The azaleas came early this year,
flashing pink in the spring
against their own unruly green.

My dog pants heavily, bounding
across the yard, chasing his
shadow from the azaleas to
the Japanese Maple and back.

Tired, finally, he scratches his
back against the bush, scraping
against the limbs, deforming  the
bush, shaking the blooms down.

I yell at him to stop but he ignores me.

He is young.  He knows only the joy
of the moment, the scratching of that
itch.  If only he could understand that
their beauty is frail and annual...
I want to tell him, but I don't
speak dog and he doesn't listen
anyway, so I lure him inside with
a treat and leave the blossoms
until next year.

A thousand gods
under the cricket moons
couldn't even save one little bit...
     (salvation is the enemy of
      a violet world)
the same lame-*** gods
that made us educated
and civilized.

Why not a cosmic birdbath
or eternal blissful garden
that happy children frolic
in amongst springy damp
Bermuda grass and Birch
trees that shine like a
trillion flawless diamonds,
almost as beautiful, at dawn
when lightly frosted?

Regardless,
days like these i wake up
full of vigor, dreamy-eyed,
complacent, full of longing,
but still glad our gods
are dead.

The fall of Rome is upon us.
I have spied it from my window,
i dare not intrude.

venimus
vidimus
vicimus
(ourselves)

The slaves are in revolt;
the Colliseum burns,
flames tenderly licking
destruction and freedom,
a beacon in the
dark autumn night;
Carthage has embraced
its high sodium diet,
it now seeks equality;
the Senate lies in ruin,
much as it always has,
now bereft of contributors.

Ego autem relictus solus devius,
faciamus nobis effugium.

Come, fair plebian lady,
get in my chariot,
i will 'Billy Ocean' you
all the way
to the end of the world,
because some things never change.

veni
vidi
vici
NOTHING
per memet

ita reliqui,
empty-handed
my new fair plebian in tow.

Roma victa.

On the porch roof, in the pitch of it,
the scuttling claws of autumn leaves

               fa
                                              ll
             ­                     g
                  in
          d
                                         o
                         wn.

(the sky is falling)

Battling cigarette smoke prayers for passage
       to the great beyond,

i feel them both tingling my spine,
unfiltered.

During our last move we made
sure to pack:
all the paraphernalia, both
toothbrushes, most of our clothes,
old pictures, broken ashtrays,
tools we didn't know how to use,
the computer, both cats, commitments,
all the shot glasses, a bed,
and your unsolved Rubix cube.
It all fit in the car.

We left behind the couch that
one of the cats ****** on,
the shower curtain liner, every
working Bic lighter, your sanity,
the Monopoly game, two new
pens, one old pen (no ink)
and a bag of marshmallows,
plus one hell of a mess.

During the move we misplaced
our sense of direction, a suitcase
full of only my clothes, logic,
and a globe that doubled as a
lamp.

***** given?
Zero.

We still had both cats.

Nothing will ever be pure again,
an eternal February of blackened
snow and slush, churning
laundromat for tires of
discontent, cars of pointless lines,
voyages of the spirit in the physical.

We are earth-bound snowflakes,
born to fall and be soiled,
clinging to frail beauty,
praying to an ear-less god for life,
our lives the only thing worth
dying for, taken good or bad.
Kamikaze skydivers, star-crossed
and locked in gravity's tractor beam.
Fearing the hell of melt, craving
the safety of numbers, another
crystal to bond with, a cold
fusion of icy love, gasping;
praying to an ear-less god for death,
our lives the only thing worth
dying for, our deaths the only thing
worth living for, all the same
in the end.
all the same at the end.
all the same,
the end.

Exhaustion is the price of vigilance.
My cats sleep all the time now,
it seems.  It hurts
                but i understand.

The road has a hypnotic effect
as it gazes back into us all.
The void consumes everything
but becomes nothing,
compressed infinitely smaller,
enslaving particles, photons,
feelings, planets, systems, and
processes.

