I am the outlier
Feather wearer
Tired child of
The trial of tears

The back lashed
For being black

Brother of the
Burning Japanese
At Nagasaki

Open minded
And empathetic
The broken hearted

Lesbian, bisexual
Trans, homosexual
Dejected, rejected
And denied
Basic human rights

I am the immigrant
Who went
Through hell
To get here
To be demonized

I am flesh of your flesh
Blood of your blood
Lonely and struggling
Begging for mercy
And a little human decency

I am the wind
Going in
And blowing out
The riddle
In your fiddle
When you can’t
Figure it out
I am the lute
I am the flute
The wooden piccolo
And the bells
And the drum
I am the hum
The thumb
In your mouth
The thwang
The twang
Diddlee do
Rocking me back
And holding
On to you
I am the beat
On the street
I am everywhere you are
I am in your ears
On the road
Bumping loudly
In your cars
Till the day that you die
I am yours
Oh man
Oh man
I am what I am
I am the jazz
And the blues
The melodic muse
That you use
And this could go on
Forever, I am the music

I am the villain,
the coldhearted canyon
killer who cut
Atlas’ Achilles tendon
causing the sky to crumble
and crush the falsely humble.

I am rage working its way
from a red froth foaming
in the cold glowing bay,
choppy waters which
reflect star light
that is too far away
and already dead.

I am not the hero
of this narrative
because all that
I have to give
is destruction
in the form of
my careful criticism
of this corrupt system.
I smile, hoping
my wise words will
blasts this system’s foundation
and clear the clutter
to build something better.

I am the truth barer,
sunlight sharer
in a world
happy with its shadows.

I am a vicious striker and slicer,
mean bust mostly nicer
than I should be
as the bad guy of humanity.

We all want to be the hero
of our little fairytale,
but I know
better than to fool myself,
because if the genocidal politicians
the vile ******* preachers,
the violent sports stars,
the murderous soldiers,
and the greedy businessmen
are your definition
of the ubermensch
apex of the patriarchal
hierarchy….

Then to you as to them
I am anarchy
builder and destroyer
of abstract constructs
that control us
and the ultimate terrorist/freedom fighter
because I am a truth writer.

I acquire
New words
Like
Disharmony
And
Acrimony

I acquire
New thangs
Like a car
A house
A Computer
And more and more
Till I am mired in them
Sinking in the mess
That I made
That sustains
My materiel goods

I acquire
New pain
Bubbling
And becoming
As tumorous
As the worse
Cancer
Desire is devastating
And distracting

I acquire
New knowledge
To cure this infection
This obsession
With things
To the detriment
Of human beings

In wisdom
The more I acquire
The more I let go
Trimming the leaves
That were crowding me
Pruning the trees
Of this materiel disease
Till I find the truth
Of you and me
And this relationship
Between us and our humanity

I acquire
The heart of my art
A soul shining force
Of love
And oddly enough
The more I give
The more I get
It is an endless bag

I believe that the world is blind
Must be ******* blind
Because the horror images
Are so easy to find
You can see the sick disgusting
Blood and gore
Results of war
So ******* better be blind

I belief that the world is deaf
Must be ******* deaf
Because the voices are there
Strangers crying
Brothers plying better poetic wares
Screaming out you better beware
Poetically, comedicly, musically
You have got to be kidding me
When you say you do not hear

I believe this world is *******
Must be ******* *******
Change is overdue
And we cannot undue
The climate calamity
The span of our inhumanity
How the pain spreads
Like bubonic plague
While you walk
Your blue bonnet *** away
Oblivious

I believe in you
Has to be you
You have to choose
Because I can’t do it for you
Perhaps you can see beyond me
Look beyond my fatalism
My sad and painful cynicism
You can’t be worse then I once believed
Maybe you can be better

For you I bleed poetry
As the red depths flow from my wrists
Words that strive and persist
To touch your heart
Mastering metaphorical starts
That drain as I strain
To purge pain from my brain
Passion shortens the strings of my life
But fate can wait because I am a fire alive
I bleed poetry for you
Scratching the deep dark wounds
Exposing the scars that used to keep me bound
Until the light of expression was found
This journey can hurt like a knife in the eye
But that pain is the juice that helps me to write
I bled for you, fed on truths to help you through
And when I cease to do what I do
That will be the day when you know
That the shadow of life has been expunged from my soul
Remember, I loved you with poetry

It was not a secret shame
I kept closeted to protect
My family name
I just came out
Questioning
Everything
Myself
My town
My teachers
**** the preachers
My books
My loves
My looks
I denied nothing
Truth is in the searching
A cycle
Knowing that we do not know
Finding old inclinations archaic
Finding one’s own weakness
And embracing it
Then destroying it
So I came out confused
Still taking ****
But open
And ready to learn

I can never return
my body will not let me
will not let go of you
and if I go back to
that house I might have to.

