The Poet says,
"It is easy being a painter.
You only paint what you see."

                                                                              The Painter says,
                                                                              "It is simple being a poet.
                                                                              You only write what you feel."

                                    God says,
                                     "Poet, if you are not a painter,
                                      And Painter, you are not a poet,


Then you are neither."

On Saturday
any Saturday
every Saturday

multi-themed pedestrian parades
pour down commercial corridors
celebrating a holiday known as

WEEKEND.

Middle school queens throw
exaggerated waves
from backseat upholstery tops

in imaginary convertibles marking
the current flow route between
Foot Locker and Game Stop.

Marching throngs display
personal banners on
plastic handled brand bags

drawing peer clusters,
human petaled floats,
vying for ribbons

passing devoutly interested
sideline spectators
now feeling a bit empty

without score cards.

Hippos, thin men, package jugglers
stroll along the branching avenues
labeled in chest advertisements

including everything from
Magnetic Health to Jesus.
No mega-city floatilian

compares to the mall regalia
in a midsize hometown
duck-n-spend.

Though it may be
a little short on free candy
it is still sponsored in part

by Macy's.

Interlocked peddler palaces
reign as shopping centers,
though shopping is the least

of the reasons to be here;
not unlike people going to
a hockey match

are not going to watch hockey,
or partakers in Nascar
don't actually go for racing.

Truth is,
we are all hoping
to see a collision,

Haves with Have Nots,
Lovers with Haters,
Colored Hairs with High & Tights

Refined with Undefined
Talkers with Solitaries
Personal Loathing with Itself.

Unanimously, they all come
for the curiosity of encounter
incalculable, anxious, wanted

or unwanted.

In secret,
dreamers hold royal hopes
praying to Aeropostale gods

pleading favor with credit cards
and a bump in popularity
that if so anointed

the purest of this parade's followers
would be next week's
Grand Marshall.

please read http://hellopoetry.com/poem/629931/in-the-beginning/
before you indulge in this :-) *

DAD'S DREAMS

The Sandman and I have an agreement:
     I will use his grains sparingly,
In return,
     He dispenses my prescription in
Nearly lethal doses.
Deep,
Extravagant,
Peaceful
Sleep
          Where only contented dreams live
                    In abbreviated hours
                    Too succinct
To allow anything unpleasant.

Wrinkled
Sheet-faced
Creases
          Trail skippingly through
                              ****** worlds
                              Utopian neighbors
                              Calorically absent banquets
Sharing property lines with
Idyllic, passionate women
                  Who peer over their
                   See-through fences
                   Teasing unbridled desire
          Of covering me in a favorite topping.

                                            (Dutifully,­ I double check
                                            Nocturnal filters
                                            To be sure I have prevented
Broadcasting of past names
To my present wife
                                  Half-dozing on the pillow
                                  Taken from my side of the bed.)

A mist sets then rises, a new act begins,
        Transporting near the river
        On the banks of my hometown.
         I am Tom Sawyer,
Lounging proudly with
My Huckleberry friends,
         Fishing line on my toe,
                                Bobber and stink bait
                                Mimicking ***** waves
                                On the Muddy Miss.

The string draws taut bending my stubby digit.
          It’s a big one hanging on
          Pulling so hard
          I'm driven from slumber.
There at my feet I can see I have
Reeled in the finest catch of my life.
                                          A blue eyed,
                                          Small mouth offspring
                                          With panting gills
                           Mumbling something about falling....

Then I remember,
        The only thing
        Better than my dreams
        Is waking to a son
                                 Who believes I am bigger
Than all of his.

You cannot make me love you
      but you can make me
wish that I always should have.

If you aren't looking
you will never see them
hidden in whitewashed caste systems
forced to conform
to federal papers
which fit in a folder
that fits in a file
of an emaciated white guy
who doesn't fit anywhere
checking the boxes and "disorders"
voted on by
a majority of uncaught criminals
who are protecting store front lifestyles
while the real merchandise of their lives
lays in the back storage room
with the rats of their conscience.
They judge sanity
setting rigid walls
and hanging permanent badges on
Salvador Dali dream catchers,
borderless thinkers,
and geniuses
of the things not yet discovered.
Just because the gifted can not
or will not
stop thinking,
they are detained for their
Difference.

State Hospital No. 3
titles every page
framed in frayed edges
and unfrayed passion.
Lions of courage stand
with childlike joy
in traveling circuses
obliterating demons of oppression,
overwhelming reoccurring ECT...ECT...ECT.
An etcetera of living
beyond electroconvulsive therapy
where the spelling of ECTLECTRC is perfect
in its grammar and definition,
standing in banners atop
the wide-eyed portraited guardians
of institutionalism.

Glorious art shuddered on a curb,
lost and intended for *******...

Thank God, beauty beholders come
in all ages of eyes.
14 year olds also find treasure
in garbage piles
clutching dearly to the feeling
that greatness lies in colored pencils
dancing on unusual stationary.
Edward Deeds
comes of age
in the same moment
as the scavenging boy does
opening the binders
on their inter-joined journey
36 annuals after dislodging it
from a leftover ham and rye.

A voice is unmuted
merely by being seen.
Revelation is given
by turning on the light.
Art, music and knowledge is infinite
when boxes are destroyed,
ignorance rebuked,
and courage is embraced.

Let us dare to never be
just what we know.
Let us live to be
what we have never yet seen.

I came to Barnes Noble
to feel like a writer,
believing that my proximity to books
would anoint me
kinda in the way
hugging a good-smelling friend
makes you a part of them
if only for a while.
I'll take that...
smelling like a great wordsmith
If just for the time
I rub against them.

                                 So I sit in the museum of
                                 colorful covers
                                 and barcodes
                                 channeling Billy Collins
                                 or Susan Wheeler
                                 (maybe Dr. Suess)
                                 glowing with empowerment,
                                 while my ostentatious
                                 and somewhat snooty tablet
                                 stands arrogantly atop
                                 this cafe table
                                 in parallel unity
                                 with the Caramel Macchiato,
                                 because poets know
                                 Starbucks is Popeye's spinach
                                 for authors.

                                                                                   Then clumsy fingers
                                                                                   pound out
                                                                                   keyboard percussion
                                                                                   swelling into
                                                                                   a privilege of honor
                                                                                   that God would
                                                                                   love us enough
                                                                                   to give us words,

                                                                                   and people,

                                                                                   who will sustain us
                                                                                   in their admiration,
                                                                                   right or wrong.
Where the meager difference between
walking among giants or peasants
will only be known
after we are long gone.
                                              We write
                                                     not so that we are known
                                                            in this moment,
                                                                   but that we will be
                                                                          criticized by the future.

I pray I am hated more than you all
a thousand years from now.