Eva comes home from work to where there are many flies
and slaps my brother side-headed because he left the back
door open,  she is bovine heavy and limps to close it.  We eat

Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and it is soothing like peanut butter
fudge or Pepsi-Cola.  Eva says do the dishes up boys,  goes
to bed and cries.  Me and brother go to sleep and I dream

of a burning house.

Dear Alex,

I listened to President Obama read the letter you wrote today,
To an unfortunate little boy from Aleppo, and how you’d like to be his protege.
In preparation for his visit, you would gather all you’re most precious possessions,
Offering to him love, friendship and a gift called freedom of expression.

You would teach him and he would share his world with you,
A bonding camaraderie colored in Red, White and Blue.
You my friend, have a heart of gold like a treasure untold,
Because showing love to others…..is a longing in your soul.

Thanks you Alex!

Beyond the wilderness,
Where all the stars disperse,
Into asymmetrical constellations,
I still lie there and talk in silence,
To ghosts who don't scare me anymore,

The girl around the bend,
Who sings under deserted bridges,
In vacant nights, used to be my friend,
Until one night a song,
Dissolved her into tears.

The boy who sits alone, on a park bench,
Used to be my friend,
Until one day,
He walked away into blurry horizon,
And never looked back.

The children with blonde flaxen hair,
Playing hide and seek in the garden,
Used to be my friends too,
But they grew so fast,
And left for exploring the world.

The old couple who laughs,
Sitting on the couches in their lawns,
Used to be my friends,
Until the woman died,
And her husband followed her to the grave.

And I'm left here stranded,
Under these broken stars,
Wondering if anyone stays forever,
They come, they stay for a little while,
And they fade out, I must learn to move on.

I have shrunk to a thousand creases.
My dents have moulded
into sand and I'm built of nothing.
I might be brittle cascades
or a hollow dead star.
I might be a scattered ocean.
You would never know what I am.
The comets of my empty skies
emit radiation louder
than a thousand deaths.
Since a million years
I'm buried in vacuum.
My nerves are stapled
with rusted nails.
I've drowned into ocean floor,
I've been swallowed
by molten rocks.
This magma floating
within my veins,
is only your faded face
singeing me from inside.
You destructed me
and I've fallen.
I've fallen beyond grasp.
I've fallen empty,
into vacant depths of a screaming abyss.

We who live on the fringes
of the working-class
know her all too well.
A tulip of a child,
precociously blossoming
at eleven or twelve,
cute and acutely aware.
Never knowing her father,
her mother changing
boyfriends like fashion,
new each season.
Little girl's mind flush
with women's hormones,
she wraps herself around
the first small male kindness;
a good warm hug what she needs,
but has learned but one way
to express love.