It is a breath,
the cold grip
close to it
calling forth
those deathly lips,

stringent
reactions
out of the
desperate actions
made to escape
what waits
for my weary
body.

It is another
inhalation,
the light
high
fractional
exhilaration
of succeeding
in taking
the air
that I am needing
and feeding
my body,

while death
lurks
ever
omnipresent.

Trying something new,
I release
the tense beast
of burden
I was holding onto
as I exhale
and forgive myself.

Life is a dance
of many
interconnected
beings,
things
that move and swing
in and out
of being,

and in-between
this cosmic scene
we have been
always moving.

Every movement
an expression
of our true intent.
Even when
we intend
to deceive
we are already
affected by
the webs
we
and other beings
have been weaving.

The lines
we have been
perceiving
are patterns
we have been
creating and following,
flowing
without knowing,
we are going,
but still growing
some glowing
personal meaning.

Early morning
gets me moving
rushing to get to
the gym
then work through
my afternoon
shift.

But a rattle in
rusted metal
is making me
stressed as can be.

Every noise
causes me
to catch my breath
and listen closely
while trying to avoid panicking.

My red rover road rage
dodge neon clinking
Is getting me thinking
about how much
will be enough to fix it.

I know a troll
who took
a leisurely stroll
with a goblin
and a knoll.

They didn’t
have a planned
place to go,
so, they
just went
with the flow.

Past the pleasant groves
where pixies played
and children
dreamed one day
they would
be able to stay,

beyond the
wood nymphs
adobe,
admiring
those virgins
unclothed,
then stopping
to get know
their cousin
in the river
bed below.

It was
I nice little walk.
Until, they were
stopped,
by an over eager,
righteous believer,
knight errant
on an errand
for his local liege.

He had no need
to give these three
a lick of grief,
but being oh so
brave and noble,
felt untitled
to act with
unbridled
arrogance.

So, the three
traveling hence
returned
from whence
they came,
but the knight
was never heard
from ever again.

I was a fool
before I met you.
I’ll be a fool
until I die.
But all the moves
I made to get to you
are the dances
that kept me alive.

It don’t matter
how we got here.
It don’t matter
where we’re going.
It only matters
what we do now
while we are growing.

The summer showers
are so cleansing,
waves of rain
keep me moving,
shift the sands
and earth beneath me,
and their rhythm
keeps me grooving.

It don’t matter
how we got here.
It don’t matter
where we’re going.
It only matters
what we do now
while we are growing.

I don’t claim
to be an angel,
and I’m too lazy
to be a saint,
but the shame
they tried to
paint me with
didn’t fit
this portrait.

It don’t matter
how we got here.
It don’t matter
where we’re going.
It only matters
what we do now
while we are growing.

I was born
a broken bloom
rising with
the crescent moon,
and I hope I
was a boon
blessed gift
shared with
all of you.

It don’t matter
how we got here.
It don’t matter
where we’re going.
It only matters
what we do now
while we are growing.

Never was
this broken
curtain
a calamity
to all of us.

Raggedy
and full
of dust
it still
shaded us,

and once
in a while
it would
make me smile
as I watched
the weird light
run right through
the holes
and shine on
little specks
of floating particles
that dance
in the dry air.

This poison pill
is not the hill
I wish to
plant my
flag upon.

This dull blade
that bade me bath
in the bloodbath
that warlords make
for the sake
of profits
is not the tool
I would like
to use to fuel
my creative life.

This crushing
weight
of unwieldy hate
is not the force
I would choose,
and yet
unfettered fools
debase and abuse
themselves
and all of us
for their wealth.

They seek to conquer
with sick implements
of destruction,
such impediments
to the betterment
of our human
condition.

Art’s armament
is not adequate
to defeat them,
and I do not know
if I alone
or all of us
can beat them,

but I will not
concede to their greed
and be what they need
to feed their profit machine.

Life was
time served because
everyone he knew
was struggling
too make due
with the ignorance
their existence
had been imbued
with.

A state of jail like isolation
when he was facing
a stupid population
with no ability to
think or adapt to
new information.

Not a prisoner
in his mind
he would
summon her,
the dark beautiful
summer dancer,
an illusion
to calm the pain
and confusion.

In states
of sick delirium
his cage could not
define or confine him
as he flew to
a mental magisterium.

Lying therein sharing
a dream space
with his imaginary queen
he would listen to her sing
forgetting everything.

To bad and sad to say
that one cannot stay
in such elevated space
without losing touch with
the real world.
So, his mind lapsed
and passed the last
moments of his mentally
bruised and blistered existence,
finally happy in another reality.

