Nocturnal spirits ablaze with the
Mark of the weary. Encased souls,
Comforted by the sounds of her exhales
She reaches for oblivion with outstretched arms

Her minor catastrophes delineate the obvious
But what of love?
Its cold and calculated lies have no place in the night
She thinks

The sparks of the firefly, dance in the firmaments
Ripples of thought plunder the silence of the darkness
She wants to jump in the abyss
A baptism of fire

A crack in my windshield lengthens. A radiance scatters
And bends as sunlight skates its narrow channel.
Tree shadows are a distraction, turning the fissure into a strobe.
A stone, the size of a pea, caused this.

A crimson pool where sorrow flounders,
Conveys a truth, which never counters.
To **** a child is a messy business,
A fit of rage, a sign of weakness.

From all life’s lessons, you haven't learned?
That life is precious and time hard earned.
A wake, a funeral, a mournful day,
There’s one less child to run and play.

That fallow soul that plants a seed,
Of life’s destruction, a wicked creed.
I say to you, who dare not talk,
Time is wasting, it’s eleven o’clock.

You are a loathsome creature
In death, you elicit sympathy

Your mental illness is your scapegoat
How could you **** so many?

The rage you felt
Turned outward towards the innocent

So many awash with the blood
Adam, high priest of perdition

You are not alone in your complicity
Did the NRA whisper sweet nothings in your ear?

Your father wishes you were never born
You’re your father’s scapegoat

You have uncovered a putrefied wound
That we are unwilling to heal

Her tears, suspended from one cheek
Like liquid tassels
The other, immune
And dry as the dust bowl
There are two sides to every story
Yet this one is beyond two dimensions
Her explanations have layers upon layers
Like an ambiguous onion that begs to be undressed
And once exposed to the air, its bitterness once again
Provokes her tears
I do desire to ride down the rocky path
The one that steeply descends to the shore
Where anger will put to flight
And heap upon me, understanding
And a daughter's trust

The deep and ominous laughter I must endure
As you seize me with paralysis and terror
I am repulsed by your advances, you succubus    
I am held captive by the feeling of dread

I rejoice in the slightest movement
Escape is possible if I choose
If I awake from this netherworld
I must usher a new truth and job

Alone again in this sad place
I settle at a derelict corner table
Where the loathsome light descends
And caresses this disembodied soul
This is my perching place
Where the invented me seeks absolution
Alms filled with gratuitous niceties
That are later exhumed after discovery
Night after night
I enter this place
Slightly different from the prior
But still the same, and then:
I hear that hideous laughter as I turn my back
And make my way towards the door
A million miles away

I hear you coming with every crack of the knees
The air of your reproach stifles my breathing
And still, you are ten years past
Your ghostly presence has not abated
For I am small and inconsequential in your memorial
A toadstool among the Sequoias
I see an incomplete light through the canopy
In this dim and musty forest
Where fern and Lady Slipper does not comfort
This will be my shame
Content and complacent with this situation
Afraid to cast off his manifestations
This will be my downfall
Death isn't the end
Memories doth prevail

Eyes closed to a fading light
The last beat of a tired heart
Muffled voices, a murmured prayer
A pathway unresolved
What lies ahead?
Endless slumber?
A new beginning?
Not knowing is what I fear.

A full moon
Swathing white light
The illuminating ethereal fire
Rests upon and rest beneath
Amidst a midnight forest
Where silence calms the restless trees
The unearthly glow has a story to tell
For those whose manifestation is brought in question
Accept the light that is a reflection of the day
Drink its wisdom and immerse in its wonder
For tomorrow is another day
And as the heart grows dim, the moon’s phase wanes

Death and its mournful tidings
Obituaries and eulogies, read
Black ties and black veils, all in rows
Surround this shell and the open earth
The cold, damp wind sashays through and through
Memories, half a century old are lost and forgotten
A flight of geese overhead, perform a last flyover
Victory in death
Vestiges of family, say farewell and Godspeed
Tomorrow brings colder and damper weather

There is a hole -- I dug
A thousand miles deep
And it's my only exit
Smooth, shorn walls guarantee my entrapment
A self-imposed exile
The light that once illuminated our love
Has grown dim, if not, extinguished
I sit contemplating my situation
And thus conclude that not even Atlas
Can support this burden on his shoulders
Darkness is now my only ally

The dimly black craggy door
That hides bottomless secrets
Opens and closes with hollow cruelty
And is silent as the moon

So difficult it is to knock and let myself in
Pushing is useless, like pulling the trigger with the safety on
I have dreams of passing the threshold
And scream “Echo” in that empty room

Hearing nothing in return
This is where I awaken, a dream in a dream
All the lies I’ve seen and wear as my skin
A fabulous mask without eyes or a mouth

My house is painted a rainbow of monochrome
One door, Two windows, A chimney and a garden gnome.
It is where you will find me
Hidden away under the floorboards

Looking through the cracks of gleaming pine
Shaped like man
White satin sheets to comfort me
And a new suit

A memory not your own is a lie with legs
A story perpetrated by the soul
For its own amusement
It thrashes like a fish on a line
Seeking to breathe life with every gulp
And as time continues on its incessant journey
This memory finds a home
In the permanence of a weak mind
It becomes your truth
And the lie loses its legs

