Grief is the sound of
A beautiful voice
That has long since passed
Withered beauty from our past
Because it does not last
The limber light that bends our mind
Cutting strange shadow puppets in time
Moving the marionettes of our memory
The negative space we exist in
Losing friends and kin
Wilted roses rotting
Even when I forgot everything
And everything has forgotten me
There will still be grief

Been wearing it for a while, the thickest jacket I own,
So **** tight it’s pathetic but it still fits.
Thirty one years and even though it’s snug on my shoulder,
Even though it cuts deep into my armpit,
Till my flesh shifts and distorts, it’s still mine.
Brown leather jacket permeated in ****.
All the baggage, all that angst just won’t quit.
Sometimes, I take it off. Sometimes I let it rest;
Let that leathered nightmare take a break,
From tearing at my tense and tired chest.
Sometime, I shove it in the back of the closet,
But it always returns, whispering in my ear
You missed this failed at that. What were you thinking?
Should have been there? Why weren’t here?
Man I wish I’d been drinking.
**** that jacket; Worse for the ware and tare of life.
Even when I throw it away the stupid coat keeps coming back.
One day I am going to die in that ***** ol’ thing.

What level of warrior
do you claim to be
when you maim the weak
and wreak havoc when you speak
of sick sentiments?

You build your armaments
stockpile rifles, semi-automatics,
and handguns
shoot animals for fun.

I do not begrudge that.
I merely judge the fact
that you lack any tact
as you cry out the government
is coming to take them back.

You were afraid of the democrat,
the one you despised because he was black
perhaps you felt that he would
pay us all back for the two hundred
and forty plus years of
treating brown people like trash.

However, despite your rants
despite the Sandy Hook massacre,
the nightclub, the church
Columbine, and all other hurt
in the multitudinous mass shootings
I have not seen any government scheme
to take your guns or gun rights away.

Blueberry brains with baked banana muffins
Artists do doodle and strain to abstain
From the tragic fallacies of the rational brain
Childlike wonder left under the covers
Adults will never see such joy again
And I oh so fool hardy so full of malarkey
Walk between both worlds my friend
Popping in and out again and again
Trading tears for fears and tripping on dreams
Making masterful failures of all of my schemes
Adult or child, neither or so it would see

The gallows are full
Of shallow fools
Who fill their time
With harder wines

Drunkards, and party boys
Weekend idiots
Looking for a release
Just short this side of peace

Hang’em tall
Line them up
And watch’em fall

Cardiac arrest
Or police arrest
It doesn’t matter at all
That is how the sheep move
That is how the crows squaw

One more Saturday night
To beat the week
Noose and all

Today is the fourth of July
A nation in celebration
Of principals that were lies

We are the mass manufactures
Of misery throughout the world

Comfy in our kitchens
While bystanders wear
Modern warfare

Our children think it’s a video game
Head shots that got them lots
Of points to rank up online
Bombs only hit enemies
So that’s fine
And you can be a digital war hero

But reality troubles me
Families wear mortar crimson colored death
Bullets break more than skin
Take more than just our kin
Take away the right to breath
The right to believe
There will ever be a better world

I lose myself in the insanity
My hand hits the computer screen
From trying to reach out and stop the screams

The blood still flows
The rubble still grows
Like a sick slick rose red garden
Planted with dead bodies

My faith in the great America
Does not exist
So happy fourth of ******* July
You can keep that worthless ****

I am all for
celebrating
what we have
struggled to
recognize,

but here is
some critical
political analysis;

If you observe
how politicians
pervert the system
in order to maintain
the power they have,

you will see
they maybe
willing to cede
symbolic victories
in partisan performances
to prevent actual
institutional
and structural
reforms.

It costs them
very little to
make a holiday,
giving workers
a little break,
while dulling
some of those blades
of social outrage.

If you recall
Shakespeare says
“all the worlds a stage”
Yet, I pray
we do not allow
ourselves to
be played
by those
**** poor performers.

We are more than
seat warmers
waiting to die
while fresh suckers
sit down to buy
the same song and dance.