Nostalgia,
the pain in my ***
blast from my past
that passes
painful
memory lapses
of gut reactions,

sorrowful reflections
of never was
lost connections
and decisions
that I long to
unmake.

Fantasies
take
me
back to those
distorted memories
as I recall
fogs of vagaries
and what if
possibilities
that were never
ever really real.

A lot of things have changed.
A lot of good folks have gone,
and I’ve forgotten most of them.

Timbers tremble in the woods,
losing leaves these grieving trees
prepare to go where nightmares
fear there will be a terrible dry heat
burning every single thing.

Desolation on a scale
that makes reality
look like a biblical hell,
but I tell myself
we can do better.

We all know
that dreamers lie,
and I include me
in that tricky
category,
because
I do not see
humanity
succeeding.

I only dream
of fallen forms
retreating
due to
our self-inflicted
descent into
death’s dark hallway.

Stiff shouldered
older
bulldozer
of a man,
holds the embers
of distant joys
that he still remembers.

Hidden jewels
that once sparkled
are now blemished,
could be polished
but the remembrance
wouldn’t equal
past reality.

Those glory days
of lazy waste
when he would play
and devastate
the landscape
with dirt tracks
and rough houses.

These moments
are everything
he wants
in a daydream,
but the harsh rays
of modern days
forces him
to remain awake.

He is wiser now,
but longs for
the innocence
of youth
unexplored,
when he was
ignorant
of the imminent
end of all of it.

So, as time takes
his fellow well-aged
middlemen
on a fool’s errand
straight to the edge
of eternity’s
black abyss,
he looks back at this
and slips into the void.

Semi-aquatic,
silver shimmering,
a swimming body
wet and exotic,

fluid motions
flying in
the pure parts
of our ocean,

she could have been
mermaid, kin
to lesser fisher men,

water friction
pulling her hair
like the wind
forcing each strand
to fall back
as she
flows forwards
faster than the *******
trying to entrap her,
and capture her rapture,

but hazel eyes,
long chestnut hair,
and limber limbs
do not tarry here.
They disappear
beneath the cresting wave.

She is saved,
but her pursuers
are washed away.

She is free to play
as death takes
those hunters
to a watery grave.

Till the end of infinity,
all things
above and below,
and the
cosmic calamities
like collapsing black holes
that swallow
everything
we have ever known.

Till super solar flares
incinerate
all of the life
down here
on our floating sphere,
which let’s be clear
is more oblong.

Till, the end of
space time
when all things
cease to exist
and there will be
no one left to miss
the poetry of this
pathetic fool.

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.

Well, she’s been collecting
since she was ten
funny little knick knacks
from all of her friends,

goofy little trinkets
that she uses to recall
all the shattered pieces
of her broken memory.

Cause she had a little fall
and she hit her head
now she can’t quite remember
everything she did or said

So, every little collectible
comes with a diary entry
to cement its place
in her external memory.

I’d like to exchange
this deranged life
for a little change.

I need a break
from the mundane
repetitive existence
that I have crafted
for my own comfort.

The roads repeat
and what I see
is a sour echo
chasing me.

But now I know
to be free I need
to move out and on,
take my bags
like a traveling man
running while I can
cause this beautiful loser
is checking out.

There is always a little doubt
but I am figuring
the small stuff out,
I’m building a bridge
to a better me,
so, wait and see.

Ten years later,
sad to say
despite the burst
of brilliant word play
I am still stuck,
despite the bravado
and desire to get up and go
I am still here.

So, what do I know.

There is nobility in kindness.
To take your darkness
and resist the urge to give in to it,
instead becoming
the one they are shunning
for the wrong reasons
as you take their cruelty
and give them generosity.

It is a sinking ship
that sails amidst
all of this madness
and maintains
that which fools
struggle in vain
to take from them.

“Look out for yourself.

Keep quiet,
and bow your head.

Do not stand *****
or act with defiance.

Do not try and deny us
when we tell you
you’re all wrong.”

There is nobility
in staying true to who
you are
and who you strive to be,

especially,
when you live in a society
that just wants another
cog in the machine,
another out for themselves
sucker super psychopath
who likes to laugh
at other’s suffering.

There are too many modern maladies
in our over stimulated society,
of social media junkies;

flexing for the next fix
likes for your muscle pics
or a salty dish of something
so delic.

Dopamine rewards
makes us want to scratch
that itch
so, we continue checking it
when we wake up for just a bit
then struggle to go back to sleep.