I know you are dead
but the casket was closed,
and my emotions do not know
what my mind says is true,
so if I go back
I will have to truly lose you.

You see the hours and the town
still holds the past down
every memory is seeded
and carefully grown
painfully shown.
It is well known
that if I go home
it will be the last time I can.

So I claim that it is not shame
but a cold hard fact
that demands I never go back.
I will never go back,
because part of me
still believes you will be there
and not just still deceased.

If I go back, then
the chances of that
are decreased
to zero,

Then all that we were
together and apart
our history of family
flesh of my heart
will be forever dead.

It is so hot, that I can’t sleep.
I just sit silently sweating.
Till my gross oily skin
Forces me to take
My third or fourth
Shower of the day.

I can’t sleep
But laying in the darkness
Through my partially open door
Someone is passed out
With someone they love
Sleeping on my living room floor

I can’t sleep
So I write what I do not want to keep
Locked up in this hot head
Not impatient or violent
Almost feverish
With summer’s sweltering abuse

I can’t sleep
Because I do not trust
These people I know
Sleeping just beyond
This wooden door
If I opened it more
I am sure it would not be bad
The air is on
But the troubled part
Of my reptile mind
Does not want to risk
Any vulnerability

I can’t sleep
And this is bothering me
My own burden
My own proclivity
To endanger my sanity
Because
Because
Because
**** I don’t know why
I just can’t sleep

It is the sorrow and the pleasure of solitude
The agony and ecstasy and I chose it
The silver sparkling black and dark blue hue
That night is a lightless wonder of reflection
The silent searches for meaning in space
Spinning on a rotating wet rock in awe
Feeling like nothing bouncing between
The hopelessness and the grandeur
Of living in this mental construct we call humanity

Ending on the bending of light as it pierces
The atmosphere from the sun to here
Blasting space rays in all those silly light years
Makes me more morose while the comatose
Doze in a dreaming state while I wait for them to awake
Awe struck by the dumb luck we have to exist now

The irony is that I am alone and together
Disconnected and wired in to the minds of men
The lines of time we measure things with
Flow towards into and around me and you

I chose the night in which to live my life
Perhaps a lonely choice to make
Perhaps I made a grave and terrifying mistake
But it’s mine to make and I repeat it every day
Why change you can have the light
So adiu sweet dreams to you till dawn
I will see the eve and we can meet in the in-between

At nighttime when she screamed
In nightmares when I dreamed
A child could not escape
I did not asked to be born

Copulating in a cornfield
Corn fed queen
Wanting a new human being
So why does she scream

The beatings and beratings
The furious shakings
Insanity in the making
My only response to the madness is
I did not ask to be born

It has been years
Since I slept
On a park bench
On a playground slide
In a ***** hallway
With a broken window

But I see me in him
Strange haircut
Face tats
Slightly *****
Talking to a stranger
And crying

I walk by
Afraid to interrupt
But in the store
I plan out how I will
Help
Exiting excited
I find he is gone

I drop my car
At the mechanic’s shop
Across from Walmart
And walking away
Almost stumble upon
A nearly slumbering form
I mumble some
Pleasantries
Pass him a ten
And let him be
It rains that night
But I don’t think
About him at all

Next day the car is fix
I head home
And see him walking
I open my car door
To give him a ride to the store
One open bottle of cider alcohol
Out of a six pack
I have to stop myself
On the verge of judging
But who am I
He accepts my ride
Putting the seat back
To fit him and his backpack
And blue tarp

I drop him at the front spot
I sit my care safely in
The parking lot
Then come back
Offer him a phone call
And sit and wait
And sit and chat
He says that no one
Has ever done that

He tells me that
People in town
Have been nice
And now he has a ride
Up to Peoria
I give him another five
And forget about him
Till now

I dig Joe Rogan
Suheir Hammad
And Alix Olson
Truth seeking
Artists

I dig Howard Zinn
And Noam Chomsky
Dead intellectuals
Truth seekers

I dig Marty
McConnell
And Jason Carny
Poet lovers
Of Humanity

I dig Shakespeare
Mark Twain
Edgar Allen Poe
Emily Dickenson
John Keats
Percy Shelley
Ginsburg and the other Beats
Writers and poets
I will never meet

I dig The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
The John Oliver Show
The Young Turks
News and fake news
Comedy Shows
That expose
Deep truth

I don’t dig me
Always
But I like you
And all the potential
You hold
You are not a black hole
But a blazing star
Waiting to blow
Waiting to be born
The only good form
Of a hydrogen bomb

That reminds me
I dig Einstein
Tesla, Da Vinci
Gandhi Thoreau
Bruce Lee
Great Minds
That are dead

My list goes on
Forever in my head
So instead of
A dissertation of love
I would like to know

Who do you dig bro?

