trees, trees and plants
we see them with trunks round
Love them, laugh with them
cos you may not see them
all years, always  a -round

Trees, trees
they have no fingers
Oh, but they’ve got many rings;
and they still get on the internet
by logging in

Tulips grow on your face
and if you plant kisses
you get another two lips;
the cucumber goes mad
cos it’s in a pickle;
the mushroom is always invited to parties
cos he’s a fungi

and the dog loves the tree
cos they both have bark;
while the frog’s favorite flower
is the croak-us;
the elephant, on the other hand,
I mean on the other trunk,
loves squash;
and while the fruit
comes from a fruit tree
the chicken comes
from a poul-tree

trees, trees and plants
we see them with trunks round
Love them, laugh with them
cos you may not see them
all years, always  a-round

the nut sneezes: *"Cashew!"
And the lemon is sick
and the kind neighbors
give it lemon-aid;
the tomato turns red
cos it sees the salad dressing;
and baby corn says to mama corn:
"Where’s pop?"

and you humans
if you reach out with your hands
you can fit a palm tree in;
and knock! knock!
who’s there?
"Leaf – yeah, just leaf me alone;
enough of your silly jokes"

Trees, trees and plants
we see them with trunks round
Love them, laugh with them
Cos you may not see them
All years, always  a -round

The world isn't real to me,
it's outside a thick skull.
It's my muted screams you hear
coming from inside
this bone brazen bull.

The body pursues pleasures while
pleading to me "Be happy! So that I...
so that we may find love."
The nerve.
The nerve!
And trust you me this bag of bones,
this lustful flesh has too many nerve ends firing.
And they all want something,
all demand my attention
for even the most mundane events
of their spoiled lives of experience.

Thank you, nerves, for sharing how a cool,
spring breeze blowing lightly over you feels.
Thank you too, way down there,
for making me aware
of the soft grass sliding taught between your toes.
How special for you, no jealousy here.
Now, lets bring this mess to order,
would somebody please go ask the warden when
visiting hours are over?
Because, you see,

The world isn't real to me,
it's outside a thick skull.
It's my writhing & thrashing you mock
twisting within
this bone brazen bull.

"Be happy" it tells me.
To better pursue it's goals!
It has clearly never even once tried reversing roles.
Well, I have. Many times. For, I've the time to think, believe you me.

I would stuff the body in a box barely big enough to fit it,
and add within the 'creature comforts' found in my abode
which you'll daily find me in abidance.
Inside would be dark, hard, and for reasons still unexplained
somewhat sticky...
Would somebody PLEASE! tell me why it's sticky in here?!
Excuse me, moving on...
I would taunt it then:
"Let's go for a run." I'd say,
"The breeze caressing my grey matter sure is nice." I'd add,
"Why aren't you happy in your dark, dank, brain-box, body?!" I'd shout.

Between you and me, I only smoke because I know it makes
its lungs all sappy.

Why aren't I happy, body?
I'll tell you.
Because delusory images drafted from incomplete,
tainted, sensory data, diluted of any real, exciting experience
are all that make up my world; my life!
It's as boring as drinking a ladle full of water Jesus made
out of what was once wine and then added fluoride to.
I'm like your shut in grandmother you write home to
in brief, lying notes about your travels abroad.
"Amsterdam was nice STOP"

So, body, excuse me for taking pleasure in unhappy things
such as smoking, or hating.
Excuse me for my spite.
But, for me and my experience these are the things
I find tickling my quote unquote toes.
And...I'm all too mad to say,
are the closest I'll ever come to 'feel'.
Because, you see,

The world isn't real to me,
it's outside a thick skull.
And it's my muted screams you hear
coming from inside
this bone brazen bull.

He loved her and she loved him
His kisses ****** out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she ******
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered  into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows  pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined  sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

I rolled in Michigan
strapped to a kayak in the namesake lake
vision obscured by freshwater

I plunged under the blue surface
out of my element
panicking as a fish out of water- in water

I reached for the release and
missed
but grasped swelling panic

Dread thoughts of
the end...
my family…
last words…

Still submerged- somehow a semblance of sensibility surfaced,
unlike myself
frightening fantasies flitted-
shot like skeets in the sky and
peace prevailed.