Feeling isn't saying, and
meaning isn't doing.
Impressions are sculpted into
the granite of our mountains
by the expressions of the
winds.

When the eagles soar overhead
they must all pass through
the wormhole to hunt,
to ****** victory from defeat,
a sustained life from a
final death,
but it is all perspective.

Roadkill live life in the fastlane,
if life is indeed a highway.
Woodland creatures brave existence
only by darting to the other side
of the killzone, timing the gaps,
patiently judging the distance.

Citizens of America, lend
me your ears and
brains for a moment:

actually, on second thought,
you won't listen.  Keep your
ears.

Now your brains, let me
get a little better than half
of that.  For keepers.

You won't miss it.
A short half is enough
to follow me on Twitter.

140 characters is the max
anyway, and the trend
is to use less.  Down

to an average of only
27 characters in Louisiana.
It's okay, Cajuns, spelling

is hard.  None of us do
it right anymore.  We
don't even call things

by their proper names.
How can we find wisdom
if we continue not calling

a ***** a *****?
Beats me, ask the
President, i guess.

When you set out to make
an omelette, you have to break
an egg.  Now what
do you have?

A broken egg.

Unless you planned ahead
and caught it in a frying
pan.  There are other factors
at play as well.

Plans go awry.  Ask
Murphy.  It's the law.

Lawyers can't be trusted.
That's why they band
together, taking sides
like shirts and skins
in a pick-up game.
i don't like basketball.

Trust is tricky.  You
can always trust a liar.  
They always lie.  It
is what they do.  
They are junkies for
their own stories.

Stories are for humans.  
That's why dogs are
man's best friend.  Dogs
can't talk.

Humans think they are special
because they can talk, unlike
dogs.  We talk about thinking,
doing less so we can
talk about it more on
television.

Nancy Grace is running
reruns of the Natalie
Holloway case.  This is good,
it means all is right
with the world.  No other
girls have disappeared or
are presumed dead.  If
they are dead somewhere, they
live in our memories.

It isn't a circle of life,
it is a sphere of existence.  
Everything is specks of dust
floating inside a water
balloon.

And now i'm in your head.  
We are humans, and
the rent is low.

Inside the walls of my citadel's
keep, i wander haunted halls
and rooms, broken images of
continuous life flashing light
randomly around, an epileptic's
nightmare, beamed in from
beyond, playing dangerous
paranoid games with my mind.

My grandfather's apparition
stalks me silently,
inching to the couch,
guarding the bathroom,
verifying the existence of
gravity behind door
number three, on the bed.

He approaches!!

SQUEAK-SQUEAK!!...RATTLE!!...

(Darth Elder and his walker)

SQUEAK-SQUEAK!!...RATTLE!!...

i evade his ghost of Christmas'
passed, darting to the porch and
in another entry door.
Each time i look up, his
spector stands frozen in
silhouette, spurring my adrenal
response, yet only imperceptibly
creeping, ever closer...

SQUEAK-SQUEAK!!...RATTLE!!...

He is everywhere!
EVERYWHERE!!!

Frozen in time at various locations,
practicing being dead on his bed,
re-living the now, back then in
his head, inside my head!!

There is only one solution.
i have spoken to the others:
no Christmas tree this year,
we will wrap grandfather
in colored lights and
garland, and help him
celebrate life in style.

A slightly motile tree, a
blatant festivity.

i have no right to have feelings.
i tried to smuggle them past the
checkpoints, metal detectors and such,
but i was foiled, tarred and feathered.
A big ******* chicken.  Awesome.

If i had feelings, i would have no right
to allow them to be hurt.
I am the giver of hurt, not the receiver.
Things are not hurtful to me, for i have asked for them
and knew what i asked.  Happy Days.

i should not discuss feelings i don't have
or hurt i don't feel with anyone,
for any reason, because i have no reason.
i should be grateful to be stoic
and rejoice in the fruits of my labors.