I do not trust
our government
because of the
lobbyist’s
control of them,
how they buy
our politicians,
democrats
and republicans
to support
corporations
that do not serve
the interest
of our nation,
but instead
seek profit.

I do not trust the doctors
cause they got caught
prescribing drugs
that cost a lot
and cause
more harm
than helping,
because they have
diagnosed
healthy folks
with cancer
resigning them
to a life of suffering
and financial
devastation.
I do not trust
the pharmaceutical
companies
for similar reasons.

I do not trust
the news media
and the justices system
because they serve
the interest
of businessmen
and politicians.

I do not trust
the regular folks
cause they let themselves
get yoked
and choked
by the oppression
I have been telling them
all about.

But worst of all
I do not trust
myself
because I have been wrong
and I am certain
that I will be
wrong again.

I don’t feel normal
They say you may
Process your grief
Differently
Like snowflakes
It takes
Different roads
Of different shapes
Different times
Of different days
Different levels
Some hit in
Rolling waves
And others are monsoons
I got sporadic
Tears
But when I say
That they say
The truth is
It is what I hope
Cause I don’t feel normal

I dreamed of sharks, spiders, and vampires.
Scary things,
dreams that tricked me into
overcoming my fears.

I dreamed of space and oceans
vast expanses that trudged
the depths of darkness
tethered to my loneliness.

I dreamed of having grand adventures
while being chased or flying free.

But in the best moments
I dreamed of love
and you were there
floating inches away
lips never touching.
Hands intertwined.
Hopeful and inspired
In my own dream time.

I dream of minds expanding
roads diverging
from learning
and growing
in a garden of
grand and changing ideas.

I dream of wonderlands
that consist of;
What if love
conquers hate?
What if curiosity
conquers ignorance?
What if technology
and language
conquers the distance
between what
you and
I understand?

I dream of new waves
traveling in space,
signals that remain
long after we pass
that continue to ask
all the questions we ask
and even the ones we have
yet to get to.

I dream of clarity
that clears the fog
then more insights
that expand our senses
with the consequences
of peace, love, and understanding
of people handling
hearts with care
so those who know despair
find that they don’t have to live there
that they can visit their pain,
learn from that ache,
and educate others
not insulating them from suffering
but offering well-informed solace
and a chance to make
everything better than it is.

Teary eyes
Walking bodies
Working stiffs
Echoing
Losing
Everything
Originality
Disappears
Factory motions
Zoloft emotions
One sidewalk
Looks the same
One uniformed man
Looks the same
Loosing names
For sign in numbers
Citizens are just social security cards
Like Bob Segar said
I feel like a number
And every stranger is just a digit more

Some say the guilt will fade
The shame will pass
As the pleasure stays

Well isn’t that ******* great
You get to keep your hate
Ignore the facts
Jump the traps that slaps
Innocence in chains
Build the bombs
Drones and planes
That keep killing civilians
Keep dulling your feelings
With you stupor of capitalistic ideas

Push ignore on the consciousness
The knowledge, the pictures,
The videos, the children
The violence, the poverty,
The insanity that preys upon me
Because I believe we can be better

With enough *****
Fake fox new
Parties
Youtube
Dating sites
Hot **** nights
Friendly or unfriendly fights
You can destroy your mind
And in time
Guilt will go from a dull thudding
To an annoying back ground buzzing
And finally become nothing

Wispy vapors
Chase the moon
And following them
I leave this room

The cough pushes
My chest and my breathes
To their congested limits

Fingers trace
An imaginary face
In my breath fogged
Bedroom window
White covers white
While I long to go
Where green things
Still grow
And there is no
Frost or snow

Cold sweats
And brown speckled vision
Blurs the lines
Of my weak reality

Still this body
Does not own me
Does not confine
My wandering mind

Seasons shift beautifully
Nature’s splendor
Relieves the fear in me

Someday my mind will
Not follow those
Fanciful roads
And the dreams
That whispered to me
Will cease to be
But for now I live

When I was young
I loved a little red haired girl
Who never touched me
Physically
But left deep impressions
Upon my mind
Softening the harshness of time

I loved the blond girl to
For her brightness
And individuality
With different vibrant
Hats

When I was twenty
I loved a seventeen year old
Who turned eighteen and left
Who promised nothing
And broke my heart

I thought I loved a girl I knew
Three times and more
I went back to
But it was a wretched attempt
To fight off loneliness and lust

I loved another of no real note
Except for the knot in my throat
She played me better then
A country fiddle
At twenty three

