It comes out during sunset:
Sky blushes orange,
Moon scares the sun.

It gushes out in different forms:
A bit scattered at first,
But then becomes one.

It dabs words onto paper:
Sewing syntax
On fabric fantasy.

But it leaves without warning:
It's daylight drowning
In nocturne melody.

It is hard to say father;
the thought of you stumbles through me when I see
a Gerber baby food jar or a wooden pop crate.
Once you came to mind when I saw a Polish flag
on TV; that is humorous because
the only Pole I know is a pale man at the gym
whose left eye is shaped like a rotten pear.
Do you still burn your fingers when you
fall asleep smoking in a recliner?  I hope
you still do not trim your fingernails while
sitting on the toilet stool; that seems so un-American.
Today is your eighty-fourth birthday;
I hope wherever you are you do not think of me.

There are no ****** Rottweilers tethered to steel poles
outside  basement taverns.

No emaciated men  picking **** mites
on  their  faces or  women staring
blankly into the fog of their day.

Not a bad smell, a dead bird on a lawn,
an old person wearing a sweater too tight
or a poor kid with a cleft palate; not in Euphoria.

Clothes constrain
Skin contains
The insides I wear on the outside
You don't have to scratch the surface
To find hidden meanings
To catch a glimpse of passion
To see my blood reaching boiling point
You don't have to dig your nails in
To reach through the seven layers
To hear the whispers written on my bones
Scriptures ooze from the ruptures
Lush red tastes of rusted words
Skin the binds
Skin that hides
Stretches over my memories
I wear the patchwork quilt of history
Of the mothers and fathers who have gone before
Sewn together with the glorious stories of yesterday
Stitched with the future's threads
The hopes and dreams of the generations yet to be
My heart, my soul, my skin, my home

I hold love and yet
I repel love
I hold pain and yet
I am numb to pain
I can stand time
And yet...
I cannot seem to stand
Time...
Time is but a commodity
And yet I still feel at loss
Pushing forward against the axis of time
Pain equaling the progression of time
So that my pain never decreases and suffers
At a gradient of forced positivity
Or is it really forced?
To live in a state of both pain and positivity?
Is it really forced?
To fear death and yet also infinity
Is it really forced?
When you can see all that which surrounds you
As if blessings hide and yet are plain to sight

But to live through that all brings about confusion
You continue to move forward without falter and yet
You find yourself in seclusion
Not wanting to be found and yet
Seeking warmth til delusion
Finding comfort in the painful cold
And yet begging for the warmth of a human.

Time is but a commodity,
And yet man cannot compare,
They fall weak to its clutches,
And lose to despair.
Take a hint and do not try to live in seclusion
Because one can only take so much pain.

Braid of sweet grass ignites in flame,
Ash falls hot and light onto curled toes.
Smoke wafts to earth time around legs
Curvy and cross under ancient pines.
Sun drinks life where nettles grow songs,
Trills of green stalks, unfurling ferns dance
In rhythm to waves in the wake of
Perpetual dawn.