Pale skin scattered with black and blue
Deathly pallor engorging hues
Sorry eyes sobbing their woes
Pleading for help but hoping no one knows
Little people still unformed
Perfect shadows now forlorn
Twitching lips quivering in fear
Dry flesh flushed with tears
That had only recently disappeared
Who will hold his hand
Who will take a chance
Who will wait and understand
Why the innocent can’t dance
Fading as all things discarded, ill-used
Garbage, soft human refuse
The child unsheltered scarred, scared and abused
Who will save the children and doing so save themselves

I wish I would have known you better
Spent more time together
When I was younger
Still I remember your soft strange skin
Your quite smile played out every now and then
Your ancient mariner look
Though I never saw you crack a book
I learned later on you were well read
Now you are just as dead
All I have are dying embers, sparks of memory
Losing their heat inside of me
I wish I had known you better
But this wish is just regret
And you can learn to forget
What you used to regret
It just so happens that hasn’t happened for me yet

Two doors down
from a bar
two people,
strangers to me,
sit in a doorway
up on sixth street;
Wearing winter caps,
winter coats,
even though,
I’m sure they know
it isn’t winter yet,
but it’s so cold.
They have each other
as they sit in separate chairs
leaning together.
I wanted to give them
a dollar or some food
but they are sleeping
and I know how hard
it is to get good sleep
in this life.

If I told you they
were children
would you care?

If I told you
they were women
would you care?

If I told you they
were white men
again would
you care?

If I told you
they were black
brown skin
would it matter
At all?    

If I told you
at one time
over fifteen years ago
I slept on a couch
in a hallway
in a building
with cracked
and shattered glass
windows that
let cold winds in.
Cuddling next
to my oldest friend
one head poking out
at each end
from under the thick
sleeping bag I had.
Fully loaded for winter,
except between us
we only had one ski mask
and one pair of gloves,
so we switched off and on.

If I told you what was wrong
so you could find what’s right
how our lives our deeply intertwined
and that this soap box is yours
as much as it is mine?

Would you take the time to see
and help the myriad of yous and mes
that are still suffering,
no matter what they look like?

Just know
in the name of greed
as business’s
influence grows
you become
less than a cog.

You are interchangeable
in any job.
You can be discarded
no matter how hard
you worked.

Integrity,
Honesty,
Loyalty,
are just
shiny
but
empty
words.

That is what it means
when the free market
rules the world.

Nine to eleven years
dedicated,
frustrated,
overworked,
but loyal,
put time in
at the expense
of family and friends.

Events missed,
but work required
you push yourself.
Till, your stressed,
and oh so tired.
That is the job,
and for every year in
you might get a raise
and some time for vacation.

Forty to eighty plus hours a week;
Eyes blur as you swerve
driving home.

Thud, thud, thud, thud,

The safety treads save the day.
You make it home ok,
kiss your kids goodnight,
and your gone before
they head off to school.

Nine to eleven years
but after the buyout,
I mean after the merger
the main office is moved
and you are let go.

In the holy pursuit
of capitalistic growth
business is righteous.
The free market is god.
Now you have no job
And you find loyalty means squat.

What level of warrior
do you claim to be
when you maim the weak
and wreak havoc when you speak
of sick sentiments?

You build your armaments
stockpile rifles, semi-automatics,
and handguns
shoot animals for fun.

I do not begrudge that.
I merely judge the fact
that you lack any tact
as you cry out the government
is coming to take them back.

You were afraid of the democrat,
the one you despised because he was black
perhaps you felt that he would
pay us all back for the two hundred
and forty plus years of
treating brown people like trash.

However, despite your rants
despite the Sandy Hook massacre,
the nightclub, the church
Columbine, and all other hurt
in the multitudinous mass shootings
I have not seen any government scheme
to take your guns or gun rights away.

My heart never knew true love
Only hints of that fairy fantasy
Particles of hope possessed of love’s fury
The temple, frantic with romantic panic
The vestal ****** exploding with desire
To feel love inside, growing
Like a white night
Like a dark light
Like the bitter side
Of sugar
Always forces opposing
Always people nosing
Philosophers of all times
And poets trying to define
But it is not universal
It is elusive and abstract
from one to another
it means different thing
To Shakespeare
It was impulsive
Violent, destructive
To some it is a savior
Vivid and constructive
The livid and insipid made to decline
To think with an open mind
And merely pass in time
But I have never known your love
And you will never know mine

What can my mouth say that my tongue cannot
For they generate more force and fury
As they climb and fall across your beautiful body
What can my mouth say that my eyes cannot
For in their gaze you can feel my hunger
My desire for your pulsing flesh
Against my throbbing flesh
My eyes feed upon you lovely visage
Beastly ravishing you with my desire
I am insatiable, hunger rising
Your tender skin causing my fevered lust to rise
You precious smile inspires me
When your lip press against me
I am flushed with such sweet ecstasy
I would return the favor a thousand fold
But in our lovers release gasping and moaning
Exhausted, I collapse inside you
I hear your body humming
Still I desire to be closer
Though we are only millimeters apart
I wrap my arms around you
Pull you ever closer devouring your body with mine
Shielding you from the outside
While you protect my heart from within
What could my mouth say that my actions have not already
Words cannot express the passion you inspire
They are inadequate in the shadow of action