When or if i cry, it is only because
there is something in my eye, a
speck of sand or something like it.
Merely a body's natural cleansing
action, a normal automatic response.

i don't feel alone when i cry.
besides, i chose to be alone, that
is why i walked away in the first place.
Isn't it?

Our republic died today;
i wonder who noticed?

Very few, i am certain,
since most were busy trying
to survive in this economy,
or feed their children,
or worried about healthcare (still),
or trying to escape this reality,
but something fundamental is
different now.

The Senate took away the
teeth of the filibuster today.
Simple majority rules now,
no more consensus building.

       So?  I don't care about politics or politicians.

That is a shame, because they
care about you.  In fact,
they are counting on you.

To stay distracted.
To think tyranny is only for distant lands.
To think that today's reform won't be
       tomorrow's crushing defeat.

Black America:
       What if tomorrow the House of Representatives
       passes a law to make you all slaves again?

LGBT Americans:
       What if tomorrow the House makes it a law that
       all of you be imprisoned for being who you are?

Women Americans:
       What if tomorrow the House takes away the
       abortion option, or worse?

All of you are outnumbered.

Remember...majority rules now.  The Senate won't slow it down.
Be careful who you *******.

Because debate and careful consideration
are no longer valued in this Democratic
pseudo-Utopia.
It interferes with their agenda.

Petty tyrants don't just rule in
Third World countries.
Not anymore.

They work on Capitol Hill and live in the White House.

I don't need you to read my words
any more than I want to re-live the past.

This world is burning,
fanaticism is rising,
interests are separating and
this American Dream is lost.

But please, do carry on...

tell me how hard math is,
or how love isn't what you thought it,
or how you cut yourself to feel alive,
or how life isn't fair.

Fill me up with ****** nature poems.

Convince me that sacrifice is what happens
when you give your iPod away
instead of what you read in
after-action reports from Afghanistan.

Tell me it will be okay.

Write me the perfect poem.

The rain dilutes the sins of  the land,
pandemic baptism and resurrection.
This Earth that once housed Noah
and his Ark, a covenant of life,
the buoyant spring,
cycles like the cylinder of a
revolver, a hedged roulette bet.

When we are cleansed, we achieve
grounding under water, in over
our heads, digging in the mud
for pearls in the scallop and
oyster beds.

The receding of the waters
is our delta moment, fighting
for absolution;  a
mammal under water or a
fish out of water,
there is no difference:

only a burning in our chests,
a yearning for return
to the elements we once knew.

Hark! -
     mine hopes had loftily soared
     at your comely visage, young
     handmaiden, carrying the promise
     of much chivalry and banter upon
     eagles' wings of fortuity!

What goodness the Lord hath
seen fit to imbue on thy
outer trappings most surely
were indeed false, wherefore
thee proved thyself a most
unworthy jouster of conversation.

Dost thee not ken that real world in
which we live, rendering thy speech
thus? But alas...thou dost not.

Lo! -
     that only i could have understood
     what the ******* were saying...

Such a simple thing:
our inner Cain shedding
onion-skin locust husks
to become the scorpion hand
of the Phoenix, each
generation a more beautiful
creature of destruction.

          (it sleeps in the backyard
           next to that log that
           never quite made it inside
           to the fireplace, mulching)

Would the coming of the farmer monk
for us bring about a revelation or a
revolution of the obvious?

All i wanted was a Pepsi...

"I'm falling asleep.  I'm falling asleep.  I'm falling asleep.  I'm falling asleep.  I'm falling..."

     The mantra swirled like in tornado in Kate's mind.  The words her mother had last spoken in life as the cancer finally took her, leaving Kate alone in this cruel world.  Her father, Richard, had run off with some office **** and left her and Mommy to fend for themselves.  Mommy was already sick by then, but Richard didn't care.

