Time crawls
Alcohol flows
What a petty waste
Of shyness
Nothing of nothing
Dreams lost
Bitter sweet
Souls crushed
Under oceans deep
Nothing of nothing
Conversations never spoken
Love without its token
Was she beautiful
Under druken gaze
Or was it nothing of
Nothing

There is a small hole
in the brick wall under the counter shelf
just big enough for a tiny door
a tiny door that may or may not
lead to a kingdom of mice
mice that do not fear cats or men or traps

noble mice
clever mice
kind mice

mice that may or may not be true gods
that may or may not have blood
older than Odin or Zeus or Athena or Isis or Horus
pulsing through their veins and raging in their hearts
old mice of old myths of old times of old fables
living lives of true importance
guarding the virtues and secrets

of why and why not
of how and how not
of when and when not
of where and where not
of and of not

mice that are guardians
of all that is good to know
and all that is too horrible to know
and must be kept secret
from being known at all

no easy task

not for men
not for cats
not for gods

and not for mice

not even for mice that may
or may not be gods

so when you find a small hole
among the bricks
of a wall under a counter of a house
or an office or a coffee shop
that is just big enough for a tiny door
a tiny door that may or may not
lead to a kingdom of mice

know that they are
noble mice
clever mice
kind mice

and if you are able
you may want to build a tiny door
to keep them and their kingdom safe

for though you may be tempted
to know all that is good to know
and you may be tempted
to catch one of these mice
and ask it to spare you a secret or two

remember that these are mice
of noble hearts with noble blood
blood that may or may not
be older than any gods name you may pray to

and they must also always be on guard
for all the things that are too horrible
to know and must be kept secret
from being known at all

and to distract them
for even the slightest of moments
may be the beginning of the end of us all

I saw her
the girl you talked about
I heard her voice
with the slight tremble
and a rumbling hope

she still had spitfire in her words
and starlight in her eyes
she wasn’t lost
not really

she may have had more questions
than answers in her head
but give her time

sometimes the questions
don’t need to find answers right away
or maybe even ever

sometimes they just need to be asked
they need to bloom and find wings
and wander and float off into the sky
sometimes its more about the wondering
the exploring of both
the inside and outside world

questions of the mind
mending doubts of the heart
a burning in the soul
to be cooled by a passing wind
a kind smile
a gentle hand
to hold in the darkness
so it knows it is not alone

it is often the silent conversations
that offer the most light
when the words that need
to be heard
do not need to be spoken
as they are already
being sung by the stars above
and we already know
the song by heart

love is an art that can be shared
between two strangers
that never touch each other
but still hold each other’s hearts

maybe for only a slight moment
maybe an entire life

two voices shouting
into the void of despair
declaring I will not go quietly
I will not live silently
I will live and fight
for something worth living for
something that will make death weep
when it whispers my name

I may lose my way
I may feel hopeless
and defeated
from time to time

but I will not give in
I will not give up
I will make my fist into a grenade
I will make my heart
into something larger than a fist
and I will live my life
by finding
and practicing the art of love

and that girl
the one you talked about
her voice with the slight tremble
and a rumbling hope
she is closer than you think
when you find her again
when you see her again
tell her thanks

sometimes
sometimes I forget
that I’m not alone
and even the slightest of moments
can last a lifetime

We live, love, and die
And then we do it all again
And isn't it just beautiful
In its ugly awful way
How we live, love, and die...
Hey, lets do it all again

You are
Breathtaking
Heart racing
Dream filling
Beautiful
And I'm mad
With love
Foaming
With lust
Raging
In oceans
Of dream
After dream
For your
Dream filling
Heart racing
Breathtaking
Beauty