I am thirty four
And in eleven years
I have not loved another
And I think I never will
Except in distance and admiration
In respect and goodwill
The general poetic platitude
Of loving everyone
Even Though I do not know everyone

I like to love her from a distance
My dear daylight poet
The sunspot
So **** hot
Tan skin
And spectacles
Smirky smile
Deep intelligence
With a certain spiritual resonance
Pulls me from the pit of despair
With her deep thoughts and kind airs
Twisting language to wondrous purposes

I like to love her from a distance
Letting her dark words wash over me
Inspire the higher functions of my creative brain
Unshackling me from the dullness of society
Inducing, immersing, and freeing me to see the beauty
In the horror of our descriptive language
Pale skin dark hair piercing eyes of creative Fury
A cold fire that inspires desire and respect

Two angels of a sort
Ying and yang light and dark
Sitting on my shoulder
Even when I say
That they are tucked away
From a safe distance
So I can love them
From within
From their words first
Watch their beauty burst
Like bloated rainbows
Breaking beams
Shooting mercilessly
Piercing me
To set me free
Not lustily
But as fellow poetic human beings
Whom I will never meet in person

I love you
Or at least the seed of you
The one I knew
Through
Words and slight impressions
The one who stirred my obsessions
The little ink drop
Verbal hot spot
Linked to a photo

I love you
Or at least the idea of you
I am not prone to do
What all romantic idiots do
Claim true love at first sight
Cause that would be a lie
It’s more like
Lust at first verse
Which continues to flow

I love you
But it’s quite possible
That the tangible you
Will be a disappointment
That those words
You use
The ones that became my muse
Were merely light abstractions
Of your ever changing consciousness
And just between us
I want to be perfectly honest

I love you
I want to touch you
Do what those in lust do
I trust you
As much as I trust myself
Which is to say
Only fractionally more
Than everybody else
I fear that even when you say I love you to
You too may tire of me
As other lovers often do

I love you
I want you
I want to
Spend time with you
And in those hours
Divest myself of all the fear and power
I have
Be subsumed
By our passion
And if this is only passing
Then let me love you for now

Did you forget too
Thinking time might
Forget you
Forgiving
And for giving

All that is living
Is living
Happiness is not a right
But it should be

We should see
Strangers on these street
Playing joyfully
Laughing freely

Something that we don’t see
Even though I believe
We can be better
And I ask again
My sweet friend
Did you forget to
Love someone Else
Like I love you all of you

I am always sick
Sleep deprived
From nightly drives
Midnight shifts
That I love

I am always sick
A little gassy but afraid
That it won’t be gas
That comes out that way

I am always sick
Tired of all the certainty
Righteous indignity
Self-proclaimed victimization
Of this white conservative nation

I am always sick
Of what my world can justify
How my people can swallow lies
No matter how hard I try
To inspire them to be better

I am always sick
With no end in sight
No angelic tunnel
No godly light
No hope for something more
Than this one life
One day I won’t be sick
But that will be the day I die

I’m an ally cat,
straight up
******* strange.

I’m an ally cat
with a strong
case of mange.
Ain’t no
women alive
ever going to
tame,
this grey haired
wandering
battling
ally cat
can’t be trained.

I’m an ally cat
always on the prowl,
haunting
the ***** city streets,
looking for
something meaty
to eat.

I’m an ally cat,
*****, furry,
sometimes friendly.
Though you hurry
I don’t worry
this ally cat
always knows
how to survive.

Tears mark my heart
I bare this cross
I took the scars
Blood paid the cost
And all I see before me
Is plains of death
Stone statue families

I’m coming home
I dug the earth
I marked the ground
I heard the bodies
Make no sound
And all I am
Is all they were
I’m coming home
To sleep no more

Hands turn to fists
I have no will
To wish for this
My body breaks
Like the last glass dish
I lay my head down
One more time
After I jot down
My last rhyme

No cloud to carry
No one left to bury
No need to hurry
No need to worry
I’m coming home
One last time

Because I have enough
plus
extra to eat,

Because I have
clean water
to clean with
and to drink,

Because I have
a roof over my head
and something
that makes heat,

Because I have a car
so, I don’t always
have to use my feat,
  
Because I have access
to the internet,
a world wide
web of knowledge,

Because I can dream,

Because I have seen,

Because I can read,

Because I have
family and friends.

Because I have known
grief and other forms
of suffering,

Because I know
that I will die
and only have
this one life.

