Nature is weighed down by winter’s solid white water.
Cold winds break across the burial ground,
soft mounds where their family history is found.
Mother, father, brother, and daughter stand
struggling to hold onto each other’s hands
while the black clad tools of this corporate land
prepare to eviscerate the safe drinking water
with metal pipes of pure crude destruction.

It is a creamy white dream
of soft skin
that blends in
a flow
from her toes
to her long
blond locks.

Her stomach curves
only slightly
on either side
with an almost
perfectly
symmetrical
quality.

Her collarbone
moves in an almost
perfectly straight line
from her small
but strong shoulders
that are well defined.

Her face speaks of
youth and love
with silver eyes
of mischievousness.

Naked form
adorned with nature’s
lovely blessing
gracefully undresses
to share the artistry
of the small ******* I see.

I do not have to look sexually.
Even though a small part of me
stirs pervertedly,
the other part observes carefully
with a deep appreciation
of the bravery
it take to share what I see.

It is even stranger when I read
her poetry of an even deeper quality
because the sexist in me
does not expect to see
such physical grace and beauty
intertwined with a divine poetic mind.

Old glory red, blue, and gory
***** fast in the wind
flattering a country
with its symbolism.

Two young men running
race each other
up and down
the high school sidewalk
only a few blocks away
from the fairgrounds
were some guy
got stabbed in his junk.

Professional building has
only one small stained glass square
with a frame of brown oak
and a blue circle swimming in
light distorting frozen water glass.

A lady stands just outside of
the Wal-mart parking lot
holding up a cardboard sign
saying that she is hungry
and any food would help.
I try to pull over a little bit
but the traffic is awkward
so I do not resist it.

Corner to corner
two drugs stores compete
one CVS and one Walgreen
I’ve seen this struggle
on more than one street.

Older African American gentleman
sits by his bike a couple windows
down from the gym where I go
writing in a yellow notepad.
It makes me feel so bad
because I don’t want
to bother him or be bothered again.

The grass grows green
flowing in the warm spring wind.
The heat is sweltering
but I take all of this stuff in.

This is billions dollars
away from wall-street
and all the crooked politicians.
Business men do not walk here.
This is where most Americans are living.

If god is real
then he must be
too freaking high
smoking clouds
sitting up in
a billowy white sky
baked out of
his omniscient mind.

Et Tu
Brutae,
its two
I say
as you jab
and stab
my flesh
and blood away

Every day strange crafts were made
to keep the crazy kids creative
saner, active, and engaged.

There were projects with weird shades
of sand that swirled together
in green, blue, and purple hues
of mystic and psychedelic colors.

Hands, wet with a white gluey substance
made plaster plates of pure porcelain colors
which  cracked and crumbled
when tossed or dropped.

There were
popsicle stick structures,
small huts or larger houses,
and cereal box tiny toy car garages
that could be combined
to create a two story fantasy.

Each morning and night we children would take
strange pills that had a horrible taste
while finger paints played out painful portraits
of those institutionalized day.

I am the villain,
the coldhearted canyon
killer who cut
Atlas’ Achilles tendon
causing the sky to crumble
and crush the falsely humble.

I am rage working its way
from a red froth foaming
in the cold glowing bay,
choppy waters which
reflect star light
that is too far away
and already dead.

I am not the hero
of this narrative
because all that
I have to give
is destruction
in the form of
my careful criticism
of this corrupt system.
I smile, hoping
my wise words will
blasts this system’s foundation
and clear the clutter
to build something better.

I am the truth barer,
sunlight sharer
in a world
happy with its shadows.

I am a vicious striker and slicer,
mean bust mostly nicer
than I should be
as the bad guy of humanity.

We all want to be the hero
of our little fairytale,
but I know
better than to fool myself,
because if the genocidal politicians
the vile ******* preachers,
the violent sports stars,
the murderous soldiers,
and the greedy businessmen
are your definition
of the ubermensch
apex of the patriarchal
hierarchy….

Then to you as to them
I am anarchy
builder and destroyer
of abstract constructs
that control us
and the ultimate terrorist/freedom fighter
because I am a truth writer.