Fathers won't always remember the last time their sons give them their last soft kiss on the cheek followed by a small squeaky voice saying, "i love you daddy"
And that's ok...
I suppose...
Its the kind of thing little boys outgrow so slowly and suddenly that it goes unnoticed until it is completely gone some years ago
It will be replaced by long warm hugs and little arms wrapped around necks and legs and waists and a voice not as tiny or squeaky saying "I love you dad"
And that's ok...
I suppose...
And often with an unknown tragedy these hugs become shorter as arms grow longer
Not always... but sometimes
Some will stay close
Some will drift
And some will drift and then become even closer for their time apart
And that's ok...
I suppose...
The wonders of life are not always kind
But they are not of cruel intentions
It will seem unfair at times
True
But life itself cannot be blamed
It has no guidelines
No safety net
No rule book
It is of whimsy and irony and grace and downfall and magic and fear and beauty
Time will shuffle the deck and fate will cut and deal the cards
And maybe hugs will be replaced by pats on the back or handshakes or shrugs of the shoulders as an older voice that has lost all of its squeak says, "...hey..." as sons and fathers pass in the hall
And that's ok...
I suppose...
Fathers have to let their sons grow
Have to let go of thier hands...
To let them...
discover mistakes and learn failure and invent secrets and build mystery and paint dreams
To live through the wonders of life that will sometimes seem cruel and unfair
And find in their fathers voice that they they only let go of their hands so they could hold more tightly to their hearts which they can never let go

Dying on this earth
Spinning farther apart
The dream of unity
Lost to the vote
Of bitterness and hate
Where to find the will
To go through another day
If I could only afford the luxury
And the tax
Of a smoldering fist
And a shotgun blast
Of the heroic exit
And the sinful kiss
Of a shameless suicide
And what will divide us next
What new excuse
To spread the gap
And drop another bomb
Of disappointment
And poison
And steel
As if killing
Our children in
Needless acts of
War
After war
Wasn't a fate cruel enough
Now the future
Withers in the fist
Of greed and politics
And what are we to do
To stop the bleeding
Fear and hate
Running wild
Round and round
This earth
Driving state
And country
And mankind
To bitter distance
And unneeded tears
Who can save us
When we have failed
To learn the wisdom
Of the answers
Bob left for us
Blowin' in the wind
And If Joe is up in heaven
Would anyone bother
To listen as he strummed
On his guitar
One more protest song
About the clashing
In the streets
Under the london fog
Tom described it too perfection
As he told how Luce came home
Broken
And left his arm in his coat
Back on a coat hanger
In the middle of a
Forgotten field of war
But did any of us hear
The horror of the truth
When...
When will we put
The differnce and divisions
To their past due graves
And dream and dance
And fight
For the unity
We desperately need
When...
When will we
Finally realize
Tomorrow is a day
Too late

When you tell someone
When you say it
The first time
And every time after
You got to say it
With a big aching
*******
Not just a hard ****
Your whole ******* heart
Better be hard
So ******* hard
The slightest touch just
May shatter it into a million
Tiny fragments
It has to be hard and
Pulsating
Ready to explode
And seep with life
And horrible painful
White hot sticky love
It can't be half limp
It can't be hardly beating
Or just beating at
A normal pace
It has to be harder
Than rock
It better be beating
Hard and quick
So quick its just a blur
Loud and pounding
All night and through
The morning
And not just on the good days
And hot sweaty nights
It has to stay hard
In ice cold waters
On days of dark despair
Through hours of tears
Through the painful silence
When lost in the middle of the storm
And thunder
Of acid rain and razor tounge lightning
Its got to stay hard
When your soul goes numb
When the heart feels dead
When all hope seems lost
It has to stay hard
When it feels its most alone
It has to survive
In the empty space
Of noise and confusion
When everything
Is rough and cuts you
With every touch
When the easiest thing
To do is to give up and
Walk away
Its gotta stay hard
And hold ground
No matter how difficult
It is to do so
Its gotta bare the teeth
Of madness bitting
Down on it
Because it is
Madness
Stark raving lunatic
Madness
And if you can't do that
All of that
If it doesn't burn
And ache in your throart
Before you say it
While you say it
After you say it
Then why say it
Because if its coming
Out of a hard pounding heart
Its going to burn
With your every thought
Your every breath
It should scare the living
Crap outta you
To say it
Because it feels so *******
Good just to think it
To have it there in your head
Sleeping in your dreams
Pounding again and again
In your heart
Your hard hard heart
When those three words
Pass through your trembling lips
The first time and every time after
You gotta say it with a *******
You gotta speak them true
In hushed screams
And long loud whispers
Echos of moans to the moon
That come burning back down
To earth ready to plummet
And crash into madness
When your ready to say it
You won't be ready
You'll have to hold the knife
To your own throat
To keep yourself from running away
Because your scared to death
You'll die if you say it out loud
And that is exactly when
You have to say it
Let the words boil in your belly
Let them churn widly in your gut
Let the crazy burn in your throat
And then with your big aching
Hard heart
Say those ******* beautiful painful
Hard words
Say it...

