The darker side of my mind is where
Abstractions of fragmented poetry breeds;
A baby lies dead in a Hong Kong gutter,
And my lines fall into place.

Broken hearts sing lullabies to me,
Two savage beatings spare me a verse,
New Orleans lends me four at low interest,
And throws in a haiku for free.

The old veteran quotes me three lines
And gets buried with the last.
The rhyme festers with his body;
Both soldier
                      and verse
            are
                       free
                                       again.

I can't explain the beauty I see
In the dying faces of the abandoned ones,
Nor tell you why, if the bomb were dropped tomorrow
I should weep in both anguish and delight.

I can only tell you, should it all end,
Should all modern horrors dissapear,
The future will weep for the joys of the present
And smiles will dissapear forever

I think to be thoughtful
I speak to be heard
I write to decipher
The truth in my words.

I smiled to ensnare you
I laughed to secure
You slipped through the trap
That I built to procure

I kissed to consume you
I hugged to enfold
My arms close on nothing
You're no where to hold

I writhed to entrance you
I clutched you to keep*
Now the place where I hold you
Resides in my dreams.

I write so you'll read this
My hand pens the truth
All that I've written,
I've written for you.

He told her she was pottery; a vase with grooves and cracks.
The patterns of the history she hid behind her back.

Within his words he layered in- like thread upon a loom-
The sweetest undercurrent to illuminate that gloom.

In certain cultures, he decreed, when pottery is cracked
They aggrandize them with gleaming gold to bring their splendor back

For they believe, with certainty, once damage has been wrought
Those tiny cracks, now filled with light, hold truths that can't be taught.

Say my name
Say it gently
Use your words
To caress me
Speak your thoughts
Speak them out loud
Confess your love
Amidst the crowd
Scream your wishes
Scream your dreams
Make your reality
Better than it seems
Whisper your pain
Whisper your fears
Release the tension
Wipe away your tears
Open your mind
Open up wide
Let my love in
Let me inside

I can't make you want me.
I can't make you care,
About my feelings or emotions,
You left my heart bare.
I cry over you,
Although I know it wont faze you.

Tears fall from my eyes,
As I try to forget you.
It hurts to be unwanted,
Left to the side,
Forgotten about in the blink of an eye.
I feel so insignificant,
So incredibly small,
Knowing that I meant nothing at all.

But I can't make you want me.
I know you don't care.
As much as I want you,
You'll never be there.

some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn't you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I'm not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there'll always be mony and ****** and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.