You let the music run rough shot, right over you.
Don’t you miss those calming blues,
The cadences and melodies that soothed,
Lully-byes intertwined with sweet good byes,
Celtic songs that longed to make you cry,
To help you find your celestial delight,
The soft thrumming of tribal humming,
The slow tempo that takes you home,
To old memories?

I am not saying that their displaying
A bad kind of vibe,
Or that they’re too far gone to the wrong
To ever find what’s right,
To lost in the night to ever see the light.
Angry faces flare firing fist for fighting,
But sometimes all that anger
Just doesn’t seem right.
All that bark still carries all that bite,
And I wonder if it’s in the rage
That you forget yourself

Do you lose the day?
Tell me what does your inner nature say?
Is there a bit of peace?
Or did you give it all away,
To that vicious beast,
To that malicious beat,
Sizzling electric and vocal shock
Yeah the hard knocks we all call hard rock?

Life does not promise happiness,
nor does existence guarantee dignity

But for the actions of few who sacrifice
Not battle born ****** bodies
But hearts open and bleeding
Seeding the carcass strewn landscape
With new and old ideas

Planting by praising with love

Weeding by damning that which
Diminishes love’s greatest achievements

Teaching that peace, love, and happiness
Are the only profits worth acquiring

Do we yield the products of this glorious field

Dear Journal
I am haunted by many things in my life. There are scar that wrap around my body, old broken bones and bruises that never really healed up. There were words of hatred that people spewed at me. Still none of those ghosts compare to the dead that haunt heart an constantly reappear in my dreams.
I remember two little furballs, not far apart in age. My fluffy darlings, both mutt females, from different parents. However, they treated each other like sisters. Playful and protective of each other, but suspicious of strangers. I would walk them both, when I came to visit. Up so early in the morning just to spend time with both of my pups, Laura and Snuggles.  How surprised when I came home to visit one week. I can’t say how long it had been. It seems like years has passed since my last visit. My first instinct was to see my little girl. Even though in dog years they were old ladies.  I made it there ready to play. Only to find an empty doghouse and vacant leash. My poor snuggles lost to the ravages of age. No one had bothered to tell me. Had I been so long gone that they had forgotten or was I to blame? I spent the next few hours with my other pup. Then I disappeared again of into the vapors of my life. I managed to return a few more times to see her, Laura, who had been my very first pet. Still like everything else she passed away. In my absence I was uninformed once again. Once in a while I find myself teared up. When I see a little puppy playing in the field or an old dog sitting lazily in the sun. I feel a tinge of guilt for not being there, when I should.
Many years before that, there was a little blonde haired boy; we were friends off and on. It was during one of those off times, when a bus he was on crashed. He was thrown from his seat, through the glass window. They say his last words where spent in asking if everyone else was okay. He didn’t even make it to his teens. I was lazy and selfish, and chose to not go to his funeral, now I wish I had because every once and while he walks in my dreams.
But the ghost who haunts my dream most frequently is an old man. I knew him all of my life. He payed for my birth. In a house full of women he was a quiet fixture, who would tickle me every time I went for a hug. Looking back I can tell for a fact he was haunted by specters of his own. Still, when I visited there was always a smile for me, and when I needed it there were words of encouragement. He never told me he was disappointed me and seldom raised his voice to me. If I was bad there was a quick swat of a flyswatter, but then it was over. We watched the rain together; we sat and stared at the stars together. We were truly kindred spirits, me and my grandpa. I wish I could say he died swift and in his sleep. But his life was taken away in bits in pieces. First he got diabetes, then he ended up in a home, such a proud animal now locked in a cage but he never complained. Then he had to lose a leg. For eighty years he had been strong and independent man. Now he was reduced to only weekly visits to his own home. Still, he never complained. The last day he was alive I saw him in the hospital the doctor said he was getting better. I kissed him on the forehead and told him I loved him. He said thank you. I felt ashamed. I must have failed him in some way for him to be grateful for that one pronouncement of love. Had I kept my feeling for him to myself or forgotten to remind him enough. I let it pass I was certain I would see him again, then I would tell him again, and each time after I would do the same.
When we left the hospital, my grandma said he would die today. I argued with her. The doctor had told us he was getting better. I failed to convince her. The next day I got the call. I ran a hot shower and sat in the tub and cried. I did not go to see my family. I was selfish.
Now more often then naught I see him again and again. He has both of his legs.

