Waiting,
in a blood red shirt
on moist earth
he sits indistinct
lulling over something.
On the brink
he thinks
he’s finding
that which he
forgot.

Arms cross
over her
white wrinkled
blouse.
Thin lines
of lovely hair
sit there
as she stares
trying to ease
the sorrow
of something
that she lost.
She waits
and faces
her own face
as a single pane
specter
who fans the flame
of a pain
that longs to be quenched.

Hand clasp
in her lap
as tired eyes
scan the skies
falling down
to the nursing home’s
parking lot,
in hopes
that the family
that has forgotten her
will finally return.
The bags under her eyes
no longer feel
the moistness
of grief
as she witnesses
all those she loved
and needed
just up and leave
like living memories
floating away
on a sweltering
summer breeze.
She knows
they are still out there
but they do not
come back here.

I watch all waiting
for the debating to cease
and the compassion to increase,
for people to hear my pleas
as I cry out for love, hope, and peace,
but I to
sit looking out
at a sad world view
as I to wait alone.

What is sadness
but an egg cracked heart
bleeding whilst beating,
pleading for the pain
to quit calling our name.

What is loneliness
but the same heart
hidden in
the beginning
of youth’s
spinning
those wavering intentions,
so many blanks skies,
too many to mention
as she stares
at a field bare
of flowers
or any crop,
looking for
the time
when her pain will stop.

What is life
but every sad scene
played in-between
the questioning
and hoping,
then coping
with the lack
of any meaning.

What is respite
but when her
tiny body drops
and she does not
have to yield to
the furnace of feelings
that was killing
all that made her
who she was.

This memory
is a younger
version of me,
nostalgia
distorted by
time and distance
to be played out
in a dream.

I follow
flitting footprints
that represent
some previous sentiment
of playful movement.

Then sit silently
on a sandy beach
watching a world
that never was
and never will be
again.

Little rubber rafts
float lazily
as children laugh
and splash playfully.

I run roughly
then stop
to wiggle each digit
feeling the wet grit
and grinning.
as the sand sifts
softly through
my tiny toesies.

A boombox plays
a song I cannot
make out,
as if
it is
just filler
for some
tv scene
in my dream.

This reverie
is like a prized parcel,
or a delicious morsel
of some recipe
that incorporates
the best past parts of me
into its fine aged flavoring.

Abruptly
I awake
a slight tinge
of sorrow
sliding down
my face
for that lost place.

Forgotten are the moments missed,
the never was world
parting from this
waking reality
where I walk from
the end to nowhere.

Sweet salutations
sent to the void,
no expectation,
but still I am annoyed.

Every dream
becomes a whistle,
a tune that is
on the tip
of my tongue,
and like a specter
as soon as I think
I have captured
that diaphanous thing
it is gone.

Forgotten are
the hopes and aspirations
lost moments
in-between
the heartbeats
and their ceasing,
decreasing all
possible outcomes
as well as the
well of memories
we all sprung from.

Heavy is the sun
that runs
orange to red,
over the journeyman’s
aching head.

Blank face and bold
wearing a cloak
that is a century too old
as he wanders alone.

The moon would be nice
to cool this day light
with a little night life.

Letting him gaze
beyond the heated blaze
and toward more calm
evening fires.

He looks toward
the horizon for
the hope of
the one he loves.

A wish to wrap
his arms around
the family he has found
and lost more than once
moves his fatigued
laden form on.

But the sun swallows
and disintegrates
all dreams for better days,
till frustrated
and dehydrated
he dies a ***** death.

He wears a hat of weird wind,
and for the lack of face
I can see him
unsmiling.

Shifted shades
of sad distortions,
colors mixed
in strange proportions
and all is just a sea of
lost emotions
intermingling with
rejected love.

White streaks
flow in semi-circles
surrounded by
a sky blue.

His ears can still hear you,
indifference
is not his preference,
but strangers do not
reference is existence.

All is abstraction
as paint pulls away
to blur a face
that will melt
from the memory of
everyone.

Till, the old blue man
is just poor pigments
plucked from the soil
and returned
to the earth again.

Unlock,
the curious case
of the face
I desire
to decipher.

Round and smiling
consciousness
calling for a cure
to loneliness.

Partially ******
but my preference
lay more in
the heart for learning
by conversing.

She is a bowel
of all my favorite
ingredients,
passionate,
intelligent,
kind, and
creative.

On the tip of
my tongue
and I can taste
just a hint of
developing love.

But when I see her
I become the retreater,
because a lifetime
of abuse and rejection
has been my teacher
stating that in each case
of passions such as this
I must admit
that I am beneath her,
and any proclamations
I would endeavor to
bequeath her
would only
be followed by
a polite decline
and a future
guarded disposition.

Thus, pink petal hearted
fallen, and dried
crumbles in
the unrepentant
desiring
of someone
I believe
will never see me
in a similar fashion.

So, I play jester
to her queenly court
proffer kind words of
admiration and support,
then walk an ever-thinning path
back in to the black
as other happy lovers
play and laugh
in the sweet summer breeze.

The walls crawl
with scribbles
and half painted
reflections.

One line to mark
the years that pasts
in inches grown.

One scratched
bedpost
deformed by the confusion
of a child
who has been
misplaced
by the system
that is supposed to protect him.

Blueberry stains
from squished fruit
paint the pillow case
he is forced to use
as he lays on the floor
for some forgotten
transgression.

He walks a wooden bridge
above a muddy pit
that takes him
from one dungeon
to the next one
where his mind
barely exists.

Flickering images
fall fast
as he forgets
all the emotions
that use to be his.

This house was never his home.
This life was more like a tomb,
where he was buried alive
until that part of him died
and he grew up to be
a pale participant
in this society
of mediocrity.