Even though we wish that we were more important we are all insignificant in the universe. Despite our paranoia, people are generally not out to get us or talking about us constantly. Most people are just maintaining, trying to keep their head above water, just like us. This constant sharing of our lives on social media has distorted our ability to value ourselves with a realistic measurement. Many of us spend too much time trying to create an artificial online identity to the detriment of our real life.

Do not read a book
or watch a show
about people
you do not know.

Do not go anywhere,
or engage
with strangers
of any age.

Do not face
those in pain
or see suffering
which
you might
be able to
relate to.

Do not let
blurry stereo-types
come under scrutiny
and see the unknown
loose its fuzziness.

Do not look into
a parent’s eyes
as she watches
her child fade,
preparing herself
for an instance
in which she wishes
she could trade places.

Do not look
at a child who is hungry
when you have
more than you need.

Why would you want
an inch of
human decency?

For heaven sake
avoid empathy
at all cost.

In my younger days
there was pain
and a rage
that would raze
the world away;

A deep injection
of sorrow infections,
coupled with
disappointment,

and when I erupted
I kept almost all
of my volcanic outbursts
to the form of exercise
or other means of
self-hurt,

because I did not
want to cause
anyone
the same
sickness
of anguish
that I suffered.

Whether it was
waking in tears,
punching solid objects,
or working out
to the point of
exhaustion,
purging my stable
of demons,
what a
painful exorcism.

Now,
I am healthier,
and I only engage in
a less brutal regimen
in comparison
to deal with my issues.

Tis a fear,
elegantly etched
in the sketch
played in
my dreams,

chaotic scene
that came
unbidden
to unlock
the hidden.

At first it was
slightly amusing
viewing
an old time
tv crush of mine
Samantha from Bewitch
who with a twitch
of her cute nose
could cast a spell.

But then it shifted
as I tucked a sheet in
an old brown couch
with my dearly departed grandma.

***** trick to play you see,
I awoke mournfully,
aching with the memory
of a loss that happened
less than six years ago,

whilst fearing
losses nearing
and yet to come.

Two miles away
from a much needed
toilet break,
my stomached churned
as I turned
down a busy road.

In tattered rags
his body laid curved
in an unnatural angle
against a brick wall,
while two strangers
surrounded him.

I am certain
he was hurting
or dead
but I did not stop
to help,
merely drove on
till the sight
was long gone
so, I could relieve myself.

The lesson is
we are not less then
other men
but different
in our radiance.

Some may shine bright
while others wear a light
that is on another spectrum
one that most humans
are not even looking for.

The lesson is
we are not less then
other men
but different
in our radiance.

Some may shine bright
while others wear a light
that is on another spectrum
one that most humans
are not even looking for.

She is in part
a viper,
a poisonous plague
upon my heart,
venom spitter
dark adder
damming me
from a distance,
crumbling my
resistance.

She is dangerous
but I do not mind,
I find I like that kind
of danger.

She is in part
a viper,
a poisonous plague
upon my heart,
venom spitter
dark adder
damming me
from a distance,
crumbling my
resistance.

She is dangerous
but I do not mind,
I find I like that kind
of danger.

“Its just too much.
Its just
too ******* much,”
she thinks.

As she drinks
a thick liquid
filled with
the pills
she feels
will make her
cease to feel
anything.

Specifically, perfected
the pills that she selected
we’re taking by design
to stop her body
and her mind.

With the last bits
of her energy
she gently sweeps
her cats out of
the rooms where she
plans to sleep
eternally.

“Don’t want you guys
to eat my face,
while my rotting corpse
attract a lot of flies,”
she says with a cynical
chuckle.

Consciousness edging out
she slits her wrists
to hedge her death bet.

Then she collapses,
a bridge broken
under the pressure
of three years
of compounding pain,
disappointment,
and heartbreak.

Almost two days later
she awakes
to a numb face,
and clumsy brain.

Drained,
she stumbles in vain
to get cleaned up
and go to work.
Does everything
but
shaves her legs.

She checks her pain
physically nothing hurts
but emotionally
she cannot ascertain
anything with any
certainty.

Still, struggling.
With doubt
but she reaches out
to her mother,
and finds a way to
connect to another
as her small circle
draws her
back to a life
she is still not sure she wants.

