I knew Pearl, comely, calm Pearl
eyes as blue as the skies
that warmed her sands
where we walked and talked
dreamed the days away
her voice so sweet on the Pacific winds
it made me forget about home
I was breaking daily bread
dipping it in the
yellow yolk promise of eggs
when little gunner Joe
said come down below
to see the kitty he found
crouched in the shadowed corner
no bigger than the rivets
get her some milk he said
when we placed the offering in front of her
she roared a lion’s roar…
and the roar kept coming
and the young living
thing
disappeared into the darkness...
the stench of smoke
the screeching screams
the fierce rocking of the hull
and blackness
which came too fast to touch
all spoke with equal madness
telling us doom
can come on a sunny Sunday morn
in Pearl’s land
falling,
is something we all know
in the flat land of dreams
in the lucky light of day, and
on that Sunday morn,
in the boiling bowels of our ship
slowly,
with some giant hand in command
the water, the water,
the water we all had grown to love
now taunting our feet,
then our knees
the pounding began
the eternal pounding
the pounding of the hopeful
in Pearl’s blue skies
and our pounding,
the pounding of the ******,
without any eyes
the water
now at our waists
now at our chests
and then only our frozen faces
against the hard steel that had been our home
had the last few breaths of air to breathe
heard the last few gasps of desperation
and the feeble futile pounding
of those in Pearl’s darkened sun…
now we rest in this sunken tomb
the guests roaming above
with cameras and tearless eyes
for they were not
the ones who heard our cries
those who did, do not return
for Pearl is no longer a sunny beach
and a stroll in a dream
but a place where the pounding started
and never stopped
and where the world changed forever
when the first bomb was dropped

Throwing up will make you beautiful
After all, beauty is pain
Waxing every square inch of your human body
Squeezing into those Spanx to hide your smallest flaws

Your daughter, she needs help with her eating disorder
There's no beauty in that. Strictly pain.
Or telling your 20 year old best friend everyday for 6 years a size 3 isn't anywhere neat fat
Having the same conversation with a 10 year old girl: is that any more beautiful? No.
Forget that beauty isn't painful

A mother experiencing excruciating pain yet forgetting it all when she holds her child for the first time
Death of a man with terminal illness--all the pain built up to the soul finally at ease
The battered woman seeking courage to break free and begin new life

Actual emphasis to "beauty is pain" is one who pushes through the undesired struggle-- beauty is the reward
Remember that beauty can be painful
What's beautiful in your life?

What do you say to a man
Who has lost his heart
Because his dream of life
Was so torn apart.

What do you say to the flowers
Whose petals and odor so sweet
Left a man begging love
At her feet.

What do you say to the world
Where love and peace are so void
Of any connection with religion.

What do you say to the political king
Who rules with the mighty button
And dreams of everyone knowing
Who is Boss.

Well, I probably say zilch
And go my walkabout way,
Waiting until the day I will
Mark an x within a circle
And try again.

Fingers and thumbs tapping out messages
so many texts written, so many read, smiles apart
faces, eyes, feelings, never shared
music videos; lips and music separate
empty sounds, never tugging the heart strings.

Thumbs and fingers keying in distance
so much data, so little experience shared, time apart
laptops, smart phones, processing emptiness
unfeeling, sampling blandness, subtleties lost
empty words, crowding our lives.

Curves, flowing lines and spaces, passion
compressed
squashed out are the senses
sweat and smells, laughter lost.

All in the empty kingdom of bits and bytes
reigned by the gods of technology
the mantra being faster, faster
but still
all fingers and thumbs in the affairs of the heart.

As surely as we are propelled forward
into tomorrow
we hurtle
back to the dark ages
the dark castles of aloneness
Empty words, lost in the cells of our separation
all fingers and thumbs.

