Oh, I bare my tragic soul
And grow as an artist
One pinky up my nose
See my toes
Curl up
See my *** clench so tight
As I sigh and moan
All **** night
Cause I am an artist
Sweet sad me
What a genius
More because
My town can’t see
The brilliance
Of poor old torture me
Boo hoo hoo
The tired cliché
Like that tired phrase
All Van Gogh
One ear off
And one left to go
I think you all should know
I am only so, so,
So, so
So you know
All angsty stuff
All suicide rage
All depressive love
And lonely days
Poor, poor, poor me
My life is like a tragedy
Insert tears
Insert sob story
Insert boring prologue
About how nobody knows me
Insert a laugh
No x that **** out
Cause I am a very, very serious artist
But this poem is only a mockery
Of poor, sad, pathetic little old me

When I was younger
I wanted to be
Superman
Spiderman
An X-man
A man
Like Gandhi
Or MLK Junior
A writer
An artist
And through
All of this
A good man
So here I am
The poet activist
No leotards
I am not marching
Or flying
But I am trying
By writing
To make the world
A better place

The narrow bed
Where marigolds
Laid their bulbous head
Where little lilies
Lit up the world
Where roses posed
Like prancing posies
Only partially exposed

Now no violets grow
The earth does not know
What to show
The lilacs
Won’t bounce back
Instead take dry dirt naps

The gardener is gone
The garden’s lover has expired
Only dead earth remains
Leaving sad flowers
To wilt
Withering like
Her old creepy
Earth planted corpse

I acquire
New words
Like
Disharmony
And
Acrimony

I acquire
New thangs
Like a car
A house
A Computer
And more and more
Till I am mired in them
Sinking in the mess
That I made
That sustains
My materiel goods

I acquire
New pain
Bubbling
And becoming
As tumorous
As the worse
Cancer
Desire is devastating
And distracting

I acquire
New knowledge
To cure this infection
This obsession
With things
To the detriment
Of human beings

In wisdom
The more I acquire
The more I let go
Trimming the leaves
That were crowding me
Pruning the trees
Of this materiel disease
Till I find the truth
Of you and me
And this relationship
Between us and our humanity

I acquire
The heart of my art
A soul shining force
Of love
And oddly enough
The more I give
The more I get
It is an endless bag

I dulled my discontent in the delusion
Of superiority moral and intellectual
Imperative to prevent partial self-destruction
Emotional constipation from my
Former fast food occupation
I had to believe that I was a pearl
Swimming among swine on company time
I felt my mind contracting from the enacting
Of my arrogant disposition that poisonous position
Set me in constant opposition to my peers
And all those years in fear of being ignored
By those I deemed inferior to my interior being
I should have seen the truth of things
That I would have been better served listening
Than vehemently dismissing
I would have been a wiser human
Instead of a just wise enough to admit that
I’ve been wrong many times in the past
But hell I am still such a smart ***

If it bleeds it sells
We need greed to feed ourselves
To fill our shelves
With popular stuff
All sugar and fluff
No content of value
Celebrity garbage
Cause trash is more fun
And we are wallowing in it
Stewing in a sewer of pop ****
The population is loving this
Mass media content
Social networks
Comment commentators
News trolls

The digital age offers us
A great chance to change
To seek greater transparency
To counteract corrupt agencies
Requires vigilances to help us see
We have the tools to become
Truly united and finally free
If we just learned how to apply them
Properly

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.

Oh Rome,
You came to our shores
But long before
You conquered
Us with war
You stole our gods
We knew not what for.
You dressed them up
With brand new names
Added some paint and
Gave them new games
And this is how
We were tamed
Not with shame
But with the usurpation
Of our religious nation.

