If perchance
we stumble in
to this mortal dance
and swing
and dip
across the tip
of life’s ledge,

If we dare
to venture on
beyond
simple reflexes
past poor pretenses
will we meet
and dance
in poetry?

Sweetly
and discreetly
we will bend in
words that mimic
ballet movements;
Feathers flapping freely.
I see you before me
and I adore thee
as a true friend
as a poetic compatriot
because you are great at this
sharing the depths of
our heart that write and love
all the world
below, around, and above.

The world is a heavy burden
a place that builds you up
with broken bits of brick,
rage, and pain.

The wind carries the names
of those who are to silent
to ever really blame me
for all that we lost.

I rush to write this
memory of truth I found
before it slips my grip
and drips down into
the crypt that carried the few
who left me behind to brood.

I am angry and sad
to see my granddad
discarded at a nursing home.
A diabetic left to die alone
not because he was not loved
but because we all had lives to live.
I forgive all of them
but deny myself that mercy.
On the last day he was alive
he said goodbye
in his own way.
When I said “I loved him”
he weakly replied “thank you.”
Though it was not his intent to,
he made me I feel like I had failed him.
My familial affections
must have seemed like rain
on the desert wind,
brief and rare.
I left him there
and he died.
Frequently,
I wake day or night
with tears in my eye

I am angry and sad
that I saw my grandma wither,
looking like
some small sickly goblin
at the end of her life
because her loved ones
would not let her
let herself die.
They forced her to eat
when she could not leave
that bed where she slept.
While death crept
I kept to myself
to lazy and afraid
to deal with the tension
of arguing with her
about my lack of
her religion.
So, she died
and my anger
simmered inside
as the tears flowed
outside.

I am angry and sad
that I treated my brother so bad.
I was struggling at nineteen
and did not want to see
the mother who hurt me.
So, I avoided him
left him trapped
alone with an abusive
patriarch
to break his heart
and his pain broke mine.
Though he has forgiven me
I cannot let go so easily
and my rage keeps boiling.

I am angry and sad,
made to feel bad,
left seething mad
because I saw
living loved ones
exit my life
beyond the stage lights.
It was their right
but it feels like
their leaving
was saying
that I was not good enough
to keep the ones I loved
in my life.
Black haired girl
left for the Army.
Black haired girl
left our online friendship.
Blond girl
left for her original lover.
One friend gone
then time takes another.
Brown haired girl
moved on to someone better.
How could I not,
I had to let her.
Here my heart breaks again
thought I made a beautiful friend
but it is her turn to leave.

In being left again
I turn my pain and rage within
to disintegrate the one I hate.
I despise those mirror eyes
whom are not good enough
to keep the ones I love.
I long for the day
gray hairs, false teeth,
and wrinkles take me
to a place where no one
can ever leave me again.

Arms wide open to be your port
you won't ever be a wreck to me.
For you come in so smooth and majestically
the winds can easily agree.

A certain song the sea wind knows
it sends thru puckered lips,

like kisses blown, across the bows
of drowsing sailing ships;

and stirs their sleepy sails
from their slumber with it's tune,

unfurls their folded petals
and brings them back in bloom.

She loosens on tiptoe
the latch of her window,

slides upward the sash
and the shine of the moon

pours over the sill,
like it's rushing downhill

like a silver stream,
flooding her room.

I take a pause for the poetry
But the word won’t come
The pencil is broken
The pen has run
I am dry inside

I take breath for the broken
My purpose pertains
To the hearts that our stained
The ones who abstained
From feeling anything
But my voice is wrong
The syllables are gone

I take minute for myself
But I am only a shade
Sparse specter fraction of
The person who always loved
The person who was strong enough
To cradle the world with the warmth of his heart
Who took the steps to start
And watched it all fall apart

I take some time
Then time takes me
I lose myself
I lose my dreams
Settling in to old patterns
Struggling to make what I earn

I take one last look
As things disappear
People pass away
Memories become unclear
And I cannot remember any lines
From the music I used to hear
I cannot see the words
Taste life’s sweetness
Smell or feel anything

I take nothing
And give it right back
A wasted life
Some heart attack
Funny when it was
The heart I lacked