Witness all the little things in life I can't seem to find..
I asked for your story because I wanted to feel your pain
to understand
So I found you, there in your post apocalyptic paradise
As you wrote the words to me slowly shedding light on the nature of your place
Lost between the words whispered from the lips of your so called dream..
Your puzzle to me summed up in the sentence
I'm not her
Its too late to ask you out with a stegosaurus card
My mom wont make you spaghetti
I don't have a soccer team you can guest play on, I cant meet you at a picnic
Compared to what you had I'm a shadow
And thats all you'll ever let me be
And I thought I could hear it, the nature of your inability to care for me...
but now it sits on my shoulder
Sometimes shifting its talons
I cry because you don't see me
And all the things I have done for you seem like nothing when I look at them through your eyes
But they were everything to me
each little offering offering of affection given to make you smile
every endeavor to make you happy
turned back and given to me as thorns
but you don't care
you are very sorry you say, but you just don't care
you can't
and the worst part is I understand now..
I can see how she's better in every way
except for that she left you all alone
So I can't fix you, I can't patch up the pieces she tore out on her way out the door
I can talk to you, I can be there, but
I can't make you see her any other way
I'm just nothing to you.. after all this time
You'll never talk about me like I'm a goddess.. you'll never look at me that way
and it hurts

It's late afternoon
The sky bleeds purple
As buildings claw at its fabric
December breathes coldly
And I feel them as if they are tempests
I can see every crack on the pavement
Hear the footsteps of the ebbing crowd
As if they are thunderclaps
I feel all
And they are all mine
I am awake

It's evening
Streetlamps flicker like flames
The houses are dead silent
And what my gaze befalls is my own
But I am nothing and everything
The horizon is but a blanket
Of a little piece of the universe
Sometimes it feels good to be small
So that the world will be but a giant blur
As if in a dream
I am sleeping

It's finally night
The most beautiful face of the day
For every time I close my eyes
I scatter jewels beneath my eyelids
I paint the silver crescent of the moon on the dome of my skull
And I find peace in the dark where others find fear
In the absence of heaven's eye
Angels sing me to sleep with cherubic lullabies
While my mind grasps at the vastness of the universe
And I have found the greatest escape
I am alive.

It's quiet.
This is the only happy I will ever be.

You knew I wouldn't see you
But it didn't hurt any less
Returning cold embraces, warm caress

I knew it was too good to
Keep you from all the buckshot
I forgot, you can't cover the spread
Now I'll have to pattern another gun

One more choke, another run
Cause you weren't true
I lied when I thought of you
Now I'll cry, but know I'll get her soon

I told her
But she wouldn’t believe
She would for life not believe.

I can’t stay back dear
I don’t belong here anymore
They know it
And they’re waiting
They too had a day like this.

And then I started to cry
Burying my head in her breast
Holding her tight

But I don’t want to go there
I can’t for your love
Leave this place
This house
This garden
These birds
These cats
The dogs...

I clung to her

Please do something
Tell me I’m dreaming
There aren’t none waiting
Your touch is true
My hugs are real
We stand here
Together
Bound in a fate
Nothing can separate

Time up they said
The more you stay
The more you suffer

She was weeping
I too

*Only she didn't see!

I don’t want to hate you
Despise you, place you
Down there in the back of my mind
A dark and brooding place where no one but me will find
You, I don’t want to hate you
I don’t want to blame you  
As the reason I have taken sadness as my lover  
I don’t want to lay awake at night
Wishing evil to befall you
I don’t want stay awake at night
Having to constantly fight this feeling
I don’t want to hate your being
I don’t want to be confused  
Wondering what drove you to abuse
The love I had for you
I don’t want to go again
To that dark foreboding plane
Where a horned being asked me what he can do
For me, I don’t want to even take a moment to consider
To let hatred be my Hearts leader  
And yet as I sit here  
I feel it boiling, slowly soiling my soul
Painting it black, turning into a black hole
*******, taking devouring me whole
It eats me, taking away my bliss from me
And so I am left alone
To again trek across this sea of emotion
Knowing that somewhere within the water’s
A monster lurks just waiting for me to slip  
A single moment a like a whip
Coiled and ready it will nip me
And take me, I don’t want to hate you  
In the end you we all must do what we have to  
But I can never again love you.