Oh, sweet slumbering queen
please do not scream
when you awake
to find me
watching you resting.

Know that I am always with you,
a lonely longing observer
silently following you,
admiring the red blush
of your dimpled cheeks
and black bubonic sores
that mark your descent
into that deathly sleep.
Let me part your cold corpse lips
and steal a reapers rightful kiss.

You are a rapturous dream
of dreadfully dark dead things,
shadowy female figure falling
with a mime’s silent screams
as you plead in porcelain complexion
for a Lazarus like resurrection.

I will wait and watch
for your heart to stop.
Then pluck soft white orbs
from your ****** sockets.
I will take your long locks
of ***** blond hair
and put them right next to
the teeth I keep on the
corner shelf covered up over there.
I’ll remove each vital *****
in Egyptian style
and safely sequester them in
my sacred jars,
while keeping your slick
and sticky viscera
in a jar of honey scented formaldehyde;
Making all these pieces of you
parts of my permanent collection,
for only me to view.

Then my killer corpse bride
on our wedding night
I will join you
on the other side
in the bliss of oblivion.

We are always heading there
A cool wet cloth to calm a dry cough
A cold compress to conquer a fever
But sometime it’s not enough to wake the sleeper
The heart’s keeper must be released
The cycle must be appeased
And we head home
Not to heaven’s gate
But to an endless slumber
From which no number
Has ever managed to awake

I am a little tougher now
With all the love lost
Love forgot, and love never found
I have grown callouses on my heart
Put in patches and stiches to keep
It from leaking and drip drip dripping
But broken sutures slice through to
My beating and bleeding valves
Letting me learn how to love once more
Just in time to get my heart broken again

He is not a victim
Just offbeat and strange
Fighting off the pain

The memories play
Repeat once and while
Bruised smile
No one ever came

Little boy begging to die
Bleeding tears
So much
And all that snot
Made it hard to breath
All those nights
It was so hard to sleep
Couldn’t find
Anywhere safe to be

The bedroom boy
The window watcher
Timid eyes
Pleads with the daylight
To disappear

Even in his dreams
She was still chasing
He lay wasting
The best part of life

He chased butter knife hopes
Hoping to slide it in the plugin
Hoping to hit the perfect spark
Hoping to end before his heart
Got broken again

And in morning
When she was to tired
To start storming
He headed off
To school
Were kids were cruel

The only time he was ever safe
Was coming home
And on his way
The in-betweens of his day

Now it doesn’t really matter
And sometimes he is ashamed
To even admit it
Because he is not victim

I remember when I was a young thing, barely even a couple million years old. You were so young too. It seemed that just yesterday you had crawled out of the muck stinking of sulfur and brimstone. My father used to laugh at you and call you “his little funny ooze.” This day, for no reason at all, my father gave me a gift. It was such a tiny thing, barely a flickering light. Up to now there was almost no light. Oh, but what a beautiful thing it was. Had I known how much I would enjoy this I would have asked for it sooner.

He handed me this glimmering sparkle that was barely a speck of dust in my hand. What power the speck had, it struggled and raged against the darkness and began to grow, so much so that I had to turn my head for a moment. My body started to tremble. I think I was afraid, even though fear had not been created yet.

Until now darkness had enveloped all of existence. There was only an occasional flare of cosmic energy. Sometimes this red orange and white light would appear, engulf us in its fury and majesty. Then it would fade away, but that usually only lasted a year or so. The warmth would stay with us a little longer. Many times it was such a relief to feel anything at all, except for the cold numbness of darkness and uncertainty. I never knew where father was going with this experiment, but he took such joy in it so I followed along curiously.

