good enough
no-one could be
desire steers
the broken

You get those long cheek
Kisses from the girls.
Pats on the shoulder; it's nearly
Strange for them to see you
Alone.

Friends stating obvious things
You'll live through this too.
I will. Just a few stages to
Go through
First.
She's any other man's to
Have now.
I feel the love in her gone.
Her relief that she's out.
She'll never love me again.

~

There. She's gone.
It's in her eyes.

They look at me like
I'm always standing
In her way.

An annoying statue.
Badly carved and uncared for.

Art without
Art.

Breathe a song into the night
and change the course of history

Dingy white rabbit ears
***** from sweat and the dark world
Sat upon a pale boys black hair
The air that flows in colors, drifts

His hazy eyes don't see the light around
Within those colors so abound
The light avoids his eyes
as the darkness hovers just above

Milky greens flows into earthy browns
And shining smiles are marring frowns
He spins in anticipation clearly searching
Though the solid ground is far lurching

The crags create a sarcophagus
And in this valley comforting
He is shapes from in the drops of color
He dances with black eyes upward

The light is not there for him
It cannot permeate his shroud
But melodies exist with him
Always so, and ever within

The sounds provide a reverence
And arms upreach to heavens blind
The seraphs reach to fingertips bruised
And lack of feeling denies him sight

So cludging in that mire faded
He becomes aptly sedated
Gone the lores he so created
Pondering the sounds before

Gripping on him within such havens
He casts out the sounds belated
As if a feeling to be purged
And here stood bereft and sated
Clinging to the darkness there
Spinning in the darkness there
Eyes as lightless as his darkened hair
White rabbit ears upon his matted hair

Tonight, I'm not sad enough to string together sentences that attempt to stitch shut the cuts that scatter my heart.

Tonight, I haven't fallen deep enough in love to create a vivid image of us and if I tried, its thousand words wouldn't be loud enough to break the silence that it is painted on.

I don't know what I am tonight, and  the blank that follows "I am..." will remain empty when the sun comes up.
I should try to draw even more of those, until I have enough blanks and lines to draw a plethora of Z's that I can catch, only so I can wake up to an unanswered question.

My pillow supports a head full of sweet nothings, with no one to whisper them to, so these candied thoughts will slowly slide down into the pile of forgotten things, where all the things that used to matter, find themselves stuck in a state of irrelevance.

I think that's what I am tonight,
Stuck in a state of irrelevance

To be kind
would be wise.
what harm is it
to lead with
human
sugar
and becalm
the turbulence
that is two
in a room.
to open with a gentle
respect for the Other
and borrow a smile
from a humble
place in your nexus.
to begin with a kiss
where a ' welcome ' would suffice
and outshine the habit
of your bitter tongue
by the luminous of a Love
for granted -
but never taken
unless
given
?

nothing is foreseen
like the past... it outlasts the future
and no one lives long enough
to know for sure.
and then there's amnesia.
a suite of empty rooms
you
came from -
and all

all
the invisible deeds
of your god
with a margin of error
the width of your
conviction.
a mote of bobbing
apples, made of
smoke.
around a castle
with a rook
made of
bones.

go ahead. cry
if it makes
you happy... never spare
the tear that glares
into the heart
of Darkness
and yet glistens
on the cheek
of your
mask.
a crystalline catharsis
trailing the *****
of your bones
in the rictus
of a half-smile
and a wince.
choose to bleed a little
everyday... in rememberance
of a lost toy. or go home again
and hate that place
and come back
missing it.
never fail to weep
when the beauty of what it is
to be happy
is the gorgeous sorrow blossom
losing petals in a gale
of laughter.

and a moon.

I woke up from
(Nearly failed)
Open heart surgery, craving
Water.

In the bed to my left,
Another patient was already
Aware.
Old as stones, and as deaf as
A bucket of dirt.

Nurses all raised their voices,
Straining and struggling
To communicate.
Only every fifth word
Went through.

After a while his adult daughter
Came for a worried visit.
I only just made out their
Shapes in the post-surgery
Half-darkness and my
Morphine haze. She
Spoke to him in a soft voice; a
Hummed whisper,
Barely audible to others.

He answered in the same tone,
Not missing a syllable.

Anybody literate can read and write.
But do they understand?
Can they see and feel the deeper meaning?
Do they hear the poets words?
Emote along with the writer?
Find a chord striking them within?
Gasp at the beauty in the imagery?
Hold their breath as the poet weaves magic?
Inhale the scent of sweat the poet gave?
Jump at the twists and turns?
Keen to learn the ending?
Laugh and cry along with the poet's words?
Mope at the end?
Not wanting to let the words go?
Opining their views, not the poet's.
Positing assumptions not the poet's.
Querying imagery, syntax, metaphors and similes.
Robbing the joy from the poet by making grand assumptions.
Seeking to emulate the greats, and join the canon.
Taking what they need from the words written down.
Utilising the poem as a learning tool.
Venerating  the poet and their work.
Words speaking to them from afar.
Xanthic coloured complexions, as they read into the night.
Yanking at the pages of the book.
Z**ealously impassioned by the poet's conclusion.

I've realized that the people in / my life don't leave / I do. I'm the one running away / from people's lives and perhaps I'm alright with that / and that troubles me