Crouching slick faced in the depths of the pines,
Drums are echoing in me like dead men.
The forest always knows how it will end,
The thick autumn painted crimson with blood.
The deer murmurs as I slowly take sight
And ran for miles after his mortal wound.

Through ravines and thorns I carefully wound:
His corpse was still beating among the pines.
Cone-needle bed is his funeral site.
Death has become the tooth-scarce grin of men.
My hands are on the shoulders of my blood:
A burden he must carry through the end.

Not long after this the deer filled the end
Of our truck and the ragged red-brown wound
Pained my eyes, hissing at me as the blood
Fled from it like a warrior who pines
For home. We cut him apart with old men
And the winter made our breath turn to sight.

Two months later my kin’s ribs are the sight
That tell me it is all about to end.
Where once stood muscle now lay paper men
Leaking memories, ready to be wound
In the splint’ring rigidity of pine
And finally make good their debt of blood

We are starving without the nature-blood
And the black smoke pollutes the holy site
Where killing became living in the pines.
Now there are machines living at the end
Of my fence, chewing on the trees, wounding
My mother with the oiled claws of un-men.

I meandered slowly towards the dead men
Now laid enshrouded deep within the blood
Of the forest. I am the living wound
Among the trees. Wooden markers show sights
Of a generation shortly ended.
There is no life among the wretched pines.

Now coming are the haunted men who pine
for the forest of their blood, but the end
has come and earth-wounds are their only sight.

She’s a darting smile in honey sweet sun
a soft speckled nap in the shade

She’s a bright red bird weaving in the trees,
a shimmering root in the reach

She’s the smoke in a starry night skyline
a kiss in warm crying light

She’s an oft turned page under tired brown eyes
a tale of trumpets and song

But most of all she’s a love long sought for
a quiet reminder of strength.

How word conveys thine yonder form
is winter’s ice upon my ear,
No mouth can so describe the warmth
lay hous’d inside my heart endeared.

Despite all speech that one might find,
though vastly far it always spans,
your essence will lay undefined,
far beyond all ink-spotted hands.

But here I stay ever toiling,
grasping my pen yet unprepared,
Cursive paper onward coiling,
My crumpled sheets lay uncompared.

So know my love you’re all to me
beyond that which our words can see.

I bled my words but none landed on the paper.

My smile glistens like cracked glass.
The dancing never stops.

I can still feel that stained carpet on my toes, the one where I used to play tug of war with my dog until he got hit by that Mac truck in February because he’s stupid and thought it was trying to conquer his territory
or something, but now I guess I’m the stupid one, because here I am flying out over the streetlights and sidewalks, just waiting to crack against the pavement like some gigantic Humpty Dumpty, which makes me glad that there’s a precedent for not being able to put people back together, because I’m almost positive that even if they did, there would be at least one or two pieces switched around that would make just the smallest difference and then Humpty Dumpty wouldn’t really be himself anymore, and that’s sad because I’ve always at least been myself, even if a little misguided, and at least I wasn’t one of those soul ****** drones that took the medication and good god this is taking forever I chose this because I thought it would be quick, because I didn’t want to end up like the squirrel Josh ran over on White Oak Road where just about everything in him was smashed except one leg and his head and he just sat there twitching for like thirty seconds or at least until I couldn’t really see him anymore because we were driving away, which is odd because if it had been a dog or a cat we would have stopped, like the mac truck driver did for Jake in February, but since it was a squirrel we just chuckled and kept on driving over to the Dairy Queen, the biggest one in the world actually, and it even has a sign saying so, and I always tapped it as I walked inside the place, which really wasn’t so much a huge place as slightly bigger than the other Dairy Queens of the world, and I would have really liked to travel the world but it was too expensive and the world isn’t really too keen on meeting some country yokel who can’t even pronounce Thucydides correctly, which I really don’t get why we don’t have any cool names in the modern times, because everyone’s roll sheets and grave stones and birth certificates read like a grocery list,
John,
Bob,
Ben,
Joe,
and no one ever has a cool name like Pericles or Hesiod or Ajax,
but I guess that’s because no one can ever really fill out those names either, because it’d be too much like a 6 year old wearing size 17 shoes
or my girlfriend wearing my hoodie but less cute and more pathetic,
as if we had broken up and she just wanted to wear it for nostalgia  and her eyeliner is smeared all over the collar because she wiped her eyes on it and yeah, that’s probably what it’d be like if I