With a wrinkled face
scorned by age,
you work and scrimmage
to try and save
your wage
for the better days to come.

Tired and betrayed
you see change
rushing from
the power of some
who want and take
the things you make.

By force of will
and money
they legislate
for the sake
of profits,

and we feel powerless,
like our voices have been stripped.
We feel as if
we are crippled
by the likes of that which
gives them power;

But there is power in a voice.
There is strength in a choice.
There is a gift in
giving compassion,
actions
that takes the harshness
of life and lessens
with lessons
and examples
of kindness.

You find this
in the giving of time,
the sharing of food,
while listening to
a lonely dude,
or stopping to help
strangers in need.

You may not see
the positivity
generated.

You may feel as if
it doesn’t mean ****,
as you watch all those crooks
shift and twist
the masses into
a hateful mob.

But that’s not
all you got,
there is more power
to be found
if you look around
and help those
who are down.

Some days
I wake
in tears,

Some days
I wake refreshed,

But today
I woke
a blank space,
nothing to emote
I’m just a still pond
with a small wooden boat
afloat.

Can we be
fine without past
if we find happiness
and peace
presently.

I want a new life
in the sun
no more strife
to run from
but years of
love and fun
that will
hopefully come.

The morning makes
me come to wake
and take
the same
mundane
trip.

On the road
I follow those
who rush into
a blurry flurry
of winter weather
that moves
water across the sky.

In their wake
white wisps
of snow smoke
move across the highway,
like cold specters
with nowhere to go.

Heater fogging up
my driver side window,
as a white wasteland
which is partially punctuated
by small protruding
black rocks
become jagged streaks
then nothing but
poetic etching to me.

On time to work
though I wish
I had stayed home
hugging my warm
electric blanket
as I read some eclectic
literature.

She does not impress
but is built to vex me.

Liquid movement
gelling,

Dancing angelically
as if she has wings
to soar,
dropping
several soft feathers
but still wearing
a thousand more.

Yet I bet
though slender she be,
she could easily
devour the entirety
of my being,
and I would submit
gratefully.

What a strange constellation she makes,
sweet stellar body
that I view from
a safe distance
cause she would
burn me like the sun,
scorching me
with her radiant beauty,
as I study her astronomy
the anatomy
of cosmic glory.

Thirteen years
younger than me,
and I’m remembering
a little chubby face boy.

Sweet little kid,
I missed
most of his
life.

Not mine
but still
I can feel
the loss.

We are impermanent
passing this firmament,
but I did not expect to
outlive this younger dude.

Last time I saw him
was maybe nine or ten
years ago.
Man, he had grown.

Now he memorialized
on stone,
leaving his mother alone
to raise her grandchild.

Adrift in the dust,
I know that it must
come to pass.

Cause soon enough
that will be all of us,
but that logic
doesn’t make it easier
to appease the fear
of grief to come.

Ain’t no peace
cause its a
hurricane,

ain’t no river
but an ocean
of pain,

and all that is left
is a tornado
of rage.

A bulge in the cement
that is ready
to crack the ****
while swelling waters
prepare to run over
another innocent man.

Raging waves
ruin everything,
leave devastation
across the barrens.

Silence broken with the sob of
parents who lost their loved ones,
as they count the cold corpses
that clutter our nightmares.

We cry out into the void
for some sort of relief,
beg for mercy
from some higher being
but no one is there.

For the illusion
of a love lost,
the delusion
that love costs
some steep
sacrificial price,

She would burn
this shallow life,
slit the throat
of those she knows
to hear the note
of honest hearts
gurgling in
their skepticism.

For the sake of
the lie called love,
that chemical drug
she is feening for,
that sad score
that doesn’t
really exist anymore,
she would restore
the weaknesses
she once deplored
and explore
any other bit
of madness
to get this
******* back
even though
it was never
what she thought it was.

She wears
the blush of flesh
lit aflame
with the wild wonder
of an untamed
parallel passion.

Her feline eyes
are slender slits
of baleful irises
staring with
the ravenous ache
of a predator
ready to take
that which sustains
and entertains.

