you notice
that you're hurting me to the tears,
however,
I confess in a soft voice
that it was deeper than this.

Reflections are tricky things
Man didn't create them
Only trapped them
Hung them on a wall for his own vain glory
The glassy stillness of a lake
Was first
To echo reality above it
Distorted
It ripples like a gateway
At the kiss of a stone

It calls, it beckons
l have mystery lurking
What will happen if you
Little you
Dared to pass through
With no intention of return?
One might find oneself upside down
Standing in the sky
And brushing their feet against the stars
Or there might be monsters
Real ones
Which we can touch and feel and fight
And see while fighting
The seeds of monstrous things
Separate themselves from us
In the last few seconds of life
And we see them laid out

Even knowing this
The water calls
To the nine tenths of us it possesses
Enticing us
With the idea of a world
Identical to ours
I think
Have you ever stopped
Looked
Counted the branches?
It would be impossible
So we assume

And as the water accepts you
Feet
Waist
Hands
Shoulders
Hair, drifting like seaweed in the tide
It whispers to you
Just a little deeper now
So you go on
On
Until you discover, or drown

Or
Until you are pulled upwards
Arms grasping you around the chest
As your lungs burn with the ache of tipped scales, the balance within you lost
And you hear the voice whisper
Breath warming your ear

Not like this
My friend
Not like this

Don’t write me poetry

It’s never worked before
Vanity, all of it, vanity
And I don’t want any
More-words, just-words, nothing-but words

I don’t care for
The structure
The way
It is so easy to steal
Phrases
lines
Automatic sigh-bringers
Used a thousand times
By history’s pen and
Those more worthy to hold it
than you

All you did
Was take the bag
Of scrabble tiles
Rattling and clacking together
And shake
Once
Twice
Thrice
Forced
Farce
Until you were satisfied with what it gave

And you threw away the rest

That’s not art
That’s strategy

It’s too neat
Neat like summer
Neat like children’s books
(not the good ones)
Formula following
Empty and hollow-ringing

Give me something real
Instead
Give me the ramblings, twisting
wanderings of your mind
give me the dark places
the secrets
the mysteries that lurk in the depths
like sea dragons
like the ocean itself
there is so much more
so much wilder and deeper

so
grab my hand and pull me in with you
don’t flatter me while dipping our toes
because why
why would we choose the ship
the safe little dingy
bleached wood, branded logo on the side
when underneath
lies atlantis
and
the depths

I can make the earth stop in
its tracks. I made the
blue cars go away.

I can make myself invisible or small.
I can become gigantic & reach the
farthest things. I can change
the course of nature.
I can place myself anywhere in
space or time.
I can summon the dead.
I can perceive events on other worlds,
in my deepest inner mind,
& in the minds of others.

I can

I am
~~~

People need Connectors
Writers, heroes, stars,
leaders
To give life form.
A child’s sand boat facing
the sun.
Plastic soldiers in the miniature
dirt war.  Forts.
Garage Rocket Ships

Ceremonies, theatre, dances
To reassert Tribal needs & memories
a call to worship, uniting
above all, a reversion,
a longing for family & the
safety magic of childhood.
~~~

The grand highway
is crowded
w/
lovers
&
searchers
&
leavers
so
eager
to
please
&
forget

Wilderness
~~~

Now is blessed
The rest
remembered
~~~

A man rakes leaves into
a heap in his yard, a pile,
& leans on his rake &
burns them utterly.
The fragrance fills the forest
children pause & heed the
smell, which will become
nostalgia in several years
~~~

Sirens
Water
Rain & Thunder
Jet from the base
Hot searing insect cry
The frogs & crickets
Doors open & close
The smash of glass
The Soft Parade
An accident
Rustle of silk, nylon
Watering the dry grass
Fire
Bells
Rattlesnake, whistles, castanets
Lawn mower
Good Humor man
Skates & wagons
Bikes
~~~

Where’d you learn about
Satan- out of a book
Love?- out of a box
~~~

night of sin (The Fall)
-1st ***, a feeling of having
done this same act in time before
O No, not again
~~~

Between childhood, boyhood,
adolescence
& manhood (maturity) there
should be sharp lines drawn w/
Tests, deaths, feats, rites
stories, songs, & judgements
~~~

Men who go out on ships
To escape sin & the mire of cities
watch the placenta of evening stars
from the deck, on their backs
& cross the equator
& perform rituals to exhume the dead
dangerous initiations
To mark passage to new levels

To feel on the verge of an exorcism
a rite of passage
To wait, or seek manhood
enlightenment in a gun

To **** childhood, innocence
in an instant

What makes a poem
- a poem?
Does it express your
emotional life and
the selfish deeds
it contains
.... then you shamelessly
Share it...

Does it really matter
someone might
read it or not?
Someone might
understand you or
not, does that really
matter?

In the world
we live in
many hearts
have died
for they don't
know how our
pen works.
How it does
- what it does.

When a poem
does all the
technicalities,
it may seeks
the power of
fame and fortune
but does it really
matter?

I may not understand
fully what makes a poem
- a poem. But behind all
of it, I'm just here
trying to write a poem
whom my heart
spoke out loud
like he never could.

In the stillness of the dark
I sit,
And outside my window
The night holds many possibilities.
People move within the shadows
Barely visible to the naked eye
Living shadow lives alongside my own.

Do we dream together?
And will love survive death?

I see you
In different times
Living different lives
And myself as a shadow
Living my own shadow life.

I watch as an older woman in a red flowery
dress holding yellow flowers looks out to the sea
Searching for the young man she fell
in love with at the ripe age of twenty three
He gave his life that day on the Normandy shore
on the sixth of June the year was forty-four
Every year this woman comes to the sea to remember
For when she said her marriage vows
she meant them to last to the end of her forever
She throws the yellow flowers out to the sea
Always grateful for the love they shared
and proud that he fell in the cause for the free