Rain weaves weary paths on the
old Aurelian stone busts
like lilting music in a
deserted ballroom.

Yellow cobblestones echo
underneath black soled shoes and
sickly noses sing.

Across the street, children laugh
like the breaking shaft of a
silverish door key in a
cold iron-clad lock.

Thunder shakes its hide of rain.
Against the sky, rain retreats.

Rain makes some people lonely
but graces me like a scar.

Rain makes some people just wet.
Against your skin, rain bright-stars.

Rain drifts in deserted rooms
like a speaker suspended.
"Glisten, eyes, and rain freely."

At home flood-rain drowned my dog.
Shake your coat of rain, fly on.

Rain weaves weary paths like the
old Aurelian stone busts.

Forest rain drips, doesn't fall.
Rain runs down softly like a
colorful painted lasso.

Rain breathes on my window sill
like a loaded rifle. Rain
penetrates all skin and bone.

Rain is more serious than
a lover on his deathbed.

Rain can be pitiful like
glowing fire never dead.

Umbrellas familiar
with rain sit forgotten in
closets with old pairs of shoes.

Direwolves prance through rains with tails
held like a tarantula
in molting season beats drums.


Ashpalt puddles boil with rain.
Against the ground, rain retreats.

My mind traces your every curve and valley,
yearning for adventure in new lands.
For though unexplored, I can see you fit
me as water in glass.
So why not rush into me, why evade?
Guiding is my specialty, but you writhe
as if in storm, with wind in current as I
grasp futilely at your crashing
waves,
beg for your ordering.
But so it goes,
again,
again,
until I see you have no waves, you weather no storm.
It is merely my eye-shard's trick,
reflected as I lay broken and shattered
about the kitchen floor.

Whiskey carries me
To the fading afterglow of
Engines spent.

I'm the pi diameter,
walking razor bladed edge.
Eternally flying the circle
like a great carrion bird
living on half rotten throw away filth.
Make me your center,
the main point in your graph,
diameter divided by two.
Enfold me completely with your area
and I'll wrap you as well.
But I'm the pi diameter,
bound to follow the path
that is furthest away.

I see people float on like leaves.
Gliding, soaring, humming about,
not a care in the world.
Glorious reds and yellows,
triumphant, even in the knowledge
that they will all end.
And so I drift along as well,
but not with a whisking of the wind like others.
I slowly make my way in the
murk of a puddle, rolling through
mud and the accumulated pollutants of
what ifs and slow eating depression.
What I would give to fly.
What I would give not to feel.

I am glass,
sharp edged and *****,
offering reflections
or even visions.
I am glass,
inanimate and still,
giving scars and taking scratches.
I am glass,
fragile and careful,
put only where it's safe.
I am glass,
receiving buffers and renewals,
shining brightly and glistening
in a new sun.
But not too brightly,
sometimes reflecting no light at all.
Because your fingerprints are always
embedded in my surface.
I am glass.

First a silence,
   drifting gently blue.

Maybe a brief prodding,
   rekindling bright yellow.

Inevitably a forgetting,
   resting ever clear.

He stayed by the bed.
He waited.
As she spurned
love,
traced her fingernails
on collars and firm
chests,
chasing a carnal satisfaction,
he waited.
Through crowds she waded,
each stuttered step
in those sinful heels
drove stilettos through his
heart.
He waited.
Then she finally came back.
After all of his waiting,
she journeyed home
to stay at his side.
So he stood up and left.

