What do I have at my disposal?
A knack for always wanting to write
My intuitive messages down.
But it’s got no substance,
It’s got no meat.
I’m all bread and cheese and
Condiment without any meat.
It’s fitting for a vegan, I suppose,
But not for a poet.
The poet has to lead breadcrumbs
For the reader in order to get to the meat
Of the poem, the substance, the protein.
Where is it?
I’m lacking substance where I have all these
Nice little toppings and sauces and vegetables,
I have a dipping sauce for this sandwich,
But no meat!
I have to go to the store,
I have to keep honing my skill.
I have to develop a hunger for meat.

To meet one who you’ve only known
In passing glances
And to fall in love
With reckless abandon.

Once you fall in love with
An artist, an empath,
A writer, a musician,
A feeler, a healer,
A giver, a lover,
There is no going back
To an ordinary life.

Posthumously Famous.

That is definitely the name
Of my book.
If not that, a title for this poem.
No, the first line.
It’s untitled.
I won’t restrict myself.
I won’t be led astray.

Poets are just looking for an outlet.
Poets are in anguish.
Poets are on fire.

Let us burn.
Let us burn in agony.
Do not peek your head over,
Dear reader.
You have an obligation.
Work, kids, bills.
Don’t think of us.
We are burning in agony, in fire,
And we do not wither away.
We cannot escape that easily.

Nothing worth reporting besides the usual
Importance of ignoring negligent thoughts
That seek to destroy me,
Harboring inside me,
A caged bird with a broken wing.
Hope calls out in many ways,
Still your surroundings to hear its bays.
Quiet. Listen.
It’s seeking you in earnest,
Its mysterious hands fiddling with
The lock of your entrapment.
Soon, you will have the strength
To pursue all of your dreams.
But right now, you’re too consumed
By the hopelessness of your confinement.
The bars disappear when you look at them
A certain way. Illusory, these posts, these chains.
Break free, some sympathy may come your way,
And unleash you, teach you how to fly with your handicaps.
Don’t look back, once you’re released -
Fly over the valleys and the rivers, wherever you please.
Fly brave, fly free.
Continue to seek
All that seems out of your reach.
Bathe in the waterfalls of your fortune.
It’s yours, after all.
You have this as your guiding motion.
Snap back to your present situation.
You see the cage, you feel your stuntedness,
Your loss from grace,
From freedom, the chase,
You so earnestly thought you’d finally taste.
One day, it’s yours.
Just hold on to hope, on to your scope,
The sights and the breeze under your wings,
It’s all yours, always has been, always will,
And still, I know it stings.
Listen to the way the ocean sings,
Once you make it there, I know you will,
But for now, let the ink spill and spell
Your own misfortune, your own destruction,
Slowly deteriorating any sense of fruition.
I know you want to give up on these ghosts,
But they are yours to catch with a gilded net,
So let them go, if you choose, but remember
You’ll have to live with regret that you never pursued
Beyond the bars that immobilize you, like roots.
You were meant to travel and traverse,
The universe will push you towards your path.
Do not listen to those who jeer and laugh.
You know your purpose. Listen, it’s there.
What your inner voice guides is your truth to bear.

The musicality of the moment,
Brought by the way my tongue
Flicks against my palate with
A satisfying smack like bubblegum tricks
Is a greater bliss than the pauses
Between a Mozart piece
Where the essence of the music lies.
The peace, the stillness, the absorption
Of higher vibrational photons and forests
Of enchantment, reading manuscripts,
Prescription bottles, poetry, philosophy,
Thirsty to fill a void grey and dull,
Coloring my world with the sound of language.
Finding new ways to contort and contemplate
Writing and meaning and verse.
Channeling insights from the universe.