The river runs both ways
For miles and miles
For so many day
Through years
Through loss
Through love
The cost
Is never high enough
Time racing towards the end
Clock clicking and ticking
Starting once again
Cycling back
Through circular cracks
Through birth and death
Through breathe to breath
The river turning and twisting
Foaming and swishing
Picking up speed, faster and faster
Water rising and receding
Constantly feeding
Into the Oceans
Up to the heavens
Clouds culminating in tears
Fall, softening the earth calming our fears
Back to the beginning
Though I be mortal, I still stand grinning
For the river, I run the risk
Of losing myself of ceasing to exist
Of being forgotten or not being missed
Cutting through landmasses
Picking up passengers as it passes
The river, not eternal will still live longer
Then you or me, with no thought of profit
Swelling the seas with its ***** deposit
Changing the courses of history forever
Oh sweet river, what a wonderful river

I always circumvent
The strings of fate
The wheels of time
Our mine to spin
To begin turning
Again and again
Twist the ties that bind
Because my life
Will always be mine
Because I will always find
A way to turn a negative
Into to a positive
Life is ten percent
What happens to me
And ninety percent
How I react
How I adapt
That is the only
Matter of fact

Stage lights burn out.
I am left agog.
Eyes drop
incredulously
as what I saw before me
was very restoring.

A story of humanity,
a Shakespearian epic,
a turbulent tempest
that hit me with
the fierceness of Hamlet.

As Othello’s hands
wrapped around
his beloved neck,
as Thibault killed Mercutio
As Ariel and Puck
played their trickster games,
as Prospero planned,
and Oberon dawned
his elvish Armor,
as Titania loved an ***
and saw false love pass;

As the thorny crown
of King Richard passed
then passed again
whilst he ruminated
nearly naked in a cell of
dirt and stone, alone,
halfway mad before
he made it there.

As Caesar bled
betrayed by Brutus
in the Ides of March,

I await more wonders
for Shakespeare
has so much more
I have yet to get to.

I am descended
from that poet’s heart.
who passed down his purchased arms
of false nobility
to become a man of property
not knowing his plays
would make him greater
than any noble man of his day.

After all the pleasure
I sit in awe and ponder,
what if he had the eyes to see
what faces us presently
would he wonder at the cleverness of us
or cower at the current level
of our stupidity?

I spasm with ecstasy’s agony.
My pleasure will burn me forever,
Cornered and craven kin to chaos,
Because inaction is easier then,
Struggling against temporal winds.

Tempests lead me where they will
Feeling how I feel
Flowing from one thing to the next.

Consciousness leaves me sorely vexed;
Phone messages I texted,
All the stages I exited.

When the rough waves crested,
Invested with life’s energy,
Swept me up in all my glory,
Ragged, bandaged, and barely breathing,
Hardly leaving me speaking.
-
I am a culmination
of my own condemnation,
Ashamed and proud,
Passionately dulled,
A circuit board of flesh;
Fish sprung to human form,                                            
So much more to comprehend,
That it leaves my sanity wounded,
And I wonder how many other fools
Struggle as I do.

It’s easy to complain
To point out all the problems
Then do nothing to make them change
So here some thoughts on how to solve them

No more ticking time bombs
No more biological weapons
No more making it a one race or one gender issues
No more black or white
No more greed but ambition is alright
No more hate that stems from Ignorance
No more mass of maniacs and morons
No more people pointing out pointless differences
No more enemies of the state
No more religious indoctrination without viable proof
No more misleading our youth with misunformation
No more alienation of the aliens in our nation

More wisdom and compassion
More sharing and more asking
More questioning authority
Even of that authority is me
Especially if that authority is me
More love and acceptance
More celebrating human variance
More books and way more learning
More art that speaks to the nature of everything
More stargazing and daydreaming
More fruits and vegetables
More conversations at the dinner table
More family including all of our human kin
More letting anger out in healthy ways
And letting people you love in
More patience for what deserves it
And less tolerance for what is unjust
More everyone and everything
And less just thing about just us

No more mindless indoctrination
It all ends and begins with better education

I can’t seem to detach
The shelves hold books
I do not need
Soft and hardbacks
Stacked chaotically
I want to keep them
I want to give them
To someone who will
Appreciate them
But I do not know who
Will take them and treasure them
As I did and do

I want to detach
From my cache of comic books
But my memories are attached
To all that muscle and flash
The stories of my past
Are sculpted heroes
Of fantastic proportions
And grand moral fortitude
I do not want to lose
The person who was
So deeply intertwined
With those graphic stories

I want to detach
From the ****** way of thinking
So I rub one out
Yes it hardens and shrinks
So that each day
I am not driven
By lust and passion
So my perspective is not blurred,
Woman are more than mere
Objects of desire
Desire speaks more of
Seeking something special
A unique kind mind
But the yearning still surges
Spews milky madness
To calm my edginess
It is in my flesh

They say let’s make it great again.
They say they are American
but I don’t think it’s true
cause I’ve seen our stories
and our histories
and they don’t match like
they’re supposed to.

Seen better men then me
working shifts so long
that their eyes look like
they’ve been cut red with lightning.
At the end of the work day
they strain to stay awake.
Back stiff and popping
but there is no stopping.
They make it home
to see their kids
and do a little playing.
They do a little praying,
hoping that their work today
makes their children’s future better.

