Poet’s passions
are prevalent
but lesser men
classify them
as deadly sins
denying the
black ink within
that boils to the brim,
forcing her or him,
to take and bend
words to their own
passionate whims.

The pillars of learning are acquiring information, retaining it, being able to retrieve it, then being able to adapt and use it in various situations

In the photo, I can see
a metaphorical
version of me.

One leave
restrained,
chained to
a puddle of ice,
near the end
of its
brown
withering life;

Like it
I am chained to
a withering society
which is
holding me
in its cold grip.
Till, I taste
the wet tip
of death’s lips.

It doesn’t matter if I am trying to be
a superior version of me
while every other *******
is out for themselves,
getting fatter and dumber,

cause I’m a whiny little *****
to sit and sob about this
when I am doing great.

If I disappeared
The universe
Would not mourn me
The loss would be
Fractionally
Unfathomable
I only matter in
This small circle
Of human influence

I proclaim
to an unnamed
friend
that I’m so tired
of walking,
but even though
I complain
about the pain
of my tender feet
it is in these
small journeys,
of an hour or more,
in which I explore
my thoughts
and soft surroundings,
that reinvigorates me
poetically.

How tragic that I have fallen for
my peacock colored angelic
poetically created fantasy,
how her lips are rainbows
and hair falls fancy
full of vibrance,
though she is written in silence,
hazel eyes always focused
in some far-off distance
behind me,
the man who longs to be
the one she is truly seeing.
Galatea to my Pygmalion,
though I know there are billions
of possible lovers out there,
I do not care or dare
avert the heart I share.
She is my obsession,
and I am her devoted
poet possession.


-2022 December

I kiss the killer
Cold bone queen
Pale pallet
Dirt laden limbs
Skinless
Breathless
My heart
Is hers for the reaping
Beating
Crimson
Meaty valves
Pulsing
I would play coy
Pretend I want to stay
Extremely far away
But I’m only flesh
Always edging my way
Ever closer to her rotting love

The streets bleed violence
But it’s not what you are thinking
Tv has got you drinking up
The new age of segregation
The cultivation of gentrification
One neighborhood split by the highway
One street built up with new projects
To expel so called misfits
Lies value profits over people
See specific skin colors as evil
Or at least deviant

So, I cry out across the canyon
“Tell me you don’t believe in it.
Please tell me you can see it.”

But even the echoes ignore me
How can I save humanity
If they can’t see what I see.

I Put one foot in the grave that I dug,
Take one last hug then I shrug.
Blood pressure rising,
from trying to fight the tyrants,
but it is a losing battle
and even I know it.

So, for every inch forward
I take a hundred and one back.
Till, I collapse ready for the dirt nap,
ready for the final pause,
but maybe someday someone better
will take up my cause.

The politicians
are corporate shills
who take our taxes
to pay their bills,
then let greedy businessmen
keep their pockets filled
not caring who gets killed
by the bombs of
the war profiteers.

I am space
Expansive
Not expensive
No price to put upon
The wonder of infinity
You gaze upon
It is free to see
All that celestial beauty

Listen to America? by graff1980 #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/graff1980/america

A harden heart
Won’t heal
A Broken bone
Might mend
Flesh maybe malleable
Skin maybe valuable
Joints may be flexible
Soul maybe sexiable
Desire maybe satiable
You maybe able
To overcome
What makes some
Unstable
May turn the table
Maybe a better man
Than me
As long as you retain
Your empathy

The heart burns
Acidic fluctuations
Desire’s frustration

How can it be so hard
To find someone
To love and be loved by

To slide my hand
Down the curves
Of her jaw
To pull her close
To kiss softy
And hardly
In tandem
To speak deep
To think well
And compliment
Gaps in understanding

I see the world become
A cycle of love
And loves lost
Deaths and rebirths
Even drug dealers and murderers
Find the full passion of love
In love struggling to find their place
Together

I am a shade
Walking just outside
Of loves touch
It is my own fault
I laid the bricks
Of my own isolation
And instead of cracking
Their sad foundation
I perpetuate such frustrations
Alone
To smart for my own
good

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.

I’m too tired.
My minds a blank,
got no gas
in my tank,

no cash
in my word bank,
and every verse
is super stank.

What minor mischief makes me wait
a sweet fair hearted poetess,
a musical queen seen
on shores so far from me?
I will wait patiently
bare my curiosity graciously,
but my mind hastens to see
how you will respond.
Oh, how I long and hope
that your note comes very shortly.

Knowing that between each twinkle
in a poet's eyes lies an infinite space
of beauty, depth,
and an eternity's worth of wisdom.
The subconscious stays hidden
but for such sweet poetic purges,
reverses black holes
spewing pulses of light
that envelope us all.
Till, instead of the stars
I collapse
in a sated state
of cosmic bliss.