     *"No one does," Kate thought.  "Except Mommy."  But where was Mommy now?  Safe in the cold beyond.

     The year following Mommy's death had been no kinder to Kate.  The eviction, the hard streets of no solace.  The bad things.  Always, around every corner, more of the bad things.  More...men.  And what they wanted.  Bad things.

     And now, seeing the fog roll in on San Francisco Bay, feeling the wind on her face, letting the salt fill up her nostrils to brine her emotions, Kate heard the lullabies of this ***** Earth calling her name in the cries of the gulls, felt its repulsion, its push, in the cold rail of the Golden Gate Bridge in her hand.  Kate had lived in the hammock Richard built over the chasm of Kate's life, and now Kate was so very sleepy.

     "I'm falling asleep.  I'm falling asleep.  I'm falling asleep.  I'm falling..." Kate repeated to herself as she leaned out into the night and let go of the guardrails.

     "...asleep."  Forever.

My father used to take me fishing;
i can remember it clearly:
bleary eyed wakeups at 2:30 a.m.
after preparations late into
the night prior, the
smell of gasoline
as the outboard motor
sputtered to life,
its deafening roar as we
raced the sun along the
river's length.
The eery silence that followed.
Because we rarely talked.
We were fishing.
Dad loved largemouth bass,
red-breasted bream, catfish,
shell-*******, warmouth,
stump-knockers, and
whatever else.
i enjoyed fishing, too.
But we rarely talked.

Time moved on, and us with it.
And there was less time for
us to go fishing together.
Years passed, and i said
to myself, -i said it
very clearly, i did- i said,
self, we need to go fishing
soon.
There is at least one more big fish
out there that i am after.
i even mentioned it to my father.
Let's go soon, i said...
     -Yeah, that sounds good.-
but we both knew we wouldn't.

Time moved on, and us with it.
And there was less time for
us to go fishing together.

On the day of my father's funeral,
there were many surprised faces
upon my arrival.
They thought i had gone off fishing,
but i knew the river had run dry.

Earth is too tame these days,
too lax in competition.
i only see real men when we
attend the same protest rallies.

Talk stays cheap so that everyone
can afford it on any budget;
fistfighting in public is rude.

i have a genuine concern for the
welfare of my fellow man.
If they don't do well, what
will they have worth taking?

i *** in my backyard so the
dog will know it is MY yard;
my territory is marked;
he swears me fealty proper.

At the top of the food chain
we cull ourselves,
civilized.

It's the imprint that it makes, really.

There is little relation to
the covenants we have sworn
or the gildings of rehashed
sobriety or leftover temple
bricks, baked clay tablets
on which someone records
these scenes, fragments,
scents, and colors.

How can we reap this Zion?

Can it be gathered as wild
sweet strawberries are,
torn away from their source?
Can it be processed electrically?

Can we make money off it?

If so, how many dinars
would you offer?
One?  Two?  Perhaps
a discount for quantity?

i am sitting outside,
searching a sunset:
a plant loving light,
gobbling it up through
every pore.
Looking for the pinpoints
of ancient transmission.
i see a bulge...NO...
two, THREE!:
alien fingers pressing
latex event horizon,
mixed palette cornea burned.
     (Just a flashback, a
      cold beach night in
      my memory, feeling
      small in the universe
      again; chain-smoking
      unfiltered cigarettes,
      forcing a process, tasted
      bittersweet on the
      tip of my tongue.)

i hate you, Florida,
but every where is equally
beautiful in the now.
None of it is home.

i don't know what that means...

is it here, where i am
understood, examined?

i am cold, seeking fire:
i need to cut you wide
open, Luke's Tauntaun, and
stuff you full of my words,
replace your white insides
with black and gray ink.

