I'm hungry
hungry for air

I kiss you
and surface from deep water

a ragged inhale
sputtering exhale

buoyant
breathing

for the first time
in five whole lung-burning minutes

if minutes were years.

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a ***,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

__

"Lao Tzu is believed to have been a Chinese philosopher (a person who seeks to answer questions about humans and their place in the universe) and the accepted author of the  Tao te ching,  the main text of Taoist thought. He is considered the father of Chinese Taoism (a philosophy that advocates living a simple life).

Read more: Lao Tzu Biography - life, name, death, school, book, old, information, born, time http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ki-Lo/Lao-Tzu.html

you are, you sing, a (rock) star,
but you are so much, much more,
you are, you are, who you are,
and who you are is someone adored,
by those who come to see you,
on the stage beneath the lights,
dancing, and laughing, really true,
sharing your all throughout the night!

For you are much more than a rock star,
you are YOU, bright, shining you,
with so many who love you for who you are,
you sing, you dance, you glimmer, yes, indeed you do!


-inspired by this video of Vera Wylde performing "So What" by Pink:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFIn84SLnY8&feature;=player_embedded

and waiting and everything
in everyway, and everyday,
and everynight, waiting
seems
like a movie playing on an IMAX screen
and I'm the character in every scene,
and it all looks so plastic, oddly idyllic,
a situation drastic, I live in,
feeling like a dream,
nothing seems solid, no gravity,
just me
alone but with people doing their rounds,
the only thing missing
are the clowns.
that like to juggle in your dreams,
but the scream,
are not monsters or ghosts,
just real live old people,
dying in streams,
and every minute taking me away,
and leaving no trace
just me erased,
for all intents and
purposes.,
lonely, awaiting and cursed.

_
can't wait for it to be over soon

Geisha is forever,
a gift for all to see--
not for all to have.
__
Geisha:
http://beautyineverything.com/4396763860
_
This is my first attempt at composing a senryu.

You sit now
                        stranded,
moored to nothing,
          going nowhere,
your bilges dry,
your engines shut
down
and
         up
inside the salt-rusted
skin, pocked with rot,
where once you
sliced across
the water's top,
a vessel full
of
life,
bow and stern,
prop and anchor,
never
           ever
in your mindless
dreams believing
you would stop,
and
        no one
would even care-
no sailors,
no cargo,
no sunrises,
sunsets,
waves and beasts of the
                                               deep
to sound their fare-thee-wells,
no more those chimed
                 8 bells,
you,
now stopped,
docked
and
        alas,
forgot.
_
Derelict:
http://beautyineverything.com/5096209757

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me,
than a full frontal lobotomy,"
or so the saying goes,
as for me, myself and I, my friend,
I'd take both to soothe my woes!
__
Jack, the liquid lobotomist:
http://beautyineverything.com/5060607209

all i have left are brief, fleeting fantasies.

i see things i wish i could touch, and touch nothing that i see.

it makes no sense, none at all i know, as it's now all in vain.

i must learn to give myself up, i must give into the pain.

tears are trying to fall, yet the lions of rage stifle the flow.

i know i am going nowhere with nowhere going to go.

here's me taking a stroll now into that land of makingitallup.

this is my last less than a mile to go, falling down, falling up.

this is the invisible me who can no longer be seen or give talk.

this is me you don't see on the bymyself walk.

___
brief fantasy:
http://beautyineverything.com/5089079591

this is where i sit like stone,
knowing soon it shall be over,
all balled up and all alone,
wreathed in sickly crimson clover;
in a corner cold and stark,
where the pressure chokes my chest,
my mind's eye fizzles into dark,
i cannot eat nor find sweet rest.

i no longer see the pathways,
where i have strolled past fields of pain,
cloaked in shadowed sunless days,
walking weary in the chilling rains;
of torrid teardrops that always fail to fall,
stuck inside behind my bloodshot eyes,
between sight and dreams i scarce recall,
haunted by the sounds of ghostly cries.

i no longer feel the passions,
i had once did cling,
for there no longer comes a need to rise,
or open my mouth to sing.
__

I sit:
http://beautyineverything.com/175543419

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

What makes a poem a poem?
Why do rhyming words in a certain fashion have such a great effect?
Is it my expression?
Your fascination?
Or is there no explanation
Why do the few descriptive words set the scene of tranquility and beauty?
Serenity
Amenity
is my identity
How is it that the rhythm gets you going just the right way
Setting the beat
Beating the heat
because no matter what i just can't be beat
But sometimes isn't poetry more of your feelings?
I'm not striving for the perfect line
Frankly i don't care i just want you to be mine
Oh (insert lover's name here) you are just divine
So here I am with my pen and paper trying to impress the world
But poetry should have more of a meaning
it should come out of your heart
but my heart doesn't have much in it, it has quite a bit of room
so brb ttyl bada bing bada boom

ummm, that's the poem.
what it says.

birds on barbed wire,
watching over me,
lodged in a private
penitentiary.

birds on barbed wire,
not a chirp or peep they make,
they just perch between the barbs,
watch, waiting, wait, watching me
shiver in silence, violence shake.

birds on barbed wire,
will neither spread wings,
or take flight,
these wire-bound birds
will not
leave me out of their sight;

-nor will any such
birds on barbed wire
call out or make cry,
these birds on the wire
are here to wait and watch me
just die.
___

birds, barbed wire:
http://beautyineverything.com/5082513864