Time’s strangeness surpasses
sad fields of corrugated metal,
spastic lights that project
commercial intent,
technological wonders
barely willed into existence
by the minds of inventors
who we will never visit.

Tragic daydreams of daring proportions
as the desire to acquire materiel wealth
cause us to shift and over extend ourselves.

The Earth bares such deep scars,
as men and women work and draw
from the almost infinite well of greed,
that angry stomach with teeth
that seems to exceed human reach.

I’ve got anger for days
and you call it my rage.

I was seething before,
writhing on the floor
by the kitchen door
that led to nowhere.

Which is why I
never ever got there.
I just got more ******
felt like I was
being dismissed
because no one appreciated
my humble genius.

So, I put ambition on layaway
paid on it a little every day
financing life with a little hate
that drove me towards
working out late
and writing even later;

Popping ephedrine
to make it through work,
crashing all day
then waking up
with such a deep thirst
that my whole body hurt
that much worse.

Honestly,
the art wasn’t as good
as I thought it was.
I mean it was still better
then this modern pop ****,
but I hadn’t, still haven’t
mastered it.

I’ve calmed a bit,
but the anger is still in there
waiting to push me farther
then I went the last time.

I just split a crown of broccoli with a St. Bernard named Winnie.

Broad generalizations frequently decrease the fluidity of human understanding and growth.

It is the sounds
of ivory keys
hammering strings
that I use to sooth
my tired self to sleep
or to keep
jarring noises
from waking me.

She is a nightmare
like a velociraptor
rapping from the rafters
chasing after
the sound
of a killer clown's
maniacal laughter.

I've been trying to
avoid her,
that self-destroyer
who tends to
pull me down to
her lower level.

But she caught me
by my dangling generosity
and kindhearted disposition.

I thought that these
were good qualities,
but I think I need to
get rid of them,
so, I don't have to
talk to
that **** drama queen.

The ride is
a sickly set of statues
circling,
an ornate beauty
of predictable movements.

A carousal of fools,
stallions set stern in silence,
a caravan
of unwilling men
and women
that never stride
outside
the pre-ordained.

I watch them
still as mannequins,
eye set in the same positions,
seeing and thinking
the same thing.
They do not listen to
or hear the words I sing
when I try to bring
them their freedom.

The circle stops,
plastic bodies drop.
Paint chipped
they all dip
and rise no more
as I go on to explore
everything, alone.

I have never loved a truth
only partial lily lips
blushed with life,
a life that was projected
from previous experiences
tid bits of passing familiarities
extrapolated, fragmented,
then placed into an impossible puzzle.

That is the tragedy.
Though I love humanity
I have never loved the truth of her
only the illusion that she can never be
plastered in poetry
dedicated to me.
The lie fits perfectly into my dreams
so I sleep with
the hopeful heart of humanity
because that is the only love
that is true to me.

Don't let the lightning steal your thunder
Or the stars dull your light
You may not be destined for greatness
But that is up to you to decide
You can let it slide just get by
Get taken on a crazy trip
Or be the one who takes everyone
On a beautifully strange and wild ride

I think there is something wrong with me
for I cannot love as deliciously
or deeply as I used to.
I cannot be swallowed by the hope of
unconfirmed fictions I once called love.

There is a still an inkling of
fierceness that wants to clench someone
so tightly to my body that we become one
wet with the desire of perpetual ****** motions.

I am broken for the shadow kin still sleeps within,
longing to uncover soft warm pale skin underneath
her ******* lacey dress, and thin white sheets.
I still long to let my fingers swirl,
submerged in a wetness of that beautiful girl
gyrating as our tongues vibrate with
the sweet sexiness of her pink part lips.

I am broken because I would let her
harness me, riding to find whatever she needs,
bending my tongue to taste
sweet strawberry juices from below her waist.

But that will never be.
I am broken because I no longer believe
there is anything less then
masturbatory fantasies
left for me.