Chaos was a cold void, slowly collecting mass
while solar fury flew out from the center
making meaning from our darker past
by eviscerating that expanding form,
making dark bright and cold warm.

In fear a few stayed and prayed
while almost all humans covered
their blinking eyes in awe
journeying forth from Plato’s cave
to face a brand new bright
purpose filled sunny day,

but light made to many claims
about how it conquered darkness’s
chaotic ways
with shining solar ray blades
that ripped straight through the black
tearing into eternity and bringing hope back
from nothingness.

Meanwhile, the darkness
offered the truth of disorder
only to be vilified
by those who fear and despise
the unknown.

The castle cut
a harsh stone figure
with the winds
of this icy winter
piercing its
outer layer
and winding its way
through deep
cavernous corridors
seeking candle created shadows
and forcing them to flicker
and dance.

Rapt waves of water moved
with the wind’s will as well
brushing up
against its base
then backing fast away.

I was the mayfly there
to observes such splendors.
My life, less than a day
in eternity
but I lived long enough
to gift these words to thee,
golden goddess
sweet guardian
of the flying castle
that finally fell
somewhere near
the heart of my
imagination.

He was a
taller and
much thinner
black bearded
roommate
in the place
I went
when I could not face
reality.
He snorted,
coughed, and hacked
while I tried to sleep.
Someone once
told me
that he didn’t shower
because beneath his beard
and sweat stained Tee
there were some
painful burns.
I do not know his name.
Still,  I hope he found
some semblance of peace
that even I have
yet to claim.

Older man
in the same facility
fifty to sixty something,
walking with a slight
spinal curve
and wearing his
cleanly pressed black button up shirt
along with his folded at the seams
to tight blue jeans,
seams normal enough,
but I hear him sing
Conway Twitty’s
“That’s My Job”
constantly.
Somebody told me
when he was younger
he watched his father
plant his face
on a cold metal rail
and let a train
smash out
his brains.

Farther back
when I was barely seven
I knew a sweet long haired man
who wore a dress
and pushed
an empty stroller.
He could have been
transgender then,
but I did not have
the experience to know
or desire to classify
or judge him.
Twenty years later
with seventy-five miles
between me and that city
I met a stranger
who came from there.
Jokingly to prove
I was from the same place,
I mentioned that man.
She gave me a name
that I had never asked for,
told me that he
was a veteran
from one of those
horrible wars,
and that Jet
had died a while ago.

I knew an angry lady,
violent, frustrated,
face curled in rage
because she hated
some unexplained pain.
She taught me
to love music
but despite the sweet
and safe melodies
of those old time songs
we both used to move to
I can still feel
the fear, and swollen skin,
the loneliness, and hurt
that she buried within.
She was as I am now
living but broken.

The roads of my memory
are muddy wet and slippery.
Brown flecks fly up my back tire
staining my raggedy blue jeans.
Frequently my loose laces
or torn pant legs
get stuck in the pedals
pulling and wrapping themselves
around a thin cylinder of metal
until I cannot pedal anymore.
So, I unthread the impediment.

A wind presses hard
pushing me towards
a neighbor’s damp grassy yard.
Instead of battling
this solid gust
I turn around and let it
drive me forward.
For a few minutes
I fly like superman
speeding down
this small town road.

The cloudy grey skies
drop their salty load
letting lightning loose as well.
My legs pump fast
as the thunder blasts
even louder.
I slide the two wheeled
rusted wonder
into my grandma’s garage.
Then I begin to unplug
everything from the outlet,
though she is pretty lenient
she is strict about that.
Finally, I ride out
the rest of the night
inside
till bedtime.

Time’s enduring kiss
is not a thing of
romantic bliss.
Instead it bares the agony
of aging ungracefully.

Teeth decay,
rotting in pain
that requires
Vicodin
and dental surgery
just so we
can get some sleep.

Hair grays and thins
or thins and grays.
Till, white threads
fill your head
or a bald shine
lights the way.

One by one
people recede
like a tide returning
to the sea,
bowing out voluntarily
or due to mortality.

The mind loses
its grip
and confuses
many things,
while vision
begins
blurring
and we become
hard,
HARD,
HARD!!!!
Of hearing.