The painter’s skill
Makes soft the flesh
Full blooming skin
Bleeding
Full colored man
Child
Eyes baring soul
Soul staring there
Memory and sight
Transcribed
Permanently placed
On the canvases’ face

I feel like a ghost. I have the ability to fade away, and dissappear into the mist. I have done it before and I think I will do it again. For me it is a never ending struggle to never become trapped. I will be free, no matter what it costs me.

There is nothing like
the first time.

Mother to son,
when the violence is done
no blood on his cheeks.
No one hears him speak.
The fear makes him weak
afraid he may repeat
the same horrors
she did.

There is nothing like
the first time.

Rigid body,
cold flesh,
hand reaches
to its chest
to its mouth
to feel its breath
but nothing is there.

There is nothing like
the first time

Clumsy lovers
find each other
under the covers
laughing,
licking,
and in that moment
certain
that they are in love.

There is nothing like
the first time.

Which is always the last time,
you are past time,
past mind,
past breath,
last heartbeat,
first, and only death.

She sleeps now
With her wilted roses
And crooked
Cracked sidewalk
Such a broken walkway
Gentle gardener hands
And piano fingers
Plant and play no more

The devil revels
in his wicked rebels,
those bouncing beats
and hyper treble,
blasting bass sounds
and destructive percussion.

I am eternally fatigued
And all I want to do is sleep
Dreaming in restful contemplation
To awaken refreshed and inspired

It should be a rarity,
this wicked wealth disparity,
but look at these crooks,
these modern-day land barons
coming in with their horns blaring,
not caring about the poor despairing
population they're supposed to be serving.

Instead, we got politicians earning
lots of profits
while the impoverished suffer from
the loss of options.

Blood has sown its sickly seed
Sought to plant born to bleed
And in the photos that I see
I observe the devastating crop

I’m a sneaky little devil,
a daring dancer who dwells
just this side of the soil
and Dante’s hell.

It is better to delve into the darkness
When I am restless
To trace a thin line
That tracks back
To all other conscious minds
In my own timeline
Revisiting people I used to be
Those ones who are no longer me
Completely lost in seven year cycles
Fractional deaths in the form of
Complete regeneration
Till not a single original cell remains
And all that I have is my name
And memories
But even the memories change

It is the soldier born of blood
That finds his bath irrevocably red
Crimson stains cloud his head
Not a part of him comes home unbled
But the bloodiest of wounds
The bleedings that never stops
Does not come from cut, or contusion
Not from the legions leaking lesions  
But from the dreams that wake him screaming
Turning a once wise and strong warrior
Into a broken ****** baby doll

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.

It is a curse of negative spaces.
Strange featureless faces
speak in discordant tones
repeating bland talking points.

So, I escape into the worlds I make,
sing in swift but slurred words
making my own rhythms and lyrics
as I stumble in a manic state,
pulled down by the heaviness
of my creative plates,
those several pieces of porcelain
spinning on thinning sticks.
Till, I fall, crack, and break.
Then in my broken state
cut all those around me.

The leaves have fallen.
Once brave soldiers
vital and firm
now old paratroopers
wrinkled with
the expectation of
winters rough war.
One by one
these daughters
And sons
fall to the Earth
to die.
The tree stands naked,
until winter’s war is over
and green life is restored

I am tired.
So tired
I start to ask myself
what is a word
that means tired.
Till, I stop myself
laughing at my own
tired absurdity.

With every good movie, sweet song,
Great book, remarkable poem,
Or awesome short story
I find a new part of me
A shared understanding
Half parts fiction and reality
Swirling in the mix
Full of tricks to fix
Breaking the ice with picks
Or challenging my perception
Like a psychedelic trip
Without the psychotropic
Chemicals
Till, I smile or the tears drop
Till, I can’t stop
From feeling something deeply
No matter how much it hurts me
Stories unnumb me

The streets are empty.
Yellow lines
run from
the horizon
as I ride them
to the end.

The houses
are boarded up.
Hordes of home maker
won’t wake up.
Soccer moms
won’t be
driving on,
because its all gone.

Glass windows
are shattered
with strange webbed cracks.
There are no spiders
to climb them
just long lines
of silence.

I can find this
lack of violence
everywhere I look,
because all roads
lead to a state of
nothing hood.

Nothing is good,
but it isn’t bad either.

I used to be scared
of big fat spiders
but right now
I would be happy
to see
any non-plant living thing.

There aren’t even any dogs
left barking at me
while I move.

Its just miles
of mind numbing
loneliness
and an eternity
of time
to be consumed
by many mad
states of
my fragile mind.

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

Sparkles in the distance
Partial to our own existence
We are human
Martians
Venusian
We are creatures
Reaching
Searching
Beseeching
The universe
For reasons

You say caring
and loving
makes us vulnerable.

Well, I wear my weakness well.
Armor cracked,
I exposed myself.