My body trembled in fear anxiety, joy, pain, agony, and passion. There where so many new thoughts and feelings. I could not contain them. The little light had grown incredibly. At first it had been circling me slowly but now its speed had increased exponentially. Faster and faster it rounded my body, humming quietly at first but increasing in volume as well as its’ velocity. I could feel all of these new emotions jerking and tugging, pushing and pulling to get out and the more powerful my emotions became the stronger and faster the light pulsed and hummed.

Suddenly, I recalled when my brother had moved on. We were outside of time watching as specks of cosmic dust began to explode from the center. At that point it was just the center there was no name or description that I could give that would accurately describe something so new and different. My father whispered to my brother, so quietly that I could barely even hear it myself. Had it not been for the stillness and silence of the void I would not have heard him at all.

“ Chronos it is time.”

“Time for what” my brother replied.

And in the softest and sweetest voice I have ever heard my father said “ it is time for you to join your sister Rhea.”

        Then with no warning or explanation he tossed my brother in to the void. By now your small blue orb was just blackened bits of liquid fire and cosmic dust. Yet it seamed my brother knew what he was supposed to do. As he entered the void his body expanded until he was nothing but a gaseous vapor. Subsequently he settled in and hugged your sphere. Which until now I had not noticed, but suddenly I realized that it was my older sister Rhea. He wept in joy as he engulfed her in his vaporous form, she who had until now been raging with cosmic fire spewing and ******* in various forms of cosmic mass, calmly embraced him.  There was such peace and joy that I was almost jealous.

            The light was on the verge of exploding within me and outside of me. Then my father pulled me aside and took me back a billion years. He embraced me softly and whispered that it was my turn. Helios you will burn the brightest out of all of your siblings. You will shine in the past the present and the future. Then with a force I had not known since the beginning of creation he shoved me into the void with his gift. I surveyed the darkness and could not see my siblings. Where were they.

        Finally my insides erupted. I exploded and from my body fire rained in to the void. The darkness was illuminated, shapes took form. Space had meaning. A million years or so later my sister came crashing down. So I shined my light as brightly as I could so she would know that she was not alone. To my surprise she was naked and embarrassed so she gathered bits and shapes from the now lighted space around her and covered herself with fire. Angrily she lashed out at anything that passed ******* it in or spewing it out with great fury. Another million or so years later my brother Chronos appeared and calmed her.
We never spoke we simply existed.

Here is to the bitter eye of the even sky
The acidic beverage I imbibe
So I can feel just a little more alive
For that cardiac killing back breaking
Blood spilling sweat distilling nine to five

I got the edge
So you better believe
The letters you received
Were never from me
I spend hours in apathy
I’m in monogamous relationship
With solitude
In the afternoon
I take walks with silence
Under the moon
I enjoy the quite
No one intrudes
No attitude
No latitude
For stupidity
In this society
Because nobody touches me

He says he wants to die
And asks if I would try
To commit suicide with him

But inside
This is a cry
For a reason to live
Not a reason to die

Every time we hang out
We ended up talking about
How he wants it to end
And how as his friend
I should join him

But inside
This is a cry
For a reason to live
Not a reason to die

After six or seventy times
Of telling me he wants to die
And that we should go together
The rope snaps
The leather tether
Holding my tongue
Comes undone
I spout you go first
He replies
*******
And never again
Asks me to
Die with him

Cause inside
This is a cry
For a reason to live
Not a reason to die

Many years later
I will find out
The truth about how he feels
The bottle and the pills
The anguish that kills
It turns out I was mistaken
Now his life is taken
And I’ll spend my days
Looking for a friend
Who will help me on my way

Smiling kindhearted old man
Told me stories
How
He burnt the butterflies
How
He burnt human skin
Burnt villages
In burning squads
Of flamethrower men
Fire chased
Children and women
Over cliffs
Scares the **** out of me
To know that behind that smile
Is a dark hidden history

Call me the hideaway kid
Cause I run from what they did
Avoiding the personal
Because it hurts.