Oh Rome,
We were already in your homes
****** martyrs, no longer nomads
The tribes had come together
Tethered to each other within forever
Hungry, but unwilling to be bought
Craving less enslaving
Never reaching what we sought.
We had our one true god
To hell with you and all your pagans
Our souls were purified and no gentiles
Needed saving.
Till Constantine combined
The Christians with the pagan mind
And once again the powers that be
Stole and controlled our religion you see.
We were tamed
Not with shame
But with the usurpation
Of our religious nation

I got nothing better to give
no better angels in my soul.
Darkness is coming again.
It is a poker hand I was never going to win.
My heart sounds off beating
Thud da dud dud.

They stacked the deck and turned on the furnace
laid back and got ready to burn us
watching the ashes as they floated up
to dark thunder clouds.

Lightning flashes thud da dud dud
coursing through my burning blood.
Soldiers step on me,
while military boots stomp, splashing mud.
I hear them marching thud da dud dud.

In resisting despair’s darkest edges
I coopt that painful beat.
Strangers hear me singing thud da dud dud,
Till, I rest permanently in my defeat.

Today is a beautiful poem
Yesterday was a drag
Jet lagged from the bad
Sad and mad at this and that
But right now is good

There is no should of
Would of or if I could of
Not wearing a leather jackets
With pockets full of regret
I bet we never met
But today is a beautiful poem

Somewhere greed bleeds horror
Plants seeds of deceit in the streets
Were strangers meet violently
Were sorrows spill silently
Still to spite that or despite that
I cite facts or perhaps lies that
Support this poetic decree from me
That today is a beautiful poem

Flowers bloom in sweet perfume
While children die in locked rooms
From mothers who beat them with
Broken brooms
But the moon is a glorious sphere
That shines here and there
Cause today is still a beautiful poem

So I use the first line
One to a hundred times
A simple ruse to lose
Those heavy handed blues
And say that
Today is a beautiful poem

I live under the threat
of each thread
of my being untethering itself
from my flesh as my essence
is disincorporated,
and my memories are evaporated.
Until, this dilapidated
leathered skin caves in
succumbing to the bitter ending
of my futile existence.

This is an echo
A poem
That I have written
A thousand times

This is a rainstorm
Of humanity
A shower of grace
With thundering compassion

This is a sunny day
Where people learn
Not to hate
Forget the warring ways
And say
We will be ok

This is a love story
Not in a book
But written in a look
In one daily act
And then another

This is humanity
A spark you see
Of what I want to believe
That you and me
And everyone we see
Can be kinder
Wiser
Not prone to the hate speech
Of rich political hucksters
Not working the will
Of loudmouth proselytizers
Picking up new text books
Not old dogmas

This is the hopeful promise
That I tender in this poem
We can be better

The anxious
Knotting stomachs for decades
Centuries of building nausea
Nerves red and raw
Raggedly exposed
Uncertainty
Fear
And for you
Few
Who
Have not known
Such agonies
Give it time

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.

Scheherazade always stopped
In the middle of her stories
Not just because she wanted to live
In spite of the Pharaoh’s nature
But because stories never really end
They just transition to a new beginning
One to another
Stories begin from some other stories end

We are only human
Built up from the muck
Made of dna
Purpose constructed
From chaos
How we define
What designed us
Time plus adaptation
This ecological manifestation
That feels pain
That feels love
That feels loss
And so much more
Compassion in actions
One person to another
We could not be better
Because we are only
Limited children of the cosmos
Only human
For such a small span
Of time

How many mothers are aggrieved of themselves
Shattered by the heart of matters which they take part of the blame
No longer denying in their crying
That they too were made fools
Beggars yearning for a redo
To undo the terrible truths
Revealed and reviled

How many parents would stab their own heart
To undo the part they played
On any given horrendous day
And see the ones they lost
Returned
Unburnt
Unscathed
Unbathed in blood
By the horrors of the day

And whilst some cannot rewrite those dark nights
Perhaps they can pass on the lessons in wrongs
So other mothers can make this life right

War makes its’ wicked artistry
Upon the flesh of humanity
Tearing skin
Inversing flesh
Transposing bone and skin
Organs and eyeballs
Such a sickening alchemy
And even when
The flesh remains
Untainted by such warring ways
The soul destruction reigns
Savaging mortal wits
Breaking stern hearts
And turning gentle folk
Into to mad man made monsters
All who come and go
And even those
Who come no more
Are disfigured by the
Horrors of war

Do not fall in love
with an artist like me,

because upon inspection
you will find obsession
poetically enthralling,
and passion all consuming.
I will treasure
all acts of pleasuring you
to  an ******* quality
in excessive quantity.

