Two fathers
In black and white
Sit
Talking.

About daughters
And sons,
Dark clandestine robes
Billowing next to

Gravel oceans:

Eyes glazed over
At shadows
That drown.

When the Life gets
Knocked

straight out
of you,

Never forget to
Trace

The knots
Hanging between

Each breath.

We drown in petty sorrows.
Wish for floods-
For rain
To wash away all our iniquities.

Wash our robes white,
Our hands clean
Of any thistles or weeds that
Cling to our fingertips.

We cry:
Salt-stained
Tears
Begging for some kind of
Materialistic reprieve
For all the
Very hard work
We've done.

God called us to build arks.

As the dust settles in
On the coffee table,
I smile.

The rising sun
Elusive and innocent

Illuminates their faces as they sleep:

My brother-
All stubborn scowls
And groans.

My father-
Weatherbeaten and wizened.

My mother-
Pining and tired.

Youthful shadows creep into our home
On tiptoe,
Grinning impishly.

Barefoot, I greet them.

I.

The pen
Taps
Against my leadened desk,
All reverberating echoes and
Roaring staccatos:

Something to keep the soldiers
Rooted
In the chalkboard trenches alive-

A cackling reminder of
Freedom.

II.

Peeled away is the blissful world of
Morphine-addled haze
And round edges

The smell of pine trees
And Monday Vendetta.

Up in smoke.
Offered to the gods.
The great big furnace in the sky—

I carry them with me in an ashen urn.

As the days pass
A rhythmic stutter
Lumps
At the bottom of my throat.

I heard you tossed sinners to the flame.

I was in disbelief until I smelled my soul roasting on a spit.

I know that purgatory doesn't exist.
Hell far worse than nothingness.

I know that all torture is godless,
Not all pain meant to temper.

As I screamed, you told me to
Look up.

At 5
45 my eyes
Have just begun
To slowly
Creep
Into their sockets.

My body
Screams at me
To go back to sleep,

But can I help it
If dawn  
Was the only
Quiet

I've been able to muster
In a long time?

The flower is
Wrinkled,
Somewhat bleeding,
Odorless,
Bowed stem crippled,
Arthritic,
Greeting me a
Tremulous
"Good evening."

A young man returns home
To Hiroshima,
Where the bomb's been
Dropped.

There are imaginary lines,
Each for every ripple
Caused,

Each for every poisoned child,
Crisscrossing,
Intersecting,
Multitudes upon multitudes of
Lines—

In the thicket
He stands

Unmoved.
Avoided.

He can't help but
Notice the
Uninterrupted
Lines
Of his shadow

Spread out before him-

A body bag
Unopened.

For you

I lie restless in limbo,

Floating aimlessly among wracked bodies
And deadened eyes.

I wake unconsciously,
Ghost-like,
Able to view my own body as it stumbles over itself
Again  
And again.

These repeated loops segue
Into habits,
Dark ruts borne into shadows—

This is my Lion's Den.

It's 3
Am and I'm
Still
Up writing
Your paper
Explaining why you
Can't seem to stick,
Your commas in the
Right
Places.

It's 3
In the
Morning and
I am staring
At Ollie's
Baseball glove
Green ink scrawled
With poems
Which he reads
When the third innings
Are dull When
***** become too trivial to
Catch.

It's 3
In the
Morning and I
Am sick and
Tired of watching
You make out
With
Every
Girl
You pick up
At this
Phoney
School.

It kills me.

You have no idea
How it
Kills me.

I have never woken up to a sunrise

Instead,
I have watched the walls turn
From gray to orange, and
From orange to white,

Seen the shadows of trees
That never knew the sight of my face,
Refracted light creeping into my bedroom through
The windowsill

Forcing their way through the darkness,
The cracks,
And the creases of my eyelids.

To this day,
The closest I have gotten to sunrise
Wass the musky gray of
Dawn.

But I have woken up to a moonset.

From the rooftops
Of my aureate balcony

I will the thunder
To scream louder.

I will the winds
To blow harder.

I will the lightning
To flash brighter,

I will the hail
To flow thicker.

The moonlight kisses
My temple

For I...

I am a stutterer.

The sand slashes at your eyes
Like rubbery tires
Except
You aren't rubbery.
It ******* hurts.

They well up in your eyes-
Gouge out the tears.

The words build up
Only to
Break
In the middle of your throat-
You choke

And
Stumble over your own
Two feet

Find yourself
On
Your knees
Hands clasped
In prayer
To God.

Ozymandias,
For once please bear your own weight.
Like you
I am
Beautiful too.

Sometimes you just
Have to
Pick yourself up
Dust yourself off and
Just keep
Walking.

Gliding o'er all, through all, Through Nature, Time, and Space, As a ship on the waters advancing, The voyage of the soul—not life alone, Death, many deaths I'll sing.*

Sometimes sprawling leaves just don't cut it.
Sometimes, you gotta be a badass.
Grow a beard
Cut the grass.
Get some shades,
Get a hat.

