I thought you were beautiful

Not shallow beauty,
Skin deep
The kind of beautiful like the sun
Shining on a tree leaf
Showing its veins

Beautiful like,
The sound of a creek
After a good storm

Like the feel of a summer breeze
On the back of my neck

I held you in awe

You were the mist,
Rising off the lake on a cool morning
The view from the top of my mountain,
In the fall when the leaves are colored

You were the violin music
Playing softly while I danced
The colors oil makes on the street
Just after it rains and the light hits it

I was nothing
A ghost,
In the darkest corridors of your haunted house
The typo on an old type writer,
Needing white out

I thought you were beautiful

I was raised up a Southern Baptist,
Never missed a Sunday
There I'd be, fourth row back
To hear what the preacher would say
He preached of pearly gates,
Streets paved with gold
He said we'd see our passed loved ones
And treasures we would behold
He spoke of damnation should we stray
In the lake of fire there to dwell
But honestly, I always thought,
I'd have to die to go to hell

Sit right down let me tell you what we serve
You might think it quite absurd
But we only have just one dish
And it might even be what you wish

But apathy is our only course
I hope that is your choice
It's very easy to prepare
And everybody can have their share
If you don't like it we don't care

Empathy use to be our greatest cuisine
It really was quite supreme
But serving it was such a pain
And to admit it we are all just to vain
It took to much time
And it didn't pay a dime
We had to layer in the flavors
Of truly caring, love, patience, and of course life savers

Who has time for all of that, not us
We don't need all the fuss
For we only care about our own
To care about strangers we're not prone
Your tears we care nothing about
So just sit over there and pout

For we only serve one thing here.......apathy
We are to self-absorbed for.......empathy

Poets are the watchers in the tower
Scribbling, watching, waiting, hour after hour

They watch the depravity of man
They see their sinful plans
They watch the plant breath
They mourn as it bleeds
They watch the changing of the seasons
Connect the dots, make it all rhyme with reason
They watch the winged things fly
Shot down, plummet from the sky
They watch the good and the bad play out
From the paper the poets scream out and shout

They write about beauty and about what makes one cower
For the have endless combinations of words, endless power
They can drain you of hope, or make you flower
They are the watchers in the tower

it's nights like this, when we tangle
together like weeds in a seabed of lust
i beg for once, your eyes instead
of your mouth, would confess
how you felt for me.
your lips grow like ivy along the grey
mortar of my spine, your fingers write how
much they don't love me all over my body
and tiny birds take flight from my breath
to be together, is to be apart
when i am with you every word is a mistake,
we press our lips together
harder than we want to press
them against each others mouths
i keep tripping over apologies
and you just want someone who
is steady on their feet
i once knew a boy who told me
he wasn't an artist, but painted
the shores on my cheeks
when he spoke, even the trees leaned
in to hear his beautiful lies

they make goodbyes
sound easy
when they're at your door
late at night
and they scream your
name like a warning
from the bottom
of the staircase
you leave them,
until apologies make
your tongue as raw as
saw-dust
those nameless boys
the one's with
smoky breath,
they write your name
to the skies
constellate it to their
forefingers and cross it
over their forehead
like a baptism
those boys with hands
that eat like worms
at the dying heart
of your feelings
no, they don't love you
only death can
love you,
nameless girl
with the
countless faces.