The force of habit
drives me
to ****** noses
and
cracked ribs,
crushes me
down into the
dust,
grinds my
bones
down into
brittle sticks.
The force of habit
drives me
to drown,
to seek
sadness,
avoid the sun.
Why?

Existence is a battle,
you fight or you die.
Existence is conquering,
making others serve you.
Whether it's people
or it's things,
earth must be bent,
bent to your will,
just to survive.
Water is stolen,
Creatures are killed.
All for a simple,
a fleeting,
a miserable
existence.

So that is existence,
but it is not life.

Life is a peace,
built in others.
Life is surrender,
a turning in.
Whether it's people
or it's things,
life is giving,
providing for others.
Water is lent.
Creatures lay down.
All for another,
all a sacrifice,
all for love.

For love is life.

I had you in a dream once,
it wasn't very long.
The details escape me,
but your taste,
remembered longingly.
It was all that I got,
A slight brushing of lips,
not a real kiss.
Not even a full dream,
that's as far as we got.
Before we both turned away
and reality interrupted.

Two years ago that fantasy was,
but the play of dreamlight,
the subtle upturn of your
lips is still fresh in my mind.
The familiar fit of
your hand in mine.

Familiar fit?
But it's never happened,
not in reality.
Probably not even
as a thought
of yours
playing across
an unknown destiny.
No impossible thoughts
for you to sink in.

Drown in.

So if this is so far
from real
then why is it
a preoccupation,
obsession,
that takes my every moment?
A long infected **** of blue,
that's covering,
conquering,
every facet of my mind?

I pride myself a strong
detached man.
Society begs it,
but who am I kidding?
When thoughts turn to you
my flesh is no good,
it only ***** around,
like so much cloth.
It realizes futility,
and refuses direction.

It disobeys me.
It betrays me.
It begins with convulsions,
a wracking of shoulders,
It ends with subtle gesture,
a trail of new tears.

Oh how I long.
The memory of that
        yes only a memory of it
strong embrace ebbs
        rolling unknown tide
at the edge of my mind.
        it's been so long so long
Had I known that it would be
my last touch
        fingers running first softly down her arm
I would have never let go,
        then hungrily faintly grasping her fingers
pulled with all my force,
        slowly slipping
leaving no doubt in
        we both finally turned away
either mind
that this
was real.

Scaling walls,
attackers cry out,
shout,
with hate-twirled love.

Arrayed in haste,
defending spears ******.
They must,
finding targets in the haze.

The fortress is impregnable,
its walls miles abreast.
A nest,
snugly holding him inside.

The ruler surveys alone,
sees the death,
forgetting his breath.
Sometimes he wishes

that his defenses were overrun.

I forgot you once.

I was Free.

Your brown loving eyes
became only mud.

The curves of your body
ceased to be the shadowed rolling hills
that I was once lost in.

I was Free.

I forgot you once,
but it never happened again.

Dirt clings to the most beautiful things,
for a moment it shares the glory.
It clogs and it diminishes,
But for that moment, dirt is proud,
Because it is a part, holding to something larger.
Then the object is cleaned, purified, and purged. 
And dirt is just dirt. 
Man was made from dirt.

My pen has blacked out the page.
Scratching through paper, day after day,
but my mind is in a cage.
my words are hollow, I have nothing to say.

This prison is crowded,
inmates claw at my temples.
But my key is shrouded,
I want to let them out but it isn't that simple.

Are they clawing?
Maybe they're praying,
I need to stop withdrawing,
Life isn't about staying.

It's about going,
and I am lost.
I am slowing.
What is the cost?

I've heard it said that
to move on
is to grow,
but I disagree.
How can you grow if
you don't stop
sometime?
A tree doesn't run,
it stays.
Its roots
nurtured,
drawing strength
from its stationary
nature.
So I stopped
and I stayed
and I grew with you.
But then I figured out
that people aren't trees.

