I know better
I love life’s pleasures
Unlike the old philosophers
Who created grand systems
Of morality
That they could never live up to
Systems that sustained their ego
But I know
I am no hero
Half hearted
Hopeful
Maybe a word warrior
Working wisdom
Into my poems
But I do not sacrifice much
I am weak
I love
But not enough
To decimate myself
Not enough to give up
The pleasures of my life
I know myself
I would like to be better
But I am too **** lazy

What will people say
such a scandalous affair
a trickle claiming to be rain
when no water ever
comes near here.

Oh, dear what will
they think.
I shiver to inquire
what would ever inspire
such vague ideas.

If I truly cared
what strangers thought
I would not
be who I am
a poet pleading wares of words.

Truly I am a fool,
because I care
just enough to want
people to read my words
but not enough to change
the core of who I am.

I hear the train stutter
as it vibrates the whole block.
A conductor runs
those rusted cars
roughly across the tracks.
From the bank
I can see each car
with their random tags
from artists
all over this land.

Blank walls
paint the
transparent halls
of my memory.

The tragedy
is that I can’t see
pass the
The steps
that spiral
into grief.

The unpainted
empty timber
barn toy box
collects dust,
leaving me
to choke
on what was once
playful fancies.

The closet is closed,
but beyond
the dark brown
wooden patterns
I hear echoes;

People I knew
talking,
sitting in old
frayed
lawn chairs,
looking up
at the night sky,
and me playing.
Star light,
flint rocks,
and fireflies
sparkle
escaping
through the crack.

But the door
is locked
and I can’t
get back
to that or
to those I miss.

So, I cry.
Fear
plants its fierce feet
hard into my face
as I worry
that I will be to late
to say goodbye
to the next
loved one that dies.

For a scarred heart like mine
Love is a sucker’s bet.
Russian roulette
with bullets that won’t
quite **** me yet
just make me forget
how to feel hope for real.

No Christmas song
No holiday cheer
No joyful sounds
To hear
Just melancholy
Madness
That ends this
Time of year

They are a mad mass of
political extremists
trying to be free
in this society.

But their collective minds are
turgid tumorous towers
blank expanses
that expand their
oppressive presence
while stifling the essence
of creativity.

I wait for a better world
one without these mad pig pen children
who cry angrily for their imagined losses.

Until, I wait no more, and fresh fields are formed
over our long decayed forms
letting flowers bloom effulgent.
New rows rise full of white and pink roses,
while trees spread their wing-like leaves
allowing nature to finally breath
a gasp of relief
without the mentally diseased
human beings to plague
her floating oblong figure.

I watched you fall
and start to crawl
staring up at that
old boring brick wall
wondering how
you will ever
be able to climb over
the top of
that orange towering
obstruction.
You never stopped
to see that if you
wanted to continue
your journey
you could just walk around it.

The feet of time
trudge on
on infinity’s dime.

Beneath its nimble steps
the cement sidewalk crumbles.

Time liberates
the land,
freeing it from
the bonds
we placed upon
its muddy back,
erasing imagined borders.

States crumble.
Nations deteriorate.
Man’s footprint
will eventually be erased.

Except for climate change.

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.

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

There is no remuneration
From this sick society
We are facing
No clear outcomes
When you can’t outrun
The authoritarian's gun
There is no revolution
That will work
Without people getting hurt
Just a long grey tunnel
Taking us to
Those two dark towers
Flowers plucked
Petals pulled out
Chlorophyll turns red
Children turn up dead
In a city square’s worth of debris
Fifty more in a club
Girl's school gets blown up
Bombs get dropped
By crooks making
Major deposits
Their friends making
Killer profits
Their bank accounts cost us
Sanity and human decency

The water falls fast
while most of the strange people
are safely sequestered
in their silent homes
to wait out
this severe thunderstorm.

Strangers make their way
as the storm fades
out into the early day.

Tank tops are wet,
less with sweat,
and more with
the warm
summer storm
bath.

This humid summer heat
Is a like a sauna

Dark green leaves
move softly
with a cooling breeze
while pointing in
so many direction
and awaiting new
chlorophyll dreams.

Like long ago lullabies
those thick limbs
come tumbling down
and sinking in
the soft brown ground.

A minor mud slide
makes black sludge overlap
onto the grey cracked cement
leaving black tracks
when bikes cycle through.

The church black top
is finally down to
its last two
wet spots.

A sunken roof
with white chipped paint
makes the yellow house
look like it in
a lot of pain.

The sky is falling
Little lights slowly descend
Little broken rays of solar skin
Coursing in the blue horizon

The day dies a slow
And sensual death
Teasing out each second
With slowly disappearing
Orange illusions
Till the night consumes
The suns last gasp

Veins of lightning
Crackle in the distance
We count the seconds
To imagine how safe
We might be

The cloud sweats and spits
Falling debris
Soaking me

My mind searches
For less familiar ways
To say the same thing
I wearily search
For a better way
To stay awake in the wake
Of this sad storm
Till I can let sleep
Refresh the best of me

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.