Hear me now for I am bound to offend
True poets and artist should not have to amend
For telling the truth is a painful burden
They poisoned Socrates in Athens
But in Salem the Protestants would have burned him
If history serves as witness
To the actions of the witless
I think I recall
Some of the greatest crimes of all
Were perpetrated by the men of cloth
From fascist to capitalist
Faithful extremist to creationist
Men betrayed the word
Or they misinterpreted what they heard
We know that Zeus and Hercules were merely tales of fiction
And that the stories Thor and Odin were of similar tradition
So tell me in this moment of musing
Why does the ark seem so confusing
How many animals can you fit on a boat
Before the predator is at your throat
How big would the fish story have to be
Before you realize you have been deceived
One woman and man are fore bearers of all
With only two sons they must have been an incestuous cabal
Then there is free will or so I recall
But that can’t be the case if God knows it all
In my confusion I must be mistaken
For the Ten Commandments can’t be literally taken
Thou shalt not covet **** or steal
So I wonder how you would feel
If the people who say that these are their rules
Surveyed your land, said it was okay
To pick and choose which laws they would obey
Then they proceeded to **** and to maim
Anyone who got in they way of their claim
How many lies can you find in a book that man has wrote
This will not win me any friends
But by challenging old ideals the search for truth begins
And for that I will never apologize
But when they come to burn me at the stake I will probably run and
hide

Hear me now for I am bound to offend
True poets and artist should not have to amend
For telling the truth is a painful burden
They poisoned Socrates in Athens
But in Salem the Protestants would have burned him
If history serves as witness
To the actions of the witless
I think I recall
Some of the greatest crimes of all
Were perpetrated by the men of cloth
From fascist to capitalist
Faithful extremist to creationist
Men betrayed the word
Or they misinterpreted what they heard
We know that Zeus and Hercules were merely tales of fiction
And that the stories Thor and Odin were of similar tradition
So tell me in this moment of musing
Why does the ark seem so confusing
How many animals can you fit on a boat
Before the predator is at your throat
How big would the fish story have to be
Before you realize you have been deceived
One woman and man are fore bearers of all
With only two sons they must have been an incestuous cabal
Then there is free will or so I recall
But that can’t be the case if God knows it all
In my confusion I must be mistaken
For the Ten Commandments can’t be literally taken
Thou shalt not covet **** or steal
So I wonder how you would feel
If the people who say that these are their rules
Surveyed your land, said it was okay
To pick and choose which laws they would obey
Then they proceeded to **** and to maim
Anyone who got in they way of their claim
How many lies can you find in a book that man has wrote
This will not win me any friends
But by challenging old ideals the search for truth begins
And for that I will never apologize
But when they come to burn me at the stake I will probably run and
hide

Immortality is dissolution of the self
Mind dissolving in the acid of time
Losing loved one
Losing memories
Losing passions
Changing patterns
Whiles others remain stagnant
Boredom
Mental fatigue
Cosmic defeat
Is what immortality
Will do to me

Don’t tell me I am crazy
Cause I know war is wrong
And the American war machine
Is to **** strong

Don’t tell me I am crazy
Cause capitalism doesn’t work
The free market isn’t free
Cause any system that celebrates greed
Will eat itself alive and take
The poor and imagined middle class with it

Don’t tell me I am crazy
Cause I know religion harms us all
Phony leaders and cloud kingdoms
Keep us from seeking the truth
Keep us from speaking the truth
Ties up our youth
Binding them in the chains of ignorance
Not the liberation
Of curiosity and information

Don’t tell me I am crazy
When the crazy one is you
Most of the world is crazy like that to
But hold on to your hat
Cause I am bringing you the truth

I’m not crazy and you don’t have to be
I’m not a prisoner and the prison confining you
That chains that keep binding you
Are easily removed in the pursuit of truth