Like toxic metals
this mental poison
fills our techno prisons.
Until, we live in
little broken bubbles
of preconstructed biases
that fit whatever side of this
binary plague we are infested with.

So, to exit this
I take a trip
facing the space
where no one lives,
into nature
the multi-sensual cure for
technological toxification.

I listen to the sound of
wind rushing through
the leaves that move
and sound like rain.
In this summer heat
water fantasies
are such a tease,
but I feel at ease.

I follow muddy tracks
that turn and head back
then diverge
just in time to merge
with familiar patches of grass.

I see tons of green
and brown things
but hidden gems
of purple, white,
and yellow flowers
fall into my line of sight.

I breathe it in
then take a breath again
as my pulse quickens.
An hour and my sour
soul goes from dead
to enlivened
and I take the notes
of inspiration I am given
to write a poem
tomorrow.

I am a fully immersive
life size interactive
collections of facts
and flesh that
takes and gives back
what I receive
and who I long to be.

Expanding from myself
I am an amorphous blob of
compassion clothed in love,

a ray of light in many directions
speeding from the center
of my being for stranger’s inspection
as I generate radio waves
of repeated humanity,

faster than the speed of electricity
I electrify everyone before me
because despite my taste for solitude
I could never be boring.

I finally got the piece of the puzzle
that people use to muzzle
modern dissidents,

this backpack loaded with
all the gadgets you want to get
so, you don’t have time to
join the resistance,

videos and social media,
games with rewards
they use to feed ya
a sense of techno satisfaction
from imaginary actions
kind of like prayer.

I finally put the hours in
to get my promotion,
getting home late
suffering from exhaustion
and other stress related
maladies.

I finally got fired
and rehired
to work my way
up the corporate ladder.

I finally got to retire
just in time
to expire.

A loser’s lament
left in contempt
for all of the
wasted time I spent

lover’s issues,
cause I was misused
by the good girls
who dig bad dudes.

What a tragedy
to make a
jealous *** of me
as I weep grievously.

Then I bend
to anger’s end,
to rise and defend
with my tragic
ego’s armament.

But, I don’t
go on a
beer binge
that would make
Bacchus cringe.

Instead, I trend
towards
self-improvement,
take this pain and frustration
and use it
to make myself better.

The soft white
swirling flesh,
made of light,
made to divest
the deep darkness
that pulses
beneath your chest.

The simple sparkle,
the slipping droplet
that falls off of this
darling flower
of free association.

The tender yearling
licking salt,
seeking some
simple sating
of its primal hunger.

The placid pool,
of poorly lit
sitting liquid,
until it is
pierced by
something
falling from
the night sky,
and its surface
succumbs
to the chaos of
constant ripples.

I dip my toe
in a spot
I do not know
searching for
some inspiration,

and this is all
that I get
in for looking
for it.

By autumn lakes,
where water wears
nature’s fogging breathes
as white mists
roll over its
beautiful body,

when the cold air
catches spectral gasses
that pass
soft awestruck lips,

where sweet lovers
meet and sit
on the nearest bench
holding hands,
making grand plans,
and leaving to walk
the path laden
with many
multicolored leaves,

where water reflects
the waving limbs
and falling foliage
that finds itself
floating down
and eventually
disappearing,

where daydreams end
and strangers are
forced to return
once again
to the world
they have been
struggling in,
leaving tranquility
to become
a glimmering memory
in the sorely exhausting
work week.

It would be easy
to turn my pain
and loneliness
into the rage
of an ageless
beast,

to become faceless
in this useless
race to achieve
that which I
do not need.

It would be easy
to let go of
the search for peace
and become
part of the disease
that afflicts
all of these
silly sheep.

It wouldn’t
take much
to hit the clutch
release the brakes
and pass a hundred
miles plus
at the speed of
danger.

But all of that anger
just stirs up dust
and damages the stuff
I didn’t even really want.

So, I’ll let
the users
get used
and let the bruisers
get bruised.

Today is my recovery day
and it is a day well spent.

I prefer the cool quiet darkness.
So, I ask this
of you
please close
the multi-colored curtains
that cause a
cloud of
swirling dust
to be summoned up
when they are moved,
after years of
negligence.

This poem is dedicated
to the fire strangers started
to incinerate the broken hearted,

to the flames I had to walkthrough
that charred my flesh
and barred the rest
who did not have the strength
to resist this disintegrating mess.

To the pain I overcame,
though I dare not
whisper its sacred name
for fear of having to
face that **** storm again.

