I’m losing
from not using,
from excusing
my laziness.
I’m fading quietly
with disappearing memories
of the human being
I once was.

They split
the splendor,
hurt mother nature,
grabbed and slaughtered
her bright red, and green
bedded daughter.

They cut down
the tall brown,
broke with burning blasts
the bulging bottom
of the beige mountains
that were snowcapped.

They painted in plain mortality,
stained that verdant quality
of waving grasslands
that expands
before the curious swarm
of a young humanity.

They cracked the crust
beneath us
causing the gas
to come rushing up
and poison us.

So, now we weep
salty sea tears
tainted by oil spills
and dead otter bodies.

Till, at last
when all those
tragedies have passed
when stillness reigns
in our place
we are disgraced
and displaced
by our self-inflicted
genocide.

She is a runaway
out of place
with a beautiful
violin case.

A hungry hand holds
the short bow,
not made to hunt
but born to make
more music.

It plays,
drawing back
and letting loose
the vibrating strings.

The flow of sound
solidly pierces
all of those
within hearing distance.

When she was younger
and could not
find her slumber
she sat
on a burnt black stump
practicing
to the point
of satisfaction,
as close to perfection
that she could come.

Till, no one
could find any imperfection.
Now the streets sound
with the melody of her
musical confession,
this deep possession
of poetic fury
in the flurry
of changing cords.

The music soothes
the sick storm
that swarms
her troubled mind.

She plays as passersby’s
pass her fives
or drop dollars and dimes
for her music.

She plays one smile at a time
searching for a sign
but so far all she finds
are silent stares
of the strangers passing there
as she struggles to share
the ballet of her balancing sounds.

Change is scary
deranged,
contrary
to the arranged
and predictable
life,

opposite of
an existence
without
extraneous
variables,
boring and plain,
stable as a perfectly
measured coffee table.

But without change
there is no chance of
awesome growth.

Because I have enough
plus
extra to eat,

Because I have
clean water
to clean with
and to drink,

Because I have
a roof over my head
and something
that makes heat,

Because I have a car
so, I don’t always
have to use my feat,
  
Because I have access
to the internet,
a world wide
web of knowledge,

Because I can dream,

Because I have seen,

Because I can read,

Because I have
family and friends.

Because I have known
grief and other forms
of suffering,

Because I know
that I will die
and only have
this one life.

The grave was wet
with well water,
sinking flesh
fell farther down
into the brown ground
as it all rotted.

But, if I could
I would
pull you up
and out of that
cold black
and damp
death spot.

I would
warm you with
a loving kiss
and a tender hug
as I massaged
life back in to
your cold skin.

I would
bring you back
into a bright new day,
see your flesh
refresh
returning from
your withered
rotting form,
not a zombie,
but the warm body
that I remember.

So, I could have
one more day
to hear you tell
all the stories
you might have kept
to yourself.

I am coming,
the quick trickster
slick heart enchanter
dark dancer.

I’m coming,
heart burning
as ashes paint
these concrete streets,
as people multiply
and walked with me.

Sidewalks peppered
with plastic flesh
that is packed with
everything that leaks
and seeks
its own death;

A house of rubble,
a home of dust,
but I am
a traveling man
in tattered garbs
trying to connect you
to those who are
just distorted reflections
wearing similar scars.