I’ve seen immigrants struggling,
learning a language
that is not their own
so, they can work
to buy their own home
and start a little business.
It’s not a dream I would pursue
but I respect the struggle.
Seen that Chinese family
move out and up
working hard and raising children
and in that circle, there is love
cause it’s family that matters.

I’ve seen liars spouting off about
family values
but they do not know
what real families value.
I’ve seen single moms
struggling to escape
the shame of
that so-called welfare state.
I’ve seen a mother of three
working, going to school,
and still making it home in time
to spend time with her kids,
to play and laugh,
to accept and celebrate their strangeness.
I’ve seen a mother staying up late
to hold her troubled daughter
to ease the pain that caused her
beautiful child to do
harm to herself.
I would not trade this truth
for any soft cloth, patriotic symbol.

I’ve seen strangers helping strangers
seen groups of people
putting sand in bags
and bags on top of bags
not to stop the floods from coming
to where they are from
but to give others a chance to live.
I’ve seen
pictures of people who rush into danger
not with guns a blazing
but with bottles of water and blankets,
with food, and shovels,
with hands to move the rubble
digging up the bodies of some
while unburying lost
sisters, fathers, mothers, and brothers.

I do not believe in your America
but if you claim that you do
then you would not do
what you regularly do,
lying about trying to make it great
while your just creating hate.
so, **** making America great again.

I have seen the America you are trying to make
and it is grating.
It is made for flag waving,
bible belt thumping,
poverty, child-abuse, neglect
electric shock conversion therapy
eugenics, lynching, segregation
slavery on plantations,
sexism, racism,
xenophobia, transphobia,
flat Earth creation,
climate change denial,
evolutionary denialist,
police brutality, corruption,
pollution, prisons for profits,
a war on drugs, and
a war on terrorism,
while war profiteering.

Intentional confusion,
dire delusions,
your America is
this paper white illusion.

But we are part of the race
that invented the wheel,
the steam engine,
the radio, the telephone
the tv, the computer,
the cellphone,
the printing press,
the spaceship,
that went to the moon,
put machines on Mars,
that learned to express,
great things in writing,
and painting,

You say let’s make America great again.
I say let’s start the enlightenment again,
start over as a world of friends and kin
hand and hand with grand ideas.
Till we can all feel connected,
and do the unexpected.
Let’s make humanity great again,

The struggle is futility
Patient people play the part
Of impartiality
The wiser are restraint
Castigated for their intelligence
Castrated by their class
A classless struggle we abide
Poor children barely manage
To survive and seldom thrive
Not given access to the tools
Of excellence
But we wield the sword of obsolescence
Antiquated ideas put on the same level as
Modern machines and moral philosophies
Broad language discarded for
The disinfected nature of stupidity
Our language is censored
And free thought is crippled
Thus to succeed we must
Write to their level of understanding
So they can understand it
Which means we do not expect grandness
From the masses
That we underrate what they are capable of
The papacy’s power is palatable but detrimental
The Popes presence sends his parishioners
In to servitude as they submit to the
Sublimation of their identity
Unable to identify the truth from the lie
Unable to separate the flock from the I
I become the villain
For stating these things
So I drop names like Darwin and Thomas Paine
I wear the scarlet letter of poet and philosopher
Of Supplicant to science, Of literate romantic
I the son of Percy Bysshe Shelley
The son of Twain and Poe
The Son of Shakespeare and Baudelaire  
The son of logic and poetry
The lost ******* of peace, love, and understanding
I leave the eve of man’s ill behavior
To see the seething corps of corpses
Rise in ignorance strive for pestilence
With hopeful hate in their eye
To perpetuate the self-fulfilling prophecies
Of all types of apocalypses
But in the end it will be I that am despised
Thus if I must be hated then at least
Favor me with this tiny justice
Like Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and Copernicus
I will wear chains well earned
There is so much knowledge to be had
So learn, live, love and then learn some more

I am not a werewolf but there is a beast buried deep beneath my chest
Howling raging and trying to escape this thin veneer of human flesh
Everyday day I find myself shifting and changing as I grow
But what will become of it I never really know
My bones may crack, shift front to back but the monster never shows
It lurks inside my bitter mind waiting to rip off all of my clothes
The rage of disappointment the heartbreak of regret
Are the only feelings that I long to forget
They feed the freak until I’m too weak to resist the beast
And one day it will make its great escape the monster will be unleashed
I shudder to think that even on the brink I can vaguely recall
That the vulgarity of all the violence and desire is such a human flaw
Maybe the thing that lives inside me is not what I should fear
But the thing that I should worry about is if it disappears

And if perchance you do allow. I will curve those lip while I furrow my brow. I will split your serious demeanor with a clownish tact, making a joke you have laugh at, and if a chuckle  refuses to arise, all sink so low as to do the pull my finger bit because that one get all the girls and guys to laugh then leave the room choking.

