You birth is an invitation
Few received from quintillion plus
Possible people
A gift to exist
A choice given
The variables
A ticket to the freak show
Or to the joy ride
Of expanding life
And human consciousness
It was now stamped for approval
Nor is it dependent on the permission
From those in power
You are required
To live by their patterns
Why would you
When you can build a better loom

Imagine
That skin
Burnt
Under the sun
Not from fun
But from
Stolen labor
History’s black spot
From slavery
To Chain gangs
To the modern
Prison
Profit machines
Grinding
Human beings
Into to dust
They are us
We are them
Our prison
Our minds
Stolen

Cracks in the sidewalk
splinter concrete
but I can’t see
the same openings
in me.

Crunchy dry brown leaves
crumble underneath my sore feet,
a victim of this summer heat.

I bet I look suspicious
stopping on every block
to look around and take stock,
looking down every street
cause I can see things
that touch me
and use them for
my poetry.

Grandkid plays
his clarinet
looking for
attention that
he can’t get
cause his
hefty grandma
can’t even look up
from her cellphone.

Little children
outside playing
get fenced in
for their safety.

Older dude
works outside
while I’m
walking through.
He has
a wooden fence
and a ladder that is
wooden to,
doesn’t even
turn his head
to acknowledge me.
So, I walk on by
this human being
cause lawn care
seems more important
then our neighbors.

Even I
a sympathetic
nice guy
walk on by
people who look like
they could use some help,
because I just want
to be left to myself.

Black man identified
by his brown skin,
I wonder how many people
even notice him
in his superman shirt
with few good teeth,
hunched over holding in
the stomach pain
that is bothering him.

On a back street
next to the railroad
an old soul drives real slow
in a ***** brown van
careful not to go
anywhere near
the cops that drive
by here
cause he is homeless.

Now, I hit this business district
full of business men *******.
Politician ignore the
bums who inhabit it,
only care about how to
maximize profits.
Scraps of litter
spread across it
just like all the people
who cross the crosswalk
avoiding small talk
and the gazes of stranger
because they feel
like they are in danger.

An American flag flies high
down the street
from a stone church
were people meet
so they don’t have to think.

All for the sake of order
I to create human borders
to maintain my sanity
in this reality of pain.

There’s a crack
in the back black
parking lot.

There’s a crack in my engine
so, my car
won’t start,

and there’s a crack
in my demeanor
so, any one
can look in
and see my
bleeding heart.

Can you feel the furnace
You seek to stuff my soul into
See the flames licking skin
How sickeningly you sit in
Your sixteen-foot-long pews
Listening to a preacher who spews
Vile lines of ancient lies
How you are devoted to him
Singing love and hellfire hate
In the same song

Carousal dreams
Carry my laughter
While my past screams
Chase happily ever after

And I age faster
As the day fades
Stars stray
From their place
And die
Before I ever see
Their true face

Sparkling carnival colors
Spin around
Up and down
Absorbing
The sunny summer day’s
Heated rays
Till the ferris wheel seats
Blister my broken bottom

Grey gravel
Green leaves
See me passing
These barren streets
Crossing memory lanes
Passing past self
Leaving all the blame
With a person
I will never be again

The circuit board breaks
Pathways flare up
And fizzle out of existence
Muscles spasm
As I walk in to the last chasm
Leaving trails
Of nothingness behind me

The cavern closes
No one else goes in
And I never come out

These nightmares
Are black and white
Rectangle pieces of paper
Because colored
Cuts would hurt
Too much

Instead we track
Railway cars packed
People stacked
And dropped behind
Barbed wire restraints
Bare burnt brick buildings
Were soldier’s stole
Pretty clothes
Trinkets, and anything gold

Never forget
The nearly naked numbered men
That barely survived
The acid burning
Of women and children
Starving saints
More bone than flesh
Ovens made to cook
The stolen Skin of their kin

We hold such horrors
Far away
Keeping shallow thoughts close
While Forgetting those
Who suffered such indignities
But this is our shared history
Lessons we need to see repeatedly
So we do not let others succeed in
Seeding the same dark tyranny
In our modern democracy

It is just a thing
barely a temporary fix
that does not mix
with the mind’s expansions
does not help you grow
or know
new worlds
within or without.

