I can barely catch my breath,
there’s a sea of swirling madness
bodies bursting with endless
tragic tears of sadness
and all the sobbing leaves me
heaving and breathless.

Wishing I’d see death less
and more days of happiness
for all the world’s children,
but I can always hear them
crying, begging, for heroes
who will save them.

Little girl amidst the wreckage
loves her people,
lives in fear of the evil
acts of other nations
as bombs burst her foundation,
and she is left feeling
lifetimes of devastation.

Years of boots on throats,
of truths I wrote
of true experiences
only slightly altered
by my lack of living in it.

but I can see the way they live it.
Fear, and sorrow, pain planted upon
the soft soil of childhood.

I can breathe but I
don’t think I should,
don’t think people are good
as other human beings suffocate
I don’t want to take their place,
but I would exchange pained
lungs and ease the air of despair
from their chest to mine
to give them time to repair
their hurting hearts
as they breathe in fresh oxygen.

Its two thirty a.m.
or maybe later,
as she lays there
on the outer limits
of the small town
gas station parking lot
just off the highway exit,
trying to sleep as safely
as she is able.

Couldn’t be
more than
twenty-three
with a fully loaded bike,
and body tightly curled
under the cover
of her safety vest
of bright colors.

She smothers herself
under bright streetlights
cause at this time of night
or morning the lights
offer some limited sense
of security.

A concerned security guard
tries to wake her,
mistaking a mam for sir
drops a bottle of Gatorade
for her to drink later that day
and a sandwich.

He tells her
the gas station attendant
called the police.
Then to ease
his concerns
passes a couple loose ones,
leaving when he is done
getting a short explanation
of where she is coming from
and where she is going.

This is where the narrator’s
lines end but leaves him
wondering miles down the highway
if the police hassled her
or left her undisturbed,
so she could get
a few more hours of rest
before the hot day
forced this girl
back on the frontage roads.

There are beautiful words
waiting to be seen,
poems waiting to sing,
like the diamond glistening
waterfall that plays me
to a gentle sleep,
as it sparkles
and leaves stranger in awe,
while giving me reason to pause
cause I to am dumbstruck
by my own dumb luck,
confounded by such glory
that I nearly trip on my
untied shoes,
racing forward to write
all that radiates from nature to
the amazing being of you
my emerald friend who glitters
just as wonderfully.

I want to be swollen
with sweet word growing,
impregnated with that which
is made for taking darkness
and transmuting it into
a light of love for all to
fall comfortably into.

I want to take this language,
work and refine those fine
lyrical lines that make minds
turn towards acting kind.

But I have lost the eloquence
that was once my treasured gift,
and all that falls from my lips,
is red and brown drips of ****.
I’ve gone from child optimist
to exhausted adult cynic.

I have lost the fairies and dragons,
unicorns, and gentle care bears
and now dim dreams live there.

Vague impression of once vibrant
brush strokes, and dancing limbs
have giving in to warring men’s
disturbing intentions.
Nightmare too horrible to mention
have become my waking certainty.

But what is really bothering me,
is that it has become much easier
to accept this sick distorted reality.

The canvass of life has become
the splatter art of a billion broken hearts,
and I have mastered the skill
of numbing what I used to feel
in favor of current forms of
self-amusement.

It matters not
if in the end
all that I got
are a handful
of tender friends.

If my compatriots
do not forget
the goodness
that lives yet
in my poetry.

If only liars
and fools
speak ill of me,
but kindhearted
wise people
still feel
that I was
a man of
goodwill.

I know
nothing
waits for me
and eventually
I won’t even be
a fraction of
a lingering
memory.

But if
in these
minor instances
I insisted
on being kind
and that was
the worst trait
my detractors
could truly find.

Then I would be okay
to go out that way.

Sunday morning is a spiral
of dimmed lights
and despairing shadows,
of stairways to nothing
that dance in the distance
and turn around to find
time no longer binds
this strange and tired mind.

