Inhale strength, Exhale pain.
The smoke creeps through my lips.
Inhale numbness, Exhale hate.
The ashes fall apart like my soul,
Like my world, like my mind,
And everything that's supposed to be strong.
Inhale strength, Exhale the weak.
As the world falls down around you.
Inhale the nothing, Exhale the hurt.
At least I know I'm breathing.

Birthdays are for nostalgia
and Kings of the desert
Like Moshe, Jesus, and Xander the Great
who came and saw and tried too hard
to mend some ever important scar
that much too late had been
left too long
to settle in the pyramid of our sleeping parts

Birthdays are for reading Hart Crane
and in his fashion, an attempt to become
indiscriminate as the wind that turns the weather vane
atop the roof where snow may fall
in an imagined winter,
lethargically covering all
in it's bitter farewell to Fall
as its grave-site is buried
by the Winter who loved it most enthralled

Birthdays are for thinking about you
The voice that remains
inside and always before the lights go out
and it's the end of my day
It's there, indiscriminate and howling
just like the wind that turns the weather vane
or the imagined winter
that only falls on my nearest window pane
in the pyramids that sleep beneath my very veins

'To   DaY  I  f A R T E D in a lift
M A N     that is just     W   R    O    N    G
On so many     L
                              E
                               ­       V
                                               E
                                                    L
         ­                                              S.

Do not stand at my grave and weep..
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry..
I am not there. I did not die.