Do not fall in love
with an artist like me,

because I am passionate
and extremely engaging
sparing all other engagements
to be in your stunning presence.

Do not fall in love
with an artist like me,

because my nature
is solitary,
and though I tarry
with you
I will be forced to
find moments
for myself.
Though, I longed to be
devoured by your desire
and engulfed by my adoration
of you
I will need time to reflect on
everything.
  
Do not fall in love
with an artist like me,

no matter how hard I pursue you
because I cannot promise you forever
no matter how much I want to.
I can only give you
this brief spectacular sparkling moment
in eternity.

Summer's breath
is a fetid breeze
that leaves me
sweating grievously.

Dull, repetitive driving,
heat draining
all my mental energy
like a seasonal vampire
leaving me uninspired.

Enter the earthy aroma
of someone new,
a refreshing spring water
point of view
a friendly face
with feminine contours.

Though *** is not what matters,
she is novelty
in the form
of a human being.

This thick stultifying summer
becomes less of a ******
with the introduction of new variables
that pull me from
my old terrifying echoes.

A stranger with
unknown stories
emboldens
the previously bored me
to write great poetry again.

Oh dear were you here
I might not fear
But being unclear
I hear you still
managed to disappear

-----------------------------------------

Before you bake that beautiful loaf of bread
Please pass on the last piece of pie
So I might delight in such a delicious treat

-----------------------------------------
Cut out that kind of caterwauling
You're killing my kittens cat nap

As a child I asked my mother
to mend my lonely heart
to accept and understand me
as I am and not as who she hoped I’d be.

Please do not turn your pain on me
inflicting wounds so deep
that I refuse to ever trust myself.

Eyes aflamed with tears.
Sinuses clogged with snot.
Without comprehending
without words I asked for her patience
her kindness, to secure my innocence.
I asked for safety at home.

Had I known the violence she would sow
planting row after row
of red marks and broken hearts
I would have found a gun
and a safe little corner.
I would have asked no one
and taken the peace I deserved.

Oh Persephone you frighten me
Dark hair falling
Arms flailing
Hailing nothing
But the darkness you claim
The pain that maims
Your reason

Pushing the razor
Harder and deeper
Sliding it in and out of your skin
Like a credit card purchasing
Temporary relief
From your grief

You say that you are poisonous
But I say you have been poisoned
The virus is in the air
On the tv
On the streets
In some of the books
In strangers looks

In the aftermath
Heart break
Takes its’ place
Followed by apathy
Till there is nothing left

And though you never cut your chest
Your heart is still leaking
Leaving
A subtle arrhythmia
Hade’s fingers
Crushing each ventricle
Squeezing just enough
To keep you alive
In agony

It has been years in the desert
Heat stroking
My member
No oasis in sight
No hope for the day
So I stall in the night
Lust no longer giving pleasure
Merely an action
To subdue
My baser emotions
So I go through the motions
Hands on desire
Wiping the sticky rag clean
To cleanse myself
Of the so called obscene

The desert is barren
Lacking any love
The watery red rose
The lips once opened and now closed
Sometimes I miss those lush green fields
Other times I am grateful not to feel

But the desert is always a desert
And sooner or later
Its’ dry heat will ****
All that I have left to feel

You can justify
With lust in your eye
Give them lesbians
Their rights
Cause their a pleasurable sight
I guess it’s a start