You are beautiful my dear,
and if it is not clear I fear
given less distance
between us
I would let you lie to me.

I would let you
string sweet syllables
of seduction,

till my mind’s reductions
causes me to collapse
like a black hole
devouring everything
that is us
and letting nothing
ever escape.

National pride
is a lie
the rich spread
to divide.

I am tired
and full of junk,
just a mess
of cluttered madness
stuck in my trunk
along with the skunk
that makes me stink,
makes me think
I will never be
the inspired version
of the poetic me
that came before,
the one who could
write four or more
poems a night,
and read a book or two
each week.

They yell.

One father figure
far from
being young,
is a tired
diabetic,
with poor circulation,
thinning hair,
with missing
and rotting teeth,
he is a constantly
frustrated human being.

His roommate,
the other
middle aged
just turned
thirty-eight
who works
almost every day,
hair starting
to gray
just a little
teeth following
his father’s lead,
is also tired
and frustrated.

The old man is lonely
not only because
many friends
have passed
but because
his son
has to drive
fifty miles
each way
almost everyday
to work.
So, they only speak
in small spurts.

The middle-aged son
is tired because
his father always wants
to chat at the early a.m.
when he is still sleeping,
and barely even
able to open his eyes.

There are always
other little issues
like ***** dishes,
or some minor
cleaning concern.

But the son is always on the run
and the old man is always snapping
so, there is friction,

and a slight fear
that one day
when he is not here
the old man
with his health problems
will finally succumb to them,
and the son
will come
home to find
his father dead
or dying.

So, even after arguing
the middle aged-man
manages to remind his dad,
that he loves him,
even when
he is seriously considering
strangling him.

My pen cries wax tears
dripping on the floor
from the bedroom
to the bathroom door.

While you lay sipping
sweet intoxicants
I walk, partly slipping
trying to reach your side
trying to believe the lie
that love exists somewhere.

But someone else sings for you,
while my heart bleeds the truth.

The white crow flies
laughing in the night,
“Never was and never will be
you will never ever catch me.”

I feel like I have been writing the same poems over and over. I would welcome a writing prompt from anyone.

If ever the clever killer
cleaved the cold ether
no one perceived
cause it was only a thing
of old mad scientists’
and maniacal alchemists’
fictional dreams.

I am probably the most prolific poet that paces the pavement at the prestigious place of academic play. Though I do not pander to the people that pay a hefty price I still politely have parley. Even though their precarious positions cause me pain, I still try to speak plain while avoiding the profane.

2011

I have retracted
my high esteem,
and redacted
the way that you acted
from my memory files.
Now you are just
a bad dream.

There is no way
to unmake hate.
You will not
manipulate
me again.

I’d rather be
in a stampede
of caribou
than have to
go through
the **** you do
one more time.

I’m not coming back
for a round two
to watch a rerun
of what I know
you will do.

This is my hour
of deliverance.
I’ll forgo
giving you all of
my grievances;

Cause I am leaving
this very instance.

Let me be clear
I don’t want to be here.
in this month or year.

******* Valentine’s day.

Do you know how to love shadows
sit in a sick stew of solitary confinement
for a crime you did not commit?

Do you know the feel of someone else’s violence
the stinging lashes, reddening
rage distorting
fury unleashed
by someone who seems
to hate you
as much as they
hate themselves?

Do you know the flinches,
the constant guarding,
the tears cried
only when no one else
is in sight
cause why
give those ******* the satisfaction?

Do you know the self-deprecation
self-debasing
pretending that your pain
is so freaking hilarious?

Do you know the loneliness
of the vacuum
cause you distrust
any stranger
who might touch
you?

Do you know the shame
and pain
when people push
and claim
that you should let
the perpetrator
back in to your life again?
Do you know
how it feels
to press down
on the skin that swells
while tears and snot
stifle your breathing
after a beating,
how the physical pain  
of the abuse
seems to weaken
but the other stuff
leaves you wishing
you were never born?