T’was nary a friend for whom I’d suspend
Or make such amends
Then my sweet Annabel lee
Though it doth break my heart
To end as we start
My angel apart
My sweet Annabel Lee
No words can ever say
How I felt on that day
Such a dark terrible pain
As I reached out in vain
For my sweet Annabel Lee
I lay her to rest
In her silken Sunday best
As I try to express
While my mood is depressed
How I feel for my love
That I’m still dreaming of
My sweet Annabelle Lee
And though I may write
Of the raven that night
How his words were to haunt me
Like a specter I can’t see
So I whispered once more
Of my dear child Lenore
My heart does escape
To the sea where she waits
My sweet Annabel Lee
As it was in the end
So shall it pass once again
I will find loves embrace
In a strange and new place
But she will never replace
My sweet Annabel Lee
If my vision be true
Then when my soul doth come due
I will finaly find peace
And rest well at ease
In the Arms of the girl
I loved most in the world
My sweet Annabel Lee
We will rest on the shore
To part never more
In the house by the see
Will remain her and me
My sweet Annabel Lee

I want to drink deep of the poison of lust
The human disease and desire to do what we must
Still I am startled at how sick I can be
How much my soul aches and burns to be pleased
Even though some say it is sinful to want it so much
To linger and long for a soft and sensual touch
I find myself lacking the strength to resist
These carnal urges that seem to persist
One look at her smile and I am ashamed to say
I can’t help but think of her in a naughty way
But under all of these fleshy concerns
There is a deeper hunger that constantly burns
It gnaws at my stomach like acid reflex
And is far more subtle then a need for ***
To hold and be held to comfort and be comforted
To speak and be heard even when I am weak or perturbed
And be allowed to do the same for her as well

Hear me now for I am bound to offend
True poets and artist should not have to amend
For telling the truth is a painful burden
They poisoned Socrates in Athens
But in Salem the Protestants would have burned him
If history serves as witness
To the actions of the witless
I think I recall
Some of the greatest crimes of all
Were perpetrated by the men of cloth
From fascist to capitalist
Faithful extremist to creationist
Men betrayed the word
Or they misinterpreted what they heard
We know that Zeus and Hercules were merely tales of fiction
And that the stories Thor and Odin were of similar tradition
So tell me in this moment of musing
Why does the ark seem so confusing
How many animals can you fit on a boat
Before the predator is at your throat
How big would the fish story have to be
Before you realize you have been deceived
One woman and man are fore bearers of all
With only two sons they must have been an incestuous cabal
Then there is free will or so I recall
But that can’t be the case if God knows it all
In my confusion I must be mistaken
For the Ten Commandments can’t be literally taken
Thou shalt not covet **** or steal
So I wonder how you would feel
If the people who say that these are their rules
Surveyed your land, said it was okay
To pick and choose which laws they would obey
Then they proceeded to **** and to maim
Anyone who got in they way of their claim
How many lies can you find in a book that man has wrote
This will not win me any friends
But by challenging old ideals the search for truth begins
And for that I will never apologize
But when they come to burn me at the stake I will probably run and
hide

Father creator artist of my birth
I have seen the dragons that you sketch
Their skin scaly and dry
Their breath like orange exploding flowers
Your power exist within my hands as well
To dream and to shape I am the maker as well
You sketched death in all of its skeletal grace
Woman with strong features and amazing beauty
With your course and worn hands you molded reality
A gift which I am grateful to have
With a word I can bring light to a void
Reason to confusion and humor to sadness
For that I must express my gratitude
And let all know that as a dreamer
The only way I can fall and fail
Is to give up these rapturous visions
TO sacrifice my passion and settle for scraps
This I cannot do I will not do
I will paint the world with my strange sanity
In my arrogance I will demand much
Bullet for Brushes knives for pen
Peace through aesthetic and verbosity
The words may rip and tare at my gut
Force their way from my throat till they are expunged from my body
But they will always be mine
So I must Thank you thank you a thousand times and more

I did not wish to know you as my enemy
To see across the thin line of time and space
And find eyes of my eyes bleeding in another brother
Son of a different mother born of the same stardust
Child of the cosmos, a miracle of consciousness
I know those veins that cut and curve across your wrist
Bluish green swerving things
I know those marks on your palms
The ones once read as life lines
The ones that are the same as mine, to short
The grief-stricken child missing mother or father
The lonely sister hugging her struggling brother
The sand, stone, water, and white heat
The wind rain and dirt that bore this body home
And me sitting stupidly silent in shame
Dumbfounded by your beauty and your strength
Not some stranger narrating with my voice
Nor ghostly metaphor concealing my choices
This is the purest form of a broken heart that I can present
These syllables are my lifetime investment
Spent in pain to plead for love
I love you and you and you and you

Today’s episode
of America
is uninspired.

Like the writers
just retired
and rewired
repeats.

Meshing in
Old school hate
McCarthyism’s
patriotic rhetoric
Of division
through worshiping
things of symbolism,
leading to discriminating
and lynching.

KKK, and white hate is
making their guest appearance
just when we thought
we had retired them.

It is a schism
of ******.

What a
white privilege
you have to
not understand
what others
have been through,
not even believing
when they tell you
the truth,
just repeating
the talking points
of Bret Bart
and Fox New.

Well, I’ve got news for you
I am not watching
this ****** rerun
it’s time to
change the channel son.