Desire inspires vampire tendencies,
as I lay succoring on her supple flesh,
the sweet scent of ***
pours off her porcelain skin.

Lonely we imagine
that love is an
elusive dragon
dragging us
from the corners of
shaded chambers.
Eyes flashing danger,
as breaths of ember
threaten to render
our tender flesh
to cinders.

It was a small
white plastered walled
room
where I sat alone
studying French
before the bell
would sound
and send me home.

Cracked bits of plaster fell
turning to smoke
as they hit the floor
making a thin white mist
of dirt that exposed
a hidden figure.

A silk specter,
she moved through the air
as if gravity
wasn’t even there.
A beautiful swirling
nightmare
swimming in
this stale atmosphere

Dangerous hands
that could caress gently
or strangle menacingly.

Better than the bitter
poltergeists
that haunted
Hollywood screens,
cause she was
far more fascinating.

Undefined
mistress of
lost minds,
who lost time
trying to find
some sort of meaning.

I watched her
confused
and amazed
at the sight displayed
as she played
in some sort of
ethereal realm
allowing me
to see.
all of her
abstract majesty,
but just as quickly
she evaporated.

I do not think
anyone will believe
this strange story
so, I made it in to poetry.

Hopefully
she will come back
and haunt me
some day in the future.

How much mayhem
can a madman
make in
eight great
lonely days?

Can he
at the behest
of his eclectic intent
find a way to
circumvent
the abominable
paradigms
of malevolent minds?

What does is take
when he pulls up
all those old stakes
and tries to make
something that
never was
better because
the alternative
is a slow
mental death?

I’ve been baking a cake with
the bad ingredients
we stocked in our cabinets,
sugary and chocolate bits
to rot our internal organs
and stain our already
brown and yellow
broken teeth.

The arc of our life
is a queer covenant,
burning out the porcelain
colored, electric smoking oven
that we were cooking
useless crap in.

Little explorers
observe the world,

Little experimenters,
master transformers;

Little lab workers
cause they are so curious;

Until,
full grown men
and women
become
little teachers
ready to unveil
the real and unreal
to help us navigate
past the hate
that fools make.

I live in a world
of flowers falling on
the feces that
fertilizes our lawns.

A world where
the disgusting bares
the most beautiful fruit.

Where children bloom
in the battle wreckage
of the cement and metal
that spirals
out of control.

Where the abused
take the violence
and find a better use
for their anger, and blues.

Like seed pods pulled
from a crushed rose,
these little artists grow,
and show
a different side
of our shared
human life.

Is a flower
folding in
on itself,
petals
swollen
with
the last mist
of morning
dew.

It is a lost doe
walking through
the back yard
nibbling
on tree bark
and disappearing
before I can find
the camera of my mind.

It is the one song
played on
repeat
so, you can feel
the beat
and barely hear
the heart
the music declares
as the lyrics
sing
my soft hearted
soul
to a state of peace.

Shop online now
to buy
all of these
interesting
little things,

Like portable
gaming devices
to distract you
from the sad view
of other who
are hurting,

Like t-shirts
that barely fit you
but look cool
and advertise
for your favorite
brand,

Like lite
wireless earbuds
so you can’t
hear us
when we yell
please,

The internet sale
is better because
you don’t even
have to leave your house,
you don’t have to
go to a store
and see anyone
anymore.

We soft fingers
linger
on the locked
door
laid before
the world
we abhor,

wooden rot
ready to be open
so, we can explore
the radiant wonders
that lay
in the day
on the other side
of this dark night
life.

There is a fresh hole
on the threshold
of our property,
a perfectly
proper spot
where they
buried me.

Safe distance
from the old quarry,
so my corpse
doesn’t have to worry
about being
disfigured
by the bigger
mess.

What a figure
I make,
flaccid
and undressed
before death.

Nothing there that
would impress
strangers,
other then
the danger
of smelling
my rotting flesh.

So, I am safely stowed
in a small hole
in the property
that I owned
while my killers
ransack my home
in the middle of the night.

My knees are sore,
but the week before
brought the horrors
of a civil war
down upon
their poor
village.

Had to take
my car to the shop,
she had to find
a clean cloth
to stop
the blood
that will not clot.