Till, the finale
comes nearing
and death starts clearing
your consciousness
from all that is
living.

There is no release
from this vile disease
that affects a society
that claims it owns me.

I watch in disgust
as fools drool over the dust
of our most recent bombing.

The mother of all bombs,
the biggest ballistic *******,
killer cadre of collective bombardments.

Even though I have not looked at
the pictures yet,
you see them and then
still embellish with inflated sentiments,
claim the explosions and armaments
are so beautiful.

Our youth line up
to sign up
and support
this reckless endangerment
of humanity,
while I write to plea
begging that they see
this violence is degrading
the quality of our
American collective.

One has only to open their eye and look above than close there eyes and look within to see what a strange and wonderful universe we live in.

You do yourself a disservice when you forget that we are not separate and in competition, but part of a collective that spans more than hundred thousand years in the past and hopefully a hundred thousand more in the future. Lifting up the weak strengthens the whole, educating the young enhances the potential the future. Kindness and wisdom our the gift of the human.
to all with love

Your humble human scribe
Joshua Amos Graff

Today I am not celebrating the greatness of one nation but the wonder of humanity as a whole, and the hope that the illusion of borders, nations, races, religions, genders, and all other distinctions used to classify and separate will dissolve in order to form a more perfect union.

Sometimes I forget the heart of me; that little boy who dreamed of love and fairness. Sometimes the road darken, the heart is broken, but eventually I come back to the core of me. I am a child of light and love. So come dance the dance of humanity with me, grow and live to see the beauty in truth and our potential. We can be better.

The nighttime
is a wet black pit
that crosses
grass and mud
then cuts
through a metal fence
eroding the earth under
the security
of its’ silver chained links.

A small thin swirl
of white smoke
spills out of
my electronic
cigarette
as I try
to stay awake
and alert.

The storm begins again.
making trees lean heavy
with the weight of
this wet wind.

It’s not
the salty tears
of an exhausted
atmosphere
crying here
but blood,
acid tainted
and flowing clear.

The rain is
an inch thick
translucent
membrane
covering
grey stones
on an old
gravel road.

Cold as death
the whip cracks.
White light
explosions paint
the grey cloud covered night
with new puffy colors.
Thunder sounds
its vicious strikes
as nature’s menstrual cycle
flows steady over
my vibrating windshield.

The storm does not subside
but blurs the street lights
that ride parallel
to my late night patrols.

There is no hope for my kind of crazy.
It spits and sputters, shakes and stutters.
Rages once ill conceived now burn and bleed.
Consistency of hope a false promise,
there are no healing spells, or magic potions
no perfect pills. Cutting flesh is for fools.
Settling is for tools, society is festering
it's flesh oozing greed and corruption.
I see the lines and circles.
From you to me, the web is incomplete,
and the madness
oh the madness
becomes bitter and sickly sweet

Time makes grotesqueries of us all.
Tiny sacs of water,
flesh that holds itself together
withering with each year.
Skin bunching, and freckling,
time takes each smile
exchanging grins for winces.
Tumors bulge,
while the memory
of each loved one lost
recedes into an amorphous fog.
Hair bleaches itself,
slowly greying then whitening
as it thins.
Mobility becomes restricted
by pain, and exhaustion.
Labored breaths resist
Death’s inevitable kiss of black bliss.
Until, even loved ones cringe,
trying to touch,
but shivering too much
with a tinge of
fear and a slight vibration of disgust.
A single loved one down,
we know the score
and as we watch several more fall,
most of us
march on oblivious
to the fact
that these grotesqueries
will soon be us.

It is a grassy green wasteland
that rises from the highway
at a strange angle.
The verdant plains rush away
in a darker shaded wave,
that used to be a sea of dry brown
but now it flushed full of life.

I got the worst human deformity, a kind heart and extremely sharp mind.

It is a rough day.
Two homeless men
stand guarding
opposite sides
of a busy street.
Our eyes do not meet
because I do not
want to see
humans in need
right now.

My eyelids fight
to stay closed
while I try to
stay awake.

Stranger strategically stray
in a sauntering way
from one street corner
to the local liquor store.

