Calm
my thought process free
a busy jammed highway
now free in the night

Calm
a sore headache of relief
the pain of release
the cooldown of a workout

Calm
a disgusting room
finally cleaned
the stale smell gone

Calm
the last day at a job
the relief felt of leaving
the great and awful exiting

Calm
a creaky old door
wind coming underneath
but finally welded shut
locking monsters away

Calm
a leaf after the storm
pounded but nourished
left only with silence

I am finally calm

Screaming out of a dream
tears drying on my face
screaming at a brick wall
that was once a bomb shelter

The gunfire still in my ears
of words spoken months ago
empty shells on the ground
now no power left in them

Old paintings behind my bed
abandoned and yellowed memories
unchanging like food rations

I get out of my bed quickly
escaping from the visions
a reaching hand, saving me
from falling off a chair

I run to my door and grab
the handle being a lever
for the overflowing boiler

As I exit the room anxious
like an auditioning actor
I feel the sun greet me
that's when I know

trudging through mud waist-deep
these lungs are billows of smog and
these hands are brittle claws
world-breaker, I am fate unseen
through the clearest of lenses,
and the most acute of baubles
simple phrases caught in raw
and searing throats
with these ideas, my brain molds
an even more bothersome equation

Here she comes walking
The silent steps that hover on egg shells
Velvet incarnation
Her every word is where my mind dwells
There she goes walking
My body must be made of glass
Her eyes stay set forward
and I shatter with her pass

I have ideas that never seem to stick
Like a spark that falters on a half-lit wick
I think “Eureka! Wow, I've done it again!”
But when I mold my thought-child that’s exactly when
I get booted off for no ticket on this train of thought
And the project derails into an old vacant lot
That lot is a notebook at the foot of my bed
It’s labeled “ideas” but it should read “drop dead”
My ideas are all just orphaned on paper
Their father held interest, but started to taper
“I’ll get to it sometime!” but no clock reads “some”
I just like the feeling of ideas under thumb
Is it arrogance? I hope not, just a stream of dumb luck
Or maybe I’m just afraid of being told that I ****

Drink like Kerouac,
Smoke like Bukowski.
Wait...
is that backwards?

my friends, my friends
we are birds on power lines
huddled for warmth
specks against the grey
surrounded by the late october gloom
and the steam rising up from the gutters
we are restless and sour
eyes pointing outward
-
every step
every teensy, solitary step
sealed with egg shell footprints
womb nostalgia
tenderness found in autumn colored flashes,
moth-wick sparkles, and fried dandelion blossoms
we remember our grandmas’ knuckles,
chipped tiles on the kitchen floor
-
my dear, my dear
we are stray brown tabbies
bellowing rumble, ears stripped of fur
settled into our corner of the front porch
once we were roustabouts;
waltzing to the waxing and wane
carpeted floors gave way to concrete chill
but now the summers seem longer
-
the smell of cardboard,
cinder block walls, and duck pond water
stale memories with naked omens
we turn to face the chilling draft;
tomorrow
harping on and on about grey areas
while we kick up alley gravel
balanced by surface tension
-
under quilts counting freckles
plasma paychecks peddling uphill

I am the flightless pelican.
I’ve found myself with my mouth full,
my stomach full, and so much still on my plate.
Possessed by an inhuman hunger,
I will gorge upon pure potential.
I will yowl on and on, without sleep.
-
I have sand between my toes.
My shoes are glued to my feet.
Keep on running ‘til the calluses come.
There has to be a point where I stop to sweat,
and I’ll finally get my sigh of relief.
I have one ride left on my bus pass.
-
I have a tendency to ramble
and languish in my own stench.
People tend to forget this at first;
lured in by the false face of a genetic fluke.
They want to know the impression I left,
not the procrastinator; the cud-chewing goat.
-
I can’t sleep being held,
or if I feel someone’s breath in the still.
I start to feel the urge to burrow
into the quiet quilts; patchwork Promised Land.
I cater to the crowd that caters to themselves,
but I’m no Utilitarian. Fox and Lion.
-
I have cousins like brothers,
and I have brothers like strangers.
Stray cats with names
and a copy of The Mahabharata that I stash my money in.
I’m sitting on a sunny pier with my hook in the water;
avoiding conflict with no bait.  
-
Paper cuts from the gold leaf
on the edges of hymn book pages
with burgundy leather covers.
These guilty cuts, bleeding for what seems like hours,
while we steadily forget that anyone was singing.
Alone with our thoughts in the crowd.

Most people think about
Other people that
Make them shout
Meanwhile I'm here
Drowning in self loathing
So tell me this, now
Is it worse to hate everyone else
Or to hate only myself

Right now I feel frozen
Wait
Not frozen.
Life moves on
At a regular pace
But I'm slow and
I'm losing this race
I want to go back to
Where we were when
I said I loved you
And you said it back.

It was all so sudden
Our relationship didn't crumble
It imploded on itself.
And now I'm back
To being alone.
This poem is my
Impromptu apology.

I moved too fast
And now I'm stuck
In slow motion.