Today, I'm going to **** them with kindness.
I'll walk the streets with a skip in my step,
corners of my mouth arched, skin tough.
I will be rubber. I will not be glue.
I will avoid sticks and stones.
I will be Teflon.

Yesterday, I killed someone, with kindness.
I created art, in many ways, I created Hell.
A page filled with gestures may seem ageless, however,
a spectacular self-awareness occurs.
There is closure. There is completion.
Unlike the manipulation of one's face.
There too is completion, but closure is not
always certain. Some leave with last words
that linger. Some lift their arms to The Lord,
Lord hear their prayer. And others find
themselves at peace, living on in the hearts
and minds of others, loved or not.

Is a legacy more important to an Atheist?
That's speculative, I suppose. But if what they
say is true, and most CEO's are psychopaths,
then I would assume that it is. Monetary value
will always triumph over theoretical morality.
And I say that morals and ethics can be theory
to a man certain of his faith, because in the end,
sin can be absolved. Faith in a higher being, in
something bigger than yourself, often leaves
thought of peers as dismissible. For they have
their own demons to overcome.

How do you accept indifference in a system
that is above natural law? Omnipotence should
never be exposed to have a grey area, especially
when it is considered to be set in stone. Oxygen
and gravity aren't, but tell that to a man who
is falling and trying to catch his last breath.

Lastly, consider art.
As the creator, the mastermind hidden in
the clouds to let his work speak volumes.
The divine grace that is told in brush strokes,
in notes placed to play, to be presented.
That's a beauty that is foresaken.
Another key representation of something
seen but not seen.

Even a deaf man delivered notes he could not
hear, rivaled ones able, and challenged normality.
The difference between an artist, and
a person producing art, is that an artist
will use blood, whereas the latter
searches for a comparable color.

those **** eyes
those **** lips
cry black lies
slash like whips

whiskey and a cigarette
that's how i forget

those **** eyes
those **** lips
your sweet sighs
and fingertips

the only thing that kept us together was rock n roll
but lou reed died today
and now we are that much more alone

When eyes locked he fell
And time set a new fever
Upon the world.  It did not
Help that her voice touched
And moved and tore into
His stone as if water carved
A million years of buried lime
Or that the spheres that sang
Were now sounding discordant,
Confounded as he was, fallen,
Empty as the universe, slight
As the lonely, lost, and unlighted
Seas of the moon.

                              And her hair,
It was not fair, that the endless,
Playful stars could fire even brighter
Below the forgotten heavens.

After frightful morn—
Bright warm glow of sun fading,
  .  .  .  Day spent with elders.

We adulterate ourselves; this era together.
Purposefully, we work
to blur the edges of night-
memories already fragmented.
Perhaps it will cost less if we are
cautiously destructive,
perhaps the tangle of empty sheets
will be less likely to drown us if
we begin to forget before

the end.

Do you remember me?
I am fed up, strung on night
And closed in by time.
When I dine with dearest
Friends there is always a place
Set for you, there is always
A story, untold to them,
But not for strangers
Who know even without saying
What you never said to me.
My eyes are cracked dams
Above the flood plains,
My heart is dented brass,
Bent, out of gear and turns,
Mournful, dried, pocked
As rust, tarnished red,
Petrified.
If I look at the diamond moon
I am hooked.
When the flower brushes my calves
The lifting scent caresses, teases,
Rising with my memory of fire and stone.
If I travel to the balm Paris
Of the southern hemisphere
La Belle Époque is wearing your
Dress, the pampas fires and undulates
Like your hair, the Polaris star
Points at me, dreaming
Of you, dreaming,
My jewel, my,
Little moon.

It takes three days to pick up a habit.*

How sound this is, I'm not sure,
because some habits seem as inconsequential
as a statement regarding time and vice.
It makes one wonder how long it takes
to believe a statement to be true.
Possibly as long as
a *** of coffee to be brewed.

Surely the amount of time will
vary by the weight of the statement.
But even a measurement is prone to
be thrown off by unforeseen additions.
Eight cups of water, and four scoops of grinds,
you're bound to have a little too much or
a little less than expected.
It becomes harder to tell
when dealing with a slow drip.
Brewing coffee may be completely divisible
when dealing with a recipe, but
hardly unequivocal when
the time comes to measure up.
This follows suit with patrons
and their proclivity.

Only in fiction is the coffee shop patron enigmatic.
Only in fiction can the patron enjoy a cigarette indoors.

Men and women wake and
head to their cubicles,
coffee in hand,
five days a week.
By the third day
a habit has formed,
and maybe that is why
acceptance is had midweek
and why the first day of the
nine-to-five seems so everlasting,
if not inscrutable.

"It's good, but maybe you should write shorter," I was told.
Granted this was told to me by a man that believes the word artistic
to be closely related to the word autistic, but I can only assume that riding any
unfamiliar wavelength is terribly confusing, if not immeasurably difficult.

Knowing that you can confide in yourself, whether or not I'm misinterpreting
individual delegation for conscience, I believe altruism to be fundamental to
a person before growth can occur. Unless of course you're writing short poems.
And if you're curious enough to implement apathy, sarcasm is a fine starting point.

They say that if you want to master something you need to perform daily.
Accompany this with the old adage, "Love what you do," and you can imagine the potential.
Mastering an activity with love is transcendent, calm although sometimes piquant.
Passion and pleasure aren't identical, but imagine the potential.

I don't bleed ink.
It has to be an attempt at benevolence, to say that.
Extreme literary pretensions you must have to bleed out.
Writing should have a pulse. It. Should. Make. Each. Word. Count.

Yet, when this man told me that my words are good, but I should keep it shorter,
knowing not if I could or would, I became curious as to why he worried more about
length and not the content and story as a whole. Then I had to rationalize this to myself, and thought: It would be easier to convey words with images, like a film or animation.

But I don't bleed ink,
and I guess I don't bleed popcorn.

Here I stand again in this broken town
Where my face turns up and I turn down
Here in the streets of home I'm bound
Tracing our names carved into the ground
You I see under each streetlamp's fire
You I made a crown from copper wire
Each gust of air whispers into my ear
Your name; I write it with every tear
I wanted to be your strength, your queen
Yet for all those mistakes I made unseen
You paid in full, though I tried to give
Myself for you-my life so you would live
I wanted to remove your pain and sorrow
For I felt it too, and it stripped each tomorrow
Of the hope felt in our endless coast
Where once life was what we made most
Little I cherish what has happened to me
I've endured such you should never see
It matters not, and naught that I care
Except for making these days you bear
Less difficult, and much I will find
To do for you, to make clocks unwind
I will spin you those lost ribbons of gold
The little worlds that went untold
I know them all, my memory's treasure
Though my sadness comes from pleasure
I will always remember what was true
All our moments and our failures, too
And the night when my lips faded to blue
I realized, there was no me before you.