Cars rustle up
clouds of dust.
With rust on their buts
they pitter putter
out uneven percussion;
Their weird music
makes me think
I have fallen asleep
and started to dream
about a world were
old west and modern tech
are starting to blend.

I down three energy drinks.
Then my shift ends.
I drive far enough away
to find a safe place to park
and catch a quick catnap
so I can make it home safely.

Unafraid,
she makes
red braids
wrapping
death
around her
soft wrist.

Her pliable
flesh
screams
fresh
mercies.

Inside
the porcelain
prism
pain
is no longer
her prison.
Life
is no longer
her poison.

Once crushed
life’s fluid
is now
a stagnant wine
that drips down
her limber vine.

For all that abused
drank her dry
felt her up and used
all the tears in her life
she is now
an empty wineskin
with no more life
to hold in.

Death was hers
and she told him
where and when
they would be
meeting.
It was
the only game
she was capable
of winning.

No note,
no warning call,
no shot off the port
From a cannonball;
She just dove
headfirst into
the dark black that
will eventually
claim you to.

Humanity was not inevitable.

One poisonous plant,

One predatory success,

One continental shift
or cosmic cataclysm,

One replication error
in our DNA chain,

One bad day
for our ancestor species
and we would never be.

The human ascendency
could have easily
been avoided
if mammals
hadn’t been able
to take the natural disaster
that demolished the dinosaurs
and exploit it.

More than a trillion things
had to go right
for human being
to exist and persist
in this existence,

but we were not guaranteed
and there is no universal promise
that we will continue to be.

It is hard to
give a ****.
cause I get stuck
in the muck
with a desire
to inspire
much higher
thoughts
and ambitions,

but I am a mutt,
******* child
of the light
and wild
side.

I cannot hide
my teary eyes,
and my disgust
almost busts
right out of
my oversize gut.

Humanity
hurts too much,
but I am so
******* stuck.

Being creatures of
pattern recognition
and love
we conceive of
a universe that feels
just as much
as we do,

but the universe
has never given
any sign
of an emerging or actively
conscious mind.

Though, if it did
do you really think
it would give a ****
for human beings
when it is such
an immense thing?

It’s not submission
but a positive disposition
towards those in a position
to be friendly
or a thorn to me.
Hopefully,
I can spread
positivity.

I went to the local store
but that’s a lie,
like all the lies before.
I saw her sitting
under soft lamp lights.
That’s another ******* lie.
I loved her deeper
than the ocean tides.
That is such a pathetic lie.
I appreciated her
while she was alive.
Man, I got so many lies.

He told her that
she was the one
but he was lying to
both of them.
Said he’d be there
until the end.
The lies get so deep
you can drown in them.

She said their signs matched
and they were soul mates.
That’s a lie that I really hate.
She shut out other options
better men that she could date.
Humans lie so ******* much.

You know the worst lies
are the ones
we tell ourselves
because we are to scared
to know ourselves.

Sometimes I build a nest
of nice lies
and sit in the bird ****
getting ready to die.

They knew I was coming
like a savage to ravage
weak minds,

Poetry lines
to find the heart
of these troubled times,

Prose to point to
better people
then me and you.

They saw me coming
from a million years away
and prepared for the day
when I would try to
give my heart away.

They locked the doors,
closed the shutters,
blocked their heart,
with all types of clutter
like political and religious doctrines,
like material possessions,
they were possessed by
each demon.

So when I arrived
as others had before
there was no room for me.
So, me, my poetry,
and fancy sophistry
die unknown,
a million lights
un-shone  
tombstone unmarked and a life unmourned.

You want to raise
an army of hate
but I cannot
ride the river Styx
and face Hade’s gate
with anger in my face.

I dare not visit
similar grief
upon a stranger’s life.
I will not see
a stranger’s wife
weep terribly
because I believed
I was better than he.

You want to raise
an army to rage
and ravage
all that lays
displayed,
flesh splayed
folded open
with blood ink
to write
your history pages.

So, when
you command men
to turn upon those
who once
could have been known
as friend,
I will close my eyes,
turn around,
put my weapons down,
say my sweet goodbyes
to love and life,
and let you label me
as a man of treason,
a king of reason.
I will swallow my spite
and for just this one
last night.
I will do what is right
and die refusing to fight.

