This neon world, so lit with colored glow
My midnight wanderings, they reek of you—
So hidden in the air, nowhere to go,
This nebula, it lies, and clouds my view.

You’ve stripped me of my solitude so long
I can’t imagine days without you there
It’s taken my whole life to see, you’re wrong—
My strength depends not on this sick affair.

I can’t be angry, no, for it’s my fault—
I let you shine your beam upon my fears,
Escort me in a red white blue assault
Red light, green—I hate what once I revered.

I cry, I scream, there’s no way to unbind
Illuminate my soul— Please! I am blind.

Stop—
Right there.
Turn your head,
spread your hair

Listen—
that’s the sound of your life,
past you
it passed you
it won and it’s waiting.

Let yourself be seized,
your features locked up in time

Thoughts and dreams—
dust particles escaping
in a flash of false illumination.
Are you startled?
They belong to the universe now

A mistake in the aperture,
a moment interrupting life’s pulse

Turn your head,
spread your hair
adjust your pose
and stretch your smile

What beauty will you etch
on time’s memory?

In front of an unfamiliar wall,
stands the couch,
the lamp,
the tablecloth
I still remember.

Three smiling faces,
blown up in my mind
and another, invisible,
convergence of molecules,
gathering of dreams,
that was me.

Their arms around each other,
a closer focus
and I can smell the excitement
Strong and vivid
as the aroma of festive noodles
surely steaming nearby

And another,
cropped out of the photographic evidence
but not
from the panoramic view my heart is guarding,
Eyes smiling through the lens
as if somehow aware
of my smile, he was shooting too

Free as a bird
they say
To spread those wings and glide atop
the world’s walls

But aren’t they, too, caged by our fear,
wings beating to the rhythms of war below,
atonal music thundering ever louder,
drowning the notes they struggle to recall
and clinging anxiously to the harmonies of long ago

Land of liberty,
free as a bird we move about,
thinking that we know what we have lost
Flocking with the crowd from home to home,
stopping only to pick at the grass
for any semblance of meaningful sustenance
that our souls so desperately crave

The rush of gentle wind overwhelms me--
meaning only to propel me,
but instead
it makes me stop.

The thoughts in my mind
nauseate me--
churning and spinning and crashing
along my sides,
Mutinous--
threatening to throw me over.

From wave after wave
of connections unknown
all I have learned is that
I cannot surrender.

Stopped at a light
napkin and pen
Feverishly write
of world and of Men
It's my kneel, and my prayer-
napkin and pen upon wheel
Everything we feel
then the light's on what's right
and none of it's real