*I LOVE YOU

In tallest tower keeps
Dreams of lovers sleep
Made of words and ink
Above the mountains
Where dragons fly
Songs of you and I
Castle clouds and pillow stars
No hope out of reach
Where the dreamweavers never sleep
Lay down worries
Put tears away
In this tower love will always stay
The climb is a simple one
Click your heels or make a wish
It is just a dream away
A dream both old and new
A dream forged from heavens breath
A dream of me and you

My dreams pauesd for a midnight bite
And I found a dead body
Entangled in my arms
And a strange heart beat
Stuck in my throat
A fast bullet bleed from my soul
And the moon wasn't talking
And the stars weren't singing
And the smoking gun
Would only laugh
But refused to give the name
Of the hand that held
The trigger finger
I flashed my teeth
And bit this nightmare
By its kneck
And ****** out all its blood
And filth and venom
And chocked down the fear
Of knowing the face
Hiding in the dreams
Dancing in the death
And colors of those
Mad cruel eyes
Staring at me
From the bottom
Of the deep dark abyss
Of the frozen dream
And Iifeless body
Haunting the pulse
Of my arms
And I couldn't tell if
The smoke smelled
Of love or suicide
So all I could do
Was open a bottle of tears
And drown in a drop
And load the bullet
And **** the trigger
And ****** myself twice
And change the channel
And flip the switch
And **** it back to sleep
And ignore the moans
Of suicides luxury
And loves misery
It was just a dream
Riding the rails
Of a lost nightmare
On a train that was
Nothing more than
Ghosts and smoke
And whispers
And I slept through
Another forgotten attempt
At love and suicide

Is it poetry or the lack of
It's hearts spilling on the page
So why all the rage
It's not facts about faith
So why all the hate
When brother attacks sister
Who attacks father
Who attacks mother
Who kills her children
How do you not see
Enough is enough
There are less sacred places
To spew your hate
This is meant
To be a place of joy
And encouragement
To let the feeble
Dance with the
Masters of their craft
So if your steps
Are full of malevolence
And spite
We will happily
Show you the door
Although we would
Rather say hello
We won't regret
Saying goodbye

I wish I had the courage
When I last stood
In front of you
To tell you
And if I only could
Stand in front of you
One more time
On more moment
I would tell you
Not for your love
In return or to feel
This love that has burned
And consumed and haunted me
Both night and day
In dreams and fantasy
Pass from my lips to yours
Not to ****** your flesh
And remove your clothes
Rain my fingertips over your skin
Not to hear you whisper and moan
And shout under sheets
Not to claim your soul
Or your name
In that moment...
No
I want that moment
To reveal that this love
Smiles madly and lives completely
Feels impossibly and dances wildly
Lasts eternaly for the beauty
And perfection of the stars
And heavens and endless bliss
It finds in you
And against time and distance
And possiblity it will always stand
And burn with its hand outstreched
Should you want or desire
Or need
Or not
It will live and love
Alone or together
It exists only by the chance
And the luck of that
First moment when my
Heart knew it had always
Loved you

I wanted to write you a poem... but at the same time I didn't... I wanted to talk to you... I rehearsed possible things to say and I got as far as "hello"... I tried one day and all I got out was a quite and low "hi"... I think thats what I said, I don't really remember...I was nervous and maybe didn't say anything at all... I'm really bad at this.... I don't know how I ended up so shy or why I am...

true story... my first girlfriend came into my work... all dressed up... walked up to me and said, "So, when are you going to ask me out?"... I was 21 at the time... I haven't gotten much braver since... I finally did ask someone out once... I was 43 at the time... it was a rush... she said no, had a boyfriend... but still... I did it... finally...but... old habits... I wanted to write you a poem. ..  the same way I wanted to talk to you... but I didn't...