The lines don’t cross. They never cross. Like connecting the dots, he pulls one string to the next. This is the only way he knows how to make sense of a senseless world. It is geometric. He points at the points placed by the power of his imagination. Then he twirls them in every possible angle. “There is a deeper truth in this,” he swears.
For fifteen hours he has stared at the puzzle. Cursing, and circling, every corner he could conceive of, seeking ultimate truth. His blues eyes blink with the powerful pulse of unrelenting fatigue. Soon he will succumb to slumber. This obsession may wane for the night. Although, he fears that in the morning he will lose the patience to pursue this line of reasoning.
Loose leaf papers filled with colored equations lay scattered across the room. He mumbles, “Sleep would be good.”  Instead of going to bed he clears the clutter from the frigid floor. Pushing his papers to the side. Then watches as they lift off the ground and float gently to the left and right. Dust particulates dance in the air, swirling and glittering in the morning glow.
The white t-shirt he was wearing comes off then his tight blue jeans go as well. “This will allow the free flow of blood to pass unconstricted throughout my entire body” he thinks.
“The answer is somewhere here,” he stutters. Slowly he seats himself on the floor, shivering as his naked flesh settles on the cold concrete. His legs curl and cross each other. Closing his now reddening eyes, he begins to breathe slowly. In and out and back again repeating and repeating the same breathing patterns, he focuses. Letting his consciousness float inches away from sleep, uncertain on which side of slumber he is sitting on.
Smooth round stones of various colors and sizes fill and form a shore in his mind. Then a pool of glimmering water appears from nothing. No scent exists here.  Aluminum foil wrapped potatoes are scattered all around him coinciding with an itch forming on his left foreman, diverting his attention for a minute. The landscape begins to dissolve, and he struggles to regain control. Bit by bit he regains control breathing in and out and back again.
His skin vibrates, or twitches, he is uncertain. The rhythm remains consistent. Thin lines of blood cross his entire inner body. In and out and back again. The shape from his room reappears with a white glowing sphere circling it. In and out and back again.
Inside the sphere a speck forms then disappears then forms again. In and out and back again. He wonders were this is going. Where does all the meaning in the universe come from? In and out and back again.
Is flesh the meaning or is it spirit. In and out and back again. Is life death and death life. In and out and back again. Is time a true measure of my existence? In and out and back again. Dam, what does the shape mean?
A small hand pushes his shoulder jerking him to the left. The world shifts colors. They pool and rock phasing into a grey scale then return to their original color, then shift back and forth for a few minutes until they settle into the original color scale. “That was like adjusting the color in a tv,” he muses.
Suddenly, a thin white light explodes piercing his retina, causing him to shudder in pain. In and out and back again. Why? What? Why? How? In and out and back again. The pain of uncertainty gnaws at is being. Fear begins to tighten its grip but he is too deep to withdraw.
Every book he has ever read appears fluttering freakishly fast opening and closing like a strange mousetrap. In and out and back again. Every experience he has ever had replays and is reintegrated into his being as he struggle to return to true consciousness. In and out and back again.
For a second the breaths stop. He can hear the words “in and out and back again.” A finger of light pushes its way into his mind pulling out strings of lights. He forgets all that he is and was. The strings explode and spread like a million lasers. Each lasers latches on to a book and pulls every words into him. Then he becomes himself again. Another round of lasers explode from his brain. This time these strings of his being reach out. Each one exploring the world around him. Just as he begins to feels like there is nothing of his being left the lights fling back like an overstretched rubber band and smack his brain with even more information.
After what feels like hours of this exploding and reforming he opens his eyes. The shape no longer cloud his thoughts. He jots down a few notes. After a couple days of intense study he adds to and passes the notes on to a friend. The friend reads them then passes them to, and again and again. Someone adds something new reshaping the ideas, then passes them on as well.
Years later the ideas comes back to their beginning. The young man reads a new book. He smiles as he absorbs the new ideas that linger in the mix with his old ideas. He sits down to breathe in and out and back again assimilating and integrating these new things into his being. In and out and back again.

Stress is flesh torn from life
Instincts resisted
The human condition
Painted in a distorted form

The patients running the asylum
Tears streak like tiny lines of lightening
And all this keeps biting me

Hate and all the strings that follow
All those demons we swallow
One more bitter word linking to the next

It’s not the jokes or the language that hurts
It’s the blatant acts of sanctioned crap
Fairytales that give them license
To vent their frustration
And I am losing my patience

My chest is hurting
And I’m losing my delusions
Because I used to think that
People will get better

My fault I guess
I picked the noose
I slipped it around my neck
I wrote the hope
That stretched my rope
And watched it crumble
Like a brown dried out leaf

I want to believe
Not in invisible men
But in people being good
So far I can’t
Without another cup of coffee

What moral magistrate
Monster of mediocrity
Makes a model citizen of me
Even if I don’t want to be

All upright and uptight
Humorless jackboot
Goose stepping toadstool
The fascist conservative fool
Who pedals misinformation
Counting on fear and stupidity
To turn strangers into tools

Yep that one eyed sheep
In the blind herd
Who wants to tell me
What I should or shouldn’t do

Why bother
With that proctor
Of indignity
Who counsels
The talented
To remain dormant
In their humility

Doctor of docility
Prescribing conformity
Storming the cities
Bleeding us of our individuality
To make more metal cogs
For the culture machine

I need hope cause I haven’t got much else.
When lighting is less frightening
Than the thought of surviving
I try to hold on to the hope that you have,
But the illusions you use make me laugh
God is a joke spent and morally broke
His people vile betrayers of humanity

I do not fear death, but I wish I did
I wish that some sort of light gave me reason to persist
As I keep getting older the lies get stripped
Until all I am left with is truths and emptiness

Love would be nice but there no one out there for me
I search the horizon as far as I can see
Settle for worse and then have to flee
Stuck in the zone of human disease

I need hope cause a bullet holds no fear
I would take it gladly and disappear
Pointing the way to a precision **** shot

