I like hiding behind a mask.

I love guessing if your smile will last.

I love your eyes as the only part of your disguise,

That I can see.

I love your mystery.

But then again,

When your mask is the only thing you wear,

Well then I know there is a god,

Because now, you are the answer to my prayer

They main-lined memories,
Cooked up,
Or reheated their juiciest reminiscence,
Over fresh drip coffee and burnt toast in the kitchen.

They played the what-if game joyfully,
And injected the good, the bad and the impossible
Into their long walk
Down to the train station.

Retelling- hell,
Anthony and Emily
Rewrote their history together
With a laugh.

What if we’d had girls instead of boys, she asked,
What if we’d worked for somebody else, he remarked
Be a lot richer Emily chuckled,
And maybe a big pension too, Anthony replied,

And they snorted out loud and squeezed
Each other’s hands so tight
It felt like they were holding on
To life itself.

The only regret I have, said Emily,
Is the number of ice cream sandwiches
I stuffed in my mouth.
My *** could be half the size it is now.

My only regret is that *** isn’t twice as big, Anthony replied
So there’d be more of you to love
And lot more for me to hang on to!

It was an old joke,
Hell they’d performed it a million times.

But truth out…
They still ****** like teenagers
Only now with the kids gone,
They could be loud.
Jesus, the dog hid downstairs,
Or barked seriously
Like thieves were breaking in.

God-****** a good scream felt **** good,
And the hard work warranted some
High pitched celebration.

Hell between the banged up knees,
The stubborn like a mule hips,
And a ***** with attention deficit disorder,
A bit of applause at the end of it all,
Was a genuinely appreciated gesture.

It's the kind of thing,
Couples in for the long haul
Do all the time.

500 years ago,
On a shoreline in northern Peru
More than 140 children,
Were ritually sacrificed,
Their chests sliced open,
From the sternum,
And their hearts ripped out,
Literally, all in one day.

In America over 5000 catholic priests
Have been reliably identified,
As child rapists,
And that's just since 1950.
And only in one country.

Over 300,000 child soldiers exist today.
The worst of the worst,
Had to ****** their parents,
On the day of their abduction.
Think about cutting open your father's throat,
And watching him bleed at your feet.
Over 30% of child soldiers are girls.

This poem won't trend,
Almost no one will care,
And I am certainly no saviour.

But somehow, someday, somewhere,
The essence of us must change.
Only art can save us.
I know that now.

Sunday morning.
The ***** *** chill has huddled,
And backed off for a week,
Maybe two,
Winter’s taunt tendered by reprieve,
An unexpected and
Odd postponement of pain and pulse.
The noose of minus 30
Loosens just a smidge,
The condemned man’s smirk,
Part sass this smile of temporary pardon,
Slips into place
Masks a weathered face
Whose wrinkles
Like the rings
Of the twisted Methuselah tree
Accumulate and record.

Dawn appears as a righteous force,
An arrogant prince this weak winter sun,
Still, sunlight sterilizes,
Scrubs away the stain of night.
It will be a black and white clear day,
The cold is crisp,
This morning’s taste is all hard apple,
The crunch of boots on the ground.

Take heart,
The days ahead will bend not break,
We have survived these times before,
Fought this hate before,
We will live to laugh again
Even if in folly.

We can no longer fear death.
We only have our time,
Tis our mission to be kind,
Love them all must be our friend and final breath.

We can no longer hate life.
Yes, sometimes things go wrong,
We knew this sadly all along,
Kindness weathers boldly both  the storm and strife.

Be kind. Say it. Out loud.

Can you feel it.
The tension, the fear,
The way that even strangers sneer.

Can you smell it.
The decay, the rot,
Everyone poisoned by their own thoughts.

Can you hear it.
The hate, the suffer,
We forget we have one original mother.

There is a luxury
In your naked offer.

A Christianity in your pout and pose,
The promise of a second coming,
Perhaps a third,
If I kneel and praise your tiny lord.

Spread your legs.

I think it and you obey
And you pull your knees up with your palms
To offer me a menu.
A damp hollow inside a moist harbour,
Above a forbidden entrance.

You smooth yourself.
Sample me your smile suggests.
Taste me. Touch me.
Your eyes glisten with,
An addict's anticipation.

The scent inside of you,
Creates an uncontrollable hunger,
Your body is a now a feast and
I envy you.

I kindle, I savour,
Rim the edge your event horizon,
A forbidden temptation
Orbits around the pucker of a black hole,
Before a broad flat tongue
Begins to lick you,
Like a strawberry ice cream cone.

