shaken I take stock
parrots shrieking loud

sunny days drift by
mock assail my space

flowers bloom but brief
blink and they're replaced

trees take fifty years
decimated swift

people killed, displaced
earth protests in pain

stop, opt out, you're lost
left with platitudes

can I drift removed
isolation seek

then again I see
I sound like them now

if I sulk and pout
fail to see my path

rise above and live
carve a vibrant self

ripples echoing
circle all this globe

passage clipped and purged
take a mountain pass  

rein in darkening clouds
grasp some grit this day

We sculpt clay into the things
we cannot force our bodies into
we string the alphabet
into stories we are afraid to live
we paint with colors we cannot see
and we ignore the music
inside the beat of our hearts

as we forget what it means to live
we muse on what was
once beautiful about being alive
and forget our thoughts
as we stare emptily to the sky

and the night swallows the day
and the day murders the night
and prayers become graveyards
for dead gods
and our beds become coffins
for dreams

round and round the clay
of the earth spins
and slips through our fingers
as time is something we waste
and our reflection
is a ghost of once was
and what could be

if we could only remember
who we were before
we became prisoners inside
our own minds and found shame
in the shape of our flesh

before we needed the alphabet
to speak of love
and metaphors to hide behind
and fairy tales to mend our wounds

back when the music
inside the beat of our hearts
was all we needed
to know that we were beautiful

Rain is the dearest thing to me,
for I am born in a desert,
and for desert,
rain is life sent to a dead land.

I am a desert boy,
so I can smell rain coming,
even hours ahead,
and I wait for it to come,
with all my heart.

For some of you,
a rainy day may be a bad day,
and a sunny one called a good day,

But for desert people,
the good days are only,
the few days that it's raining.

pain with no script
subterranean roar
pressing call
pushing through
unkempt wasteland

places we don't see
lest they confront
status quo
hidden from all
but the sharp

as echoes we meet
find the persona
sear like another
stinging coal
on splintered frame

bent from carrying
shadows
cast on the
lake of fire's
unceasing scourge

so if we
stand still
smell the heat

of an enemy's
bullet through our veins
for once

court outcome
of supplanting views
imbibing another's sweat

casuist's bile
scrawled on prison walls
of savaged confines

they salute
their spiel
with the same

toxic hold
as we concoct
world views

venomous elixir
polymorphous maze
shadow of a sphinx

looms clearer
as steps leading
to torn pages

of feted book
uncover dichotomy
of a self split

so that shooting a child
of shunned genes
amounts to nil

for in but a blink
his uniform
arrives home

to stroke the
golden locks
of his only daughter

playing Chopin