A good man is soon out of company.

The woman he lives with
believes he is a fool
and having seen no sign of his cure
she feels insecure.

He is weak and so acts good,
she rues in bitter mood.

Goodness buys him no good place anywhere.

People interpret his grace his kindness
as his meekness.

He leaves his seat for others
but is never offered a seat
with sellers he is nice
but parts paying the worst price
being never vocal with claim
favors seldom find his name.

Yet in goodness only
his heart loves to dwell
and on the humble bed
he sleeps well.

the financial adviser
did advise Tom
not to get a credit card
as it would lead
to misery's maelstrom  

interest rates on credit cards
will break a credit card owners back
so it is strongly advised not to
venture down that track

Tom took the financial adviser's
sound advice
and gave the idea of being a credit
card user a shoulder of ice

The setting of traps
has always seemed
like a tacit endorsement
of the mice.

Acknowledgement.
Validation.
Admission of failings as a homeowner –
(cracked baseboards or an unsealed gap in the door.)

We are usually responsible
for our own infestations, after all.

The relationship with the mice is codified
“you are vermin,
I am not.
I will ****.
You will die.”

Thus the mice are transfigured,
Christ-like.
Frozen in fear,
frozen in time,
laid bare
on a sticky, chemical
altar of sacrifice.

Saviors
giving their lives
so that we may preserve
those unwanted crumbs
in the vacant space
between the couch and loveseat
where the vacuum won’t reach.

So tired I have grown, of building castles
only to have them overrun by cresting waves.
So tired I have grown, of tasting water on my tongue
but spitting, complaining of its salty burn.
So today I take a dive,
for I've grown sick of the shoreline and
smelling life's salty scent only upon the wind.

So today I took a dive,
head first into that salty steep
and was pulled here by current arms
and pushed deeper by ocean nymph charms.

My body flung about,
counter currents tossing me in circles,
eyes itching red with not a second to blink
and my nostrils jammed full
of the salt that hinted my senses before.

On the brink of drowning,
vision fading from blue to black,
I am pushed to a surface
far from the shoreline from before.
A gasp for air and the seagulls call
beams of sunlight carefully fall
onto the white crests of traveling waves,
and upon my blinking eyes.
Here, on the bobbing wakes of erasing waves,
I begin my ocean days.  

I had become so tired of my earthly ways,
so tired of hating the cleansing dawns
hiding behind the ebbing tides.
So today I took a dive
and began my floating ocean days.

When life feels suspended by a delicate thread
Change is inevitable
I sometimes feel stifled
Tightly constricted
Like a chrysalis
Struggling against transformation
I oppose the transition
And need more time to adapt
Today
A butterfly tapped against my window
Like change asking to come in
If I can comply with Grace
Maybe I too can transcend
And withstand the butterfly effect

Another love poem? I ask myself.

She's a red streak
where the waves froth her feet white
a girl scouring the sands for shells
in the ageless haze the sea spews
bending and rising like the doubt
if time by some quirk has stopped
and the slanting beach is that warped space
where for long has homed
all the free souls of the world
love being their only name.

I walk up to her richer
by another love poem.

The Hempstock mice know all
all that is good
and all that is bad
and all that is too horrible to be known
they are the oldest of the old
they come from a place before
the place of nothing
and the time before
the beginning of the first time before
and if you believe the rumors
or if you don’t believe the rumors
they will be here long after
the last time of all

They have traveled the abyss
and set sail in and charted the void
they can gnaw through time and space
and reality is nothing
they cannot bend
or turn
or rearrange
or extinguish with just a thought

Let us be thankful
that they are animals of kindness
creatures of wisdom
spirits of love
and mice that believe in forgiveness

Their paws are hands that craft things
all things
from the first heart of the first star
to the black feathers
of the first raven and crow
they will craft the quill and the ink
that will write last word
of the last story to ever be told

They named the gods
that named your parents
that named you
and painted the names
of tomorrows children
in the heart of yesterdays dreams

They have seen the end
since before the beginning
and when nothing comes back
they will swallow

Time

and

Dream

and

Life

and keep them safe in their belly
and gnaw through to new beginnings
and their paws will be busy hands
crafting things
all things
and when they have made
the universe comfortable once more
they will let us fall
from the belly of their womb
and we will be the children of tomorrow
born from the heart of yesterday

Oldest of the old
wisest of the wise
kindest of the kind

Mice of all mice
mothers and fathers
of love and forgiveness

The Hempstock Mice

escape a blue speck
(life is) not what you expect
post-it® this isn’t real
Real is when two dots connect
when two lines intersect
3, 6, 9 interject
Real is two coils who convect
electromagnetism
Real is Life
That happened    how?
Nobody knows
          nobody here at least
answering these questions
i slip into darkenss (ice
can help with this)
i understand i don’t understand
a robot could understand better than i
but I’ve got a blue pen.