Be as promiscuous as you like I whisper.
Raise your hips to meet my mouth,
Seal the suction of my lips with clitoral precision,
Hold my head with firm soft hands
Then as light as a hummingbird,
I will begin to speak in tongues,
Until a madness descends.

Dare any swain escape his youth intact,
Soon after the fringe of courage will discolour into fade,
Until one day the pause,
The morning mirror, the tics and taunts,  
Who is this clumsy old man his story will complain.

His bruise of reputation echoes back as tease,
The ***** and sag of masculine decline,
Is journaled in the bloom of brown blotch on his hands,
The tattered skin, the oaf and clownish frown,
The aberrant fur in ears and nose,
The quitter’s curve now cues to crooked spine,
There is no bath, no rub, nor miracle devine,
From here on in he culls and manages decline.

The dark shuffles out
With night and quiet on its back,
Winter's woke,
Up and lifts one lazy lid
Sniffs the fertile autumn stir,
One single harsh and homeward sneeze
Turns morning dew
To foggy breath and needle's breeze.

Relief is the essential,
To everything that's joy,
Our ecstasy's revealed,
When our worry is destroyed.

Matter, anti-matter,
Just look in the mirror,
There's two of you still standing,
You never need to fear.

Things work out for better
Only seldom for the worse,
One side is our fear of death,
The other the reverse.

What memories old photos hold,
Inside the creases, beneath the folds,
Friends whose names I cannot mine,
Stirred feelings, mix and intertwine.

Faces, smiles, our eyes star bright
First loves, best friends, love in hindsight,
Cocky, loud, such laughing fools,
Long hair, bold flowers and way too cool.

Three wishes offered I’d take one,
To live again, let life rerun
To be that boy in time again,
To passion all and youth regained.

I ate a bun
It tasted great,
A sip of tea,
I can’t be late.

Work is waiting,
Things must be done,
Reports, decisions,
I’m on the run.

No time for love,
No tears, no pain,
Just work to work,
And not complain.

Every cut leaves a scar,
Not every wound will heal,
But when we let resentment go,
Our fears will gently kneel.

Hate is mankind's weakest link,
So easy to ferment,
But when we smile, our anger flees,
And ceases to torment.

Anti-vaxxer nonsense,
The silly,ignorant, dumb.
Selfish fright-filled sheeple,
Beating on the drum.

Science says the rescue,
Is simple, just a poke,
Anti-vax  deniers,
Think your life's a joke

Isn't it odd
That a man named Jobs,
Created so many.

Drunk wind.
Winter's first punch,
A knuckled fist,
Stamps a bully's bruise,
A constant cult of cold abuse,
No hat, no hope,no coin,no ride,
An icy trail, a slippery stride,
As cracked and lacquered lips
Turnstile and freeze.

Freak storm.
Snow banks and barricades,
A braille ice forms in black brocade,
Flesh hues from flourish pink,
To black and blue.
Tears crystallize and shatter,
Teeth calypso clap and chatter,
Fingers tunnel down the the warmest niche
And flee.

It is not original sin you will be punished for.
It's original thought.

All around I hear voices,
Noise overtakes choices
Am I alive or still dead,
Who's invaded my head,

I can't promise you answers,
Trump spreads like a cancer,
Lies sold by the bold or so I've been told
From hearts oversold,grown old and so cold.

Take chances they say
Kneel down and play pray,
But we know the bomb's coming,
Cause his mouth is still numbing.

When will you vacate and take all your hate,
Or should we castrate this evil lightweight.
I have none, no respect, you gotta be checked
You want everything wrecked, is it all to protect?

We have only one terror,
An early companion,
Our fear of death,
Is our eternal canyon.

One slip or stumble
And life is over,
Even the careful
Get handed over.

Immortality perhaps,
Is found only in fame,
Heroes live for ever,
The rest of us abstain.

My parents gave up on abundance,
A depression cured them all,

We gave up on love,
Kissinger's madness began our fall,

Gen X gave up on friendship,
Dialogue as digits never could enthrall,

Millennials surrendered nostalgia,
When the past became a troll,

Gen Z smirks boldly at the truth,
Everyone a know-it-all.

Alpha's know a virtual world,
Could virtue re-install.

Be kind. Tis the moment to be jolly.
Season's greetings to you all.

Why is love, my only pain,
My heart in hostage, forever vain,
Sadness masks behind my smile,
My life a juried, senseless trial.

For love is often just an ache,
To not perhaps a life mistake,
Is nothing more than nothing less,
As always, life is just a guess.

What has life taught,
What message spins,
Does evil have
A twice evil twin.