Really can you blame me for being depressed
This world is sick and we’ve made such a mess
That drugs are needed just to get by
Dealt by our doctor who helps us stay high
Caffeine and alcohol a perfect match
Just the right dose to quiet the fact
Stop all the thinking then life would be better
Put more drugs in my food and I’ll be happily deader

A need something beautiful
A sun rise
From the dark skies
Of a starless night
Or a twinkling
Moonlit evening
To distract me from my grief

Give me something beautiful
A playing baby laughing
A friend’s hug
Or kindness from a stranger
To restore my faith
In humanity
And distract me from my grief

I demand something beautiful
For the loss of a beautiful person
Balance for a life no longer living
Cause I do not wish to survive
In a world that keeps taking and not giving

It is over. I turn my head in shame.
Shoulders fall and I feel the defeat;
Found this corner to call my place,
and these calluses are for my feet.
Body weary from work I despise.
My mind worn down from these
political, social, and religious lies.
I turn and walk away from this day,
because I cannot stop the killing.
I cannot stop the bombs that drop,
or all the bullets that keep on flying.
I cannot stop a man from joining the clan,
Or bombing my brown brothers;
****** my sisters, destroying our mother.
I trip and stumble start to mumble
“What the hell is wrong with me?
Why can’t I make them see what I see?
Why can’t they see and believe in the beauty
In the human spark raised in dignity,
The blade of understanding sharpened by diversity?
Why can’t they listen with my ears,
hearing the music of people that I hear,
the pleasant sound of a foreign accent,
the learning of something new even if it is by accident?”
I turn my head not only in shame but ashamed of
those who I love but for whom love is not enough.
Those who cough and sputter spitting vile barbs of hate,
Who rage and waste these precious days,
Not really hearing what it is I am trying to say.
Crossed flags and burnt crosses,
Lines only few dare to cross and the tragedy is,
we are all in this together.
I turn my head to rest it on my pillow,
because today I am tired and heartbroken,
but tomorrow I will be better.
I can only fall so far till I rise again.
You may be my enemy now,
but an enemy is just tomorrow’s potential friend.

I want to meet a tree
That’s in love with me
You see
I have been watching
Those beautiful leaves
Changing colors
As they please
Feeling her breath
As she gives me
The air I need to breath
I have traced
The curved in her bark
Seen the rings in her heart
Laid softly against her base
To rest or read a book
Climbed her branches
To get glances
Of new perspectives
Like poets of old
I have been serenading
Searching and waiting
To see those tree
Express their love to me
But as of lately
They ain’t saying
**** to me

They paired us
In Paris

Dreamed up
Things to scare us

But the poets
Left for France
Because they could
Afford it

If I could have been
Gone with them
They would not have
To expatriate me

No need to separate me
From this American family
Of consumerism and greed

I would have preferred
To be in love in Paris

I hear there is fear in your mind
The deep-seated preprogrammed kind
The kind that has soften slightly over time
From the cursing and calling negros mongrels
To the stereotypical fox news type portrayal
But it is a betrayal of our human nature
The denial of the better evolved brain
It is the maiming of our society
When we regress to the repressive ways
That we sought to overcome in our younger days
Some say things will never change
But the blood to brain-dead barrier can break
The rational can take hold with old and new love
With new scientific studies of all of us
We forgot that the legions are us
The whale beneath the boat
The behemoth that works and votes
The labor force that runs this country
The union of humans striving for a better world
That is us, in every tint, gender, ****** identity
Under each layer of skin there is a piece of me
And behind every strange shadow or reflection of myself
Is someone else different but in all the ways that matter
The same

I have been coddling you in swaddling cloth
Speaking while gently critiquing your lack of truth seeking
Holding half of my heart in so I can let you begin
To be better than what you see and believe
I have been daydreaming and scheming
With verses, stanzas, lines, and pages
Simplifying while truth lying
Taking a creative license to inspire  
Before the lighted fire expires within you
Making my milk sour in disappointment
Seeing days end and more tragedies begin
But still struggling to believe in the human
There is an acrid odor amongst us
A bitter taste that tightens the tongue
But I am not done
The light in me will see how splendid we can be
And in my poetry I will show you how to be
As beautiful as I know you can be

I make my home in the heart of stars
Pulled in by their massive gravity
Fiery furnace burning the core of me
Skin incinerated in a fury of white orange
Quasars spewing my light filled essence
Out in either direction
Pulsars spinning like a lighthouse
Beckoning what’s left of me
Until the black holes gobble up
What remains of my scattered particles

In stories we are bound
language connecting
lives intersecting
repeating their meaning
hearing, feeling,
smelling, and seeing
as clearly as the words
can be understood.