It is only a hundred miles
two text messages
and a phone call away
to say I love and miss you.

A hundred miles
working eighty-two hours
in just one week,
when you check in on me
and hearing your voice
makes me so happy.

A hundred miles
three stories up in my hotel room,
quietly keeping to myself,
sleeping way past noon
to work at midnight,
I’ll be alright
as long as you all know
no matter where I go
I love ya.

Where do all the super heroes go?
Big bulging biceps,
pecs ready to
rip right through
in t-shirts
or super suits.

Moral quandaries,
social philosophies,
counter to expectation
these are not merely
masked muscle men
and women
we are facing,
but symbols.

Righteous warriors
going round for round
putting clowns into the ground,
or refusing to yield to
the urge to **** the few
big bad dudes
who wear ridiculous costumes to.

Guns and knives
squads of suicide
life on the edge of tomorrow,
but those forces are fragile
frightening forms as agile
as circus acrobats,
almost immortal
because they
always seem to come back.

These are merely
specters of mythic glory,
manifestations of our magnificent
imaginations,
panels of artistic exaggerations.
Truly, the inspiration
of my own self-creation
because in a world
without superheroes
I long to be one.

Damning verses
from ancient scripture
gave excuses
so he could hit her,
with logic as fluid
as ***** dishwater
that ******* father
beat on his daughter.

I cannot force feeling from a stone
Nor make another heart beat
As beats the one I own
So I am left alone
To mourn the broken heart
That beats beneath my breast

I cut my teeth
On sapphires
Not pacifiers
Sweet chunks
Of painful beauty
****** gums
And bleeding teeth
Broken drums
Still playing
In my heartbeats
With no repeats

The clock in the waiting room
hasn't been changed to
reflect daylight saving time
just like the one in
the coffee break space.
The black liquid tastes
like a remedy to my lack of sleep
but since each clock is off
I am constantly caught
thinking my weekend
is an hour closer than it really is.

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.”

I cut my loss.
I ran away.
Told the world
I cannot stay,
but the truth is
I’m not that strong.
Give me a minute
and I’ll be gone.

An undercurrent,
A buzzing pain,
I hid it so well,
till, I could not recall
that inside myself
was a reservoir of grief.
Which is why I drown
when I go down deep.

I close my eyes
and each loved one is there
each family member or friend
that has died
and those who just
disappeared.
I retrace my step
to see them all again
but I cannot get back
to what we were then.

You see me in my words
please remember me well.
See me in the past,
because now I’m not here.
I am so sorry
that I had to go.
I hope you know
I love you all.

Fare thee well.
Goodbye my friends
For you life may be good,
but for me it’s the end.

Rough wheels run circles
Around a static background
Passing the same horizon
Over and over again
Like some old cartoon
Driving in place
As he races to his next stop
To live unload his next drop
Early bird waiting hours plus
Hoping they can fit him in
So he can hit the road again
Before his electronic log
Locks him down for the day
He brings his paperwork
And waits
He pulls his tandem back
Then waits
Drops his trailer in the door
And waits
Rest stop gas station shower
On the road
Smoke stacks cough up
Black clouds
Yellow lines
Become yellow blurs
Another load down
Another pick up
The road rides him roughly
Home beckons him on
Fifteen hundred miles
To his own bed
Coffee break and **** stop
To clear his head
And the sunset runs seventy miles
An hour
While he pushes seventy-five
Two million miles down
Two million more to end his life

If there is a heaven
waiting up there for me,
patiently playing
on eternity’s
celestial strings.
I hope there are
less human beings
and more trees.

More majestic oaks
standing firm and deliberate
never speaking till
they find the truth
and are certain of it.

I would rather cherish
a cherry tree
in the after life
then face a horde
of alt right
idiots.

Or,
perhaps
as it really is
I would prefer
not to exist.