Sometimes a song isn't adequate
To express what you're feeling, y'know?
Sometimes "myself"
Needs a happy fix,
Blue skies,
Stuff blowing up and
Flying sparks.

Every now and then,
The learn'd astronomer
Brandishes a smoking gun.

This is the first thing I've been proud of in days:
The imperfection of worship-
Cracking voices and out of tune guitars,
Heartbeats that overtake the
Tempo by a timid half-step

And that sole audience member
That is shameless in singing,

His arms outstretched and his feet,
Dancing for You
And the Whatever Remains of this broken church
Following suit,
Singing and singing and singing
With timbres soft, loud, high, low,
Shattering glass and
Letting go,

Still vastly outnumbered by
The skipped beats and fumbled notes
But ****** if they aren't gonna try to keep up!

God,
This is the first thing I've been proud of in days:

Brothers and sisters that do not yield
To the emptiness and the void
That comes with worshipping You!

You,
Who would too, alone sing for the return
Of your own children,
Who would close your eyes
And weep in silence with a resounding "Yes!"
At the sight of your sons returning,
Your daughters returning,

Your chosen ones responding,
"I'm coming home tonight!"

Weeping for joy with a resounding, "Yes!

"I'm finally coming Home."

Some days,
I'll be waiting outside
On the street corners

Carrying nothing but
An umbrella and wearing
Nothing but the toughest,
Driest, warmest clothes
I have.

And only on those days
When I am ready for the
Rain to fall

Does the rising, shrouded sun
In all her yellow-white
Glory decide to come out
And smile.

Sometimes you close your eyes,
Hoping for Nirvana

But then you realize
Kurt Cobain shot himself twice:
Once with ******,
Once with a shotgun.

You figure that if
Buddha can't save you,
Who will?

Is there a name for the gaps
In between your grimy fingers?

For that moment's pause
Before the beginning of a prayer?

Is there a word for the spaces
In between atoms?

For the gaps in image and in mind,
Little lapses in the great cycle called
Something

Bleak, vast, full of budding stars
And pieces of rock,
As big as they are small?

Is there a label for those words
That seem to skip a beat,
Dancing across the tip of your tongue
Faster than you can spit them?

Is there a word for that
Moment where your lungs fold into
Your stomach

As the people around you become amber-
Riddled flies?

Is there a word for Dear Nothing
Who reaches out and puts her arm
Around you,

Whispering everything you need to hear,
Without actually moving her lips?

I find myself staring
At this little girl in the aisle,
Tottering through
A city of sweets.

With small, outstretched fingers
She waddles hastily
Towards this huge pack
Of chocolates
Giggling silently,
Eyes a bright ruddy brown.

Her mother catches her and laughs,
Puts the chocolates just out her of reach.
Her chubby hands strain
To reach it but to no avail.
Instead they find her mother's long,
Graceful fingers and
Her knowing smile:
Deep brown eyes lit up like one of those
Chocolate bars,
Even sweeter.

Out in the willow
a caged bird
sings

wound up slowly
by metallic
strings

drunkenly stumbling and
twirling about

hopping clumsily
on a branch.

Out in the willow
a caged bird
sings

chirping mechanically
about nonsensical things

drunkenly stumbling
and twirling about

perched precariously
on a lance.

Out in the willow
a caged bird
cries

spiraling towards
an untimely demise

drunkenly stumbling and
twirling about

groggily swelling, his breast
full of doubt

out in the willow
a caged bird
Falls.

Outside on the park bench, her heart skips a beat- a shadow's passed by.

The crickets have thawed.
They continue to stretch their chuckling bones.

There is a key in the dark,
A woman fearing to leave the light.
Her purse has five hundred dollars.

Her car snores softly beside the sidewalks on which runners nonchalantly run, and walkers nonchalantly walk.

It is not fear that immobilizes her,
But its trailing shadow:
The fact that it left without so much as a glance,

Without so much a trace,
As if she wasn't worth threatening.

The wind calls out your name.
I remember when I would sing too.

But I also remember that
You'd tell me to listen to what the names meant.
Make sure I wouldn't only be in it for the tune.

With that, my voice closed up,
Shut itself within my throat
And locked the door.
I resolved to praise with my eyes-

My pupils riddled with scratches like an overplayed vinyl

Stuck on repeat, repeat, repeat
Until one would get sick
Of the words and cease to
Understand them.

I'd strain desperately to look
For words that my eyes
Wouldn't let
Slip
Wouldn't let
Skip
Wouldn't keep forgetting,
Wouldn't get tired of.

I searched book after book,
Article after article,
Poem after poem,
Deconstructed story after story,
Dissected psalm after psalm.

When words failed,
I turned to images:

Gaudy images,
Marvelous images,
Sensual images,
Shocking images,
Grotesque images,
Pretty images,
All sorts of images.

I traded memories for pictures,
Most of which have already rot.

When images failed,
I closed my eyes
And started to listen.