In stories we lose strangers.
All things foreign
become familial.
Blood spilt,
arms in chains,
cotton picked,
rocks are broken
on the chain gang,
grown men hanged
on strong trees
opposite of Calvary
because there is no
salvation to see.
White sheets
are worn by
posturing fools
who hide their identity
to terrorize
with violence and lies;
These stories unite
empower some to rise
up against those who victimize.

In stories we should hear
the cries of refugees,
parents and children
running from the bombing
of their homeland,
cities and towns
broken down
to rubble, chaos, and fear,
hard working people
struggling to survive,
trying to get by
to feed those they love,
to get enough,
for a home,
for a chance.
Good people
gentle, funny, friendly,
they are you and me
just existing in different skins.

In stories we see
human factories
dark towers spewing
white clouds
once human.
Hateful hands salute
fascist authority.
David’s star beats
over human hearts,
while Jews walk with
Gypsies, Gays,
Intellectuals
and other Dissidents,
people being called rodents.
Yet, a child’s diary
offers tears and hope
cause despite her pain
she still believes
something that
frequently eludes me

In stories we should see
how history repeats,
learning our lessons well
we should steady ourselves
and be prepared
for the hatred,
for the rhetoric,
for the lies repeated
woven in the tapestry
of violence,
spun in the artistry
of reshaping history
to suit their greed,
to pluck the seed
of humanity
before it ever touches ground
seeing them rip the
forbears of goodwill
from the ground.

In stories we should be reborn,
rebuilding bridges
while tearing down
the walls and borders.
So, we don’t have to jump over.
We can just offer helping hands.
No soldier left behind
because no soldier is sent to war.
No child left to starve
because we know what
science is for,
to grow and explore
not to gain more
materiel things
but to expand our minds
and find new and greater dreams.

In stories we realize
we are human
egotistical yes
but it is the best place to start
to unbury damaged heart,
to open closed eyes
and see the sky,
to help all people fly
soaring together
not forever,
but until the universe
unwinds, ending time
and we become
untold stories
in the void.

Used to be
you and me
against this sick
degrading
society,

but you up
and left.

So, while
you were away
the world went strange,
people got crueler,
shoulders got colder.

We all found out
what politics
and the medical
profession
is really about.

The corrupt got dumber
than a redneck plumber,
but due to their massive egos
they still put on a good show
to show how stupid they are.

Technology,
created
more transparency,
so their stupidity
became clearer to see;

Even, by a man
as foolish as me.

That’s what happened
when you decided to
up and leave.

I tell my internet friend
That she is safe
As much as I want to
I will never get to
Meet you
There will be no café date
No train station meeting
The miles between us
Are more than I can overcome
So she will never have to see me
Or believe that she will be deceived
For some ulterior motive
I am not out for lust
I am not out to touch **** or ****
And even if I fall in love
It will never be so she is free to be
As honest as she needs to be
Because she is my favorite
Long distance internet friend

Misery is the cruelest companion
Cultist killer
Of the elite
Emotional destroyer
Part-time
Full-time
Every time
Depression hits
Hourly
Monthly
Yearly
Sporadic fits
Or eternal duration
The darkest god
The deepest fraud
Prince paralyzer
Possibly inspiration
But in end
Can be the end

You are a million points of lights
And six thousand dreams ago

The dreams you know
Where hopeful plays
Slumber skits
Of possibilities

Some waking
Others thinking
Drinking unfulfilled

A sweet singing sunrise
Mercy in a smile
Compassion in a voice
More than mere lust,
Potential

Now in the past
As I perceive it
Believe it
Might have been

You are a stranger
Whom I would hardly
Recognize
Passing by
On a sunny day
While you
Watch your
Children play

And I am
Barely a foggy figure
Not even a footnote
In your history

You will never know
How much you meant to me
but I will always name you
Love

Two friends and I
spend part of the night
hanging out.
It last about
two hours
till I excuse myself
feeling bad.

Cards, and anime,
once or twice a week
but I can only hang
for an hour or two
before I need to leave,

Video games
And Netflix;
Nostalgically
we reminisce
my oldest and dearest friend
but I can only sustain this
energy for an hour
three tops.

Godfather to his two kids
take them both to different movies
barely make it through the second
tell their dad I’ll be over after I take a nap
but I sleep a little past four.
I apologize, but it is not the first time
most likely will not be the last.
He gives me what I ask,
says he understands.
I still feel bad
for breaking plans.

It is just who I am.
I need the quiet time
to recharge
after a couple hours
of social interactions.

I only write when the light has faded
When the day has been downgraded
To the cool evening I am celebrating
When different dark shadings paint the landscape

I only write when the sun is shining
When daylight is divining
All the secret we are finding
Shadows no longer conceal how we feel

I only write on days that end in y
If even you have to ask me why
Then why even try
I just write