It will not save you
or take you to
new and grand places
with unknown faces.
Unless, it is a book.

I got tired
of trying to debate fanatics
so, I tried the Socratic method
but ended up having to
crack my skull open
on Plato’s Cave.
Then apologize before
I drank up
a big cup
of hemlock.

Sacs of flesh water skins
Bleach white bones
Will burn from within
Cancer sticks
Fleshy *****
Human animals
With parts that fit
**** to ****
Desire this
But I resist
Wanting love
From the lust that I missed
We kissed and now we are dust

I am not depressed,
barely dressed
in a long shirt
and dark blue sweats.

I just want to sleep,
let me be
free
from your
wanna motivate me
society.

I’m not complaining
cause even though
it is really raining
and my room
doesn’t have much heat,
I got more than
I need to eat.

I just can’t seem
to gleam
any energy.

Generally,
I am a much better
version you see,
but this week
I think
I just need
a vacation
from that
urgency,

so, I am going to sleep.

Please do not wake me.

I let my dreams hurt me,
helped hope hang me out to dry.
I watch the world go crazy
and sometimes I wanted to die.
Still, in the morning
just before I remember my life
I get a glimpse of hope
and the irony of it all
makes me laugh.

How many times can you clench your fists
Claim defense while proactively seeking conflict
Looking to others as the culprit when you did it
How many times can you wage war
Taking more and more before
The blood soaked shores
Come back to haunt your greedy heart
Are you a tin can machine man
With little or no heart to feel for
Your victims in this strange war
Or are you human with eyes to see
That the soft warm flesh you cleave
Is not an illusion or video projection
But a genetic copy with only minor variations
That your enemy is not a nation
That fills its ranks with fanatic monsters
But a funhouse mirrors that reflects
The same passions and drives that move you
To do what you do
One look through this cold Chrystal clear blue lake
And you will be forced to take their pain as your own
Look just one time with an open mind and it will be known
That there is no enemy
Only unclaimed family

To see you smile again
to play a game of
Chinese checkers
and then dominoes
watch wheel of fortune
to see who knows
the answer faster
then those *******
on the show.

To see your
scraggly face
half-grown beard
silent strong type
who smoked a pipe
who worked the campground
near the end of his life
just to make a little more money
and have something extra
to do at night

To go back to when
we three were traveling
together to New Salem
me the small skinny
child with tubes in his ears
and you two old farts
who took me there

Now I only see you two
in dreams.

There is malintent
maliciousness
by a maleficent
monster of a man.

Long ago destruction
became the landscape.
Bullet and bomb holes
punctured the earth.

Though once a field
of fetid forms
filthy with decay
where all the bodies laid
now there is no more smoke.
Here sweet roses grow.

Instead, there are new
war wounds.
Violence blooms.
Each day new battles loom
one man wears down
one woman’s defenses.

For what it’s worth
her heart hurts worse.
Her skin was swollen
and very bruised.
Despite the truth
and her trust issues
she tried to stay
and weather his
horrible ways.

Until, one day
her face collapsed
under his furious force,
and her body went limp
as life divorced,
soul torn from flesh.

She broke her own heart
For a love that was not even fit enough
To bare her weight
To stare and say
Sweet promises for today
The feather fell
Flying lightly in the breeze
Cold as ice
Her skin was twice
As heavy as death
Her sorrow was as deep
As the Marianas Trench
Left her drenched in despair
The places where
She put her hopes for love’s return
That love once spurned
Could be restored
Instead her tumblr is erased
Her facebook is replaced
With a blank face
And old messages
Left unanswered

The pains of now are provocatively painful and push us powerfully to places we would prefer not to go. However, the pains of memory hopefully lessen with the distance of time.

I got this addiction,
to slight degrees
of self-improvement
fantasies.

I got a bad habit
of trying to be
the guy people think
is a super hero.

When others rabbit,
I take their pain
and grab it
till it scorches me
to prove something
is good about
my humanity.

Sometimes
I try to make
the people
who are full
of hate
and suffering
see the shimmering
beauty
of what
runs through us all
unevenly,
the artistry
of evolution
and poetry.

It pushes me
out from the corners
of complacency
were most would
rest easily.