I stretched through the moist blindness,
found the release- my sweet release.

Gasp air.
Freedom from death's clutches

I see
my unpreparedness for death,
ability to survive

Fifteen seconds to find my inner calm, my inner panicked strength, the depth of my composure
fifteen seconds for reevaluation

Fifteen seconds
submarine style
to find who I really was and am

Arguments are made
that safety and tranquility are the best mindsets for
education

But,
safety lacks motivation,
tranquility lacks demand,
Life's trials breed introspection.

(- This is originally a spoken word poem. Read aloud for maximum exposure.
-Asterisks indicate the necessity to pop your cheek with your thumb.
-Answer the two questions correctly and I will give you a hug.)

He fell asleep while traveling time
where a true name
becomes everything else.
So please give me a minute to explain myself
through the doorways
that I see champagne on a windowsill
walking across the room with blue
and fine china feet
saying again and again
drink me.
Until somehow
the words become a song
singing and swinging the bottle like a dinner bell for thirst.
A kind that we've settled to quench
with television
and somebody else's dream.
So don't pour my drink.
I'm trying to uncork it with my thumbs.

POP

It's flat
and I still have a tongue
so I will use it and I
I will dream of a time
where ******
becomes a baby.
Dr. King becomes a baby.
Until the left and the right and every dead genius in between
becomes
a baby.


Tiny feet trying not to crush the wet salad of the lawn
because it is green,
like my heart
that has learned
how to break fine china.
From experience,
let me tell you
it's a lot more tiresome than a blue dream
but he fell asleep on a boxcar crossing Germany
where mustard gas
drowns you in your own lungs
and he tries to breath between the joints in the track

the

click
...                         
click
...
    clack

as years
hurtle by.

Asking again and again,

"Who killed me?"
           &
"Who am I?",

until dinner was served without grace.
Until my head becomes stiff and bubble shaped
having been conditioned by
their
piles
&
piles
&      mounds

of
obfuscation.


So we should tell all the baby Hitlers,
that become children
that become us,
that a lie
is what you become
when abusing language to distort a reality.

And when you make a fist
you are handing worlds out at random on a silver tongue.
But I still have one
and I still have thumbs
so sorry to burst your bubble but,

POP.

Child,
I don't mean to put
barbed wire
between us.  
I know it hurts
to have something so precious as the world
taken away.
But walls hurt worse
and through them only muffled sounds are ever heard
until your world is made of mute prisoners
that have forgotten what silver
really sounds like.

Blessed be
for I also have ears
so give me second place
and I will throw the medal against your walls.
Ringing out,
the universe doesn't look like an ebony tub,
with knobs we can't ever see,
full of infinite shining marbles to everybody.
Your mind
is a library
so free will isn't a book written in just English.
And tourists,
those know nothing infants trying to travel,
belong
where
           ever they
are
                             going.

Belonging like this medal bouncing trying to sing
off your wall
and
falls

into


your world.

Where again it will ring,

we've all been runner up

and somehow
we still can become disappointments to ourselves
when another doesn't enter our library
instead of loving the stories on our shelves.


So,
let me say grace.
Let me set l o n g tables
with the gruel that's been given
served on b  r                     n.
                         o
                           k  
                                        e          
china,
spooned
with sterling silver.

Your lens is                                                                                 your language
       hurting you faster                                                        to write words
              broken                                       ­                                 beauty                          ­ 
                    slowed to a                perfect                   wonder
               ­              which could                       be called
                                                          ­  ?

                                                     Impossi­ble.
                                                      Throwi­ng
                                                         honest
                                                        ch­ildren                                                                                                    ­                                                                 ­                   
                                                           into                             
                               ­                           some
                                                      dead thing
                                                      that lingers
                                                      on through
                                                         ­ all this
                                                       and takes
                                                        the form
                                                            of a
                                                        question.