Beautiful, brutal,
"...our business is rejoicing...";
strings being tortured,
trumpets scream in agony,
tympani broken at end.

raskol tells me that
we don't have to live in a
mediocracy.

I once worked the sign
at the intersection
of Facebook and HelloPoetry.
All those years when
secure in my job,
flush with cash,
I'd not meet the eyes
of those who muttered
"thank you, sir"
on those rare occasions
when a crumpled dollar
fell from my hand into theirs.
So I now tell on myself
to bleed the shame
from the arrogance,
never knowing the courage
it takes to look the privileged
in the eyes and ask for help
until I stood on the corner
clothed only in my naked need.

Bones of dreams remain,
picked clean of pretense by the
winged passage of time.

Spirit says It will
give no more than I can take;
I keep on reaching.

Spring's rush of warmth, the
morning breeze edged with the chill
of winter's last breath.

her spirit broke the very chains of being
as light as light itself and glowing soared
on unseen thermals currents long ignored
freed at last from caged dreams of fleeing
her body sings of sunshine clouds and thunder
her hair the very wind upon your cheek
a strength of beauty kept for those who seek
a force of nature full of awe and wonder
through with cringing games of male and female
surging power of life in every move
deepest sleeping third eye wakes to see
the mountains trembling as they tell her tale
every smallest gesture howling love
embracing gods and devils equally

you dare to compare
those who built a nation to
those who would shred it?

Because recycled
themes keep showing up, guess
I'm a green poet.

A refilled flask of
creativity; open
it, it needs to breathe.

Tell me what is most real to you today;
what makes your heart beat faster, moves your soul.
Put what completes your world out on display.

Your triumphs and your struggles on your Way,
or virtues in another to extol.
Tell me what is most real to you today.

Your cleverness, your wit come out to play
or cleansing tears, for life will take its toll.
Put what completes your life out on display.

Please, kindly rid your writings of cliche
for simple recitation leaves me cold.
Tell me what is most real to you today.

I'm eager to hear what you have to say,
so whisper in italics, shout in bold;
put what completes your world out on display.

And never let your muse become dismayed
by words from uninspired online trolls.
Tell me what is most real to you today;
put what completes your world out on display.

My granddaughters bounce
in bikinis to the pool;
now hardly children.

Having shot up
(with two flavors of insulin)
before bed,
I've been instructed to snack.

So I drop fifteen pills
with an ounce
(of water)
and wait for the subtle wave
of unreality
to flow through me.

Never thought my Eskimos
would be four doctors
and a dialysis nurse.

Do you really mean
there is a lack of response-
ability in
our culture?  I don't think so.
The ability is there.

When people learn how
not to hate in the name of
love, Spirit breathes free.

The soil supporting growth
has long since been rinsed
down a muddy arroyo
to some alluvial plain,
someone else's loam,
ripe for seeding.
Roots were exposed,
gnarled fingers aching
for firm grasp,
finding air
and just enough wishes
to remain suspended
in place but not in time.
A place to stand under,
and understand
the stand of trees
nourished now only
by memories
of warmth and moisture,
the gentle showers
of tears and praise,
the embraces
of worms and earth.

Who've tasted freedom
will have no appetite for
less; silence be ******.

there would be no sleep
this night
wracked with reckoning
futile cup of decaf cooling
minutes become
memories murmuring
recriminations reverberate
bowed head nodding
over quiescent keyboard
as vivid visions vanish
one
        into
                another
hesitant hours hovering
errors echoing
in void of forgiveness
aching agony of awareness
becomes brutal
he receives respite
as night became day
he understood what truth
could be known
he has only himself
and the day before him

and so he lay down
and so his eyes close
in the light of morning

Ignorance adores
uproar; rage is all the rage.
To die a peaceful
death is anathematic.
Smile, nod. Ignore ignorance.

sub-tropical heat
best observed from a chilled room
with chilled drink in hand

I can't see myself as a whole without going just a trifle mad.

Forgive me
if I don't wait for you.
Pray that I get there
long before you must.
Travelling always trumps
arriving,
hopeful or not.
The terminal of one leg
of the trip
is merely a
point of departure
for the next
(so it's been said).
So let's pack a cooler,
call shotgun,
and ride with me
for so long
as there
is road.
When my stop comes,
say the words
and hold me
until I take off.
I'm afraid
you'll have to drive
the rest
of your way home.

I must not yet be ready to love,
because in every woman's face
that tears me out of time
I feel no gift, no grace;
just loss
                  and ever lonelier.

Your words slink around
my legs, purr insistently,
nuzzle at my hand.

to whittle away
the extraneous, slough off
dead skin which hides the
one who will not force a change,
not compress, contort a soul

Life revolves; a door
which spins from my heart to yours,
soul to soul to soul.