I can see each scar
Each line of ages
And exhaustion

Each bald spot
Each sweat ring
Each stinging red spot

For every head
The hangs
Just a little lower

For every heart
That breaks
Just a little more

For ever bruise
Wound, or scar

I retreat just a little farther
Cringe just a little harder
Clench my heart tighter
Till my chest bleeds
Till I cannot breath
Till what is left of me
Is nothing
But a mess

Shadows become my home
Movies and games
Become my distraction
Easing just an inkling
Of the pain I feel
From seeing the real pain
Of the world

My life is an unwieldy road
Of thorns without roses
Pink petals parted
For the travel hearted
The broken brothers
Buried under cement
The dodge neon
Barely rolling
From one work site
To the next one
That same night
Five-hour energy
Caffeine philosophy
And highway poetry
No borders crossed
Just New and old cities
People with different stories
Some strangers
Riding parallel
Others intersecting
And heading
Out in another direction
A three-hour drive becomes
A four-hour long one
Cause I prefer
To drive sixty miles per
Letting anxious travelers
Pass me by
While I enjoy the ride
Some come and go
Before I get to know
Who they are
Others rush in
Living and dying
Right in front of me
I don’t stop
I just do my crying
While I am riding
Till the day I die

The history and mystery of time
Is etched in our dna
Each alteration
Points to past forms
Each strand points to present potential
Pushing us forth into the future

Geology is the record keeper
Rings in the tree
Strata and atmosphere
Sediment and fossils
Are footsteps in an endless road

The seconds soon pass into the minutes, hours, days, and years
Still the moments never last that bring upon us calmness or good cheer
The simple mind of man is disturbed from all that he has seen
The atrocities committed by a barbaric race of human beings
Once these deeds have been witnessed they can never be forgotten
Nor denied out of existence no matter how evil, vile, or rotten
We will always know how deep we can sink into the mud
Because our crimes are forever etched into the history of our blood

Hands out
Thumbs pointed
The traveling way
In the old days
On the highway
This used to be ok

Now it’s illegal
Cop scout like eagles
For kind hearted travelers
Say don’t trust a stranger
Cause life is stranger danger

I pull up
Let him in
Say my name is
Tell him
If we get stopped
By a big burly cop
You’re my cousin

Hope
The grass will not settle
Beneath our feet

Hope
The sun will rise
With wondrous oranges
And sleep will come

Hope
That hope is not wasted
Tasting a twinge of regret
May make hope sweeter

Hope
That hope is real

Shots are fired thoughts inspired
by the desire
to see it never happen again.

Heroes walking right beside her
helping hands and lights to guide her
to a less bitter, sweeter, and brighter
world of Justice.

March or die riders share hopeful flyers.
Peaceful protest inciters instead of rioters
fight back against government deciders,
failed healthcare providers,
and other authoritarians who try to deny her
the light that burns so much brighter inside her.

Hope is the last refuge
of the broken and bruised
the painfully confused
who feel ill-used
yet hold on to
a chance to renew
the positive that is
long overdue.

Hope is a smile
that breaks tears
causing some to fall
and others to disappear.
It is a fool’s game
of poor predictions,
bets placed from
bad positions
but still sustain
the lost
and unforgiven,
those painfully driven,
living in the dreams
of what good things
tomorrow might bring.

Hope is a trinket
saved despite the need to eat
so, that when this homeless man meets
his long lost loved
he can give that gift
to the man he misses.
It is a warm spot on
a sidewalk vent,
a hand offering two dollars,
a stranger offering conversations
to break the cold blindness
of this windy winter loneliness.

Hope is daylight
to a prisoner who
moves to make things better
in an unfair system,
an institution
that tries to turn them
into numbers,
less than human
equal to dollar signs.
It is consuming all that bull
running down that rodeo clown
goring him to the core
and making it out
of that gated door
before idiots slam you
back in again.

Hope is a good ear
and a mouth shut
someone who hears
what other people
need so badly to say.

Hope is the lessons
that I have learned and lost
found and forgot
given and taken.
Whether I was right or mistaken
fool or genius
hope is the stream that
swims between us
in shared language,
in shared body movements,
in shared history.
It is the energy
that directs us towards
better days for
all people.

Hope is good
not necessarily
making its lack evil
but it is what people
need to get by,
a reason to stay alive.

Hope is transitive,
equal to what we do
to make dreams reality.

