pleasure

this is ok

that is most definitely not

and if it feels good you better not do it
because it feels good
only do it because that is the way it is suppose to be
and if it isn’t
you’ve been warned
that someone or something or some sick and perverted god
is watching and judging and jerking in horror
at all our sinful acts
and the list has been checked
and the video watched twice

and it’s all the same over and over again
pawns without a board or a square
pretending to be kings that love queens
and queens that love fools
and fools that love themselves
with fists grasped in self gratification
building castles that crumble
as we sit alone in broken dreams

I weep for man
I laugh at mankind
and my heart breaks for humanity

We are so far removed from ourselves
separated by ego and arrogance
blinded by routine and normalcy
spinning cogs walking in circles
as the world turns into a wasteland

Our hearts become nothing more
than empty graveyards
hollow and empty sound in our pulse
white noise blocking the transmission
of our dreams

Puppets safe in their cages
the masses only move with the flow
educate them to repeat repetition
never teach them to think
line them up one by one
ducks on the pound
waiting to be hunted

Money

Money

Money

The only currency worth dying for
Life has no value on wall street
only the Dow and the Jones
and the Smiths and the Wessons
bullets and lead
over the teeth and the smiles of children
coins and cash
over the blood and bones of innocence
cold lifeless steel
over the warmth and sound of a heart beat

I weep for man
I laugh at mankind
and my heart breaks for humanity

She wore a black dress made of the fire
and art of poetry
and she glided gracefully as she tip-toed
from star to star
with her soft hair spilling out and over the sky
painting the night the color of dreams
she danced within the gleaming
silk indigo flames of eternity
out in the dark where
no one could watch her move
and even though she
was far out in the darkness
way up high where no one could see her
and my eyes could not trace
the outline of her form
or make out the shape of her smile
I knew she was beautiful
I could feel it in the space beneath my ribs
and in the sound of my heart beat

If I didn't love the privilege of fatherhood
I swear I would go off grid
and disappear deep into the forests
and become a sasquatch
with tiny feet

She walked across rooftops
collecting dreams from sleeping children
and placed them safely
in the nest of the arms of the stars above

She is the music in the silence
and the words and hope
in every wish and prayer

She taught fire the art of poetry
and then set the sun ablaze
and let it drift off into the sky

She carved the moon from the moody sky
and taught it the language
of melancholy lullabies
and then pinned it to the night

She is part

ocean and mist

   sand and shore

    mountain and river

      breeze and wind

       leaf and branch

and is in everything
  that is beautiful about love

If you are lucky you might hear her footsteps
gliding gracefully over your roof
and in dreaming you will see her smile
and in seeing her smile you will know
why the stars glimmer and shine

The green fields paint themselves over the brown roadside
and up the hills that meet the pale blue grey sky
as winter releases its last cold breath
and the ants march in triumphantly
from their tombs of slumber
to find a feast of crumbs fit for a queen
and it’s strange how royalty
is so often mistaken for nobility
as mankind claims to be both
but rarely shows signs of either
and isn’t it strange the things we see and hear in dreams
while our eyes are shut in a dark and silent room
and if we can hear without sound
and see without seeing
what is the point in believing in anything
that we see as real or true
and why give so much time and opportunity
to things born for nothing more than human misery
and so little time for matters of love and hope

if reality is the only thing at all
why do we bother to dream
why do we bother to love
what does cold hard concrete have to offer
the stars of heaven or the fires of hell
what is it that burns in the furnace of our blood
that makes the heart beat so fierce
through the good and the bad with or without our consent
what is it that makes the heart
feel heavy inside our chest in times of trouble and ache
and why does it seem so light when we feel our lives
are boundless and endlessly filled with love
is it simpler than we choice to believe
is it something as simple as acts of kindness
is the heart heavy only when it has nothing to offer its love to
nothing to care for
have we been living backwards towards the meaning of life
have we been so overly desperate to be loved
that we forgot or failed to realize
that the hearts true function is to give and give and give
is love too heavy to hold
is the heart only light when it flows like a river
uninterrupted by dams of human misconceptions
why do we breath under blue skies and sleep under pale moons
as the seasons pass and the ants march
mistaking  what it is to live by simple means
as water bends and curves over sharp rocks
and smooths the rough edges
forgiving what cuts its path to rivers and streams
and on and on the water flows
as should the love inside our hearts
endlessly and effortlessly by acts of kindness
to fill our lives with love and hope