My body is flaking
like some ashen mistake
crispy, true
wispy too
as the breeze makes me break
So assemble your respirators
don't breathe me in
You'd hate if you let me get under your skin
I am forlorn
and airborne
I'm whimsically
whittling oxygen
out of the air that you breathe.
Yes you're probably all
better off without me.

Feel too much

and
if you find folly in those
freeloading fascist hacks
who tell you to write prose
or shoot photography,
tell them to take notes
      -a mental picture-
because you're headed off to the heart;
Taking back roads through
the bile of memory
to touch what it might just mean
to be.
Journalists content to watch.
Sojourners just might find.
A poet will be your guide.

Feel too much.

oh l o v e,

how

b i t t e r

it is

to

     y
        e
           a
              r
                 n

                        for

                               ­   *y o u

70

“Arcturus” is his other name—
I’d rather call him “Star.”
It’s very mean of Science
To go and interfere!

I slew a worm the other day—
A “Savant” passing by
Murmured “Resurgam”—”Centipede”!
“Oh Lord—how frail are we”!

I pull a flower from the woods—
A monster with a glass
Computes the stamens in a breath—
And has her in a “class”!

Whereas I took the Butterfly
Aforetime in my hat—
He sits ***** in “Cabinets”—
The Clover bells forgot.

What once was “Heaven”
Is “Zenith” now—
Where I proposed to go
When Time’s brief masquerade was done
Is mapped and charted too.

What if the poles should frisk about
And stand upon their heads!
I hope I’m ready for “the worst”—
Whatever prank betides!

Perhaps the “Kingdom of Heaven’s” changed—
I hope the “Children” there Won’t be “new fashioned” when I come—
And laugh at me—and stare—

I hope the Father in the skies
Will lift his little girl—
Old fashioned—naught—everything—
Over the stile of “Pearl.”

I'm talking to pine trees
teetering on a brush fire--
they do not speak English,
needle whispers are of a foreign tongue.
Feet varnished by sap
clodden with traces and feel no pain,
You will not forget.
(It only rubs off with extra-****** olive oil,
a pumice stone,
boiling water;
I had none.)
Later
toes slick and raw,
hands fleshy red in heat,
the ungraspable fresh veneer.

I let my fingernails grow out.

The forest burnt down in my eyes.

The only freedom we have is the
unconditional love we have to give
and the painful confessions
we offer to the blank page,
there is no judge
but our conscience
and the earnestness of our hearts.

Brush strokes caress the canvass, coating it with colors
magenta-cyan-purple-seafoam-gray-and-orange-like

-beyond those colors-

This painting is a story drawn from the choices of the artist
sad scenes, happy times, blatant in the backdrop(the mural)
each choice, stroke, and color morphs the painting
into what the artist wants to see

As an onlooker watches, in kaleidoscope glasses,
the onlookers experiences shape that gazed upon

What makes this painting a masterpiece is not the color choices
not the strokes,
not the canvass,
not the onlooker,
not the artist...
but the image of you
energizing happy times and transforming sad scenes in the mural

Scenes of young love,
strolling the park hand-in-hand,
strolling the park with younger us's,
strolling the park as we mature and ripen,
together as two grapes left on a stem,
always by my side,
always by your side

-a thought of you is a thought of me-

Even as we age and crumble (bonded like ancient clay)
we will always hold together,
like ancient clay

One pair of people,
two seeds in an apple,
our union is that of leaf and tree,
honey and bee,
just as you and me,
we're one thought on all minds in this...
unfinished masterpiece of our life.