Ultimately, hope is the promise of
compassion yet to come.

I feel lost and forgotten
The white light strings
No longer tether me
To hope

The pattern of people’s behavior
Is not something I savor
I tire of trying to play savoir
To the mad mass of human cattle

Love is but an illusion
Dull despondent
I no longer long for it
A bitter mistress
Who I undress
With no more self-delusion

It is a fog and as all fogs do
It must pass
I must ask
Myself to be patient
But it runs very deep
And I would rather go to sleep

The sun rises
With more colors
Than a grade school
Box of crayons
Bare feet swiftly sweep
Over moist grassy ground
And I put those
Pleasant memories
Back in that black space
Hidden past my blank face
Cause I have to let go
Of loving hope

She smiles and laughs
But I do not ask
She is pretty
With a nice figure
Seams smart, kind,
And tender
With a beautiful brain
But I erase her from my mind
Cause I have to let go
Of loving hope

Paycheck to paycheck
One poem to the next
I sit and guard shadows
To forget myself
Wearing eyes of wonder
I focus better at night
Cause the dawn is to painful
And I hate hopes
Hurtful light

You ask in a moment of affection
afraid of any sort of rejection
but your desperation
is volcanic.

Your strangled *******,
mangled flesh
is stressed by
over handling.
Blood vessels
over expanding
till there is a little bit
Of blood in your ****
and it is a little sore.

You are tired
of those lonely ejections,
messy ejaculations
that shoot up and over your head
making it hard for you to ***
then go to bed.

Not to mention
you got to be a ******* ninja
in the bathroom or your bedroom
hoping no one catches you.

All that ****** frustration
you’re facing
if you knew ahead of time
perhaps you would find
chemical castration a
more preferable option.

Here’s to you
With your glassy eyes
I drink my scotch
And watch you die
TV girl
Fake blood and gore
Genre queen
Screaming horror
Elm Street
On Friday the Thirteenth
Hear me holler
I know what you did
Last summer
What a fling
What a dream
Haunted my teens
Hunting your victims
And I still don’t know why
I enjoyed
Watching them die

Thud drip thud drip thud drip
The plaster chips bulges and rips
Tears chunks and moistened bits
From the edges to the other tips
Crumbling as if this is it
Those creaky bits no longer fit
Bent the metal frames till they are ****
Thud drip thud drip thud drip
I cannot sleep through
this
Even with a pillow crushing my ears
I can still hear what I fear
The house is coming apart
Just like me it will all disappear

How can I live with the kind
who pillage and ****
take their mistakes
and make up our minds
concealing their crimes
behind rhetoric of hate?

How can I live with the blind
who follow such swine
drink the poisonous wine
that puts us behind the times
when we should have been,
so far ahead of them?

How can I live in such a state
waiting for this evil to abate
knowing that what I do
does not sway the populace to the truth?

If I thought that with my life
I could buy back the light
defeat the dark knights
that rush to decide
out of greed and pride
how we should ruin our lives;

I would gladly swallow a bullet
bite a pill
swipe the razor,
till there is nothing left to feel.
I’d empty my vessel
if I thought
I could save this lot.

How beautiful you were
Dyed with life’s colors
Full flushed with blush
Gleaming skin
Moist from the raining
Now wearing crimson
In the mud

How beautiful you are
The undertaker’s art
No longer thriving
Nor feeling heat
Emanating from
The beating of your heart

How beautiful you will be
Buried under the roots
Of the now small willow tree
Tendrils feasting on your flesh
Feeding life with your death
Your greatest and final success
A beauty in all phases

How many loves lost
Loved ones we forgot
Loves that never were
People we met before
Late night train rides
Quiet library days
Picnics by the bay
How many trips
I didn’t take
How many decision
I was to slow to make
How many times
I did not get to say
Goodbye
And now it is too late
I wait so I can make
Another poetic mistake
I tell ya
Ain’t life great