The greed and the fear,
The lust is to win,
Does all torment stop,
When true love begins.

God doesn't cry,
In His chagrin,
He waits for us patiently
To search from within.

We have to talk about the bomb.
The atom bomb.

I know you are not worried.
But you should be.

You don't know about the bomb.
Oh sure you're aware, sort of,
That we killed,
One hundred and fifty thousand
Japanese civilians
In a heartbeat.

Like instantly.

But those bombs were toys.
Compared to the **** we have now.

So if y-o-u have the staying power,
This is what happens.
When we drop a nuclear bomb
Over a major city.

The bomb detonates
Between 1 to 4 kilometers
Above the city.

In order to maximize death and destruction.

Yes, that's how military leaders think.
Maximum death.

First everyone on the ground
Goes blind
That's how powerful the flash is.

Then a rain of heat, millions of degrees,
Followed by fire,
Destroys everything
In a mile radius,

Like ******* everything,

People, buildings, power lines,
Police cars, the homeless
Churches, playgrounds,
Sports stadiums,
Grocery stores,'
***** houses,
Daycare centers and more.

But that's only the beginning.

Then comes the 500 m.p.h. wind
You don't know what a 500 m.p.h. can do.
So here are some thoughts.

Buildings are hurricane proofed
Up to a max of 300 mph.

Goodbye to every structure
Within the radius.

This wind will peel the pavement
Off the roads.

The rubble you walk across,
Because there isn't any city left
Will be fifty feet deep.

This all happens in seconds.
Like no ****, you could go out
And walk around
Five minutes
After the blast,
And have a ****,
Although it might be difficult
To find a coffee shop and hang.

But we are not done.

Then the fallout
Fallout is all the **** and debris and particles
Like the powdery concrete,
From a collapsed Trump Tower,
Or the ionized particle from inside the bomb
That gets swept up and
Pushed high into the sky,
The mushroom cloud,
Where it drifts whichever way
God tells it too.

And it's all radioactive.

Which means what?

Radioactive means all the little particles
En masse,
Are spitting radiation.

What the **** is radiation?

Well when you are sitting on the beach,
Watching the nearly naked, frolic and frenzy
That little sunburn you get
Is the sun radiating you.
Transferring its energy to you,
Until you look like a twizzler. ( red licorice).

And you know how sometimes
When the military is putting on a show,
And some young soldier flops over
From the heat?
That's an effect of radiation.

Nuclear bombs radiate like mother-*******.
The sun in your backyard kind of ****
But nuclear bomb radioactive particles aren't hot.
Or even warm.
They are fairies,
With
Their electrons messed up
From the explosion,
And they can ride God's wind for hundreds of miles.

And when one of those little ionized buggers
Finds you,
Goes right through your skin,
Goes through most everything
Until it whizzes by a cell,
Where it stops in,
Has a house wrecking party,
Where you lose your hair,
And everything else,
And you die,
Because all your cells get confused.
(Think cancer treatment on steroids for
a hundred miles in every direction)

So when we elect a psychopath,
Who cannot think,
Cannot reason,
Cannot project
Has neither empathy
Or sympathy,
Is uneducated,
Slow thinker,
Greedy as ****
And not very bright
He has about
2000 of these to play with.

Seriously?

Talk to strangers
Eye contact, a smile, a nod.

Be brave and confident,
Other people are not dangerous.

I know your story is fascinating,
Tell it with gusto, a laugh a tear.

Talk to strangers,
You have absolutely nothing to fear.

I was a chain child, a pookie,
A hellion with a smile,
Tied tight to the backyard clothesline,
No doubt, no kapp.

I got loose. Vicked down highway 2.
Two years old.
Five miles between person a yo-yo
And drunk parents.

I was laughing, lizzing,
The highway clocked up, ripping and running.

The cops finally tagged me, brought me home.
Barely remember but I do.
I was running from them.
Still.

First find someone you enjoy *** with.
Spoiler alert it might be yourself.

Second, absence is a bit of a relief.
Minor irritations are glue like.

Third is roughness. It's a spectrum.
Don't be afraid of it and don't be cruel.

Forth and most important is humour.
What does Charles Dickens keep in his spice rack?
The best of thymes, the worst of thymes.

So there you have it.
Life is easy.
Eat pickles as often as you can.

A child's lost mitten wrinkled on the ground.
It's winter. A sure sign.

Always think in questions,
Be the first one to ask 'why'.

Then follow with an easy 'how',
Exposing truth from lies.

My favourite is a simple 'where',
An adventure to be sure.