You say it’s ok to be gay
Just don’t hit on me
Cause I’m straight
I believe you have the right
To fight
For said rights
But can you keep the pda
In a private place
I guess it’s a start

But when it’s not clearly defined
In your limited mind
When you can’t classify
Between a girl and a guy
You forget to be fair
Don’t bother to be nice

Then I remember
We got a long way to go
Justice is brutal
And to **** slow
Breaks my heart
Cause corruption and prejudice
Are easier than fairness

Gay lovers
Hold hands with each other
In public
Don’t give a ****
******* will keep
Keeping us stuck
Be proud to kiss
Don’t give two *****
I love you
But we have such a long way to go

Lesbians
I am sorry
For the lustful leers
The years of fears
Struggling through to
Be you
Remember
I love you to
But we have a long way to go

Transgender, Transvestite, *******
Honey you are beautiful
Androgynous, bisexual
Human hybrids
And all those wonderful things
Outside and In-between
Can’t say it enough
You need to know you are loved
But we have a long way to

The clouds came courting,
converging on the moon,
a congregation
of celestially
illuminated bodies,
painting the night sky
with their smoky grey, white,
blue, light
cumulous wonder.

Such a fruitless endeavor,
as this dullness devours
my endless hours.

I sit seeking stale stimulus.
Being used to immediate
gratification,
of the menial mental
*******
type,
I am stumped
by my listless response to
having everything to do
but not wanting to do
anything.

No movies but one
yet to come
stir my passions.

No tv shows
that I stream
or download
get me excited.

No outside adventure
unencumbered
by the once weary winter weather
inspires me
to get up and go.

No books
even garner
random looks.

I am merely
burnt out,
but just for now.

I got eye strain and back pain
from sitting in the chair all day,
working my life away,
clicking on keyboards and mouses,
while staring at computer screens,
and ignoring other things;

I am detached from the fact that
there is more than just me,
because everyone I see,
every single human being
has turned into pixelated images
on the monitor I’ve monitored
all day.

Her words are better spoken
Or see sad spell of desire broken
Reading them does no justice
But feeling them in hearing when
The speaker seeks to fill the air
With all the meaning they can muster
Vibrates me
Shaking loose the inner me to see
Dead emotions retrieved
Sadness reprieved and then restored
As I long for what was lost
As I weep for all who do not speak
With such grand poetic designs
The speaker owns my mind
For mere minutes in eternity
Not my enmity nor my solemnity
But the better passions of me
Desires not the speakers physical form
But the bounty that her spoken words explore

When you talk remember that it is me
And I am listening
Do not guard hearts or hide words
Do not harbor false hope or fake rage
Do not be consumed by the illusions
Lost to the confusions
Be honest, I need your truths
I feed on your inspiration
The human race a light at waste
You glow so bright
But dim that light
To fade against imagined slights
You are a sparkle in a sea that glitters
Shining brighter than the moon
Blazing hotter than the sun at noon
Remember when you speak
I have questions, I am curious
I want to know you
You know I love you
You were born to be cherished
Live and will perish
So of course I love you
I wear your scars and bare your burdens
I’ll heal the your heart if you are hurting
Just speak say something, anything
Eyes averted, love denied, love shamed
Silence hurts more than violence
Losing truths to a social shell game
For we cannot see each other
If we do not speak to one another
Speak to me and I will listen
Listen and we will learn together
Learn and we will grow together
Grow and there is no limit to where we can go

Look at the lovely Lord Byron
Sweet John Keats
And Percy Shelley
What an awesome group
Of poets
Bet they were really romantic

You need the poetry
Of a pre-painted reality
To infected you with the disease
Called empathy
To get sick with humanity
Knowing there is no cure
And only the vaccine
Of apathy and greed
Could set you free
from that well released
Read as you please
Better believe what you see
Make us better human beings
Not nearly contagious enough
Outbreak of real love

It is a game of uncertain variables. Tears cool my heated cheeks. Years of pain are distilled into a moment of anxiety.
A hug could hold a mirror to loves last affection. This may be the last good bye. One friend only makes it on holiday weekend, one friend makes it more often, one little brother, comes weekly, father remains behind.
The sounds of a strange city, holds no friends or family for me. They are hundreds of miles away. I am scared. It is the fear of the unknown, the fear of the phone call that says,

“We are sorry for your loss.”