How much is a soldier’s tears worth
Ten yards for a dead heart
A thousand dollar pay day
For a lost leg
College dreams
For nightmares and PTSD screams
A lost eyes
For capitalistic smoke stacked sky
One hundred down
For a million in profit
A billions to come
And all that is cost us
Was our humanity
The movies make it seem noble
While keeping the guts, the gore,
And the human horror
Down to the minimum
But for all the men
And women
We lose over and again
And again and again
Till the horrors without
Shade the horrors within
And even those
Friends who make it back
With unblemished skin
Never really come back again
How much do you think it’s worth

Again they strike
like sharks smelling blood
shredding the skin of night
with bullets and Van lights
burning the insides
of the innocents
who are unable
to find a safe place to hide;

But I still get to live my life
parse out a few sincere tears
for those who will never
get to go home again
for those who
I will never meet here.

These tears fade fast
and disappear
as I watch my shows
and eat my late night lunch.
I know they suffered.
I should feel more,
but time continues.
This pain is but a minor
selection on life’s menu
supplied by the internet venue;

And I am so Self-absorbed
that over half of this poem
is about me.

Step one
Just take a little love
Call it just a flicker of
Family stuff
And spread to everyone one

There is an arch of time that divides us, there are so many can you tell
Misconception and illusion create the prison we call hell
Even the shadows are forgotten there are no words left to explain
Searing images disfigured leave me rattled in my brain


If I claim to be a madman would you take me at my word
I’m so weak weary and sadden but the world still turns
There is a flower in the water it floats away down a stream
Like the fathers and the daughter nothing is ever what it seam

I always thought I was a genius instead it seams that I am a fool
In my folly I can see us, a million people used as tools
We build the building that we live in pump the gas we use as fuel
All the while and all around us they break and take away or schools


Ten thousand years of written history I’d like to see ten thousand more
But if these rich men have their way we’ll barely make a hundred more
They are the demons we are the angels we are the masters of our fate
But if we fail to see it coming then our salvation will be too late

So these are the words of wisdom that I offer listen to them if you can
I may not have all of the answers cause it up to us to make the plan
Lets us start with something simple I’ll call it my step one
Try simple act of human kindness and see how they snowball when we are done

I loved you, beyond the grasp of words.
The paint brush I used to describe you
Was weak and withering
Needed re-configuring
Cause you were boundless

I loved you dangerously
Even when you hurt me
Scars and scabs
Nightmares in history
Bleeding insanity
Across the canvass of time.

I loved you even when you hated me.
The outsider, with ***** ideas
The spoken artist broken heart with this
Dark daring dreams
To help heal all human beings
When you were already so happy
Being subdued by propaganda

I loved your expressions
Your poetry, your sketches
Your philosophy and science
Your rejection of dogmas
When you had the strength
To reject them.

I loved your filth
Desire and rage
Lustful urges
***** thoughts
*******

Even when you beat me down
Like a trailer trash wife
When you reeked of hatred
Stunk of consumerism and racism
I still loved you

Even when I hated you
For breaking my heart
With all the bombs
And violence
When you turned my hopes to ash
When I watched you flash past
And finally come back
From dark ages to enlightenment
And back around again and again
I still loved you

I still love you

Brown honey drops drip on her tongue
To heal such heated hunger
The lemon twist squirted
The salted meat and bitter brew
Easing the gnawing beast
Feasting on her lack of food
The tiny face drawn in hunger
Looked lovingly like an angel to me
Red lips bleeding from the needing
A harsh blush brushing her skin
Phlegm rattling
Like a death toll
As the bell cracks but still tolls
Fantasies of chicken legs and buttered rolls
Rack her fevered brain
Today will be the same
Dreaming of something delicious

The last flower
unable to flee
the earth I see
as I unfold
feeling lite petals
ready to be plucked.

The final fraction
of unscorched skin
unwetted with red lines
or bulging bruises,
the ****** flesh
that I never let
you touch

The dead wood
brown and broken
mushrooms growing
with rings of age exposed
cause they took the top
and left the rest
to rot and drop.

The subtraction of
the howling instincts
that are urging me
to keep collecting
useless things,
the growling beasts
that are hurting
and hunting me
demeaning while
devouring
my well-being.