I got a broken tooth,
but the little child
wears bullet holes
past the thin layers
of his ragged cloths

Over ate
when I am trying
to lose weight.
It would be nice
if the last time
they ate
was yesterday.

I’m getting old
her family is
getting cold
sitting in a hole
where death reigns
and pain stains
the hearts of
those they loved
who managed to escape.

He wakes up
takes a cup
of coffee
maybe
two cups
then hits
the road
for the styx.

Body bent over
from the load
he’s been carrying,
wheels rolling
taking him
to nowhere.

Stress is eating
ulcers into
the inner lining
of his stomach.

Anxiety is
a vibrating blade
that slowly takes
one chunk
at a time.

Go to work,
pay the bills,
fix dinner,
with intermittent
moment
of sleep
spaced sparsely
somewhere
in-between
nine pm
and a
very early morning.

Then on to
a long over due
death vacation.

You come in
crying,
giving me
a compunction
to punch him
in an
unpleasant part
that might
stop his
violent heart.

He comes in
all justifying
your crying
says he
didn’t do
what you claimed,
I still want to
******* maim
that *** hat.

The next day
you come back,
tell me
he is not that bad.
You walk away with
the man you claimed
was a big ****
with a small *****.

I walk away
confused as hell.

Old one-eyed jack,
old all father
dressed in
****** black,
walking down
a windy path
while Fenris
nibbles on his chains
and the Midgard serpent
goes on searching
the tree of life
for something
like an apple
to sink his fangs
into.

Slipperier than
all his other
trickster friends
Loki
doesn’t make amends
just contends
with puckish trends
acting like a nave,
a slave
to playful
impulses.

And all those
Asier,
Asgardian,
Norsemen,
Reapers
valiant Valkyrie,
well I would concede
gratefully
going to the halls
to drinks some mead
but I am not a warrior
just a very bad bard.

I’m just a speck
in my mother’s eye.

I’m barely born
but bred to die.

I’m a child crying
in the night.

I’m a teenager
seeking self-delights.

I’m a grown up
with no kids of my own.

I’m old lonely man
in a nursing home.

I’m dusty corpse
that waits to rot.

I’m something that
everyone else forgot.

It’s the first poem
of a brand-new year,
day one
verbal contagion,
ready to spread
this syllable plague.

Three hundred
and sixty-five
more days to
try and survive
two thousand
nineteen.

So, this should be
something written
spectacularly.
Not a new years
resolution
but a declaration
to the creative nation
of something
much improved
then the poets
that they viewed
all last year.

This is the first
poem of the
new year.

Everyday
I see
bits of me
slip away,

sincere parts
of my heart
chipped away
with heart ache’s rain,
they disintegrate
under the pressure of pain
and the pleasure I pursue
to try and stay amused.

The price I pay
to make it
with a little
extra to spend
at the end
of the workday
is the slow erosion
of the person I was,
and who I am becoming
is a mystery
even to me.

Here is a secret,
To those who are close
and think that
they know me.
they don't.

It is a shade that they see
partial reflection
distorted version of me.

I am more than
you realize
and less then
you know,

cause when you are certain
I am certain your wrong
and when I am right
you say the words
I share don't belong.

Academic
intellect
artist of
endless depths,
passionate
and
depressed
by all of your
callousness
and lack of
curiosity.

I am luminescence
in the form of excellence
self-celebrant,
brilliant,
creative,
compassionate
and­ a consummate
gentleman,
mostly,
constantly learning,
growing,
and changing
with the integration
of next generation
information.

That is my secret
those who are close
and think they know me
don't really.

She was darkness,
magical princess
of ecstatic pains.

Queen of wishes,
lips bruised
with the brush
of lust,
and the power
to pull from
all of us
the very veins
that worked
webs from
within
our supple skin.

Tantalizing terror
goddess Arachne
who spun her web
to entrap thee,
the enraptured
rotting zombie.

Poison on her lip
with nine inch
finger nails
that scratched
the flesh
of innocent men
and sent them
straight to hell.

Hazel eyes
with specks of blue
swimming around
her dark irises.

Like black holes
surrounded by
cosmic gasses,
and like those holes
she swallowed
lost souls
who dared to
venture near.

Better to butter up
that butternut
burnt out building
leaving you feeling
the loss of
previous employment.