Do you recall
the black dot
dark spot
fevered body
burning
sun hot
getting dizzy
and cold
feeling
a hundred years old.
Till, you fought off
this severe
chest cold congestion
that might have been
pneumonia.

At twenty-three
I didn’t see
that girls would not
be impressed
by back rubs,
that they would not
want to get undressed
because for one
they thought I was gay
and two
they were not into
this Star Trek
X-men, Buffy nerdy dude.

The lights should not twinkle
or shimmer like they are reflecting
from a swimming pool.
My eyes should not water
but they still do
when I remember you.

One cool long trip,
when I had to put
these waxy things
in my ears to swim;
One long ago time
with water in my nose
that strange wet
and awkward sneeze.

These are only tiny fractals
fractions of a memory
minus depth
and color quality.

I am too tired to stop.
It’s too late at night.
I am not scared.
I do care
but I just got off work
and I want to get home.
I pass you by
while you struggle.
I do not see
if you cry.
I do not know
if you lived or died,
and I only feel
a little bit bad,
because six out of ten times
I stop for strangers on
the roadside.

You scream in the darkness,
looking for light
to let people see
that you exist.

Ripples in a pond,
echoes in the heavens,
whispers in the shadows,
we look and you are…

gone.

I outsourced
my inner turmoil
to this medium,

all the conflict
of trying to fit
and not fit
maybe dangling
between two *****
that I can’t give.

Rhyming and non,
never posting anon
because even though
I know that
I don’t belong
when I am gone
I want someone
to know me.

My identity
is complex,
crossing
ideas that
are counter
to themselves.
So, I identify
as the poetry guy
dying to stay alive.

Your affections are not gold.
They are more like acid showers,
like thin tendrils that compel
a deep dark inner shiver.
The grating timber
felt like summer in
early December,
when I was yearning
for the cold of winter.
Fingers like shadows
strangle day light
and when I say no
you say you might.
We may have been
friendly at first,
but it hurt when
you tried to push in
to be more than just friends.
You know what they say
how you can’t trust men.
Well *******,
you just proved them right
once again

Maybe angels get to fly.
Maybe Greek gods
never die,
and heroes
always win
in the end,
but those are only
lies we keep telling
cause the world
keeps on failing
and we all come
crashing down
in the end.
Maybe I am Icarus.
Maybe my wings
were made to melt
but if I am falling
you can’t catch me
until you catch yourself.

You can’t save me
you can barely
stand up
for yourself.
You have no parachute
and the plane is
already too high up.

You touch heaven
then hit the ground,
crush your spine,
make terrible sounds
as your body
folds in on itself
like a black hole
in the center of our
universe.
You take all the light you see
and never let any out for me.

You can’t save me
you can barely
stand up
for yourself.
You have no parachute
and the plane is
already too high up.

Quick sand
is your favorite playground.
Silence is your favorite soundtrack.
With a face swollen full
of all the **** you used to pull
and the scars that dance across your skin,
you pull your hair back in a bun
while you take this track, and run.
Till, the starter pistol
becomes your favorite gun.
So, before we are all our done
tell the truth.
You can’t help me
because you can’t help you.

I am the god of love,
not the ****** conceit.
but the one you defeat
when you bomb to beat
the enemies you create.

I am the god of love,
diametrically opposed
to the god of war
who composed
decrees of hate
to destroy me.

I am the god of love,
the god who heals,
who wants to touch
to make you feel
everything.

I am the god of love,
a creature of ****** passions,
a being of peace and compassion,
but my ambrosia is wearing off,
and my godhood costs.
Soon, I will be unable to afford
or ever earn back
the godhood that humanity lacks.

When my divinity fades to black
that will be the end of that.

I try to expand
explode my mind
to canvass all that I can.

I try to explore
seeking deep and new truths
and bring them back
for all of you,

but ignorance is a balloon
crowding me out
of my own room
infringing upon
the brilliance I spawned.
Till, breaths become yawns,
and then I am gone.

The earth becomes flat.
Evolution ends now.
Truths become lies
and lies become alternative facts.

