.

Thick walls
encase me,
stationary disbelief
fogs my intentions,
straight line
foundations rise,
no windows
or doors to un-bar,
rafters feature ropes
hung in shameless
attempts
to persuade
escape, which
is not likely
because this prison
is self imposed,
and I am
the warden
as well as
the inmate
and no one
gets out
of here
alive

It's hot and hell is here,
The labyrinth of the city sets
The stage for stray kids getting lost,
Impoverished and too young to ***.
The street lights shed a new dark
When the boy needs shoes
To compete in friendship status,
A gun to another kid
With shiny news who just learned
The advantage of fear,
How can he afford a gun?
No phone for the hungry
Unless hungered for enough
To steal a call and surround
The angst of acceptance for social
Well-being,
When lost crows run to shadows,
A flightlessness casts itself
On the summertime kid
Awaiting his own arrival.

I have heard rockets and mortars fall,
the screams of wounded men, heard it all.
In my deepest sleep, still those soldiers creep
into my dreams and beg me recall
that they once lived and still they exist
as more than names on a dusty list,
but each one a soul, though no longer whole,
whose memories must always persist.

Man came down from the trees
walked out the forest
and returned with an axe
- carrying the worst disease
trees had no defence against.

Once upon a time I wrote poetry
To fill the emptiness that did reside

Once I learn to say how I felt
Long after the tears had mostly dried

Once I marveled at what I could write down
I even marveled at the rthym of the sound

But now the words falter , stumble at the gate
They no longer please me , I take it as my fate

Their purpose has somehow been denied
And to continue on a fruitless path would be living in a lie

So I take stock and close the book and put away my pen
For I will not be found in grace on page written in poem again

Once I was lost but now I'm found

Here I wait among the dead
within the shadows, seldom seen
with mind as silent as the grave
a nightmare tucked within a dream.

Though my soul be scarred and flayed
by secrets deep and wounded thighs
There sits a withered hope within
to be the girl from days gone by.