Old blue jeans
haven’t faded yet,
still unblurred
as he moves
undeterred
by a painful past;

Slightly slumping,
shoulders sagging
like a soldier
who is dragging
his body back
from an unknown war.

Well earned
wrinkles on his face
are deeply ingrained
as deep blue eyes
shield a soft soul
from feeling
to cold.

Brown spotted skin,
but his hair is still black,
the pain is still there
in the past
as a matter
of facts
that others lack.

It is all superficial.
People can’t even see
the surface scars
that he hides
behind his sleeves.
Desert dry eyes
can no longer
sooth a parched heart.

Outside
of our ability
to perceive
is his grief,
strange subtractions
from his life
like his parents,
his friends,
and his wife,

All we can see
is a solitary
sad stranger.

Every single sentiment
you sent to them
was sediment,
evident deposits of
your oceanic scale of
intellectual love
that ran off from
the river it existed in
passing from
the predetermined pathways
of those intelligent waterways
and settling in a new sea
of salty perspectives.

by Arcassin Burnham

Bad days , good days,
Their all the same,
just put your feelings all aside for me this time,
your mind , is a weapon ,against the world,
to make a whole new one so divine,
no matter what , no matter what,
I'll always be a guiding force for it to bring me home,
I said no matter what , no matter what,
I'll open up these eyes including the third one alone,
I am special, we all are in this so called reality,
how you gon' blame me when we are all heaven sent?
how you gon' say the most high has white skin?
how you gon' win when you ain't right within?
I get used in this world,
I'm abused in this world,
I'm betrayed in this world,
I'm delayed in this world,
I get the worst advice from my family,
I get hate in this world,
I'm awake in this world,
I've been beat in this world,
cheated in this world,
theres always less love in my energy.

Swiftly,
I soared with
Tarzan level
agility.

Up in the air
only a couple of
feet,
barefoot flying
in my grandparents
garage
out in
a town so small
it should just be called
country.

A leap
imagining I am
flying fiercely,
daydreaming
then landing.

A piercing
pain pressing
through
the first foot
I landed on.

I looked down
shocked to see
a pointed top
of a rusted *****
staring up at me
right through
my foot
without a shoe.

Thus, the adventure
ended with
a wounded warrior
under ten
stumbling back in
to my grandparents’ house
after pulling that
pain in my foot
out.

Forget about
tomorrow.

All that you have
is the sweet sweltering
summer night,

one moment
right now.

Jealous roads
of gray gravel,
cut across
the black tops
bringing back
the dirt and dust
that we track
from the tread
of our black
dead tires.

Gingerly
travelers like me
work
the waves of
winds that
bluster
and brag about
the voices
of the past.

Daylight shifts
to nighttime bliss,
as the melody
of madness and poetry
consumes me.

I know
that it is
time to move on.
Still, I strive to hold on
to hope,

but hope is
the same torn
and tired rope
that I use
to wrap around my neck,
till all consciousness forgets
I ever bothered to exists.

Time is
moments measured
by manmade devices.
Or is it?