This is dedicated
to the trauma
that dissected
the desiccated frame
that no worthy lover
stood to claim,
and though those
throes and woes
from which I rose
proved to be in vain
since I am still stained
by the marks
that keep me apart
from the mundane,

this is for that which
taught me not to accept
all the *******
because I know
I am worth more
than all of it.

This is a festival
where beasts feast on fools,
a dark carnival
of carnivores
and cannibals
who devour those
they see as beneath
the wealth
they were bequeathed.

This is a field of grief
and greed
where those in need
never see
a single shilling
of hope,
because those
who hold the ropes
have made a noose
out of ambitions
and fashion shows.

Welcome to the nightmare
be wary, be scared
but most of all
stay sharp
and prepared
because if you slip
and are ensnared
there will be
no secret squad
of superhumans
swooping in
to save you my friend.

There will only be
blood and gore,
shades of grey
that split the day
and bleed to black,
to take you back
to the place from which
no victim can ever
return from.

I am in the now,
the ever-moving cycle of
moments dancing forward.

I cannot go back
or rush time ahead.

I cannot undue
history’s undue influence,
or know exactly what I am
able to do to change
the future for the best.

I can only invest
now with passion and
productive joy.

Oh, soft mud
that bares
the fresh print
those tennis shoe
indents.

Moist and sloshing,
my feet sinking in
the muck that is
clinging to my jeans.

I am two hundred plus
pounds of heavy
slowly descending into
the brown ground
that gives way,
up to my calves.
So, there goes my legs
as I am ****** in.

I wonder if this
dark and monstrous
situation will cease,
will this earth beast
release me,
or will mud become
my quicksand
graveyard?

So, I missed you,
misused
the tales
that other dudes
passed on.

I stole
the swollen heart of
the dark art’s love,
in observing
and serving up
other peoples
stuff,

little notes
about their lives,
things that I
did not experience
or survive,
but I still write
about those desperate nights
bringing their realities to light.

I plagiarized,
with a chameleon’s guise,
took their truths,
rationalized,
and fictionalized
with little details
and larger lies.

But isn’t that how
strangers empathize?
Isn’t this how
creatives thrive?

I could be
a myriad
of mystical things,
abstract creatures
from your romantic dreams,
a culmination of your
creative schemes
as you unsew the seam
that seems
to keep your sweet sanity
stitched to this
harsh reality.

I could be
the escape hatch
unlatched
so that
you can get back
to that deep hole,
falling into
wonderland
then on again
to OZ and
Never Never
Land.

I could be a
great friends
and later when
you go looking
for him
I could be
the lover you seek.

Or, I could just be
a cold vagary
of nothing
never lasting
simply passing
on into the
the emptiness
eternity brews.

I will not get to hear
or hold my dear
because it is clear
that my deepest fear
has become reality.

I wasted so much time
pretending to be fine
until I had fooled
everyone and myself.

But when the night falls
and the lightning crashes
when my breath
barely catches
and I am force to see
warm flesh go cold
of once young body
that is now broken
and old.

Then I will wish
I could turn back time,
take all the lessons
that where sown
and grown
in my maturing mind
and value those who
I wasn’t ready to lose.

She broke my rip cord,
took a stick through
the cloth I used
to make my
parachute.

So, when
I was ready to
commit to her,
the fabric ruptured.

While I was falling
and calling her name,
she was moving
on faster than
any forest flame.

So, fully loaded,
a heavy form
fell from heaven
and crashed into
the ground that
made me go splat.

We are all tourists in this life
but some are better visitors
than others.

Some of us are aliens,
cause we are
out of this world,
and twice as far
as two trips to mars.

We are all travelers
on a floating sphere
that barely keeps
the atmosphere here.

So, some people need to
replace their faith
with a new space race
cause this age is a disgrace
as we face a state
of climate decline.

While the cosmos
may be fine,
we may soon find
our visa’s have been
terminated
and our species
is near its end.

What matters to the heart,
is it matters that spark
a hard and sharp stark
emotional response?

Is it love
that moves most of us
or is it the other detritus,
the chaos that rumbles
inside of us?

Is it the anxiety
that we are missing out on
what the rest of society
is doing or how
everyone is getting along?

Is it terror
that drives
our night lives
into bright lights
in hopes of
escaping
death’s gaping
jaws?

Is it anger
that puts us in danger
of overloading
and exploding
our rage load
as we lose control
and destroy
everything we know?

Is it pointless
to ponder this,
till, I am wasted
and restless
no longer wanting
to express this
or anything at all?