She came from the land of haunted castles
And the pages of a dead love tale
I would sell my soul to the devil
To give her my last first kiss
But the devil wasn't buying  
He laughed and howled and said
My heart was out of wishes
And my soul was just bad luck
He broke both my thumbs
And stole the moon
And tied a noose to a dying oak tree
And then left me on the road
Without even the stars to read
His parting gift
Was a piece of paper and a pen
And bullet of bad news
And a bit of advice
He suggested to put this dream
Out of my misery

Master of the way
East meets west with pen in hand
Haiku Hank is king

I am the devil born
In the complete
Abscene of god
I know no sin
Only pleasure
And from pleasure I gave birth
To pain
And in weeping
I only found joy
And in joy
I murdered love
Again and
Again
Mercilessly
Laughing
Bathing in it's
Dying blood
A fool without shame
Innocence just soft prey
Warm flesh
Stripping it clean from
Between legs
Again and
Again
Savoring the lust and the blood
And the crime of passion
Ignorant of love
A trickster
A pretender
Days of dying  
Faking things as beautiful
Blissful self gratification
Nothing more and
Something less
Again and
Again
Until
As a bird your song
Caught my ear and your word
Burned in the unknown depths
Of my soul
My heart beat for the first time
And in its first beat
I felt love  spreading through
My every pore
My entire being
And I wept
In shame
Your pain to beautiful
For me to bare
Dreams of lust lost
Pain of love found
A song too beautiful
For my ears
Nothing so perfect
Even with broke wings
Or dark heart
Could love smomeone
Devil born
Like me

What is it that we do?
Sewing metaphor to rhyme without reason
Mashing reason to metaphor without meaning
It's all so pretty in pretend
Ignoring ugly reality
For beautiful fiction
Why worry about tomorrow
As long as you can **** today away
**** poor but drunk rich
Pop another pill
For fake thrills
Sacrifice the truth
For pleasant lies
It's easier to feel numb
Than heart
Broken

Bad Poetry...
It's a nasty habit
Its ***** and filthy
Words crawling under
  your skin like roaches
   scavenging in the night
Ink splatters into the Illusion
  of sanity and clarity on the pages
    of chaos and confusion
We all think we know what we're
  doing we all think we're in control
Clicking our pens, dipping our nibs
  in ink, scratching out letters to form
   thoughts to describe dreams to take us
     away
Away to our secret little corners
Our coffee shops, our street side cafés
Hiding in plain sight
Being nasty and ***** and filthy
Just waiting to feel our habit start to
  crawl in and out and all over
So we can write some more
   bad poetry

Live a life without fear of death
  Love so freely
               so wildly
That when it is time to write
    you're final page
That death will pause and tremble
          to read your
            last words
Then with your last breath
  embrace death
And fill its lungs
with a life well lived
And pass through this life
  and illusion
Towards the next dream
of love and immortality
                            For if in the end
                            All we find is the end
                                Dream the dream
                                  that never ends
                                    Dream of life and
                                      death and
                                        death and love
                                           and love and
                                        Life and dream
                                          without fear

Don't our children have better things to do than be nothing more than coins exchanging hands for the continued industrialization of profit from death
Are they not worth more than being living pawns on an out dated board of chest that becomes nothing more than another military grave
Are their bones only meant to end up crushed and broken within the jaws and teeth of the old blind dog of war
Are their dreams worth less than this old perpetuated hate and unnecessary fear
What will become of us if we continue to value a false idea of national pride over the lives of our children and their children and on and on
What will become of us when we betray the hearts we were meant to protect and the minds we were meant to teach
What will we become when we protect oil over blood
When we choose machine over flesh
When we can't see the only future we give them by repeating the same mistake time and time again is an early and unneeded death
What can become of us if we handle our children's lives so cruel
Is it not time to give them something better than the endless circle and cycle that has brought us nothing more than unending grief
Is it not time to give life and love back to those to who it should belong
Is it not time to trust our children with better things to do