I believe that the gift
I have been given
is for looking at things
different,
for shifting strange perceptions
and seeking underlying connections
of a nonspiritual persuasion.

It is partly
some practical
procedural
precedent
that holds up
our presidential
nonsense.

So, I guess
I should applaud it,
but I am just
nauseas
with the madness
of the whole system
we live in.

I paint you
with a brush
smothered
in blue.

Then write you
with only
a verb or two;

Nothing much
just a vaporous
presence
that stews
on the canvass
and inked paper.

Some say that he is horrible.
I say that she is adorable,
and that their judgements
are deplorable.

Cause despite how she is transitioning
there is an inner beauty still shining,
all that outer stuff is purely aesthetic
all that hatred is absurdly pathetic.

I like her to be
feminine or masculine
as she pleases.

Dusty Deadbolt eyes never open again

A beauty works
enshrouded by
obscuring light
long blond hair
verging on
silver grey
interesting
moving and smiling
working
seems kind
from what I can see.

Perhaps that is just
the bias in me
that wishes beauty
to be as beautiful
inside as what is outside.
I keep such thoughts to myself.

I spend my days in an exhausted laden haze
Weariness working on me on several levels
Sapping my will
Snapping at my heels
Weakening my wit
Creating more stress
Retaining more fat
It is not a matter of debate
But a matter of fact
That I state
Aging me rapidly
I am certain most of us
Could use a little less work
And a little more sleep
So I strive to thrive
Not live dead tired inside

The mystery and magic of our life is a product of our subconscious. Fluid movements based off of muscle memory, the things we feel and see while meditating, the initial creation of art before you edit it, the recognition of patterns before you even think this is all part of our subconscious processes.

At what point is it right
To sail out of the night
Alone
Charting a course
Away from the shores
Letting the sand fall out of your shoes
Leaving your unpaid dues
Forgetting family obligations
Just sailing towards the rising sun
Despite the black clouds
Storming back there where you are from

Maybe I don’t deserve to be sad,
didn’t do something bad,
and the fortune I had
is ok.

Maybe all this **** ain’t my fault.
The wars were not mine.
I did commit those crimes.

Maybe the truth is,
I spent too much time in the dark,
but today has my heart,
and the sun feels so good

The sins of the father do not own the son.
It matters naught where we come from,
We can scramble out of the shadows of history
and become a better breed of humanity.
Just because it was and always should be
will not be a rallying cry for traditions.
We need not cow to superstitions
that diminish us,
because we have the potential to be
Brilliant.

The orange sun retreats
beautifully surrendering
to the clouds and night sky
that is pursuing him.

The last bits of lights
turns gray cirrus purple
signaling crickets
and crazy croaking frogs
that they are free
to sing with the birds.

Warm become a cool forty-six degrees.
While others ready for sleep,
I look forward to the ecstasy
of waiting in such fervent longing
for the sun to return.

Today I am betrayed
As I wallow in the swill I am swallowing
Swollen eyes partly parted
Grief given to me by those I believed
Were friends
My good job is gone
My best friend is gone
My life is all wrong
And I walk around in
A broken haze

We are flesh made for leaving
Or being bereft for being left
Made for deceiving or being deceived
By those who claimed to love us
Those we thought we could trust
Trial by fire they tried and lied
Leaving us only sad broken ****

I’ve been your noble knight
salt white marble pillar
holding you up carefully
while other lovers crumble
under the weight of
your kind of love.

You do not know your enemy;
For the flesh you see
bleed just like thee.
Tears swell and fall
when they lose those
they love
those whom
they would hold close;
But then when your
bombs explode
shrapnel goes
in their throats
in their arms
and in their eyes
clouding and killing
their consciousness,
our enemy buries this
body boiled in
rage and chaos
setting the stage
to make them hate us.
How can you blame them?

Oh dear in dressing to be a princess
you cut your feet on glass slippers,
ate the poisoned apple of conformity,
had *** with a big abusive beast,
wept deep in dark dreams as you slept,
gave up the sea and your voice,
forgot how to sing, swim, and learn,
traded childhood dreams for adult schemes,
so you can aspire to other’s desire
to confine you to your pumpkin carriages
and strange boring marriages.

You saw a man in trouble
and went on your merry way.
Then  found yourself
in a similar position
that very next day.
No one stopped to help you
isn't that strange?

I am a river of longing
Swerving and changing
Draining myself
Into your desirous ocean
While you evaporate
Swelling the bodies
Of other oceans, seas,
Lakes, rivers, and tributaries
Leaving little love left for me

My muse burns with a cold fury,
a frosted fire that flames in the night
fast as death and slow as time.
I sit and wait, hoping I’ll find
the right words to fill this rhyme.