Reflecting,
I sit dissecting
the poetry
of my past.

Organic
as it is,
it is like
a blast
of stale gas
from a painful
interval.

Familiar feelings
seems slightly
distorted
by the nightly
interludes
between
the two dudes,
me of now
and him
of then.

The work is good,
and I am slightly
plagued by jealousy
because my writing
is stalling,

but the falling
in love
and hurting because
that love drug
is not a sustainable addiction
was a terrible affliction,
which I do not wish
to revisit.

I am the tired gypsy
who plays *****
tricks on thee,

the bloated king
of foolish games
who dances outside
in the rain,

the jumping fool
who was never cool
and never will be,

the lonely jester
who may pester
but promises
good humor,

the heartbroken poet,
pusher of prose,
arrows of words
pointed at your heart
to help us all heal,

the loyal knight,
lost samurai,
last willful warrior
ready to fall
not in battle
but in defeat
as I see this world
consume everything,

I am the ghost,
forgotten specter,
spirit inspector,
who was searching
for similar soul seekers.

If they deny the grace
of the color of your human face
then they are a waste
of the clay that made
the human race.

Human diversity enriches
this pittance
of an existence.

So, let them keep their ignorance.
True grandeur is lost on them.
Just know my poetic friend
that this pathetic trend
of labeling others
by the shade of their skins
is tragic and troubling
cause I am bubbling
with love for all that shines
from within
to enrich the beauty without.

She is a beautiful echo
from so long ago,

a strange smiling face
that I no longer know.

Still, her presence presents
the emergence
of old feeling,

stirrings from dead synapses
reviving a past that is
something I didn’t even know
I missed.

Almost twenty years
since we were close friends
working the weekends
at Long John Silver
slash A and W.

A similar smile
beckons back
old feelings that
I thought were dead.
  
I know this is just
in my head
but we agreed
when we were forty
if we were single
we’d be together.

I am almost there
and she is right behind me.
I know this is a feckless daydream
but to live in it
I’d gladly go on sleeping
keeping the hopeful heart
of a younger me
returning
in love with
someone
I haven’t seen
in over fifteen
years.

Let’s keep it
simple and clean,
no glass shards
with sharp edges
to pierce our hearts,
no porcelain skins
ready for the
rupturing
as all that is within
comes spilling
out.

Let’s sit silent
in our sub city
of social misfits,
so, no one talks to
anyone else who
can relate to you
and what you are
going through.

Let’s forget
that there is
something there
underneath the hair
and that shaggy beard,
pass the tired eyes
haunted with
loss and fear.

Let’s just
have toast,
sit and roast
this material world
and all of those
little lost ghosts
who will not
return here.
After all its
a wild world
and I can’t save
everyone.

Let’s just give in
to social media’s
mad messaging
that says we are
just cogs in the machine
working
until we die.

Why would we
ever try to be
a decent human being
when we could
just continue
sleep living?

It’s seven steps to the door,
across a lava like floor,
flat feet searing
strangers nearing
somewhere out there.

It’s seven steps to the door,
only that and nothing more.
So, to explore the outdoors
I just have to move
across this floor.

It’s seven steps to the door,
for others it would be an ease,
strangers would stop and tease
laughing loudly as they please
if they could see me.

Seven steps to the door,
then out there seven more,
but then I would be
outside with the rest
of this mad society,
with the people
I do not wish to see,
those big barbarians
loud and threatening.

It’s seven steps to the door,
but fear holds me back.
Each step is an anxiety attack,
each inch agony
splayed in front of me.
So, at three steps
I fall back,
foolishly retreating.

Those seven steps defeat me.

The world makes you invisible,
treats you as if you are an imbecile,
till the retching tears
tear across your tired face,

but I see you.

You try to do what’s right,
but that is not always easy to define.
It is exhausting seeking  
to steady a conflicted mind,
while trying to keep on
being kind,

but dear I know you try.

So, later in the night
when you lay your head to cry,
I know it isn’t much.
It’s not a kiss or a hug,
or that special lover’s
soft assuaging touch….

but I see you.

What a waste of this cold night
and beautiful white light
from the orb in the sky,
that glorious glowing sphere
merely passing by here.

It’s so terrible to see it so clear,
and not have a someone deer
to share the view.

What shame to feel the same
as autumn colors come to claim
every ounce of green I’ve seen
replacing them with yellow tints,
then onto orange and
settling into dry brown
particles that come crumbling down
to feed the cold December ground.