Why do I seek truth? I must be careful to not retroactively define the reasons behind my seeking of the truth. If I list the best reasons for seeking the truth as I understand them now. I might define my previous attempts by my current understanding. This is dangerous to the truth because our memories are an ever evolving things adapting to the input of new information all the time. I actually understood this before I ever listened to the audio book on memory. Which was a couple months ago. I wrote a poem describing the process.
Why should one seek the truth? To build a better brain
The constant pursuit of new truths creates new neural pathways not only does this prevent the disintegration of old neural pathways by reinforcing them and rewiring them into other pathways it also increases (speculatively) the density of neural pathway. This should help prevent or postpone things like Alzheimer’s or dementia which seems to be something that might run in my family. Although, I wish I had such foresight when I was younger, I cannot honestly ascribe that to my reasons.
The truth empowers us. Our options are limited by our current understanding of reality. If we do not know that there is way we cannot pursue that way. If we think we cannot we never will. Understanding there are almost infinite paths to any giving destination allows us the fortitude and freedom to push through obstacles, for any situation. This has not always been my reasoning but it to is a good one.
Fear is a good reason to seek the truth, and one that is probably much closer to my original intentions. Fear stems from uncertainty. If you know something bad is going to happen you can learn to accept it or by referencing the previous paragraph you can find a way to change it. As young man I was afraid of myself more than anything. I was curious about the cruelty of humans because of my mom’s behavior, and those around me. As much as I would like to believe otherwise I was very reactionary and I still am. My pursuits where a matter of whims. Educational reading did not really start until after I developed a taste for fiction. Even now I am a lazy self-educator. Well, lazy by the standards of what I know I am capable of. It has been my understanding that many people do not engage in much introspection and self-education. It is not their fault they are constantly bombarded by the pressures of life which sap their time and willpower.
Now I am getting bored with this process of self-discovery so I am going to go back to engaging in mindless dvd entertainment.

Eyes crusted,
brittle bits
Of dream dust
Flake off
as I try to rise
and face
the light blue
morning sky.

Bare feet,
short sleeved,
shirt, and soft
sweat pants
wear me
as I rush
carefully
outside
to my ride
to grab
the stuff I need.

Cold winds
stab me
deep frigid daggers
invigorating.
I growl like
a warrior of
long ago days
awakened in
frosted fury.

What a beautiful day
I bellow
to no one
as I run back in
smiling,
brave and powerful.

The door does not open.
I knock but no one
comes to meet me.
I shiver
sighing deeply
“**** its cold.”

So, an orange ape,
with hair so real
you’d swear it was fake,
said we have to make America great
and the first thing he plans to do
is punish anyone who chooses
to burn a flag.

Doesn’t mind the kind
of KKK dudes who burnt crosses
the David Duke
white sheet brotherhood
who endorsed him,
but if you’re a Muslim
or a Mexican
you better watch out.

I don’t want to be divisive
but this guys been selling *******
and conservatives wonder why
a lot of people are contemplating
evacuating America or suicide.
It is because in our younger days
this nation faced
fascist states that grew the same way.

Lesbians and gays are afraid
cause the VP Pence
tried to pass a law that allowed
people to discriminate.
It is strange cause people used to proclaim
that the LGTBQ struggle
and the civil rights movement
were not the same.

So some sit in terror,
some rise to march on,
some show their solidarity
with Facebook posts,
and others write in hopes
that words can overcome
this ******* rerun
from nineteen fifty-one.

I do not miss that face of rage;
How she curled and furrowed it
making her face like clay
squashed and compacted in hate,
a monster in pain behind her eyes.

Still human of course
but demon in scores
controlled her hands
or so she claimed.
To shift the blame
or hide her shame
more then
one time she dared to say
the devil made me do it.

if I were a better man
perhaps I could let that pass
but I have made that face
punched my way
through solid things
seldom striking any human being
in anything less than self-defense.

Perhaps that was or is my pretense
not a demon but a lie to justify
the same darkness that hides
behind both of our eyes.

Maybe, I cannot forgive her
because I am afraid
that I have the same pain and rage.
So, I refuse to forgive myself.

They are lost
soft petals
fallen on
hard earth
now rotting
become soft dirt.
Only things left
of their essence
is the presence
that haunts our mind.

Fogs of memory
coalescing and receding
back into the black void
of time
leave a lingering pain
tingling in vain
an addiction for a drug
we can never achieve again.

So occasionally
we wake in tears
spend a day in fear
that peace will not return here
believing the grieving
is what we have become.

But if that pain could be undone
would we unwrite our memories
take back the shared stories
let the water un-wash their dead forms
let our hearts be unbroken
and un-warmed
by their affections?
Would we willing lose
all that we were with
and because of them
to not feel that pain again?

I could not bear that lost.
Could you?

Perhaps, the salts that seed the seas
can through some scientific discovery
find a way to be released
giving us more bodies of water
to safely drink.

Perhaps the oceans will give up
their dark and deep secrets,
life undiscovered,
resources never plundered
now available to study.
Movements barely encumbered for
non-bipedal bodied intelligences
in a water world of three d multi planar motions.
Sonic vocalizations interpreted,
while untold depths of water and consciousness
are unlocked in this pursuit.

Perhaps space will put us on the way
seeing time try to escape
as we to attempt to run away
from the only true fate.
Will we find dimensions diffusing
like a permeable membrane, or
like cells stacked upon one another
while black hole balances matter
between both realities,
or merely two extreme distances
beyond our perceptions in this universe,
swallowing light and time in one place
and spewing it out in another?