But it also spoils me,
rotting my ability
to achieve
any normalcy.

So, I am
a human being
apart
from most other
**** sapiens
and while I am
trying to save them
I am also trying to
escape them.

Terror and inhumanity
have become
a tepid brew
that is stewed
in blood
and drank daily,
so said poison
no longer has any
effect on me.

I did not really listen
cause everything written
that I read
was devoured too fast.
It was only when I slowed down
that I saw the words
for more then what they were.
They became images in my head
of the spiraling universe they represented.

Tis a strange outlet for my unrelenting desire to write and be read, but here on hello poetry I know there a few people who will read my writing and that gives me the grandest pleasure I have ever known in my life. Maybe one day millions will read my words and find inspiration but right now I am grateful for what I get.

The time is eleven oh eight
The clock counts
The end of shift
To tick tocking far away
Nervous tongue
That splits the tip
Restrained to the point of pain
Fear that some vain *******
Who feigns righteous outrage
Will take away
That which enslaves
With meager wages
And the fool
Will not have the tools
To maintain this vain
Footrace
Slipping off
That track that
He hates
But believes
Is the only real way
To exist

Her skin was cursed stone
Hard as her heart
And I could not bridge
The gap
Could not cross
The coveted spot
To find her heart
Remove the marble
Till it was freed
Chip by chip
And let her be
Till the stony queen
Finally loved 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.

It is not completely destructive
But a deep dulling
I want to ask for help
I want someone to love me
But I cannot speak
I am muted in my pain
Because my pain does not matter

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

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

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

Frequently,
I race across the words
reading too rapidly,
missing the depths
of descriptive sounds,
and failing to engage
the full immersive array
of language the writer displays
because I wish to portray
the fiction of a deep person
who reads intelligently.

My quick wit
put me on her
stupid hit list,
but her hitmen
took their best shots
and missed again.

Dark is the insight of love
Not light that devours each night
Spawning the play of day
But evening shades
Layers of grey
Turning to black
It’s cool and welcoming
Quiet and beautiful
It’s expansive
Frightening
A vexing void
And every variation in between
These two similar things

I let the wind ride me
Sending waves of beauty
Tiny lakes, thin tributaries
And pond like puddles
Destine to dissipate, disappearing
But for now they dance
In their dirt and gravel

We crumble
into the rubble,
collapse into the past.
We cringe when
the fire comes,
but never run
fast enough.

This year has been the last,
failing falling fierce battle axe
hovering above my neck.
Panic keeping me in check
as anxiety for the end of society
builds up like a wall of water
which rushes in
ready to crush me and my friends
and drown us all in the end.

This merry man
carries cans
of kerosene,
cause he's getting ready
to burn down everything.

I am stealing my last breath
Working well until my death
Sitting still and still I tell myself
This is what I am looking for
Kissing, touching, and loving for
Savoring and wanting more
Like Cupid’s last crust of bread
I am brown and dry but still rich tasting
Basking, basting, and baking
With all that delicious love
I take myself to bed instead of
Staying awake with my racing brain
Fulfilling my last best dressed wish
I rest to lay my aching head
Softly sinking in a red pillow
Till they find me dead in my bed

As always she is the body of desire.
Pierced lips pursed with impure intent.
Mouth wet with desire.
Body writhing in the agony of passion's unfulfilled promise.
Black hair long and fallen like her favorite angel;
She absorbs the dark arts of lost hearts
pleading with the power of a submissive’s gaze,

Heaven's arms wrapped around her slender figure
while the denizens of hell desire her softest whisper.
The best passive conqueror of my soul
and I submit to the lust of her being.

Addiction makes me
a sick clown watching
a killer circus
filled with empty seats
and dead animals.

This wickedly twisted world
spins me around
like a broken carnival ride
that goes faster and faster.
While chuckling *******
wear plaster smiles
I sit sick and vomiting
spewing lines of black ink
half-truths obscured
by metaphors and similes.

The nightmare men
stare and grin at me
military twin to the police
wearing violence menacingly
strangling the landscape
with rubble, mace, mud,
glass, bullets, and blood.

I would wear goggles
to protect me from
their blood soaked insanity
but I prefer to look
with crystal clear
chlorine eyes
that burn
the very core of me.