To live.
To BURN.
In the light, the way of forever.

i spent some time alone with my friends
pondering the glitter of gold
and the clear-fire of night,
paying homage to the china,
by candlelight i dreamed
of shortcomings and how to:

wiping chalkboard, the teacher spins the disc,
while children laugh and throw stones,
their desks more comfortable than
the crucifix they all heard of somewhere.
A shrug and curt nod
as they drift back to longings for recess
or snack-time.
The little girl in the back knows
she has no milk money,
but will gladly trade for some.

That's all they really want

A whistle for the stride
or a poster for the wall.
All the adventurous boys sense this
choosing to pool resources
to achieve a common goal.
They pruned the cattle
and slaughtered the choicest
for their own.
Jealous, tyrannical lovers
thrusting themselves such as,
shamelessly.

there is a terrible oneness of self,
a totality of single-serving lives
all sip it from teacups sometimes...
some drown in a flood of its
mountain-cold rapids

to be resolute, to face the
falling of the light wearing
the face of Red-coat bravery,
a garment forgotten in the New World,
to carry on without comment
is an unspoken bargain, an
acceptance of defeat with dignity.

Our triumphs are of little notice
to those we struggle for.

i am wealthy beyond imagination.
We all are, since
time is money.

Money isn't real
and neither is time.
i imagined us all to be
wealthy, therefore
i have imagined the
creation of something that
doesn't exist, making
it real.

This is solid logic because
Descartes reasoned that
if we think, we exist.
This clearly illustrates how
money and time exist
even though they do not.

We can't use time to buy
money, although the converse
applies:  money will buy time
and temporary happiness.

Money and time are not
real, but they are, and
one can purchase the other
plus happiness, therefore
happiness, while not
technically real, can be
if we imagine it to
exist, thereby creating it
from nothing.

We are not nothing because
we think we exist.

From the Ankara of Augustus wandered,
east to the clefts of the Earth's breast:
at Shambhala i seek the tooth
from the maws of paradox,
a teaching from Lord Maitreya,
a stretching through the void of ascension.
In the cycling Kalachakra looping
step three, the divine is inside
and divides, as out so in.

As above, so below.

It claws through the pages to reach me,
and you, to strike the gong.

As within, so without.
Beyond you always,
eternally inside.

i am a fool for what i
think love should be.
If only i had been a fool
for what it truly is:
love is a melding of minds,
a handshake of like souls
across common boundaries,
an acceptance of static electricity
to complete our circuits.
A spark between fingers.

In the room the women come and go,
wishing they married Michelangelo.

Don't we all, in our ways?

Crazy love will leave you wanting.
True love does not attract until it is bound,
and not to you.

The irony of mating, exemplified.

Confused seems to be the new grade.
i've brought it home on my report cards
for years and yet
never allowed it to dampen until now.

It would appear to many that i have
lifted a new blank page from the books
and flailed around senselessly, finally
resorting to casually disembarking the
book on an outward passage through
the plate glass window of the 19th
floor apartment.
It doesn't scream on the way down,
primarily due to the complex fact that
it knew in some way or form that
this day would come eventually.

(Across the street, an old man sat
on a park bench, feeding popcorn
and alka-seltzer to the flocks of
pigeons he attracted.  He watched
the book's swan dive and unapologetically
smiled inside: also so disenchanted that
he too gave himself coal in his
stocking labeled "Dreams.")

i don't smile anymore for them;
makes me sad inside, i guess,
because one day we will be old,
carry our canes arthritically and
look for and reminisce about each,
but who knows if together.

i pledged no allegiance,
to the United States of Omerica,
only to the Republic,
on whose necks they stand;
no nation, so help me God,
can stay this divided,
if there is to be
liberty and justice for
ALL.

cat dozes on porch
startled by noisy lizard
rains death from above

Today i give thanks, unmindful of
calendars i did not create,
mixing rare potions to elixir,
grinding clock hands and
covering eyes, a shield from the
flash of excellence, filling my cup
from the wellspring eternal.

Come, drink from the chalice with me,
it is not hemlock, it brings union
and transmutation, our lead into
the fold.