She’s bitter because
the ones she loves
are struggling
and after fifteen years
of working for
that bread store
they don’t have
work for her anymore.

So, she’s broke
and looking
for someone
who will hire
an old lady
cause living ain’t free
in a capitalistic society
and she has to eat
she could really use some bread.

Instead, she gets to stress
as she undresses
to go to bed
she gets to apply
for unemployment.

It is just a memory,
like a small swell
of water from a spring,

Or the green
water pump
pumping
water
into
my light green
plant watering
plastic thing
whose name
I can’t recall.

Or the wooden bench
also painted green,
chips slowly
falling
down onto
the green grass
below.

Or the soft brown
mound of ground
I found
as I ran my
bare feet
swiftly
across the wet dirt
letting little blades
of moist grass
tickle my soles.

Or the brown
trees that let me
lumber up
clumsily
like a loopy ninja.

Like the sea shore
the water recedes before
the swell of memories
overwhelm me.

You laugh and you play
pay to drink and get laid,
sit in church pews to pray,
then go out the next day
to sin again, sinking in
dry crusted skin,
drunk and dehydrating.

You think you are cute
but you act like a fool.
You think that your smart,
but all I see is a rusted tool.

You pick up a bad boy
then commit to his abuse
and defend him again and again
after all of the beatings,
say I don’t understand,
proclaim to your friends
“I know he is a good man.”

Tears scratch the surface
of your pain and confusion,
feel like he’s been using
but you only see that
after the he leaves you,
no shows, no calls back,
no texts, so no more illusions.

Then you cry why,
and no one has the heart
to point to the part
that you played
in this play
that you perform on repeat;

This time, the last time,
and the next time around
you ball why me
then disagree
with the truths other see
when they tried to warn you
up front.

Can’t fly high enough,
can’t lift you up
to save you
from all of
the bad stuff.

Can’t slip into
your dreams
to comfort you
no matter
how much
I want to.

I’m not a super hero
so, I can’t
run super-fast
past the sound barrier
to get to where
you lie in despair.

Can’t cradle your face
and gently wipe away
the tears that
touch your grace.

Can’t change the pain
your feeling
into to some thing
less reeling
and more exciting
in a pleasant way.

Can’t kiss the lips
that spill such wit
calming the waking dread
that stirs in your anxious head.

But I can split my heart
into an unseemly mess
when you confess
all of your sorrow.

They never closed
the closet door
or saw the foot prints
crossing the kitchen floor.

They did not notice the blood
dripping down the cabinet
drawers.

They never saw the gore
or smelled the pungent
carcass left in it.

They did not see
the sloppy streak
of crimson,
that took me
very close to them,

and as I moved
with all that swagger,
swinging a silver
stinging dagger,
they never saw it coming,

but they felt the blade
slicing in
to their fragile skin.

This is my confession,
that is where I left them
little broken bodies
sinking in
their own
blood soaked skin.

Feast or famine,
if we examine
nature’s pursuit
of balance,

we will see
all extremes
try to find
their faithful counter;

Like a crazy climate
that tries to
adjust to
current carbon caused extremes
by creating a new standard
of homeostasis,

like when animals
over populate
till their general populace
is pushed back on
by environmental restraints,
such as resource scarcity.

If you observe
you will see
pressure
will cause other species
population
inflation
to fall back down to
a more reasonable
figure.

However, we
human beings
have moved beyond
the environment’s ability
to steady our fertility.

Resources scarcity
can be managed by
emerging technology.
So, the limited environmental capacity
to sustain our human society
becomes more of a suggestion
then all of the previous pressures
that once pushed us back
for the sake of harmony.

The wooden step
is rotten wet,
ready to crack,
and drop me flat.

Still, I try
to rise
and follow
a feminine
form.

Desire
inspires
me to
aspire to
something
better,

while she plays
and lays
with all
of those
bad boys
in ***** clothes.

One little sentence
one swift text,
one foot up
onto the next
rotten step,
and I fall
farther down.
  
I try
to be
better then
the current me,
but I am still
the back burner
boy toy.

Is this love
Or an obsession
that takes possession
of my peaceful disposition
leaving me *******
and heart broken?