Till I take my last gasp
and my chest collapses
with the agony
of being me,
alone.

The balloon does not burst,
but hurts worse
as it spreads like a plague,
plans to invade,
conquers the day,
making love and peace
flee before thee,
and celebrating the bombing
of too many cities.

Death tolls do not close
like bad polls
they grow
till no one knows
what truth even sounds like
and I become
the last man alive
in a zombie flick.

With a pen *****
that angry ****
defused her heart
and crumbled it.

At first I thought they were beautiful
a thousand tiny blinking eyes
flickering in the back
like Christmas lights
blinking at uneven intervals.

An hour or so in
I imagine the blinking lights
are red messages
coming from the outer edges
of some other solar system.

Then as fatigue sets in
they shift
same shade of red,
still blinking,
but now appearing hungry.

Seventeen hours later
and severely exhausted
my mind teases
the tip of madness
as the red blinking lights
seem like
a thousand spider eyes
ready to devour me.

You are my
inner lining loneliness
earbug echoing
songs of lust and
longing
or sickeningly sweet
nostalgia that
haunts me.

While others fall
to slumber’s whims,
I see the sun
fall and rise again
a furious phoenix
force.

At first it was intriguing
a diversity of deranged
and severely distorted experiences
to write about in my poetry.

But after a while it got to me.
There was nothing gratifying
or even entertaining.
The lying and scheming
was straining.
The days of distrust
were spent hoping
that he would get busted
or just get busted up
and never come back.

An argument,
then weeks were spent
in cool calmness.

But he would always
come back again
act like he was a friend
use my water and electricity,
eat my food,
ask to borrow money from me
and when I insist,
refuse to leave.

Once I had a curiosity,
then I had compassion,
but all that is drained from me.
Now, all I see is me tense and angry.

I want that ******* ******
to stay the hell away from me
but my roommate
keeps letting him back in
cause he is family

Do you remember when
the water ran
thin
and sparkling;

A clean adventure
for people parting
families driving
to some nature park
where they could visit
nature’s spark.

Her lush green heart.
Her brown hopeful hearth
where life was bound
to spring in spring
renewed to bring
flowering things,
becoming
her sweet colored
flower dreams.

Do you remember when
off colored photos
smiled back
while we looked in
to a wonderful past.

A place where
the children there
were a Neverland crew
who never grew up,
never got mean,
never cried,
and never died.
just a still life,
in millisecond smiles.

I remember when,
that particular then
was a now.
Now, I look back
and every memory
seems slightly distorted
or completely eludes me.

She put a gray billboard tac
in her black backpack
then dropped a half lit ***
in her light brown knapsack.

I think I found that
this was just
her push to finish
her painfully persistent,
pessimistic
mortal existence,
Of subtle social cues,
and false acts of tact
that do more to confuse
then to communicate facts;

Making us strange strangers
that represent two tiers
of tearful danger.

I want an after dinner poem
Because they are so delicious
A poem on a pillow
And one after I do the dishes

I want a poem for breakfast
Cause they are so mentally nutritious

But most of all
I want you in my poetry
Because you are the best
Poem I could read

Form in figure fitting perfectly
Moving and talking to me
You are poetry in motion
You are artistry in thought
You are the queen of my desire
Because you make my poems
Shockingly hot

So write me a love poem
A poem of love lost
A poem of philosophy
Of such sweet sophistry
And what you have gained
And all that it cost

Give me a biographical picture
Or a nature walk

I want a poem
That is the truth of you
And in exchange
I will give you the poetry of names
And call you humanity

Sometime before
eight in the morn
the driver takes
his car to pump four
for a pre-work
gas station coffee break
with three cups or more
of caffeine to take
the fog off
of these early morning
day’s lazy haze.
Then the driver
goes on his way
on the highway.

The highway is a field for
the dead or dying to explore
if they want more
than the daily grind
of nine to four.

The rain watered road
makes the truck driver’s
tires spin with
wet smoke and misty ghosts.

Broke black tread
lay scattered on
the highway bed.

When the road splits
to unknown exits
the driver shifts
but does not
change lane.
Instead,
he follows
the predictably
predestined path
rolling on into
a totally expected
death.