It is a body of fatigue,
so tired that it turns blind,
unable fathom
what was once
wondrously divine.

Windows no longer open to
a whole wide world
that I want to view,
but are closed,
painted black
with spider web
thin cracks
that let less than
infinitesimal light in.

Hope is made for forgetting,
until a long sleep
restores my stores
of optimism and inspiration
allowing poetic explorations,
as the windows open
to finally let more light in
and the stairways shift
restructuring themselves
to new realities
of delightfully
exciting possibilities.

The flame of madness
cracked and expanded,
holds hearts unplanted,
soil sick with slick
mind worms that take
turns gnawing through
the muck and the goop,
and the rotting wood to,
seeing moods shift from
angry, sad, then numb
to become all spent up
without any passions left.

Peasant eyes
tell pleasant lies,
but journeymen
are mastering men,
commanding them
to do their darkest
bidding,
leaving dreamers sitting
sad and dismayed
as the con artists run away
with the heart of what makes
love and language great.

Do not let me
be vexed by
exemplary
poetry.

Cause I am
lyrically
fantastic,
like other
lexical lovers,
and word writing
art brothers.

I love the
sweet
syllabic
ecstasy
of channeling
language
for my own
enjoyment.

It is pure
play
and self-pleasuring,
as I go one
measuring
my verbal dexterity
in combination
with clarity.

There is
a sad disparity
in what I write
and what gets through
to the masses who
find my art
hard to digest.

It is a self-serving mess
in which I express
an observance
of the madness
of merely writing
and not expecting
others to grasp
half of it.

The sun
no longer
streaks the sky
but seeks to die
as I try not to cry.

I am too tired
to create
anything I deem
great.

Over dependent
on stimulants
to wake up to
a creative vision.

Brain fogged
to the point of
being a rotting log
wasting space,
just waiting
to decay.

In my
fatigued state
there is a fear
I may never make
decent art again.

But I rest
and get up
to type out
something
beyond my doubts.

One poem,
the first of
the week,
a stumbling piece,
not my best
but a relief.

I’m already unmoored.
My heart turns sunward,
as my eyes look onward
towards towering distances.

As glowering visages
scowl inwards,
poisoning their innards
with all that stress,
walling in hate
and dying in that
disgusting place.

Cowards cower
loosing seconds,
minutes and hours
to the anguish of
forgetting how to love.

But I am
the whispering
walker waking in
the early morning
and working on
my poetic warnings.
Even though, my boat
is already untethered
and I have already taken
off in this wild weather.

I say what I can,
give them a piece
of this tired mind,
and leave mankind.

My ship takes sail,
as they let themselves
sink into their own hells.

**** your high society
and your sense of propriety.
It violates human decency,
suffocating what's unique in me.

So, I prefer the freaks.
There is beauty
in the scars underneath,
the experiences that free
true artistry and empathy.

I don't behave properly
and could never be that stodgy,
dodgy trickster that tries to
live up to a standard no one fits in.
I'll take the stew of life and mix in
different perspectives,
cuz I'm not made for
your standard objections,
or corporate objectives.

Rules and norms are always changing
relatively rearranging
base on social standings
and mood fluctuations;
So, I will pass on all of that.

It is better to know up front
that I don’t fit in,
so there’s no way I can win.
Especially when,
I can't be classified as a normal guy.

Hell, I don't know why
someone would even try.

They try to keep
the deep blue deep
inside a plastic cup,

but I open my eyes,
point them towards
the turquoise sky
flying but never
getting high enough.

Break the clouds,
pierce the veil,
reveal the stars
that cook themselves
like I do.

Circle the curve
of time and space,
faster than the pace
I make to take
first place
in life’s race.

Inside my skull
a universe unfolds
as I write new rules.

Falling faster
as the atmosphere
incinerates my skin.

What horrible pain,
what a terrible shame,
but like the phoenix
I want to burn
and rise again.