I used to dream of
endless M.C. Escher stairways
that led to quiet rooms
with no one in them

What is holy to you
is something I view
as almost see through,
full of obvious holes
that you should be able to
navigate through
and find the other side
of what is right.

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.

Perhaps we should take comfort in our insignificance. The universe is indifferent. It neither needs or care for our existence. All the reason we need to care about one another is that our existence is so transient. It is most likely we will not revisit this or any other life, so why not treasure those by our side, and be kind to strangers for that reason alone.

Once I was
a carefree breed
uncowed you see
by my society,

but I as I gained
sweet security
measured by
materiel wealth’s
so called maturity

the fear of losing
what little I had
confounded and
controlled me.

Once, I would have
given my last dollar
to any stranger
who was hungry,

I would have stopped
to comfort with kind words
anyone who seemed
bothered,

and whether going to
or coming home from work
I would have stopped
to help a stranded stranger.

Now, even though,
I know
these people
pose no danger
I do not stop
nor part
with any pennies.

Instead, I rush to work
and to the gym
to make money
and muscles
in hopes of
fitting in
by looking
buff but still
trim,
working towards
that **** thin.

Nose to the grindstone
focused on the job
and all the stresses
like keeping well dressed
and keeping my car running,

the once
kind carefree fellow
I used to be
becomes corrupt
by my insecurity
in the pursuit of
stability.

The traveler is home.
Season’s end finds him
safely sequestered in
friendly and familial arms.
The distances now bridged
allow him to give
that which he sought
and achieved at great cost.

The traveler is home,
unpacking his treasures,
unloading his wisdom,
given in writing
and spoken in person,
silver proses
not wrapped in bows,
but human woes,
truths in experiences
parlayed part of the way
and interlaced
with the fictions he traced
to spruce the narratives up.
In return he receives
handshakes, helloes
how are you doing,
and where have you been.

The traveler is home
but that is not enough.
Love cannot tether him here
and even in polite conversation
when he is facing
those he loves
his eyes search the distance
planning the perfect parting moment
while longing for adventures
and new stories untold.

Even when the traveler is home
his mind is already back on the road.
Before he washes his cloths
he is already ready to go,
so every single hello
is just an unfinished goodbye.

The traveler is only home on the road.

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 world can be a cold and dark place. Whispering winds of change force us on into an uncertain future. We struggle to maintain a strong sense of identity, but so many loose themselves in the crowed, and their potential is losses to the desire to conform.
phew, lucky for me I don't know how to conform. Being a nerd has its advantages sometimes.

They strip me of my dignities.
Time steals treasured memories.
Stress ages with wrinkles and ulcers.

No new faith just tarnished alters,
majestic dreams cannot sustain.
I falter in the throes of this pain,
stand trembling, stumbling in vain.
I cannot remain the same.

Fallen family and friends disappear
moving up on and out of here.

In the end I lose it all;
dying with no angel wings
to bring me to them.

Used to be the poet’s pen
Was his soul mate
Then the typewriter came
Like a bitter lover
Then the computer came
And I dropped my second lover
For a better one
I hope that she will be my last

Our lives
become fictions
that we have rewritten
in fragmented memories.

I am just this side of
the lunar light
lying naked
open to display this
broken vessel.

My sanity
should be questioned
as I am questing
for the truth in art
for the part of my heart
that is made to
blow up and bleed
all over the
white screen.

I am sinking
and self-elevating
at the same time,
a caffeine fiend
and barely seen
best friend
to humanity
who works
behind the
behind the scenes.

My mind is moved to distractions
but loathed to take action
as I sit and ponder
that which all humans squander.
Till the ticking beast
finally beats me.

Introverted, with frantic outbursts
of playful manic energy,
unlike Freddie Mercury
I am not going slightly mad.
I am already way up
that particular banana tree.

There is juice
bleeding from
The flesh of the apple
As my predator eyes
Lick the drops
That drip
And slip down
The light green side

I am hungry
so I bite deep and fiercely
letting the sweet pleasure
envelope me.

In my frenzy
I bite to deeply,
spit seeds
on the ground before me;
Hoping a tree
sprouts
so I can be
like Johnny Appleseed,
the progenitor of a new
delicious American dream.

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.