I am a receiver
A born unbeliever
Truth seeker
Story speaker
Pain reliever
The giver
The writer
The new right
To lifer
Poet of the people
And dreamer

I am defeated
The day was dark grey
Cold and windy
Cemetery
Blue flapping tent
Ready to fall over
And the Preacher
Droning on and on

Today I am tired and hungry
Trying not to eat the junk
That my friends put in front of me
Grateful for the plateful
Two hundred and seventy pounds
And I just want to eat then fall sleep

Today I am defeated
Both sides find no reason
A killer left unindicted
The marginalized left enraged
Sets the stage for more violence
And violence begets violence

Today I am defeated
So it’s no surprise
That the poetry is uninspired
Rage and melancholy
Are like spiraling lovers
Dancing in and out
Of each other’s arms

Today I am defeated
All the kind words are needed
But they only lighten the load slightly
My chest still stings tightly
The tears still fall lightly
Maybe tomorrow will shine
A little more brightly
But I cannot say for certain

I am the forgotten
Though once needed
When you succeeded
In healing your heart
And finding a new start
You slowly moved apart

Communications lessened
It wasn’t new lesson
I have been the healing port before
Saw my chosen ones search the shore
Headlights so bright
That they blinded me
Moving too fast
But graciously
Away from me
Because they no longer needed
That kind of friend

So I wish them well
While I walk off by myself
Deep into the night
The brave and kindly knight
In shining armor
Rusting from the tears of loneliness

I am grateful
For the long grass
That bends with the wind
I am grateful
For the quiet night
I am grateful
For inspiration
I am grateful
For my twelve hour shift
When my twelve hour shift ends
I am grateful
For good sleep
I am grateful

Of angry fools
I am indulgent
allowing them
the air to unwind
and breathe again.

I hope and wait
to be their friend
to open up
the locked doors
that hearts guard,
those dark territories
that are concealed within.

I let them whisper.
Soft droplets
drop this
water kiss
of pain
that strangers
dismiss.

I am indulgent
because I love them
greasy, angry
mob mentality
the bane of me,
but in their artistry
I weep gently
hoping
that they will join me.

I am looking for a world where I don’t have to be sad
People don’t always act like their mad cause I know
That they are not bad, not cardboard cutout, stiff and preformed
Made to perform in the swarm to dive into the **** storm
Killing the warm form of normal affection for a quick *******
Defection for assimilation,
And I would consider self-immolation
If the rewards would exceed the pain it cost
The innocence we lost was just Christmas dressing
Preachers oppressing with fairy-tale lesson
Like lesions on our brains
Like leeches suckling on our flesh
The lies drain us of so much
They train us to do so little
So I am looking for a better world
Not out in space but a race to place human beings and nature
On a pedestal above baser things
A place where human beings belong to each other
Not the state or the denomination
No more discrimination
No more recriminations
Just a world more about love and less about greed

I am no Vincent Van Goh.
Even though, I know
his dark lows,
and manic heights,
the painful trips
that haunted him
so long ago
are partly mine
to show in the growth
of my artistic soul.

I am no Edgar Allen Poe.
Even though, I know
similar melancholic moods
and addictive attitudes.
He is a part of my
personal history
of great things
that inspired me
and everything I write
has a part of the spark
that was once his heart
of darkness and light.

I am no Leonardo Da Vinci.
Even though, I share
his deep scientific curiosity
and inconsistent creativity.
I grow and flow poetically
as he did transitioning
from one grand passion to the next
obsessed then moving beyond
that which spawned
such obsession.

In life death and art
there are so many
who are a part of me
people I will never see
or live to be.
I am me……..
with all my painful parallels
on the same journey
just riding a different track.

I am not a slave
To your different stages
Of human classification

I am not a pale Caucasian
In a white racist nation
Even though this is a very racist
Population

I am not gender specific
Just because I got a thick ****
I am not gay cause I like a chick flick
There are no chick flicks

I am not a perfect American
Not a patriotic idiotic citizen
Not ready to stand and salute the flag

I am not straight nor am I a ***
Not a denizen of the masculine
Or a queen of the feminine
My ****** urges do not define me
They do not confine me
To little square boxes