So tonight, I will wait for work to start. My heart will race rapidly with all the anxiety my mind can muster. Even then, if and when I find slumbers silent rest, I know I will still wake with that same ache in my chest. Till, I come home again, off the road for a couple of days.

He can’t sleep. He can’t speak. He just whistles. The wind works its way through his tight teenage lips, disrupting the subtly silent suburb. Frequencies fluctuate. In the distance a dog barks. Then another dog barks. The piercing sound of high pitched whistling doesn’t stop. Aside from his holey jeans, old flip flops, and smelly green shirt, whistling is all he has. The sound resonates with everything he is.

He whistles with the lost hope of love. There is a soft undertone of sorrow. His whistle is as beautiful as a piccolo. It is more fluid than a flute. Farther in the distance a mournful howl echoes in response to the whistle.

The night carries him onto a bus. One stranger stares scowling viciously.

Another strangers growls, “Shut the **** up.”

However, this pied piper cannot. He refuses to stop. The whistling continues.

        Up and down, it is a haunting sound. Fifteen minutes of whistling while the bus carries him home, to nowhere. Here there is an empty alleyway with a metal grate giving off waves of stray heat. He works his way to the one dumpster occasionally stocked with the days rotten left overs. To some the stench would turn their stomach, but to him it is sweet salvation.

An officers asks him to stop and show his I.D, to no avail. The request is repeated carrying a hint of arrogance and anger. Even so, the whistler is unable to stop. A hard hand grabs his wiry arms. They struggle, another officer joins the fray. Somewhere along the line a foot smashes against his ribs. He whistles for them to stop, pleading with his pursed lips. Steel toed shoes smash his gaunt face. The whistler finally stops.

The cops do not. Years’ worth of rage works itself out on the young man’s body. Inside his skull the whistling continues accompanied by a ringing. Pain singing and singeing his brain, leaves him breathless. This is nothing new. It is no worse than his history. The red welts, the black bruises, the damaged ear drums, and the broken larynx, all the scars from previous violence.

Violence meant to silence. Beatings that stole the words from his breaths. Speaking through the wind was all he had left. A secret language he kept to himself. The dead tell no tales. Instead the wind whistles back at a broken corpse.

You can take my home
repossess my car
steal my cell phone
and break my heart
take my pad of paper
but I would just
put the pen to my skin
or memorize the verses for later.
You can’t stop me
from making sweet poetry.

We are not the personal property
Of some person who proposed
As always I oppose
The subjugation of our identity
In pursuit of marital bliss
This institution does not fix ****
It just repackages old ideas
In modern consumerism
In love I am not yours
And you are not mine
But I am not blind
To the stunning visage
The gift of your existence
I just don’t think real love
Requires ancient legal and religious
Assistance

Sometimes it’s not in the reading
But the in the hearing and seeing
That we find the beauty of poetry
Sometimes we forget their power
The world of words loses its’ way
Loses its’ sway to say what it must say
But when a new voice is given
The power resurfaces
When we hear the subtle tremors
The violent vibrations
The elevation of poetry is remembered
Like a long lost love
Finding old passions re-inflamed
The poetry is restored to its’ golden glory again

She is such a sweet pale hell
That makes me touch myself
Pleasure dangerously close to torture
Eyes lit with the softest furies
Lips that melt the ice of my soul
Whips that chain my pain to hers
I cry out “all my verses are for you.”
But she whispers “I am not yours.”

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.