Digest this tonic and abandon
resolve, i will take unto me this
poison from the Earth, take you
as well the fruits of our evil deeds
to be no more.

Pay this homage with me, to us.

Her captor deserves no quarter.
Stupidly cruel and blank,
the executor of silly lies;
the denizen of the dumpster;
the drunken trickster;
the worthless excuse;
the excused human;
the circler of drains;
the drainer of circles;
i see the dark in his eyes...
Why?
Won't?
You.
*******?
DIE.

The bus stops
on these roads,
plexi-glass shelters,
sit, collecting humans
and rain, wet wanderers
fleeing the sky.

He stares at his feet,
this moment's occupant,
huddled in his surplus camo-
jacket, safe and bearded.

This is my city
     (there are many like it but this one is mine).

They plant baby palms
along these streets; they
unfurl and catch these winds,
soak up the rains, hide

the treatment centers
and meeting rooms,
gutter syringes and
cheap hotels.

It's lovely here in the spring.

Wanderer, why are your feet broken?
Have they lost their will?
What of all the distant lands
yet traveled, ambled towards?
Are their soles growing dim,
forgetting the quest,
regretting the rest,
seeking a peace,
or gathering relief?
They, the betrayers,
led you into the dark...
long ago they conspired:
the left against the right,
the two against the one,
the one against the many.
Are they lost?
Are you found?
Ambushed, then discovered,
a worn sandal,
the soul survivor
of pilgrimages unknown.

a glass tripod menagerie
set inconspicuously against
the room's only blue wall:
i reached out to touch
the carnival mirror in the east,
splintering its unbaked ceramic surface,
raining shards of pseudo-sunlight
across my back, in my eyes,
in my side betwixt my ribs;
     (scene shift)
lying among the poppies of
my younger years, collecting their dew;
i was fed pungent sage cakes
baked by a strange man
named Mordecai, who rants about
gardening techniques, espousing
the spiritual value of tearing
the treacherous heart out while
it still beats, as he prepares
more cakes for the remaining guests;
     (scene shift)
in the bleachers, watching old friends
watch a beautiful female athlete
play raquetball with my treacherous
rubber heart, silently glad
that at least she had not
eaten my oatmeal or broken
my fingers off with a car door;
the roar of the cheering crowd
made my ears ring out loud
vertigo gripping hollow chest aching
AWAKE!
bolted upright, clawing in search of the wound, gaspingfranticdiscombobulatedandsuddenly...
calm...
the memory of my eaten heart,
and the look in your eyes
when you did it.

Under the moon, near the groves,
grows the summer's bitter fruit,
plumping for harvest.

We are bound to them,
thirsty for their tartness.

I know nothing of farming
these lands or caring for
elderly children, lost
inside their own minds.
I am only an observer
in these fields, destined
to carry my share home.

When I left my wife I felt
the angst, but underneath it
was the overwhelming
relief that I didn't have to
pretend anymore that
two halves could ever equal one.

I watch the bitter fields,
under this moon,
only an observer,
adding up these fruits,
counting these bushels,
knowing that we've all
our own fields to tend,
serfs that we are.

Was it Kruschev who said,
"We will spoon feed you socialism
a bit at a time," or
something like that?

Turns out whoever said it
was a prophet (one of many).

We are Americans.  We love
free stuff, and a sale, and
convenience.  We want to
germinate a seed and then
reap the harvest the
same day.  One spoon at
a time was maddeningly
too slow for us.

Margaret Thatcher said, "The
problem with socialism is that
you eventually run out of other
peoples' money," or something
like that.

Just not in her lifetime.
Or mine, i guess, since we
just print whatever we need.
What could possibly go wrong
with that strategy?

My ancestors fought in the
American Revolutionary War.
I can even prove it on
paper.  Violence and dissent
are my birthright as a
Son of Liberty.

Which, of course, means i
must fight in the next
revolution.  With words
and ideas, or actions
or a gun, with
conviction and apathy of self,
with my bare hands even,
to the death.

