I don't necessarily
think highly of myself
but
I live with an old dog
and a young cat
to whom I am the world.
Sometimes
I doubt my strength
but
I live with an old dog
and a young cat
both of which view me as their rock.
Sure
the dog whines constantly
poor ******* has arthritis
and sure
the cat's a little wild
I did scoop her up
crippled and alone
in front of my house.
And sure
sometimes I feel alone and broken
but I come home
to an old dog
and a young cat
and a small piece of my heart
finds its' way back.

At twenty-two years of age
I have experienced more death
than many of my elders.
In the past year alone
one expended his brains onto the ceiling
one died a mystery
face down in the river
one died in a car crash
on the run from the law
and the last faded into an ****** induced dream.
Twenty-two years
and I can no longer count the lost.

I listened to my younger brother
on the phone.
He told me
a friend had killed himself
shotgun under chin.
There was an open casket at the funeral.
They'd patched him back together
as best they could
but
some things you just can't fix.
My brother said he looked like an alien
foreign
misshapen.
Without thinking I responded
"You're at the age now brother
where people will start dropping like flies
for no good reason
and you'll have to learn to deal with it."
My brother is nineteen.
What is wrong with a world
in which that statement
is the truth?

We will NOT,
destroy this planet.
Long after the human race,
has dissolved into nothingness,
our earth shall remain.
We will however,
most assuredly destroy ourselves.
We will cloud the air,
we will poison the water,
we will soil the land.
In our arrogance,
we will destroy ourselves,
but not
this planet.

Ghosts
ghosts are real.
I know this
because I know men who see them.
Men who are...
to say the least rational.
Men who are of sound enough mind
not to believe in spectral forms
or fairy tales.
And still I've sat in rooms with such men
watched them cast a glance
toward empty corners.
Watched as their eyes glazed and brought them
elsewhere.
Ghosts exist in the mind.
And that which exists in the mind of men
is very much as real
as that which exists
in their physical worlds.

My heart aches
at the present condition of our world,
of our species.
We the mighty human race!
We who have conquered nature!
We who have grown from simple apes to explorers of space!
We,
who continue to slaughter and maim in the name of gods whose existence is at best,
highly questionable.
We the hateful.
We,
the broken.
If only tears shed by the masses
could wash away the blood of the few.
Pity not those of us who suffer,
but rather those,
who feel justified in their heedless aggression.