I seek starlight from burnt out hearts,
where gaseous clouds swirl about
sparkling with the glittering infinity,
living far above and away from me;

Like minded fantasies of spiraling galaxies
swelling with stellar hope
till I succumb
to the collapsed sun
of humanity's
black hole.

It is a deluge of thoughts
that rush through
a brain that struggles
to contain,

a treat of glass
figurines
that stand straight up
set to crash
and be smashed
to smithereens.

To be crushed
by the immensity
of all things
that can
and will be
even a case
of
the was
and never was.

A bowl
filled
more than thrice
to the brim
with all of life

Heavy
and dripping
from the sides
all that overflows
is what
we write.

Green bodied bison
with brown branch legs
press over and in
the frontage roads
that I am passing.

Monolithic green forms
moving forth like
a herd of wild
but super slow
silly buffalo.

Almost static
except for
the way they move
in the summer wind
flowing back and forth
then back again.

What a wonderful set of
modern megalithic
monsters made from
my imagination.

There’ll be days
precious moments
see them sunning
by the bay
till, the sea
sees the star light,
blinking angels
dissipate.

There’ll be years
yarn unspinning
as we stumble
towards our graves,
but the seconds
in-between breaths
are what make
this life so great,

and the children
that we leave
littles daughters
full grown son
are like blooms
that lose their trees
as our roots
wither and flee.

Till, the song
that I am singing
becomes the song
that they passed on
and the love
that I was bringing
are the wheels
that just roll on.

So goodnight
little planet
precious place
that I lived on.
I know you wont
miss me one bit
but I was grateful
to call you home.

The light shines in
through the window,
brightens up
the blue smoke,

and all I know
is a good ****
makes
me feel
less broke.

Spent six days
just staring
at nothing,
don't feel like moving
cause I'm despairing,
paring my pain
with some
***** and a joint.

I feel like ****
and smell
just like
I took a bath in it.

My specter like
reflection
is closer to perfection
then my
real life complexion,

And the point that
I'm making
is non-existent
just like my hope
for the next day is.

There were no grand pronouncements
No standing ovations or help desk waiting
No nurse on standby for a stand-up guy
No friend at Jack’s bar to pat him on the back
And send him home in a taxi cab

There was no Monday mail that wished him well
No national pride that made him swell
Just this hell a sorry state for sale
And no one he wanted to tell

So, with nothing to show
He let the bullet go and watched the blood flow
No fire alarms sounded, no ambulance rounded the corner
No other mourners other than the quiet night coroner
Nothing left but an empty room and a short obit
That gave his name cause of death and that was it

The plain porcelain ***
is splatter painted,
a smoking crimson
as the yellowish ****
swims in the bowl.

The old man moans
from the agony of
an antibiotic resistant
abscess.

The nurses undress him
To find a score of bed sores
that were hiding,
open wounds deep enough
to touch bone.

Gentle hands wipe
while he softly whimpers.

The round and dimpled cheeked teen
watches, smiling warmly,
offering calm words,
emoting compassion,
and answering any questions
the dying man might be asking
in the last stages of
his drug induced delirium.

After the cleaning she holds him.
He calls her mother
and she doesn’t correct him.
Jagged breaths slow
as she hums an old
family Lullaby
and he goes
as peacefully as possible
into oblivion.

I put a period
at the end
the sequence,
despite the lack
of them in
previous
stanzas,
just to indicate
that this is where
the end was made.

The punctuation
is intense
confusing
common sense
cause poetry rules
are not the same
as basic grammar school
English rules.

The old tree wears new leaves.
Green things gleaming and moving
dancing like a grass skirt
with the warm whims
of these soft summer winds.

My faith is a wounded soldier
Ragged and bleeding
Sweating and needing
Begging and pleading
To leave this life
Blood soak **** stained
Struggling in vain
To recapture
The rapture
Of an old love

A doctrine
That fit like an old glove
Till the truth
Tore a hole right through
Leaving me
Leaving you
To stew in your delusions
While I eat my enlightenment
Like the bitter vegetable it is

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