I was a sweet kid, a happy child, I remember I was almost always smiling, you know except when my fathers belt came off because back then that was the norm and it hurt and it was scary and it was what it was but I survived and whatever damage that may have done isn't as bad as what I have done to myself since then.  Apparently there were a few other times I wasn't always smiling back then that I don't recall, one time in particular, a story my step mother loves to tell and in all truth I like hearing, is that one day, back around kindergarten or first grade, I had a stray dog follow me home from school and when I got to the gate of our front yard I started to yell profanities at this floppy eared creature.  Profanities that neither my step mother or I can guess how or who I would have learned them from at that age... but the story makes me laugh and smile like I use to in my childhood and its such an absurd thing to picture me back then being angry and mad and yelling at some poor dog for doing nothing more than keeping me company on my walk home.  I can't find anything on the surface of my memory to complain about when looking back to when I was naive and happy.  My father worked swing shifts or graveyard shifts and I thought graveyard shift meant he worked in a graveyard.  He even had a work ID were he was wearing a werewolf mask and had me convinced he was a werewolf.  I lived with him during school days and spent many weekends with my mom and she did all the fun stuff.  Camping, fishing, flying kites and parks and all that childhood goofing off summer day type stuff.  She made jokes and pulled pranks and was deathly afraid of snakes and I loved her and my father.  My father taught me how to be a good person, he showed me the difference between the false idealism of being a manly man over the greater reward of being a gentleman, one being sincerely concerned with the well being of others and the other being self centered and hollow in anything but the pursuit of his own satisfaction.  My mom helped too, but she was more of the wild card and the humor councler of my life.  They both always encouraged what ever my young mind thought I would want to do in life, they both showed belief in me.  Something I failed to learn how to do for myself as a became of an adult age, which was no fault of theirs.  
I can't explain or pinpoint where or what day the smiles became less frequent and the happy child drew itself back into the folds of memory past and out of present day.  I'm not miserable, I don't hate my life... I can honestly say and express gratitude for my life up to this day.  There has been far more good than bad, more friends than enemies and annoyances, more love than heartache, even if just by a little... My nights may be restless more often than not, but I've never been one to enjoy in the overindulgence of sleep and have always preferred the minutes of the moon over the hours of the sun.  
In all honesty, I'm nothing more than a goofy kid in an adult body... but still it feels like something is missing.  Some part of me is out of synch.  I have my to do list, my road to the mountain of things I want to accomplish before I'm buried or burned or sleeping at the bottom of a lake with no one knowing that I've passed on.   I have dreams of high ambition... unfortunately my motivation seems to be sleeping in.   It use to be easier to sit down and illustrate and paint and dance and sculpt and go from one thing to another... I have enough work to do stored in my sketch pads and head that I don't have to worry about running low or not having anything to do next.  Procrastination however seems to be my strongest characteristic... if it wasn't I wouldn't have written this because honestly, I don't know what I'm doing and I never had.  It just use to never get in the way before and now it's scattered all over my workspace and I can't scrub it off my desk and I can't shake it out of my bones and I just laze on the couch and watch it eat the time I should be using to get back on the road towards the mountain... tomorrow though right?

How dead to we have to become
before we start to feel alive

how much flesh do we have to shed
before we believe that we look beautiful
is it until there is nothing left but our bones

how much death must we ingest
before we chase away
our gut feeling of ugliness

how high a price are we willing to pay
to appease our need to look our best

what can we hope to gain
by losing all we have
to satisfy the narcissism
of our egos eye

is the high price of beauty
worth being dead inside

short skirts and **** me heels
bones laced in lingerie
dying in a web of lies
hoping to be as pretty
as a picture in a magazine

what pills will we swallow
what will we burn
to **** that burning doubt
that we don’t look good enough

what are we chasing
what is this dream
this endless pursuit
of outward loveliness

is it some misconception
some illusion made of deceit
to believe beauty is something
we can see with our failing sight

is their glamour in the death of our hearts
is it a noble lamb for the butchers knife
skinned alive so we may dance in elegance

handsome boys
alluring girls
fifty ways to hide our monstrous skin
so full of human flaws

devilish grins
mischievous smiles
*** sells and death the highest bidder
on our wasted life
of self obsession

click click
snap snap
what filter can hide
how grotesque our ambition has become
to post our perfect self from our phones

is becoming dead gorgeous
worth the sacrifice of everything
that lives inside of us

