i need:

kanzi apples

unselfishness

grapes

tomatoes

pasta --

shell pasta.

no i want spaghetti

shell pasta.

potatoes

cucumber

a new brain,

tell it to stop thinking about the

what ifs

and the why nots.

maybe also grab some bread.

I cannot silence it.

Words simmer forth from void to
Bone to skin.

Seep through
Sludge
Gold flecked river bottom

Rising up
Steady and thick with spirit
With blood
All of your silenced selves

Lanced from the wounds of the
Midnight hour
You clutch your own skin
Hot and red
Strip away the heavy years that
Told you to be quiet.

Howl in agony,

Sing

Whistle the ghosts in through the Windows cracked just so
The crisp night air weaves like
Snakes of ice
Around your neck and now

You write

You write

You write.

Not gone,
You are just farther,
Far from me.
When it gets darker,
You are just farther.
Hanging in the expanse
Like a crystal.
Staring at your home,
You are not gone.

An extra in the collection.
A collection of infinite
Sea of stars,
And pages of memory.
Some packed in my skull,
Some hanging out
Like a treasury.
Staring at your home,
You are not gone.

The signs said,
“Stop.”
A defunct traffic light
beating red —
Danger,
Pinocchio abandon:
that amateur drunk
with the crimson nose,
lost keys in hand.

My problem now:

White collar.
Uniform standard.
I feel the blues,
sweat scrubbed invisible —
because it’s not brand standard
to perspire.
“We love everyone.”

Silent grime.
Immaculate shoes.
Serving forty hours,
paying back dues.

There is no prize
in this cereal box.
And we all know:
we don’t even try
to fake the show.

No.

I am a decrepit puppet,
unfinished in craft,
neglected in intent —
a marionette,
suspended by strings
of a predator,
nested above me,
thriving on futility.

They animate me
when they are hungry.
The spider’s web jerks,
a feast of a fly
caught systematically.

And they call this movement
“Living.”

I envy the fly

Who asks for a lonely poet
when silence already reigns?
somewhere between all and nothing

If stillness of words speaks nothing,
is it emptiness,
or fullness unmeasured?

If fire in a word burns,
is it consuming,
or is it giving light
to blind hands reaching out?

If tender words break at dawn,
is it weakness,
or the strength of a heart
that refuses to harden?

When sharp words laugh,
who bows to their shadow?
Who fears the spark
that leaves only embers and ash?

Is the mind not always shaping patterns,
weaving palaces for the past,
threads for shadows of memory?

If the lotus blooms unseen,
does it wither,
or is its hidden fragrance
the true poem?

If the fig tree bears fruit in silence,
who reads,
and who is nourished by emptiness?

What vessel
can hold the wind?
What rhythm
can bind the unshaped word?

And if the word,
spoken or inked in gall,
neither commands nor obeys
does it not simply exist?

Is that not the poem
beyond poems?

As I was falling into the darkness

a helping hand reached out

to pull me out of the dark

and bring me back to light.

Afraid of dragging a friend down

I pulled my hands back,

let it go.

Broke the last

thread of light.