Awoke this morning to build an effigy.
A 9 am text turned it toward a eulogy.

I left exposed
my heart of gold
to another gone soul.

Hospital rooms,
beeps and boops,
my grandmother’s last soliloquy.

Her last trip through memory lane;
I listen intent, every word
branding onto my brain.

I beg just a little longer be
the bearer of the key
to this exclusive library, her history.

But, alas the doorway is flooding.
God has shut the ark door.
No salvation is coming.

Pulmonen et vita submersi,
analogon Atlantis

(Lung and life drowned, analog of Atlantis)




Goodbye ‘Maw-Maw’ Nell Broussard

Life can get stuck
     in a downward spiral;
          into Death’s
               inevitable black hole.

Fly away
     little butterflies.
         Hurry
              out of your cocoons.

Race
     but pace yourself
          from the inevitable
              and monotonous pull.

Part of me doesn’t want to write anymore (or is it anything?).
Am I just afraid to drag my emotions across this page?
My words tend to come back black and blue,
misunderstood from the most ridiculous points of view.

Should I end communications?
Though the shadows in my closet offer no verbal retaliations.
For better or worse, at least my ego’s not hurt
from a mad world’s projections.

But I don’t want to be the lonely one
hiding along the edge of the room,
surely looking broken to some,
while others wait for me to come undone.

Give me a minute and I’ll return to center ring.
Maybe it’s just the thought of a crowd that I find overwhelming.

There's a girl I know.
And if ever there was an empathic soul,
she'd be in the running for the gold.
This girl I know.

I feel like running into the arms of warm grave,
if it weren't for all these people I supposedly saved.
Now looking at me with their accusatory stares,
looks of "How dare you emotionally sway,
from the hopes and words that convinced us to stay!"

What if you find that I'm wrong;
that these are not real songs,
and that I don't belong?
I'm sorry.
Compared to other heroes, I'm not nearly as strong.

I am lost!
I have crossed a divide,
where I collide with the unrevealed.
I am thrown into swirling life
spinning amidst defused light;
a kaleidoscopic landscape of streaked memories.

Is the end of this tunnel, my future or past?
Is there any evidence that I'm getting closer, at last?

An illusory distant point - a distraction
from action that needs to materialize
before I realize that I am not strong,
and am wrong about where I want to be.
I attempt to grip the whirl of wind;
hands outstretched to slow the spin.

My feet have yet to find land.
My body plans for impact
a stuntman's tumble back into mid-life,
eluding strife or contention,
but not to mention,
the final and ultimate cost;
alongside bittersweet acceptance,
of knowing that
I am no longer lost.

I fell off a slick, wet roof.
An oscillating view
of black and blue,
'til the thud of the ground
made its cue.

Funny how things no longer pain,
when the mind's busy fighting for what life remains.
Fuzzy darkness invades.
My life's last pixel threatens to fade.
Blood slows for death's chains,
as a distant angel serenades.
A voice long before I've ascertained
My wife, my love, running to me with voice strained.

Panicked footsteps thud against the ground.
Death's dark veil seemingly overwhelmed
with the light of my love's
symphonious voice at my helm.

Now, two months later,
with a story to tell all,
of Death's light overcome by Love's song.

Maybe there is no me?
Maybe me is just we?
Oversimplified, over-exemplified,
Positioned so that I can't see.

Bravo! We've made it the to end!

With help from my favorite friend.

Musical mental volleying left the stage rent.

Myself, face down hours later, spent.

She's a dime a dozen runaway.

Educated by the light of day.

But forget about stories of the fast lane,

She’d rather reach for a strong hand.



She met her baby on South Ave.

He was just as blown away to(o,)

be noticed by the county beauty queen

of corn or cows or something ordinary.



Local five and dime's no place to hide,

if she wants to shine this ‘little light of mine’.

Above on a hill, her silhouette sits by a street light.

Hands nervous and gripping tight,



Bags are packed, fake smiles attached,

the beauty of the world, seems all but detached.

I think to myself ‘I could use a bit of company,’

So, “Hey, honey, wanna share a ride with me?”

Run, rat, run.
Though you don’t know where to
or what from.

Live, love,
fly, die.
A cyclical life we all live by.

Disorientedly
caught in the streams
of others’ hopes and dreams.

Shoeless,
in a forest,
insects on my toes.
Have I lost it?
It’s better if I don’t think for so long.
I might stop it,
sabotage it,
before I make it home.

Don’t put that spell on me,
now that I’m free.

Boneless,
in a casket;
washed out to salty sea.
Sun-baked, I’m awake,
but again, it’s just me.
Two times, I have tried
to steer away
from a lake that bears my name,
but now that I’m awake,
the notion just don’t feel the same.

Have I lost we,
now that I’m free?

Weightless,
and dateless.
Lost in time and space.
Doesn’t matter where we begin
so long as it doesn’t end.
I stay in place as everything floats away;
running as if chased.
Lasso the sun or the moon
to rocket me to some other rat race.

If I’ve lost we,
then, so be.

Wears me down, this gathering of men.

With their idle chatter, presenting the most annoying clatter,

to the ever growing backdrop of this living.


My mouth can't mask the feverish rantings of my mind.

I should let this conversation die. Let it end!

Let it flutter desperately in the wind.


Slink itself back, in the awkward way it came.

I'll bound back into the sea of faces.

Lost in my murky fog of vanity, I'll swallow the blame.

She draws closely.
Her nostrils flare; she senses me.
Too late to evade,
She's on the prowl, hunting me.

I convey a little interest,
and then a little lie,
in hopes to divert her current opinion;
to convince her of some other project to drink from.

While conversing, she made two good points before
and for a time, I did adore
her night-life sins,
like the antithesis
of her pale white skin.

One part yang, the other part yin.
Her total package perfectly zen.