Perhaps, in the learning
we will see
that the fruitless pursuit
of disparate identities
is a dangerous delusion,
that the confusion and schisms
created in competition
is the creator of greater cataclysms.

But when we are able to work together,
when we finally understand
the philosophy of that long dead Star Trek man,
“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations
equal infinite possibilities”
we will realize that we have
the opportunity to fulfill
an unquantifiable potential.

I play heavy music
as I move heavy metal.
Less than massive
muscles straining
shirt getting wetter
as I try to be better.

Don’t want the girl
at the desk to think
that I am a *****
even though a ******
is a powerful thing.

So, I pack those plates
though they are not
as impressively placed
as they used to be
when a younger me
worked out rigorously
with an anger and certainty
that motivated me powerfully.

I pushed my body
just this side of too far
three days still sore
from my leg exercises
with mediocre form.

I miss that younger guy
who liked to workout at night
to episodes of his favorite shows,
two hours or so at each go
then let eighteen more pass by
till he got to work out again.

Home or gym
it didn’t matter to him.
Now, I work and try to fit in
that same energy and passion
that I am frustratingly lacking.

There is a true fear,
a throbbing ache,
that I hear clear
in my inner ear,
a pounding
sounding
trouble.

The drum beats
racism,
sexism,
xenophobia,
homophobia,
and transphobia.

But in the
presence of patterns
I’ve seen so many times
I become numb.
I am not surprised.

The tears only
wet my eyes
when I spy
good guys
painting over the lies
with peace
chanting
to all,

“Be calm,
because you are loved
and no matter what
we walk with you.”

The drum beats still sound
but my numbness fades
with the rise of hope
for more humane days.
Cause like those loving hearts
I too am with all of you.

In stories we are bound
language connecting
lives intersecting
repeating their meaning
hearing, feeling,
smelling, and seeing
as clearly as the words
can be understood.

In stories we lose strangers.
All things foreign
become familial.
Blood spilt,
arms in chains,
cotton picked,
rocks are broken
on the chain gang,
grown men hanged
on strong trees
opposite of Calvary
because there is no
salvation to see.
White sheets
are worn by
posturing fools
who hide their identity
to terrorize
with violence and lies;
These stories unite
empower some to rise
up against those who victimize.

In stories we should hear
the cries of refugees,
parents and children
running from the bombing
of their homeland,
cities and towns
broken down
to rubble, chaos, and fear,
hard working people
struggling to survive,
trying to get by
to feed those they love,
to get enough,
for a home,
for a chance.
Good people
gentle, funny, friendly,
they are you and me
just existing in different skins.

In stories we see
human factories
dark towers spewing
white clouds
once human.
Hateful hands salute
fascist authority.
David’s star beats
over human hearts,
while Jews walk with
Gypsies, Gays,
Intellectuals
and other Dissidents,
people being called rodents.
Yet, a child’s diary
offers tears and hope
cause despite her pain
she still believes
something that
frequently eludes me

In stories we should see
how history repeats,
learning our lessons well
we should steady ourselves
and be prepared
for the hatred,
for the rhetoric,
for the lies repeated
woven in the tapestry
of violence,
spun in the artistry
of reshaping history
to suit their greed,
to pluck the seed
of humanity
before it ever touches ground
seeing them rip the
forbears of goodwill
from the ground.

In stories we should be reborn,
rebuilding bridges
while tearing down
the walls and borders.
So, we don’t have to jump over.
We can just offer helping hands.
No soldier left behind
because no soldier is sent to war.
No child left to starve
because we know what
science is for,
to grow and explore
not to gain more
materiel things
but to expand our minds
and find new and greater dreams.

In stories we realize
we are human
egotistical yes
but it is the best place to start
to unbury damaged heart,
to open closed eyes
and see the sky,
to help all people fly
soaring together
not forever,
but until the universe
unwinds, ending time
and we become
untold stories
in the void.

I dream of minds expanding
roads diverging
from learning
and growing
in a garden of
grand and changing ideas.

I dream of wonderlands
that consist of;
What if love
conquers hate?
What if curiosity
conquers ignorance?
What if technology
and language
conquers the distance
between what
you and
I understand?

I dream of new waves
traveling in space,
signals that remain
long after we pass
that continue to ask
all the questions we ask
and even the ones we have
yet to get to.

I dream of clarity
that clears the fog
then more insights
that expand our senses
with the consequences
of peace, love, and understanding
of people handling
hearts with care
so those who know despair
find that they don’t have to live there
that they can visit their pain,
learn from that ache,
and educate others
not insulating them from suffering
but offering well-informed solace
and a chance to make
everything better than it is.

The devil has such brittle fingers,
long,
pointed,
calloused,
and sometimes bleeding
from his heated labors
from working the earth
just to savor
a slight taste of paradise
one apple from
God’s great garden
then die
unsatisfied
cause one lite bite
is never enough.

Please do not forget me.
Though I am but a song
that dances on the breeze,
a wind instrument with sounds
that float like a leaf
in pre-storm winds,
when my tunes ends
please remember
my sweet sad melody.

