just a leaf left
on the pillow next to me
now, a whisper of smoke
vapor tracing your path

out the door
going back to the
limb I stole you from,
the place you must return

I rake my bed for more,
try to make
a place
for you to fall

again, next time.

Rose petals devoured

   of inky promises

blush off garden passages

  of amaranthine radiance,

written words decayed

  on  bruised vines

   of intertwining madness,

as poetry climbed the

    walls of befallen sunlight

I thought of love all this time as something
I had to find
So I spent my life searching
Just to watch it leave

And then him
He didn't just love me
He remindend me
I was never anything but love

We spent the whole of our lives
with "the rest of our lives".

until we ran out of time

I spent my boyhood avoiding
      the disgrace of my differences.
Creating alternate empires that
      I ruled with stoic passion.
I gave out negative vibrations, as a boy,
      to control the level of association.
Built walls and lived within them,
       perfectly encased in sarcastic wisdom.
Does not take too long to understand
       that being yourself is not suggested.
Eager advocates educate the boy that his
      differences must be suppressed.
Be the same. Be the same. Be the same.
      Moulded and conformed, unaware
of the boyhood desiring to think for self.
       I spent my boyhood reading books
that opened libraries of imagination.
      Absorbing the solitary creations
of so many magnificent lives. They presented
      me with echoes of alternatives.
I never have understood the slicked back
      membrane of uncentred filters.
Solitary self-confinement made so
       much more tickled sense to me.
I passed out scented cigars of me
       to ear-drums inclined to not listen.
They agreed to, and supported,
       the numbness of not thinking.
Letting the self-declared prophets
       dictate how we must believe.
I spent my boyhood being the boy
      that did not fit the paper model.
Set it on fire. Set it on fire. Let the
       message always be that a man
must indicate his own set of standards.

The morning will be plagued by slow ripples from today.
The taste of regret and shame will coat my tongue,
and I won't want to look in the mirror.
I won't want to see my enemy,
and I won't want to face my conscience.
"Today will be the day,"
I will tell myself…
And I will want so badly to believe it,
but every cell in my body will remind me of
all the times those words have left my mouth
in days past,
and never followed through.
The frustration is an overwhelming cloud that is thick around my body.
I feel heavy and sedated by my own actions.
I feel weak and at a loss for control.
I am scared to be writing this because I know the power of thoughts and of words,
But I know no other way to heal than to release my life onto paper.
I can not look myself in the face and tell lies-
So although this rips me apart to put onto a page,
I must honor myself for speaking the truth,
even when it's ugly and hurts.
I will wake up tomorrow and tell myself,
"Today will be the day," because maybe,
tomorrow it really will be.
I will wake up tomorrow and brush my teeth clean of the past,
spit out regret and shame and wash it away.
I will pray for health and help and healing.
I will humbly say Thank You to the Great Spirit for my life.
I will remember the days I couldn't get out of bed,
and I will rise for those moments.
I will stand tall and look at myself in the mirror and say,
"I love you and you are beautiful," until I believe it.
I will let the tears run down my cheeks until the veins in my body feel dry,
And I won't wipe them.
I won't hide behind words that tell a story different from my own.
I will walk this road,
So give me lightening and give me rain,
that way I will learn to walk with grace and strength,
but I ask please, Great Spirit,
still let the sunshine kiss my face,
and relieve me from any pain.
Please have mercy on my soul,
and be my guiding hand
as I find my way home.

6/6/2016

I saw a bunch of poets
on a line
at the Avalon
in San Francisco

They looked so tired
So, I approached them
then stated
"you guys look beat"

but, at a closer glance
they were just ******

Allen was there
with Corso and Ferlinghetti
Bukowski was around the corner
trading his wife for cigarettes

again