I ate all the stars last night
every single one
Then I had a comet cone for dessert
Now I have starburn
and I'm burping up rays of light
that sunburn my throat

The comet cone was too sugary
So I let it spew away
Now I have to learn
all the new constellations
And of course
it's all Confucius

It’s an addiction, an affliction,
And I don’t know what to do,
For I am madly and deeply,
In love with Sudoku.

It’s unnerving, disturbing,
And I am going all cuckoo,
For I can’t take my hands off
A game of Sudoku.

In the morning, I’m yawning,
But my fingers are all glued,
To a pen on a Daily,
Immersed in Sudoku.

A passion, an obsession —
With numbers just a few,
Oh I can’t get enough,
Of this wretched Sudoku.

One to nine, how I pine,
For these numbers in a queue,
On my phone all I see is,
A game of Sudoku.

I run late, miss my date,
In a mess through and through,
My heart full of digits.
And head, of Sudoku.

An attraction, a distraction,
I sigh and sob and rue,
To be so in love,
With a game of Sudoku.

It gets worse, now a verse,
Such a long poem too—
Oh me, oh my,
All for Sudoku.

I cut through realities
like a slow-moving train,
seeing chess masters, victims,
silent witnesses
drowning in dense air.

From a dim-lit corner
I see those who run
breathing in danger.
Scattered shreds of information
stick to my head.

Precognition is
riddled with blurry spoilers.
Too vague to hold,
too sharp to ignore.
One girl was saved.
The boy? I sensed the loss
but not the name.
Bitter ineffability.
I draw words from an old well.

I wish my visions
were just a nightmare—
not incarnations
of a day yet to come or not.
The pictures wrench at my veins,
like dulled knives
playing a discordant melody.
Only a clear mind can save me.

I rebel in the silent scream,
clenching my hands
smiling slightly—
just enough
so others don’t see my fear.
The heavy drift of solitude
between reality and possibility…
Stubborn time bends,
refusing to be linear.
Am I still here…
or nothing but a vanishing sound?

On stormy days,
The balcony door open,
I sit listening, watching,
And feeling an electric air.

There is the sound
Of seagulls crying out.
The wind whips in uproar.
Pregnant black clouds overhead

Churn with birth pains
Wanting to release their burden
Onto the earth beneath.
I watch and wait.

Clouds billow and bellow,
Swirling above the house tops.
With the temperature's sudden drop
The sweat from their brows

Begins to drip in relief to all.

~
The boys of summer.

Johnny once sat under the bleachers, the scar on his tongue, a reminder of the time he bit it after falling from a treehouse. A sack full of yesterday's news in a red wagon, the first and last clues.

Eugene ... the other kid who dropped out of sight on Sunday morning, now the evening edition; now a black spot on the sun.

Why the two-year gap?

Departures and landfalls. But no explanations.

Mom and Dad never comfortable peering into the camera lens. Big brother breathing out vapors until something sparks and all
the old questions came back.

A detective's paradox. No bone. No fragment. No evidence. In his home garage hangs a poster of Eugene to remind him every day.

-- for Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin
~

we are all missing pieces
of ourselves, cold,
and missing pieces
of the bigger story, untold.
how do we pay homage to these,
free them to unfold?
and welcome them,
bold.

I find you in the moon night
while you smile with the stars
I see you in the sunrise
whereas you bloom with the flowers.

I draw you in my eager eyes
on the ocean beach
and I get the surprise
when you look at me more than twice!

I follow your shadow
when you go for a morning walk
I gaze up to your window
whenever you remove the balk.

One day you will hear my heart
and let me know your answer
I am waiting for the happy day
when you'll take my request as a lover!