So, I seek soft speakers who feel as I,
the ones who use poetry
to tell beautiful truth filled lies.

Then once I have devoured their vowels,
once I have sipped and savored
their constant consonants
briskly reading through
the stuff they share with me and you,
I let my mind do what it must do.
I rest, absorb, learn, and get ready to use,
the sweet words of my wonderful muses.

Faster than
a flash in a pan
I’m tossed in a can
the discarded man
who made spectacular plans.

Plans that spanned
beyond human command,

a hopeful hearted poet
alone, sinking in quicksand
the sweet gentleman,

a noble sacrifice of convenience
because my momentum
was already carrying me there.

So, in caring I shared
sweet smiles and jokes
all my thoughts and my hopes
to help you all cope
while I go boldly on into
that last dark night
you were all dreading.

So when I die
do not let our nation’s
flag fly high
a symbol of separating humans
by maps and accidental locations,
don’t sound soldiers glory with rifles

Point your pens
to the heavens
where dreams of space begin
send me into oblivion
with love
and hopes for exploration
and in my name
write a better
kinder world
then the one
I am leaving.

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.

Morality and ethics are abstract illusions/delusions that are relative to the place and time of ones existence.

Her yellow wolf eyes
See me
The prey
Always naked
And breathless
Never living
Cause I am deathless
**** before her
Throat exposed
Flesh touching the tip
Drip after drip
Of her saliva
I make
A great winter pelt
For her collection

All things change.
Rivers shift
their paths
and find
new points of release.
That water we see
will never flow
exactly the same.

All things change.
Feelings find
different levels
and different people
feel differently
every single day.

All things change.
Branches shift
with wind and water,
swaying and growing
at the same time,
living today,
but dying partly tomorrow.

All things change.
Jobs are lost.
Cities expand.
Businesses move.
Libraries do to.
Even loved ones
move on.

All things change.
We remember
and forget,
prune and regrow,
even though we know
we to will die.

For the ecstasy
of love
I would have
cut my tongue,

I would have
silenced myself,
suffocated my outrage
for the chance to exist
in the elevated state
of her embrace.

I would have
slowly sliced
the essentials
of my identity
to feed said addiction.

So, in losing
even the illusion
of the chance of love
I am freed from
the strangle hold
that it would have.

Even though,
these are the truths
that I know,
I am certain
that I would
happily relapse.

The ebony
black bent gate
bends from the weight
of age
separated from
the scraped cement
while scratching
the great brick
supports beside it.

Barely a buck fifty,
gift from some
far off city
that was given to me.

A soft gaudy snow globe world
with winter glitter swimming in
clear plastic that a snow man
must have recently move to live in.

Cute as can be
even though
it was cheaply
made, bought
and given
with little thought
or effort.

Dusk is dull and gray
but the poet
will not break
his addictive trance.

It is not a romantic dance
of swirling fools
twirling to
a concerto
we all knew,

but a dangerous stream
going full steam,
a watery dream
of the unseen
unconscious
activity,

pushing and pulling.
Till, he stumbles, drooling
like a mewling fool
not controlling
his roving mind
but being moved
with its rapid taps.

His words are marked
with a metronomic beat.
His face is flushed
with the rushing heat,
a side-effect
of his anxiously
overactive mind.

Pushing well beyond
his normal bedtime
he writes
like a recovering
word addict
who he has relapsed.

I see the trees
rotting diseased,
void of spring’s leaves,
Roots cleave
dry brown dirt.
Wooden daggers
pierce the earth.

Grounded,
they are my roots
hungry for all
life needs
drinking deep
of the natures
rainy liquor,
but we are each
still dying.

There are clouds
That obscure reality
While I wait
For the most
Probable
Eventuality
Knowing
That immortality
Is a lie
We like to tell ourselves
I wait to fall
Scrape my knees
Against the cold concrete
And hope that each time
The coarse grains
Will give way
See me sinking
Into a shining world
As hardness envelopes me
Vapors conceal
The way I feel
The affections that are real
And I hide a bit to
Till I find the truth
Visiting one friend,
Her or him
Walking and talking
Knowing
That they will be swallowed
That the earth will open up
Time will crack and rumble
Lightning to thunder
Splitting just enough
To take the ones I love
One chip at a time
Till their fate is mine
And I join them
In the dirt nap defeat

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.

A blur sharpens.
Vision returns.
Retina burns
as pain
takes its turn
to remind you
that dry eyes
might
blind you.
Headaches
make me
super cranky,
so I need
caffeine
to stay sharp,
with a gallon
of water,
and eye drops.
Until,
my mind is
still,
and I can sleep.

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

I’m a dead poet
Ya’ dig
I don’t have to makes sense
The academics
Just have to think I did