You deserve more than
a few quick dashes of ink,
glimpse of waterfall,
unrolled upon papyrus
and hung to be overlooked,

English contorted
into Japanese styling.
Especially when
you take the trio of you,
me, myself and I to task,

speaking to yourselves
in such a Zen-like manner:
Get out of my Way!
The ten thousand things vanish,
Ego shivers in the void.

Cold, hard wind of truth
knifes through armored illusion,
shurikens spun from
insomnimaniacal
nights, throwing words at the stars.

Sleep and find your peace,
you three, dream of wives and salt,
the whole Lot of you.
Remember you're a pillar
of Muse's community.

He was a simple man of simple words,
or high-school girl with broken heart who thought
they had a message, or a call, or not.
Arriving with a sense of the absurd,
a bittersweet purview on life and love,
together with a gift for nuanced phrase,
appreciating how the language plays
upon the mind and tongue, they rise above
the well-worn similes, the tired cliches
for days, perhaps for weeks.  Then comes the time
when human ugliness shows up to flay
the budding poet.  The evidence of crimes
committed: smoky circles, nameless gray
reminders of whose gifts they took away.

What
           ((holds)) you
to unyielding self?
Petrified
you stone your sins
and still miss the mark;
attempt to beat soul
into healing.

Fool.

Even this
nascent struggle
to understand
casts another rock.

Would you lobotomize...
****** a stick
into your eye socket
to see more clearly?

Suffering is
in the resistance;
you know,
and do not accept
grace in the hands
easing you toward
the gentle current
of Spirit
washing around you.

Why?

Entombed by need
to atone,
you cannot roll
the rock aside alone.
Stop asking for
"more weight",
Giles Corey...
you are a fearsome man
standing upright.

Your sigh roars in my ear as your shudder under my hands rocks my core.

A bear in Florida
finds no winter,
no months to sleep
in cozy cocoon.
He watches,
wakened and wary,
for sea changes
and weather shifts.
Many other predators
spend cooler seasons
in lassitude
despite the latitude,
neither hunting for truth
nor caring about
what surrounds them.
The bear raises his head,
wrinkles his nose
at the scent of danger,
the hint of threats
to and from
his environment.

My last senryu I
wrote yesterday...seventeen
syllables...oh no....

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1398227

A link to my soundclick.com page.  Please listen, and, if you find something you really like, please support your loco musician.  :)

An affinity for
tight spaces;
bears like cubbyholes.

We travel sine waves
of lifetimes; on certain
orbital planes, we meet.
From all our times around,
we think we are
essentially
                                   alone.

Once in an eternity,
we get to wander a while
with a fellow traveler,
a re-cycled companion.
Sometimes for a lifetime...
mostly for a some-time.

Hold the sometimes close
and treasure them;
they are the proof
that we truly

never

travel alone.

(n) A phenomenon
whereby the day-to-day
necessities of life
call for action and thought,
not feeling,
and the emotion
catches up suddenly
when the actions stop.

Oriental poems
whet my muse's appetites;
true amuse bouchés.

the Belle of Amherst -
because she'd not stop for death --
her poems still breathe

We lust to defile
the same wily wanton muse
of words, you and I.
There's no jealousy involved;
she'll take us all in at once.

I tried to write a villanelle
The words come easier
when they're pretty,
form and meter
can be salves.
There is no relief
when writing
of family,
the three-sided dagger
leaves a wound
that must be packed
and never closes.

I tried to write a villanelle,
to package the truth
with enough honey
to make the bitter-roots
palatable;
it wouldn't go down easy,
wouldn't come out either.

This poem a finger
on the back
of my throat
to purge
to flush
to rinse my mouth
from the acid
regurgitated

sensual curves
cradled in my lap
long smooth neck
begging for caresses
ready to respond
any time my need calls
vibrating
at my lightest touch
sings like an angel
and can scream
like a banshee
my constant companion
my mistress
though it's been too long
since I last held you

don't fret, m'lass...
I'll always make a case for you.

Spirit's everywhere:
wind, cut through me, cleansing me;
sun, blind my ego;
earth, absorb, accept my wrongs;
water, carry me, reborn.

There's a lot more
to being sober
than staying sober.

I am cradled by
the very thought of your thoughts;
our shared humanity.

In spite of seeking,
struck dumb by immensity
of my ignorance.

The louvers of the
windows to my heart are shut
to the storm of love.

Stephen King was not
trapped for a week in a car
by a rabid dog.

Appreciating
the cunning embrace and sharp
wit of an old foe.