fields of lavender
as far as the eye can see,
in rows of scented purple
growing insatiable idiosyncrasies,
our minds are a rich, deep soil
and the children of our thoughts
run free,

run free
and light,
run free
and careless,
like a river to the sea.

the heart is programmed
to be broken,
to let in the light,
and the earth in us is woken,
our heart will open,
it will open,

when we take in our first
breath of this heaven.

An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a completely dreamless sleep.
-John Steinbeck

Lately I've dreamt so much of death
that death surely also dreams of me.

I die in such novel ways, that only
a brain glutted with sticky sleep

could devise: my teeth have the word
"OBITUARY" scrimshawed across them

as I dig myself a grave - my shovel
strikes colossal grandfather clocks

instead of rock and webbed root
in the wet black loam. The worst

feature my father, who vanishes
suddenly mid-sentence, leaving

behind a silence like old books
forgotten and dampstained

on yard sale tables, patiently
waiting for eyes or for fire.

Death: come, play chess with me,
as is your wont; wear Old Shuck

& twin me down the night streets -
anything but this, when I dread

the failure of evening coffee,
& slide unwilling into cold sheets.

Thousands of eyes,
looking at my sleeping body.
After my false awakening,
I saw them,
still trapped in the dream.
They were recording
my every painful breath.

Eyes without eyelids,
dense, dark air.
I became an unexpected glitch
in the imposed system.
They just didn’t know
what to do with me.

The spiders around my bed
were watching over
the meaning of my existence.

I had only a deep need
to find a place
for all elements
of the broken vessel,
the black pupils,
the witnesses
to my faltering walk.

I am not yet a butterfly.
I am the caterpillar
in a long ego tunnel.

Thomas was right.

To heal,
I must keep going
and going
until all becomes
one seamless whole,
ready to transform
into a flying being,
free from the chain of wounds,
sacrificed
on the altar
of broken Ego.

cracked asphalt of the modern realm

and court jester Gus pushes a shopping cart
he borrowed from the A&P to collect

bottles and cans
for a pence, perhaps a schilling.

the alley cat he cared for was named Maggie
and Gus slept with Maggie
in a kind person's village cellar.

it was rumored that Sir Tommy R.
shot a flaming arrow
into Gus's wooden leg.

young knaves
called Gus a *** knowing he'd chase them,
wooden leg and all,
and he was swift.

some threw insults, some threw eggs.
the village was a ballroom
fit for lords
in search of a court jester.

Gus the ***. I saw him

i saw him limping through the rain.
my heart was thin.
I threw him apathy, feigned sadness.


his heart still glows in my sorrows garden.

nobile misfit. all Gus sought was a smile, bread,
and a kind word.