It won't end well for any of us,
no doubt.  A day will
come when we must take
our hearts and minds to
the fields, and possibly
leave our ***** there.
For someone.
For Something.
To be true Americans.

i sing a song of the cooing dove
that orbits in blue skies above;
biding time and waiting,
seeking wings of love.

i sing a song of waters still,
teeming underneath;
of predators that seek out fish
until they've had their fill.

i sing a song of swaying grass
on African savannahs;
that weather through nature's cruel
and bend as the winds pass.

i sing a song of songs to sing,
aloud, accompanied;
for one appreciates alone,
but two enjoy a thing.

i am hollow on the outside for you:
a completed tribulation,
standing grammatically sound,
whispering coos and slurs alike.

Tomorrow, my dear, i will rend
my eyes for you.
Tomorrow, i swear it.

Today is for feasting,
tonight is for laughing,
yesterday is for remembering,
but tomorrow: we die.

We feast as Romans:
gorged, feather tickled,
hedonistic embossed.

We laugh as hyenas:
nugget ******, giggling,
reservation tossed.

We remember as ancients:
eyes blurred, teared,
longingly lost.

But tomorrow, my dear,
we die, together again.

Another Saturday passes alone,
with my cats;
Caturday Night Fever,
the Disco Eterno
(the informal inferno).

i stared at the phone, willing
it to work, but have
no idea why...

i have an  infernal list of
forgotten lovers from past
lives and lifetimes and at
this junction i am no  more
than Lincoln Logs to their
Lego Fortresses.

Words that i used to own
slip through fingers that
used to hold mine, and
i think to myself that
it is quite peculiar to
know what you don't want
and be mastered by it
so deftly...

shiny armor is nothing more
than proof you are untested,
something too big in the
shoulders that makes it hard
to bear a load.

Whenever i meet people online,
i am reminded again that at the
core we are energy.  My mind
ascribes characteristics of hidden
faces that i can't be sure
are verifiable, a blank palette
where every "Alice" looks like
the first "Alice" i ever met,
and every "Steve" like the first
"Steve" and so on...

like when Rose Tyler lost her
face to The Wire, and Doctor
Who had to reclaim it for her.
The Wire was so very hungry,
famished even.

And i am so very thirsty,
which, if you think about
it, means that The Wire
and i have nothing
in common at all.

i carry my grandfather's
broken heart with me,
his hopes and dreams
realized and lost.

i have sewn my grandmother's
disappointments to my sleeve,
a flair of lace and sorrow,
quilted debonair.

I wield the father's attention,
a span of no great measure,
a weapon of mass distraction,
a net for butterflies chased.

The islands of fire in ceremony,
a festival of misgivings,
i offer up these baubles,
the trinkets, memories from a prince.

The belly of the earth rumbles,
a distant lands' shockwave,
beckoning a rider,
calling for a king.

King Kuameamea rises,
he paddles to ruin:
the crest of the tsunami
mastered, subjugated foolishly.

At Christmas, i wonder to myself
if i have spent enough money
to prove my love; i am giving of
myself, writing the great American
poem.  You can tell because i have
big dreams and no results.

i celebrate my family ties,
tethered to tradition.
i want to celebrate the solstice
instead because all nature
needs from me is my death,
a promise kept forever...

a memory of everyone's something.

Hunting easter eggs in December,
and yet they seek me out instead.

i never find them at my pace;
standing, drunk, outside familiar
bars in the cold, randomly
dialing number combinations
to hear whispers or silences.

Radio wave transmigrations
they are, a look to the
past, a nod to the future,
a moment in stasis
where the keypad blurs,
doubles, focuses, blurs,
and i am lost one more time.

Crackling...

clearly static, the white noise
of separation, the
                    (hidden)
     message
             bro      ke  n
    a
        p
            a
                r
                    t,

perfectly human, but alone.