Perhaps is smacks of desperation
The slacks that act as decoration
But due to economic inflation
There will be no holiday vacation
No exotic island destination
Only financial frustration
And menial mental *******

I don’t want to go
because I feel responsible
for my seventy-year-old
infirmed father,
trapped by a self-imposed
sense of obligation,
self-erasing, and disintegrating
any chance of self-elevation
in the pursuit of
taking care of
someone I love.

So many years lost trying to
help and get through to
someone who doesn’t
seem to have a clue
what his angry outbursts do.

I feel guilty for wanting my own life
minus all this major family strife.

Ten years I’ve been too scared to leave
because I didn’t know what I would do
or if I could even afford to move.

Will I step forward or be subdued
by fear and attachments to
a situation that holds no true
future growth for me?

Depression is so brutal.
It is not a French poodle.
There is nothing cute about it.

Violent ambitions open their ****** maw
Sharpens their mangled claws
Readied to strike
Not for what is right
But for something
That turns friend to enemy
Call their enemies a state
Hurt strangers and lovers
Out of love for gain
And the hunger
Which moistens their mouth
Is never sated
Thus with every bite
Another wound is born
Not fatal but crippling
That leaves us tripping
And tipping ever backwards
Towards the dark ages

When the stress
runs roughly
over these
current moments,
we look back
to the black pasts
and remember
shiny slivers.

We turn
those dark
and dangerous days
into greener shades
of pastural pleasure.

We celebrate
our own
old ignorance
and call it
nostalgia.

We ride
a carousal
of colorful
what ifs,
and maybes.

Wasting fleeting
opportunities
to make today
better then
yesterday.

Evolution is like a rubber band ball
starting small and simple,
but slowly expanding,
changing while keeping
each piece that came before.

The Devil’s in the details
which is how we lose
as the preachers picks our pockets
from the upstairs pews.

Politicians keep bragging
about the lines they drew
to obstruct democracy
and steal our money
like their rich friends
wanted them to do.

I sit in the dark
and puncture my heart
play poet to start
balancing all of those
uneven evening stars.
Till all of our scars blink at
the same twinkling beat that
blows me away like
an old-school gangster’s gat.

Now, I bleed
and I can’t get that red shirt back
this isn’t Star trek
but I use to figure that
we would be better than that.
Instead, we are worse.

So I curse this curious soul,
drop off to sleep and lose control.
I let my sub conscious go,
shrink my hope and let sorrow grow,
write it down so you will know
that we are not getting better.
We’re getting way worse.

The bloviate voices bellow
unbound by morality
or the clarity of logic
that rational people seek.

I search the multitude
of men and women
for the ecstasy
of a poet’s euphony.

But the unmoved masses
do not parlay that way.
They simmer in their hate,
rage when they
don’t get their way,
causing strangers
undue amounts of pain.

In an autumnal day
I am impelled
by the sharpness
of these unmovable hearts.

However, my mettle is molten
marked by my persistence
as I seek the betterment
of all mankind.

Time broke the heart of Van Gogh
Wrenched the soul of Edgar Allen Poe
As the ages spoke with words and paints
The romantics yielded up all of their pain
And put it on display in canvasses and pages

I know I won’t be here forever,
and I am just wasting away,
watching politician playing their games,
play acting outrage while preventing change.

There is a no place for my face
that shifts and distorts from the pain
that I am forced to witness over and over again.

I’m not the cleverest
but stating facts makes me feel like
I’m trying to scale Mt. Everest
while screaming against the bitterest winds,
like I am going to have to watch all of my friends
slip off the top and drop nonstop
until our whole civilization ends.

I’m just dressing my heartbreak up in
stark sparkling words meant to
amuse and enlighten all of you,
until the same fate catches up to me to,
and my legacy disintegrates
with the rest of the human race.

Your ten thousand prayers
Don’t add up to
to doing what
you prayed for
god to do.

Ask the starving man
if he would like
us to sit by
and pray all night
for someone to give him
a piece of food,
or if he would prefer
direct action like
someone passing
him a dollar or a donut.