I am tired.
my thoughts
       drift


         downward


    like
                leaves
                       on
                  an
            autumn
      day          
        departing
       a tree's
           sustenance

        eventually
                            
landing on a still black pond
deep and lightless but clean.
        Clinical.
         and
          so the
            leaf
             sinks
to the mud encrusted bottom
that only I can penetrate alone.
A place where dark emotion is logic                          
and logic is simply gone, wrong, contrived.
No breathing, no solving, every semblance of
normality and happiness simply rotting while
I try to contemplate which of me is truly me.
Am I slowly gasping, forgetting, expiring,
or am I glowing, forgiving, exhilarating?

The walls of fate
tower before me
stone and
unyielding
mocking
in its
immortality
I close
my eyes
my guts
roil
squirm while
faces erupt
and subside
green oceans
waters in a storm
inside me
they're all me
but not really
It's past time
I finally
need to
choose
a face.

Sometimes I sit,
and I ponder,
and I claw for inspiration.
Filth encrusted metaphors
burst like bog bubbles.
Fill my mind.
Sleek and killing similes
pounce through synapses.
Claws in brain.
All sing of fall,
of decay.
Of mud and grime
clinging to souls,
like guilt to a survivor.
Sometimes I sit,
and I ponder,
and I claw for inspiration
only to find
that these aren't true,
they can't be true,
or at least
they're only shadows
compared to the giant flame,
because the world
is always getting better.

Can't you see?
Just look out of you.
This beauty
comes not only from within,
but from farm, field, mountain, and glen.
Happenstance and luck had no place
within what is simply heaven's grace.
But yes another gift was choice,
and yes what shakes is my voice
because I cannot force
this society's course.
I cannot show you this is real,
that it is not just how I feel.
That this is truth.
This is light.
But what hurts the most
is seeing the ghost,
the old you,
the knowing you,
the you that's gone.

What do you write about when you're empty?
not
a depressing,
a dreary,
a crying empty.
Just
a sitting
a wondering,
a being.
Not content,
not needy,
just neutral.
When that spark eludes you,
when the profound refuses to
scream and scratch
at the borders of the mind,
What do you do?
Maybe strike pen to page in defiance
or just simply think,
maybe go for a run,
or simply drink.
When you're neutral
options are open,
all open.
When you're neutral,
you're free.

We all know
what to do
on land
in sun.
Laugh and share
love and care.
But what about
the deep?
What about
the underneath?
Lessons taught
don't compare
to the devil's lair in blue.
Sinking
        d
         o
          w
           n.

Unknown
against
Unknowing.

Plunged
into an ocean,
bottomless and blue.
Oh yes it's deep
no bottom in sight to keep,
certainly no surface.
I kick as told,
through the cold.
Glad I took
swimming lessons.
But even so,
my swimming lessens.

Brown-gray whiskers
chaotically twirling
wreath his face.
A testament to hardship
and wisdom accumulated.
His eyes are an ocean
deep and unknowable.
Monsters swim in its deep,
Indescribable.
His face is cracked and wrinkled
but the skin is taut
too tight and jawline stretched.
Mist-like hair meets shoulders,
greasily tangling.
In front of him a rust spotted buggy,
creaking
groaning
holds his world.
Trash bag continents slide against each other
making new mountains,
transforming
shopping cart geography.
I meet his eyes on the sidewalk
but quickly look away.
I always look away.

Every day we're told
of our specialty-
        Individuality.
We're all different
not sensible-
        Incomprehensible.
To see another mind
even marginal-
        Impossible.
But the more I look.
deep down
        Around
we're really all
the same-
        even in name.

Moving out
is the time you find
the remnants of past desires.
Tokens of others,
meant to keep and cherish
and always remember.
What happened
to the givers of these,
my companions of old?
I contemplate,
not out of hate,
and look to the phone
sitting alone...
But then I find
I do not care.