Im a loner
Thinking about the bigger picture
Knowing i am a backround pixel,
High definition of my sorrow
Displayed in the domain
Of the public eyes
For all to see me on my naked
Cross and filter the words of my
Pains
Written on a bed of life,
A whisper in the echoes,
I word written for me
Since my life is unspoken

A continent's scout
That once touched Pacific sands,
Has on the Natchez Trace
Taken his life at Grinder's Stand.

Such the news the Chickasaw
Agent bore
Telling President Jefferson
The great scout Meriwether Lewis
Is no more.

Five years prior, you were commissioned
To a quest,
Mr. Jefferson sending you forth
To explore the core of a new nation's
Enigmatic west.

The Mandan's song still warbles
In your ears,
While the mighty Missouri's current
Still rushes through your tears.

And now, on a porch of a tavern
In west Tennessee,
You look back in that direction
That has ever seduced thee--

You cannot seem to shake him--
That black dog of lassitude--
That murderous hell-hound what has
Shadowed you across majestic
American longitudes.

His image is there, in the polish
Of your piece
With every throb of your head
His moan ebbs at your peace.

During the journey, Clark was always
There to help stay the hound...
Knew how to handle him,
Knew how to keep him bound.

Perhaps that is why you are looking west
This time around.
Not for something new,
That, you have found.

No, you are simply looking yonder for
Someone to **** this **** hound.

I now know
I lost my mind
In pain I grasped for life
In life I clung to death
Not knowing
Not thinking
Just grabbing lips
Crawling into arms
Mattered not
They were not yours
For years after you died
I was not me
I had no self
I cared for nothing
My heart was broken
Leaking pain
Into everyone
Not caring
Just taking

4X6 inches
of perfection on a screen
a hint of tortured possibilities
carried in the pocket
of a life built
through blinders and
the most beautiful denial

4X6 inches
of hope undeniable
the foundation of dreams
dragging rough
through cascading walls
of a substandard fairytale
that twisted joy unhappy

4X6 inches
of a smile through a hurricane
bleeding pain through evaporating tears
a reality forged through time uncountable
landing in the rays truth created
when love proved
the existence of fate

4X6 inches*
of peace over pain
a wand in magical medicinals
crashing through solitary anguish
with eyes piercing armor
weaved in passive aggression
leading the lost home

In Rochester, on East Avenue,
A greyish soul treks off to work,
Throws back the coffee handily,
Sleepily pays the sales clerk-

His gaze is now transfixed by a tree
Colorful and flowering
Wishes he could stay outside
Alas, the tasks are towering…

He checks and sets the openness
Of his eyes in his image in the glass,
So as not
     to make it seem
          he’s as gone
               as he is;
Stumbles past the guard, plops down on his ***,

Planted thus, in front of his monitor,
In a cubicle, first floor, across from the lab,
Curses his fate for landing him here,
In this windowless slogging, dark and drab.

I am far, from perfect and hurt like heck as well at times.

I suffer from depression and anxiety keeps me down.

I have my share of struggles and feel lonely quite a bit.

I many of times lost my way upon the road that God lead me.

I still though see Christ leading me on a new path here.

I still see him working within me and building me up too.

I still am feeling him strengthening me up every single day.

I still feel him Healing me of depression and anxiety too.

So just because I have my faults here, on the earth.

Don’t count Christ out, because he never gives up on us.

But he keeps chasing us, even when we are ready to give up.

Because he is a Faithful Creator whom loves us very much.

The Last Kiss

Since Nan died the black dog circles, the scent of grief in its nostrils, waiting, sensing my vulnerability.

Regret sits heavily on my shoulders, for words said and not said, for journeys not taken, for wasted opportunities, for unsaid goodbyes.

Denial prods me unexpectedly, the reality hard to accept, where is she?

Self pity nags at me, an indulgence not to be tolerated, but it creeps in.

Remorse visits me; could I have done more to ease her mental pain?

Loneliness engulfs me in the quiet times, the darker hours; activity and light loosen its hold.

Anger irks me; it arrives sporadically without real reason.

These emotions, relentless, unyielding, almost my constant companions, take turns to envelop me in a dark mantle called grief, which must be worn, sometimes pushed aside, but never removed, a reminder of the debt which is owed, and paid out of love, with copious tears, but hard to bear.

Life is not the same since Nan died, but she is embedded in my mind, where I go she goes, etched deeply is the memory of our last kiss as she lay still and cold.