Contemplate for a moment
the pleasures of zero,
in a strange uneasy pause
from your important life.

Belly button fuzz, dust mice,
stale chips in wrapper,
and long lost keys,
in furry fresco
under your couch.

Strange modern art forms,
swept nose wrinkled,
***** to bone
to the wastecan,
unrecorded for posterity.

Across the planet is a woman,
picking over dumpsters,
her favorite flowers
wilted from gravestones
to her table.

Across the ocean
theres an anonymous man,
sleeping under papers and box
snoring a lullaby
for some subway train;

No deadline to mortgage,
rolaids past lunch,
the quality of problems
light years and eons
to yours.

How does it strike you, friend?

Power and nature snared on canvas,
all that remains of our well-loved scene;
a fiery wet brush that flashed in the sun,
expressions of grass that still dream..

What secret magic did you practice then,
sculpting heart's beauty to last;
dark loving eyes that will never fade,
a supple spirit pinned to the past.

I visit the grave cold stone of your bed,
bring you leaves and lilies that wilt;
if I could just paint the soul of your life,
I shouldn't mind all the tears I have spilt.

Empty are the days you filled in my life,
your easel and brushes lie scattered;
Yet ever the sky plays through the trees,
mixing wind and color to spatters.

Would that I knew you better;
your face like a smooth mask
and dark eyes so remote;
one glance,
can start me shivering.

The sophist siren symphonies
of unrequited love and desire
tempt me beyond measure;
who knows,
maybe you feel the same.

The plant on the windowsill
has bloomed its last bud
and trails sad, brown vines,
flung wide,
in the indignity of death.

Inches below its dry fingers,
above gleaming porcelain,
squats a dripping faucet;
hard reality,
to shrivel so close to life.

My mind wanders this truth
as my heart curls and browns,
I feel thirst consume me;
tell me,  
will I die for want of you?

The underbelly of my ego;
limpid, wrinkled carpet
of scars, petty thoughts,
and fearful self-machination.

Cold as a mottled monologue;
Selfish and maudlin
as a sneaky sot,
stealing affection from strangers.

It lurks in the alley of mind;
sinuous and grim
with cynical ire,
waiting to devour my dreams.

Approaching Creativity;
sweet progenitor of
color, light, and lift,
it pounces with dull, fiery claw.

Dripping venom and phantasm;
slayer of fairy tales
barely enwombed,
heartless Avatar of failure.

This then is my secret battle;
to slay and triumph
and win clear the way,
so the children of my light survive.

No measure of hours,
day in, day out
cold fingers of mold damp
******* my nostrils
in cryptic drafts;
icy floor, ruthless
corpse-like and spongy
beneath my bare and distant feet.

Ghosts and apparitions
come in, go out,
visiting me, strangely urgent
mouths flapping fishlike
with alien sounds;
distorted humanities in
faces, groping for me;
less than the ticking of my heart