'When' tags and lands you in the past,
And makes the 'where' endure.

Now only our poor 'what' remains
Whatever can we say.

Asking questions daily
Makes my life seem quite Ok.

Infinity boils my egg,
But what induces my waxy flexibility,
A catatonia of disbelief
Is the concept of nothing.

There is no such thing as nothing.
Can't be.

So when you say you feel nothing for me
I can't believe you. I won't.

I would plead for pity.
But I will settle for disgust.

I could not survive absolute zero.

I asked if crying would help?

She said no.

I suggested lying perhaps?

She said no.

Then dying it is and I opened the window.

So, what are you waiting for, she asked.

The mist appeared,
Seconds after the sun finally came unglued
From its passionate kiss  
Of the brush and edge of a prairie horizon.
Its last bit of linger,
Promised a rainbow.

Dawn needs a witness,
A town crier,
Someone to shout outloud,
That no one is forgotten,
To assure all who early rise,
Hope is earned and alive.

Hope lives, hope endures, hope loves to surprise.

Twitter tag and Insta-push,
Facebookish posts and text ambush

I know how to message you
To tap and touch, to maybe view.

I love the way you message back,
LOL and all of that.

Poetry by emoji... maybe
Except Eliot, he thinks I'm crazy

We fear only death,
All else is this.
One single fear,
And we will obsess.

One shred of advice,
Given to myself,
Overcome fear,
And we conquer all else.

You want to dance with me,
Gyrate and percolate,
Clap it up, clairebear, and jigg.

C'mon, my flicka bonnie lass,
Jeg and bustamove,
Chica bonita and stella konstatine,
I love all night, now you.

First I wake my ears, then eyes,
My poor man's nose its first surprise,
Sunshine or clouds, a beggar's choice,
I live your laugh, your lover's voice.

But then a whispered prayer's soft sell,
Your magic touch, a celestial tell,
I rise and rose, though leave I must,
Tonight, my love, sweet patient lust.

Can we ever sing a simple song,
Where no one smiles and hums along,
A titled tune or random ditty
About eagles eating fluffy kitties.

Or must we all be kind and chaste,
Keeping everything above the waist,
Polite and kind and wash your hands,
Blood on linen, God's wonder brand.

If tired we sleep,
If bored we fiddle,
When excited we dance,
If in love we tell riddles.

My eyes both are closed,
My hands are quite busy,
My toe taps a beat,
Your smile makes me dizzy.

So what has a beginning and no end?

You are everything to me.
Everything.

Look, I'm in a rush.
I'm trying to make profound observations,
Before I hurry to a workout,
Where I'll  devour a protein bar,
Sweat rivers and streams,
Huff and puff like the little engine that could,
After witch,
I'll stand sideways and look in a mirror.
I don't know why, people just do it,
And then for a few seconds,
I'll pretend that I'm  17.

So.
You can often trust a stranger more than a friend.
If you want the truth ask someone you do not know.

I went to the doctor.
She said my obsession with *** was killing me.

How so, I asked,
And thought about yesterday.

The drugs you take to get *****, get high and get hard,
Eventually your artifice
Will burst your boldness, she said

To die of a balloon burst heart,
In the slingshot of ******,
To exit while rocketing into Nietzsche's abyss,
My eyes clenched,
Ten billion endorphins,
An ****** inferno,
This fusion of soul and pleasure,
God's great whisper tickling my ear,
A lover's last kiss,
The tautological tango of two wet tongues,
A soft breast,
An alert ******,
The slick and slippery slide into madness,
All of this as the one memory I will reclaim for all eternity,
How could I not demand that death follow, I said.

To each his own, she said
I would rather die dancing.

I love you is now meaningless.

I trust you means everything.

And I do.

It a candy can kiss,
And mothers are grand,
The moon spins to full,
And stones turn to sand.

Then love is my lady
Her heart broken and kind,
My eyes as my witness,
Her spell has its bind.

In hearts, love's gentle,
Binds souls with a timeless grace,
Eternal embrace

There is a difference between,
Lost and not wanting to be found.

Lost is eating fruit loops in the park
While people step over you.

Not found in under the stairs,
Inside the trunk full of dead people's clothes
Counting five seconds between each breath,
So you can listen for mice and postmen.

It was anger,
Nature bitter and ignored,
Until finally a scowl and rage.

A blizzard of infinite pellicles,
Pure white confetti flakes
In a hoard.
The storm attacks me,
A cloud of locust,
In their swarming phase.

I was blind.
Even before the harsh wind,
Slapped me hard across the face,
With an open hand.