Ask the man who waits for
rope while he dangles
off the side of the cliff
if he would prefer
ten prayers to be heard
or one of the people
praying to bring him a rope.

Ask yourself if you had to choose
between group praying for a cure
or a doctor who has six plus years
to help you with whatever disease
that is afflicting you.
What would you do?
What would you prefer?

A man can die
waiting for help
while fools decide
out of pride
that their prayers
are better then
taking direct action.

It is not fair that I am happily an ear
For everyone else’s problems
But when I need my nearest and dearest friend
He does not want to talk to me
And I can’t muster up the will to
Talk to anyone else
So I will drown
Or grow some gills to swim

The sun begins
to descend
and I reach
to touch
that distant glow,
a dwindling fury
that falls,
to allow
the cold moon light’s
lovely ascension.

I wait,
longing to rush
that rapturous fire,
to devour
such radiance,
to feast upon
the atoms
that explode.

I am ravenous,
and jealous,
angry at
the otherside
that soon
will come to life
while I am
drenched
in night.

Begging,
I beseech thee
sun please don’t
leave me,

but the gaseous orb
ignores me
as I implore,
cajoling
with strange
disintegration fantasies.

The sun leaves me.
So, I start courting the moon,
because I do not wish
to live so lonely.

She left work early
to catch a train
high heels
spiking puddles of rain.

She will not be back again;

Turned the corner
almost tripped
barely missed
getting hit
by a yellow cab.

All aboard and off
at her final stop
two lefts
and straight three blocks,

Up the stairs
with no one there
in the bathroom
waits fate unfair.

Blood shot eyes
and thinning hair,
She hid it well,
or maybe no one cared.

She counts the pills,
and puts them back
Pulls out the razor,
and puts it back
resisting the urge
to finally do that.

In the mirror,
she stares defiant
standing self reliant
ready to live.

A dish of soap,
still bubbly soaked,
slips off the counter
tripping her silent
leaving a cold corpse
where they found her.

It has been so many years passing
But every love lost
Every love rejected
Has taken its toll
Chipped away
At the clay
That I was using
To hold my heart
Together

I’d like to
thank god
for selectively
supporting
a specific
sports team
while
other human beings
are still existing
in unnecessary suffering.

I’d like to
thank god
for letting me
be so wealthy
while a world
of women, men,
and children
are still starving.

I’d like to
thank god
for my sleep
and for being our shepherd
cause we are sheep.
Thank god,
bah bah bah
bah bah bah.

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.”

Out in time
to see the last bits of sunshine
as I walk to work.

The moon is just this side
of stained teeth yellow
but after the night clouds clear
the white light face reappears.

A dark blue or black car
slowly drives through
like it is stalking me.
So, I move on as quickly
and quietly
as my anxiety
and feet allow me.

Thin dry brown vines
wrap around the black fence,
while the lite green
slowly dehydrating
leaves
line up on a broken tree limb
ready to fall
for the seasonal crumbling.

A ***** brown bearded stranger
lays in the doorway
perhaps he is
too tired to worry about the danger
or he is too drunk to stay awake.
His head rests on a white garbage bag
with indiscernible contents.

In an open-air café
two people talk
the night away
while a stranger sits
nondescript
on a black bench.
The patrons leave a tip
but the stranger grabs it
and swiftly walks away.

Strangers hold hands
and walk.
Stranger stare in the distance
and talk
on their cellphones.
Strangers do not make eye contact
but it is their silent plea
for some humanity
that makes me smile
and greet them politely.

Until, the night leads me
to where I work security,
an overnight shift
perfectly fitting to
my desire to be alone.

Be forewarn
that when I write
my autobiography
I will lie;

Sometimes by exclusion,
omitting the unfitting
bits from my narrative.

Other times
by the blindness
and biasness
of being
so far removed
from the life
I wish you
to view.

As I strive
to write
about my life
in truth,
I will fail me
and you to,
but not for
lack of trying
to do right.