Today, my eyes are drawn to trees whose
leaves are now scouring their knotted roots,
just as podiatrist's fingers search for corns.
Forbidding skeleton branches glance back with knowing,
and our lives’ meaning it seems
are the lives’ meaning of leaves, growing strong and colorful,
getting this and that from the earth, but
impossible to stay for long.

Today, my fists clench. Waves of anxiety as blowing
leaves are gathering, compounding against my person,
just as pedestrians waiting to cross,
forbidding contact but crowding, shoving the curb.
And our ligaments that fail
are the limiters we feel,
getting thinner and thinner, seeing its
impossible to stay for long.

Today, my thoughts continue to dim while
leaves are loosed and blow in the wind,
just as peddlers flee the scene of the scam.
Forbidding dotage, autumn knocks at our door,
and our livid little cries
are the lights we use to cut the shade that’s
getting thicker and thicker, making it
impossible to stay for long.

Full evergreens, branches heavy with snow,
hold the line between forest and field.
A wall of faceless wardens holding fast,
heedless of the cold and ice, fixated.
Ground untouched and peaceful,
only housing shadows cast by brave trees.
No tracks, no twigs or animals, perfection.
Amongst the trees too, no stirring.
Only still silence, only the field and wall
and thick forest packed with ice and snow,
waiting, as if holding in a breath.
Straining, attempting to shout warning
to the village, Montigny-le-Roi.
But frozen in a moment, captured in time,
just seconds before what emerges with a malice
that the wardens could not dream of holding back.
The Volksgrenadiers defile the wall and still field.
Heavy boots and rifles lay waste to its undisturbed surface,
and continue without recognition of the tranquility
of that moment captured in time.

A hangman once told me,
"It's not the drop, it's the stop."
I was going to argue,
but he pulled the lever.

waking wildly while wily winds whip weeping willows

Now and then I like to look in the mirror and pretend there's no reflection.
Pretend that there is no possibility for the sickly skin
and natural scowl that haunts that slab of float glass and aluminum daily.

Now and then I like to stand in front of the mirror and close my eyes.
That way I can ignore what is dulling the bright surface
and synthesize a shining sword and crown that doesn't hang so stale.

Now and then I like to draw on my mirror until no space is left but eye holes.
Then I can graze the clouds with broad wings and be
disillusioned as to how my soles have become glued to this tile mausoleum.

But most of the time I just turn out the lights.

Sometimes I feel the ceiling falling,
but that's just peripherals hauling shadows and crows calling from fallows.
Reality isn't changing, only my perception falling down,
aging and growing wicked angry and spiteful just 'cause I let it,
spitting lines of depression and hostile succession,
holding onto negative lessons,
refuting positive progression at the expense of intense spiritual expansion,
shunning the silver lining,
running too scared for shining sun to brighten the mood,
lighten the load, smooth the road,
crack the code of the looming clouds of the crowded skyline out the small window of the attic,
where I go to feed the addict and think about how my time would be better spent
playing roulette with russians and using automatics,
crack crack,
future's silent.

That's not really me, couldn't be, quietly pondering failures of loathing and perpetual black
clothing hiding scars of bygones instead of healing, sealing the skin like new, forging a
better view, starting to get a clue.

It's time for a change.

When I was young, I was told there would come a day when
      I would understand what it meant to care for someone
            more dearly than myself.

I thought I knew everything because I had seen a few movies
      and I had my family, but I was a child.

I knew little other than the golden rule, and to always wash
      behind my ears, and to not talk to strangers.

It wasn’t ‘til I saw her that I began to understand what they had
      told me.

Gradual glances and grins, conversations about nothing, searching
      instead of coming across each other, seeing through eyes
            not to them.

Caressing cheeks with fingertips, touching hands and being happy
      with existence, taking solace in each other’s arms.

Joining lips and thoughts and smiles, knowing that the world is
      imperfect, and knowing that we are perfect.

You’re just a child, but there will come a day when you understand
      what it means to love.