She is a quick
drug trip
for this
dopamine
addict.

She is a bad habit
that will only last
one or two moments
cause that frantic feeling
will fade just as fast.

She is awe inspiring,
poetry driving
to passionate madness,
that makes me restless
with desire,

but when that fire
expires
I will feel ill.

Not with her
but I will
be disturbed
by my inability
to settle into
a reality
of companionated affection,
instead of the elevated *******
of severe urgency,
that previously uncontrollable
necessity to be
with her.

Since, I have been
devouring
old romantic notions
I will feel like a failure
when my devotion
slowly simmers into
something soft-boiled,
because that is not
what I thought
love was supposed to do.

I need one more poem tonight
but I can’t decide
what I want or need to write
about this real or
fictional life.

The glower grows
as glows a shiny nose
of silly whispered prose,

a wisp of wasted wind
that could have cooled
your sweat glistened skin,

a tiny tower where
Rapunzel lays her hair,
a glorious mane
that stories share,

a stray verse
spread to those
who wear tradition’s clothes
in dreamy hopes
that they will tread bare
and release the poet
that reside somewhere
under there.

It is my love for humanity,
that mourns the loss of its greatness,
in seeing it succumb
to the will of the wicked and the dumb.

So, now I have come
to disdain the vain claims
that cause men to maim
the innocent,

now I pay my penance
cause even though
I am not a participant
I am still complicit
because I have chosen to
abstain from doing
what great writers
should do.

Instead of fighting
I retreat in defeat
lay down on the ground
to feel life's heat
slowly ease from these
fingers that once teased
great poetry.

Now, I seek solitary inspections
of abstract reflections
waiting to die
knowing humanity
will follow me
swiftly.

I could stand by you
steady as the calm blue
sky that refuses to move.

While pompous tools
prey on the tired of the day
with their exhausting tirades,

the witless but mendacious
cruel and ungracious
sick and severely racist
bearers of the worst hatred,

the pretentious and phony
fat *** jerks who are
full of flabby baloney,

impugn the serious
with their imperious
and possessive dispositions,

I could walk through
that raging fire with you
to do whatever you want to.

Or, if you prefer
I could leave you
well-fed and disturbed
to mingle with
the full of ****
hatters madder then
this modern warfare click.

If you desire that over eager
meager deceiver
you can always decline
this fine mind of mine.

Whatever you like,
take all the time
you need
I’ll be here
just being me.

It is hard to explain
how the flower
was once the rain,
sunshine, and wet dirt
that stretches
across the earth.

How particles
that traveled
across vast distances
in space,
and sparse water droplets
along with nutrients
from the ground,
are utilized to create
the colors we see,
how they take what we exhale
and give us what we need
to breathe.

But it is so easy to see
the petals
or leaves
of varying colors
and the stems.

It is hard to imagine
the pollen
the tricks the bees
into pollinating
other plants.

But it easy
to understand
that to maintain
this land
we must be stewards
who care deeply
about the beauty
all around us,
instead of becoming
nature’s enemy
that destroys
all life in our
general vicinity.

Obviously,
she freaking broke me.
I’m not exaggerating.
I am not joking.

her leaving
left me grieving
and drinking
nightly
for more than
a week.

There were nights
when I couldn’t sleep
and days that would need
a little legal speed
just to get through
to get to work,
so, I could make due
and move on one
inch and millisecond
at a time.

The evenings were long
and I preferred
to be impaired
by *****
and mountain dew
chasers mixed with
apple puckers.

Of all of my depressions
that I can recall,
that one beat them all.

Even now,
eighteen years later
I still think of her.

Is it fatigue,
am I just too sleepy,
or is it the end
of a great run
of creativity?
Perhaps, am I just lazy.

It seemed that daily
I could breeze.
Writing came
with such an ease
that a sneeze
could bring me
poetry;

But now it seems
I need
extreme dosing
of caffeine
and something
different
then what I’ve seen.

Yesterday,
a leaf leaving
winter bear limbs
could send in
ten thousand
words.

Now the words
are sluggish turds
that won’t get out.
What is this ****
all about?

Brown and stinking
sinking while
I am thinking
that all my ideas
our thinning
and repeating.

Years ago,
I used to know
who I was
and who I wanted to be,

but lately
I am less swimming
than barely floating,
grasping for any lines
worth noting
but choking
before the verses
coming out.

Maybe this is
just creator’s doubt,
I’ve seen similar
cycles before,
but how can I achieve
greater leaps
in creativity
when my creativity
seems to have left me?