I can’t fall in love again
with your white paper pages
with your stanzas, and prose
with the heart you proposed
the art you impart on those
whose eyes are open and ready
whose hands are clean and steady
hopeful in dreams of yesterday,
tomorrow, and today.

I can’t indulge the pains
of your lovely nostalgia
old covers and titles
trips taken in under a mile
light year journeys
traversed in days
while smiling and learning
lying in bed under a warm electric cover
with a lamp light shining over
or sitting under a tree’s cool shade
as the wind tries to prematurely
turn me to the next page.

I can’t fall in love again
because you break my heart
with your lies, sweet fictions
that inform and surprise.
Till, water fills my eyes
and after the last page I ask why.
Then when I am ready
I find the nearest library
preparing for such sweet misery
that literature gives me.
Despite my heartfelt protests
I invest in a hundred plus pages of
falling in love with another story.

You raise the flag of rage.
You rise to spit your hate.
I feel the venom of your pain.
Why do you spend it that way?

Please don’t make me bury my brother.
Soft dirt moved to fully cover the
dried brown ground they put us all under.
Please don’t make me bury my brother.

You’ve got loads of bullets.
You’ve got armor piercing type.
You’ve got the will to spend them
and reap their red counterfeit.

Please don’t make me bury my brother.
Soft dirt moved to fully cover the
dried brown ground they put us all under.
Please don’t make me bury my brother.

You say that you’re an American patriot.
You say you’re a cowboy soldier.
You say you want to save this country
with the blood of those who oppose you.

Please don’t make me bury my brother.
Soft dirt moved to fully cover the
dried brown ground they put us all under.
Please don’t make me bury my brother.

One day you will have to face it
all the hate and faith you misplaced it.
Bullets spray shred red rays right through it
when you finally make me do it.

Please don’t make me bury my brother
Soft dirt moved to fully cover the
dried brown ground they put us all under.
Why do I have to bury you my brother?

Hope is the last refuge
of the broken and bruised
the painfully confused
who feel ill-used
yet hold on to
a chance to renew
the positive that is
long overdue.

Hope is a smile
that breaks tears
causing some to fall
and others to disappear.
It is a fool’s game
of poor predictions,
bets placed from
bad positions
but still sustain
the lost
and unforgiven,
those painfully driven,
living in the dreams
of what good things
tomorrow might bring.

Hope is a trinket
saved despite the need to eat
so, that when this homeless man meets
his long lost loved
he can give that gift
to the man he misses.
It is a warm spot on
a sidewalk vent,
a hand offering two dollars,
a stranger offering conversations
to break the cold blindness
of this windy winter loneliness.

Hope is daylight
to a prisoner who
moves to make things better
in an unfair system,
an institution
that tries to turn them
into numbers,
less than human
equal to dollar signs.
It is consuming all that bull
running down that rodeo clown
goring him to the core
and making it out
of that gated door
before idiots slam you
back in again.

Hope is a good ear
and a mouth shut
someone who hears
what other people
need so badly to say.

Hope is the lessons
that I have learned and lost
found and forgot
given and taken.
Whether I was right or mistaken
fool or genius
hope is the stream that
swims between us
in shared language,
in shared body movements,
in shared history.
It is the energy
that directs us towards
better days for
all people.

Hope is good
not necessarily
making its lack evil
but it is what people
need to get by,
a reason to stay alive.

Hope is transitive,
equal to what we do
to make dreams reality.

Ultimately, hope is the promise of
compassion yet to come.

I wanted to be human
to see with the eyes
of hopeful travelers
like the rogue road writers
who navigated the stars
of the love and dreams
that came before me.

I wanted to
to engage my humanity,
to warp past
the speeds and perceptions
we knew, then till now, and beyond.

I wanted to learn and advance
to grow and be smarter
exploring new thoughts
and new philosophies
absorbing new
scientific curiosities
and be wiser for the knowing
then make us all better
for the showing
growing all minds
like strange 3d expanding models.

I wanted much from myself
and expected parallel dreams
from my fellow human beings.
But this is where the poem ends
where hope melts and sorrow begins
boiling me in my discontent.
I used to believe we could do great things
now I find this flesh limiting
as people behave like prepackaged machines
who hate and report
who repeat and distort
their prejudices as facts.

Even though, I can create grand worlds
of prose and poetry in my mind
I cannot find the power or time
to truly imagine a believable better world
for all humanity.

I got an empathy infection
with a heart that won’t stop
burning inside of me
while the rest of humanity
goes on laughing and smiling.

I got tears of sorrow
that split my body in two
leaving me more than enough pain
to share with you.

Cause, I have been reading
listening and pleading
while strangers were crying
screaming and begging
watching their loved one’s bleeding.

But you are not seeing
what I have seen
cause you blinded yourself intentionally,
becoming separated by skin distinctions,
modern segregation that is a
pale imitations of old school **** clicks.

And any one not white American
can eat your ****.
Well, I’ve been swallowing it,
wallowing in the horrors you allowed.

But the vengeance demon inside of me
wants to bloom and see
you reap the pain you have sown.

It took me a while to figure out why I am attracted to the darkness, human suffering speaks so deeply to me. It is because I am the light and light longs to evaporate the veils of sorrow that cloud human senses. It is because I am so deeply in love with humanity that I cannot abide it’s pain. It took me thirty four year s to realize and believe it. Now I know it is because I am a good person.

