One brief glimpse of heaven
Before neverending exile
Is Hell.
Left with eternal longing,
After the universe contracts
To a pinhead.
Yet, I experienced perfection
With impenetrable mountains,
Bedless lakes,
Plains of current-ridden grasses,
Bluest skies.
Ethereal realms don't appeal
When I have this world to peek in on;
This Sistine to confound me,
This sentient reality in full.
The angel is coming to drive me out,
With fire and ice,
I lived paradise:
It is blue and green.

I've warapped,
With much consternation,
My years in you,
Without hesitation.
I adorned myself
With framed sheep skins,
Kept your eyes glittering,
To be more appealing.
You pressed your nose
Against the shop window,
Longing for the man
In the red suit.
I forgot about the ribbons,
You misplaced the bows.
I lied to some Santa,
Many years ago.

I'm not so sure about you,
As I am of me;
But I'm a Wikipedia Poet:
You don't need to believe what I write,
I just fabricate,
All of it.
No annotated bibliography,
No reliable footnotes,
No discerning endnotes,
With few promising references.
I don't expect believers,
Just read,
For what it's worth.
Take what you want,
Leave the rest.
Just give me a nod.
It could be true;
It's on the Internet.

Love is a dish best served cold.
Or should that  be revenge?
Often they're interchangeable,
As the outcome is similar.
It's wise to fear both,
Both unexpected
And most anticipated... and dreaded.
They come out of the blue.
I excel at neither,
Though I keep my platter
On a low shelf.

Ungraded roads have many holes,
Gravel, and running ditches.
Before a rain, they seem more wide than narrow.
Long but terminal.
These roads I'm led to roam,
Not straight, but bending to travel.

Signs warn of deer or bumps,
With a bridge dead ahead.
Chances are, it's a single lane,
And timing dictates crossing.

My spinning wheels clear the ruts,
But soon they fill again,
As if I never passed.

I knew her in youth's folly;
The fumbling hands,
The tumbling wills,
The limbs entwined kind of peace;
The dinner glances,
The unbridled dances,
Commando skirts,
Deep knee squats,
What one thinks
But will not say.

I've screamed into an empty barrel,
Ran barefoot where I shouldn't,
Slid rusty things under my nails,
Touched my eyes with sharp sticks,
Ground my teeth with electric power,
Scorched my skin beneath the shower,
Turned informer on closest friends;
Drank turpentine and kerosene,
Mercury and gasoline,
Tore my skin, rend my entrails,
And other parts clearly unseen.
Include, if you wish,
An immortal soul.
My spirit, ****** as well.
Call the prayer, sound a bell.
That was heaven,
Now is hell.