I would not be
another commodity,
or come to see
all human beings
as separate entities.

So, when they weep
more cracks envelope me.
When their scars
are cut open again
I find myself bleeding
with all my human kin.

I have not perfected
the art of compassion,
but I will never completely master
the art of passing
a stranger in pain
without feeling
part of that sorrow.

Like Vincent did,
I go where the people are.
I see them in
their simple glory
and though I cannot paint
with brushes
I work the white canvass
with my words.

My heart melts.
I cry to myself,
and if you call it a weakness
then you are wearing
the wrong armor.---

Cut her open
and you will find
immeasurable potential
hiding behind
skin and muscle.

Not a casual canal
but a tunnel to life,
brewing ingredients
deep inside;

The chance to grow
a being who will
develop unforeseen
ideas for humanity,

the chance to harbor
a hopeful artist,
soft hearted songwriter,
social worker,
teacher, scientist,
painter, activist.

A man does not wield
that level of power,
that wild wonder
of a body working
to put a new lifeform
together in a womb.

A woman’s body
is a gateway
to all worlds beyond,
it is the center
that pushes our species on.

Green fields of grass
Brown fields to plow
Grays roads to ride
Must and dust
To choke both of us
A watery world
Wrapped from one side
To the other side
And it all spins round
Going up and down
Rotating
In infinity
Moving through eternity
Space and times specialty
Life is only temporary
Our membership is barely honorary
The universe will not miss us
When we are gone

Make it quick.
You are already
killing me slowly
dragging me
through the snowy
thorn covered field,
making my flesh bruise
changing it from pink
to blackish blues
as you spread the abuse.

Just make it fast.
slip the blade past
my ribs and up into
the heart you broke
as you choked
the land I loved
as you grabbed
children by the throat,
while you demonized them
with shaded lies.

Your corruption is poison
and I am tired
of writing the same poem,
so just **** me now.

I watch them walk away
And though I rage against
Their warlike ways
I cannot make them stay
My fingers are not strong enough
To stop the fists that fall on us
The bullets fire
The drones go on
Burning our earth
With liquid destruction
Turning time and life
Into nothing
And no matter what I write
Eyes always turn to the night
And the fools go marching
Stomping on to death

Before the internet
I looked for women,
images I could hold
on to like
a lacy trace
of **** fabric
that rides up and down
the sweet side
of her soft thighs.
The curling black
consuming skin,
but there were spots
where *******
bulged and
bloomed again.
I looked on
in loving lust.
Desire stirred
and I moved as I must
*******
to the devastating
illusion of
secret catalog queens.

The best artistry enraptures its creator in a fugue of furious activity that is almost beyond his/her control. They are overcome with inspiration and must follow it. It is the unconscious mind ripping and taring at the fabric of the creators mind, and it is is the closest thing to ecstasy I know.

When she came to school but never smiled, she was asking for help. When her eyes were swollen red with tears and she could barely breathe she was asking for help. When she was startled and flinched at the slightest touch she was asking for help. When there were bruises on her arm, and blood on her lip, she was asking for help. When she could not say the words because she did not know or was to scared she was asking for help, and when she slit her wrist in shame, or was beaten to death it was too late you stupid *******.

We are citizens,
victims of a system
of stratification.

We use fiction
to relate
us to them,
women and men,
social programming
for the progress
to do more then
just began again.

While the filthy fat cats
are raking it in
doing more then
making a killing
by selling weapons
made to ****
foreign children,

making profits
off the violence
while calling us
immoral
criminals.

So, we use fantasy
to cross the breach,
break the cranium
so you can see
reality
through
that fictional brew,

and gain compassion
from the stories you read
or the movies you see.

This is the time
to select a brave few
who may follow you
through

My beneficence
stems from
my shaded happiness,
because if I was
consumed by
anger or sadness
I would not
have the energy
to be kind.

Let us pretend
That this dark portent
Is a potent precursor
To your painful pursuer
The perfect person
To persecute you
You have no defense
Against this prosecutor
No safe haven
No soft heaven
No monster to placate
Till you find a safe place
Just the terror you wear there
On your cherubic childlike face

Business interest
are not the best indicators
to make decisions.

As we age
we subtract
false fantasies
from scientific facts
and reality becomes
smaller.

As we get wiser,
and acquire
a deeper understanding,
we expand our minds
to incorporate
what is newly unknown
to us.

Then the universe
explodes
with
a multitude
unforeseeable
depths
and dimensions.

I am one foot out the door,
one fools folly chasing more.
I am the *****
chasing explicit pleasures
strange acts of leisure.
I measure myself
when I feel like it
when I get excited.
I do what I want
not a reflection of others
or a perpetuation
of local infatuations.
Desire is fleeting,
fulfilled leaves me free to be
who I am or who I want to be.
It is the same you see,
so close to perfectly free.