My mother would rather have me
quietly contemplating worldly nothings
instead of losing my godly everythings
in turn-up bottles tonight. My mother
has learnt too carefully to frame
newspaper tragedies into final family
photographs waiting to happen. Poet,
who drove you home last night and
at what time and why night and
you've gotta realize when you're
taking the whole art thing too far. Poet,
you have to learn how to listen you're
naive you're young you don't know what
life really is. Poet, look at me when I'm talking
to you. Look at me when I'm talking to

I burn my city away on cheap nights,
eight glasses wasted on a dry throat.

The sound of boots squishing raw soil
set a course of sirens through my rotting
ears, jerking my dilated pupils
into the boiling sun, crying in the
presence of my son,

yet there I am,
seated among thinly threaded confessions,
surrounded by faces reminding me of headaches
on Monday mornings.

I can smell their toasted hair under my gaze,
when they say, "quitting is taking back your life,"
yet I could pay for a Friday bar
night with a bald boy,
suffocating under the weight
of a cold rib-cage,
until I screamed at them to pull the plug.

She does not need a controversy in order to be relevant. Relevance stands on its own; it is a level onto itself.

The words of a relevant woman are never unkind nor twisted. They speak life. Most of all, they speak truth--the whole truth and nothing but. The marks of a relevant woman are faith and obedience--to be the person God called her to be, and to fulfill whatever her life's purpose may be.

For relevance does not beg for attention. It is not clothed in selfishness or vanity. Rather, it is clothed in God and His glory is where she draws her confidence.

That is why her relevance goes beyond her--it's out of this world. And also why the world will look and take notice of her.

i mine as well be wearing flip-flops forever
in this godforsaken century.

lonely man/me/or him sits at the edge of a river.
at the edge of a town,
on the edge of a rock round and called mama
/earth.
he is contemplating jazz,
no,
madness/women/& spontaneous combustion.
he leans the sun forward to touch his forehead/combust.
the man is homeless,
  or this is his home,
  or that van parked over there and smiling.

he balances boulders in the water,
peaked on schlitz,
contemplating birds,
no,
the blood of old age and some sort of ex-girlfriend/witch’s brew.
a malt-gut sediment.
chikee hut nap
& dreams.

this is how it is for the man/me/or him raised-up
in a single-wide or on the riverside,
with the ghost of grandaddy
& his theories on complex-costume-parties.

We see ghosts in the eyes of all.
Scarred lives bleed onto screens
as spoon fed masses forget to use the word human.

Do they not bleed red?

We see fear fleeing war zones
while we in our comfort zones
mourn not the lives lost but the cost of the living.

We see children torn from wailing mothers.
Crushed and bloated by the weight of water
tiny bodies wash up lonely, suddenly silent
now mascots for a cause they did not choose.

Inaction is the thief of humanity.
Greed, it's protector, smiles down on the dying.
There but for the grace of God...

"Sometimes you just need one person. Maybe forever..? Maybe for just a little while. Not long. Being alone is hard, but being with a lot of people can be hard to. Find someone is okay with talking for hour about stupid ****, but at the same time, would enjoy silence with you. Someone who would hike 10 miles then sleep all day. You just need someone to help you balance. Sometimes you need someone to help you keep your center of gravity."