It is the truth that breaks a poets heart. To know such violence lies in the eyes of the so called protector. Everyday I find myself more heartbroken even though I see the violence coming. Cause for every stride we make for justice their is another ******* hiding behind authority trying to take it away.

When a soft sparkle shimmers across the evening sky, or the water glimmers with ripples expanding ever outward in concentric circles, I will think of those I know, knew, and lost. I will remember them with a smile, and I will strive to be worthy of their love. I live this life for me not separate but part of a human collective and I offer my hand in hope to all even those who may bare me some malice. This is not naiveté, but love. Love for those who love but most important love for those who hate and I hope that by loving I can teach them to turn away from their rage and embrace everyone for what they truly are. Brothers and sisters to us all

Late afternoon,
daylight
is broken by
clouds coming
through.

Top split,
branches bent,
dead grey
tree stays
in one place.

Dark blue
sky hues
vent
wind and water while
lightning and thunder
vibrates the ground
with a growl like rumble.

Droplets fall
fierce as dragons
who lost their wings mid-flight
pounding the ceiling;
No fire breath in sight.

The concrete,
light grey to white
becomes
wet brown.

I sit down,
door open,
to hear the storm,
watching puddles form
like my grandpa
used to do.

A rogue river
of water
runs by and around my window
making my guard shack
feel like Huck Finn’s
flat bottom,
houseboat
floating on
the mighty Mississippi.

Now nature’s
muse is loose.
My eyes burn heavy.
I long to lose
the burden of
consciousness
and sleep through this
not out of boredom
but from the sweet
bliss of this
early evening
storming.

With the flick of my nose
I lost the soft scent of a rose.
Now I know no rose will ever grow
and I weep to myself,
“Why am all alone?”

Then they plucked out my eyes
so now I can’t cry.
My soul is so parched
that even my heart is dry.
Thus, dryly I sigh,
“Why am I alone?”

There were sounds that made me smile
but the loudness of this life
caused my eardrums to burst.
Now I sit in a state of silence
left with only fingers to touch air
and feel the vibrations I can’t hear.
It’s like a Greek tragedy
with bits of irony I will never see.
So I think in my head
that I might as well be dead
because now I am truly alone.

The words speak thusly. “Do not follow me into the dark if you do not intend to live there.”

Life is a strange interpretation
of mud, blood, and vexation.
Where logic fails, reason takes a vacation.
Perception is the only tool we find to measure
memories we hold as sacred treasures.
Till, those transcribed are passed down
and every generations finds their own variation
played on the same theme.
But one day annihilation will take away
the strength we lost and gained
along the road of ever evolving years
and we strays will part ways
with all of reality.

The King would leer
and see Caesar sneer
at the folly of loving fools.

Oh, how I know I long to
be made for love.
But in loving you
I am made an ***.
For loss of senses
becomes euphoria
and fairy madness
falls on my blind spot
in a tempest
even Ariel could not abate.
Winds would shred my soul
and see timber set afire
by the lightning of desire.
Using its light to play Othello
flipping white for black.

Oh, Juliet my dear
I fear my love for you
is just an act of suicide.
Still, I would die
happily, as all other lovers do.
For there is much ado
about nothing while
melted men of shadows
and scripted puppets
lose themselves
not in facts
but the opposite of that.
Love makes a poet of me
and a fool of us all.

The black box camera flickers, startling a nearby pedestrian. Two ceramic seal statues fall cracking against the light brown dirt with a bell like ting, then shatter. New sorrow fills an old man’s face. Tears become permanently plastered in Polaroid pictures. Another click causes disparate pieces of blue and white porcelain to freeze in a photographic ether. One moment that should have been private, is now popularized.
            The clicks continue within a small span of life. Phosphorous flashes catch two children playing tag. Silent laughter frozen within their playful smiles. It is a strange scene, fun overlapped with their shattered surroundings. Some beige broken stones stand scratched, some crack and crumble.  Other stones lean at an awkward angle exposing their broken foundation as if they were works of abstract art.  The chaos of glass clutters and cuts through the already decimated landscape. The history of explosions are etched in the bomb scorched earth, each one looking like its own Rorschach inkblot.  Still, life continues, and as it goes on it is collected to be kept for the future.
            Another click catches life in grey scale. Sobs are silenced by the medium but speak loudly through the picture. Grey gravestone glitter on a cold autumn day. Leaves fall and scatter across the dull background. People stand shoulder to shoulder, no breathing space allowed, and no one bothering to catch their breaths between the sobs. Several soldiers salute the dead man with rifles.
            Click, click, click the camera cuts a swath through precious memories. Happy moments caught on colored film. What a sweet change for the tired device. New children born, new birthdays celebrated, smiles and hugs, hands clasped in surprised reunion. Time moves on as these moments are trapped within their own tiny two dimensional world.
            There is no sd memory chip to save the photos. However, the spirit of every moment is etched onto the soul of the camera. The ******* box of a thing now collects dust. Still, the still photos lay dormant in an old album. Old hands, and smiles cease to be, leaving only altered shades of past memories. The little lies, truths not obscured but slightly altered by old color scales. Those moments are not immortalized only able to find a temporary respite from the void.