A man with dragonfly wings and a ravens head interrupted a dream where the moon was dying and the sun was burning its last match
He spoke in clicks and clacks and had hooves for feet and told a story of the birth of the first star who had no father or mother
Lost and alone in an infinite darkness the star had little to do but ponder if there was any difference between reality and fiction and which one it belonged to
Did it belong to a dream or a wish or was it an illusion or a trick or was it just imagining itself and maybe it wasn't even a star
Maybe it wasn't anything at all
Maybe it was nothing more than a feverish thought of a mad god with dragonfly wings and a ravens head and hooves for feet who had murdered his mother and father
He made a noise that sounded something like a cackle and a snarl and then hovered for a moment before flying off into a blood red sky
The dream flickered back into focus and the sun had no flame or fire and the moons corpse floated out in a burning boat towards oceans end
Its last dream wrapped in velvet bandages dangled in a starless sky humming a silent song only the first star ever born could hear

He paints poems on her heart
She poses for him with naked truth
And the secret colors of lunacy and madness
Spill forth onto page and canvass
By brush and by breath
His thick paint of love and life
Explodes and streaks
And pours and gushes out
It saturates and soaks her heart and skin
And moves and flows
To the rythm of her pulse
Mixing in her vivacity and blood
Creating a palette and light
Only mad lovers can feel and see
It leads their feet
To honeys blood from
Pots of golden love
Where their bodies swim
In Amsterdam decadence
And Paris pleasure
Their hearts walls rich
With paintings of love
And everday
He picks up brush
And takes deep breath
As he watches her undress
Until she is nothing more
Than beautiful and true
And with soft and gently strokes
He brushes over scars and tears
And over her soul and marrow
As he paints another
Poem on her heart

I would shackle the sun
And drag it back down to earth
To warm the numb surrounding your heart
Soothe and till its soil
Troth my soul to its dirt
Plant my seeds of life and love
Deep within its hurt
And should a garden fail to bloom
I would dig to the center of the sun
And bring back its fiery core  to
Shine on only you
And plow the earth of your heart again
Plant more seeds of my love and life
And water the grounds with the tears
Of the flowers longing for your love
That dance and sing inside of me
And I will stay and never go until at last
I make a garden bloom and grow
And your heart has found
The warmth it needs
To love again
Then if you let me
I would take your hand and stay
And say I love you
With my every breath
And down every road
For all time to come
And shout it from the top of every tall mountain
And every tall tree
And from the bottom of my soul
While swimming in the deepest part
Of the deep blue sea
Holding your hand still
Long after time has come
To its end

Pretty girls in summer dresses
  blowing in the wind
Careful of the devil making
  promises of sin
Pretty girls with soft pink lips
  framed on perfect porcelain skin
Careful of the devil painting
  colors of lust
Pretty girls dancing in dreams
  of autumn
Careful of the devil waltzing
  pretending to know loves song
Pretty girls wandering
  through strawberry fields
Careful of the devil planting
  seeds of lies woven through
   the fruits hanging from his vine
Pretty girls sleeping under
  the snowing stars Of winter
Careful of the devil trying
  to burn fires from the
    wood of your home
Pretty girls writing poetry
  on frost covered windows
Careful of the devil spying
  on your hearts desire
Pretty girls with spring flowers
  blooming in your hair
Careful of the devil pushing
  carts of lilies watered
    by the poison in his blood
Pretty girls laid down on blankets
  under sun and gently breeze
Careful of the devil roaming  
  waiting in your every season