There are gentle days,
Summer days,
When the wind is a scent,
Fresh cut grass,
A tired smiling sun droops west,
Soft lips on my barked skin,
Memories of each and every day.

I think of her,
Only when winter grows bold,
Its icy ***** mocks me,
Assaults me
With six foot high drifts
A smooth white finish,
Seals all the land.

The storm buries everything
Hides the summer trails,
Until the deer remember the way
And tip toe towards the river,
Their footprints tentative and light.

Then I think of her.
In winter.
When all seems irretrievably lost.

Then I think of her.

I was sitting slingback on a bench,
Imagining the velvet taste,
And remembering the ritual
Of morning coffee with her,

When a hatch of warm sun arrived,
An eight minute escape,
Rush racing ninety-three million miles,
To find and flavour this essence of me.

Such harmony with the breeze,
These two friends called wind and warmth,
One shines, one shivers, both coaxing me to sleep,
Where once again we kiss, we cry,
Tease gently with our softest eyes,
And memories make minutes last forever.

Karla called me at 2 a.m.
Define love, she said without preamble,
Or introduction,
And in her vox humilus morning coffee voice.

Well I'd love to sleep right through the night, I replied,
And waited,
Hopelessly,disappointingly
For the snort.

Karla,
A woman who howls  at knock knock jokes,
Can absorb sarcasm like a coral reef sponge,
Consume it, digest it,
And spit it out like tobacco juice,
Held her breath and counted to ten.

Give me a one sentence definition , she demanded,
Try and convince me, she said.

Well love is when we take responsibility for the
Happiness of another, I said,
And searched my darkened bedside table,
For what I knew was a nearly full
Bottle of beer,
Which I, of course,
Lifted to my lips,
Despite the fly floating on its back.

Karla was silent.
Not unusual.
'Conversation is not a contest' is stenciled
On her Sunday T-shirt and
She never cries.
Out-loud.

So love is pain, she finally replied.

Did she die, I asked her feather soft.

Yes, minutes ago,she replied.

Come by, I said,
We will take a bath,
Drink from the bottle,
And reminisce with the lights off,
For as long as it takes.

Dance lessons began at six p.m.

Martha said she would come,
And then,
At the last second
She bailed…
And sent her friend,
The soprano who lives above her,
The wild one with the parrot,
Who sunbathes in her underwear,
As her replacement.

My name is Alexandra the friend said
And offered me her hand to kiss.

Then I will expect great things from you, I replied,
And drew her body close to me
In a nose to nose, cha-cha embrace.

Are you always so obvious,
She asked me,
Especially in this day and age.

I am a defiant breed I replied,
A man who truly loves to dance.

I am yes alone,
With cold wandering cage eyes,
My time has ended.
Remember my best moment,
Hold my hand as I smile tears.

We ate apples until midnight.

Carrie bought a gadget.

It hollows out the core,
While at the same time
Infusing the castrated fruit
With up to 4 ounces of
The liquid of our choice.

*****.

After two apples each,
We lay down side by side.

On the lawn chairs
That were parallel parked at the far end of the screened-in porch.

Turned off all the lights,
And felt sad.
Drunk sad.

I told Carrie I was glad my mother was dead.
I was. I am.

Carrie told me she stole five thousand from her aunt.
The woman who raised her after her mother
Abandoned her,
In a Goodwill stroller
Outside the bakery.
The waft of fresh baked bread is still her favourite smell.

It was all the money she had. The aunt.


How do we atone for all this evil **** we do,
Carrie asked me just before dawn.

We'd smoked a joint.
And the sizzle came quick
The wind died a sudden death,
The trees went hush quiet
And it was if God himself was waiting to hear the answer.

Do the next right thing, I said,
And closed my eyes

The Frozen philosophy, Carrie replied. She smiled.


Carrie put her hands behind her head and
I kissed her.
We teased,
*** or sleep, drunk or ******.
I felt her up a bit.

Eventually our arms padlocked around each other.
Puzzle pieces joined together,
Until the crows objected
And started to bark.

The morning sun slapped us
Adding assault to insult,
The heat had a punch,
The temperature rose straight up and mean.

Finally the hornets
Morning fresh, buzzed out of their nest,
And wigged through the air,
Like tiny drones
And chased us indoors.

What is time,
Where does it flow,
Your kiss was here
Only moments ago.

Your laugh, your love,
Assigned to the past,
Your smile a ghost
Leaves me aghast.

What trick is time,
A one way *****,
Climb up, not down,
Harsh misanthrope.

Gone now this one
Who made me whole,
Time's rude gift,
A hollowed soul.