How many good memories have I destroyed?
Each one, a treasure to another
A string of pearls
And like the portrait of two lovers
I chose to bow out
In remembrance, I have ruined many lives
A kindly soul allowing me to merge
But I was never fully integrated
Always looking to egress at the slightest transgression
I fear I have doomed many an honest spirit
To think hard of me and my character
It would have been better if they had never set eyes upon me
And continued on their journey, unencumbered
Never knowing the name of this lost nomad

In the morning, I gather my thoughts of yesterday
Like the foraging chipmunk, collecting acorns
And stuffing them miserly in my jowls
The past is sustenance for a somnolent soul

As age condemns my faculties
I pull, from my once copious jowl
A jewel of sorts
A garnet set in fool’s gold

My memory is manufactured
Assembled and disassembled
No longer what was or is or will be
But was and is and never has been

I confine my thoughts to winter
Where barren fields and sterile trees
Offer less to recollect
And empty my jaws of these useless reminiscences

They say; but who are they, that say,
That cloth is my armor
It shields me from the unknown and unknowing
It hides my nose and mouth but doesn’t hide my shame
I am unrecognizable, unnatural, and anonymous
I lose my unwillingness to protest my anonymity on the ignorant
I have waited a thousand lifetimes to hide in the open
To see and not be seen
To breathe the stale air of my breath
And exhale the poisonous gas that would otherwise be words
Lost are those with false entitlements seeking to resurrect past ailments
Pity me and madness, they say
They are to whip up a storm; a gale
Phones at the ready, for another star, will explode
A supernova at the entrance of Walmart
They dim before the Sunsets
They turn into a Black Hole and Donut Holes then,
*** holes.

I surely know you from another life or lifetime
There is something familiar about your circuitous smile
And the off centered eyes that needlessly roam the room
We share momentary glances as subdued as a whisper
Challenging each other for a longer glimpse
What a strange feeling in a nearly empty coffee shop
Sadly I remember
I remember your face
I remember your tears
I remember your hopes and fears
But I forget your name
That summer at Long Sands when I loved tennis
And you loved salt water taffy
We were thirteen, too young our parents said
Too young for love, but maybe in another forty years they joked
I remember the smell of the salt water taffy
I smell it now as the memories waft
Her name is on the tip of my tongue

Closer now to endless nights,
As voices, muffled
Like a seashell to my ear
Telling me to let go, in rhythmic harmony,

I fight for words or a groan; a cringe would do,
A silent and dark world has encapsulated me,
My memories will soon evaporate,
A collection for eighty years,

What callow and dead words have you written?
Your sword is but a nub; a shadow of the weight it once held.
Deftly attuned to the foray of maladjusted thoughts
That seeks an ending but can stop at nothing
At one time, feelings were sharp and new and uncontaminated
Yet further on it is shaved down
An inner core as black as the raven’s eye
And when the nub has lost its reason to yield
Will it be retained for posterity?
Like the memories of the freshly dead
Your written words will decay into oblivion
Until a new soul is shaved sharp
Forever willing and ready and equivocal

Her solemn eyes shares the work of a torn heart
She gazes into a darkened abyss she calls her melancholia
A place, cold and familiar, like a bedroom closet
It is neither open nor closed; the home of dim secrets

She feels and feels and feels until numb
Detached is far better, oh sister of her apathy
Where is the strength to rise?
To harvest again the morning sun

It takes all her power as she clings
She fights to remember that once she was happy
A gleaner of laughter and hope
She is worthy of a second chance

A song only heard at night
A fragrance that floods the mind with lost memories
A soul of obfuscation
Transcending the ways of man

Staring down the duplicity of happenstance
I crawl through a landscape, alien to the uninitiated.
In strict cadence to the night song
The smell of burnt sandalwood emasculates the soul

Afar off, you glimpse a shape that once meant something to you
An amorphous shadow
Do you give life to a memory?
Or Ashes to Ashes

A soul exalts a given day
Rescinds it all, the next
Why are yearnings fast forsaken?
Displaced by yet another
I promise that by day’s end
My love  will not depart
Denying the callous cycle, its prize
Replaced by mirthful spirits and thoughts

As the story goes…
You descended from obscurity
A wind from nowhere
The shadow of the shadow

You made room for me,
The open slate
For the closed mind
I repent the night of the nor’easter

You awaken, screaming
Alone in a crowded room
Nothing would quench the thirst that night
You’re cold inside as the spirit fades

Conjuring your next escape
You seek a raft to ride the raging whitewater
Your existence requires nothing but faith
I'll throw you the mooring rope – Godspeed

A syncopated moment
Drifting, suspended, and finally, evaporated
The moment before the ecstasy
Never completely fulfilling that obligation
But enough to defer for a later time
Yet knowing there will never be another time
Why is it that leaving is always a cold and foggy moment?
Confusing thoughts of euphoria and dismay
All in the singularity of a syncopated moment

Forever alone
But never lonely
The cairn points the way
A tattered trail
In intemperate weather I endeavor
The gale winds of ignorance causes me to pause
And take account of my story
The path to oblivion has its detours
I walk it alone, confident that the end is near

The wind, calm as light penetrates the morning canvas
Not a sound, except for my defeated heart
That reverberates through my soul
The smell of the crimson red sky; cool sweet lilac and myrrh

Warns me of a tempestuous day
A heartfelt tiding of mediocrity
The greeting of your most irreverent facade
Has driven from me, any appreciation of a summer dawn

I have not the strength to summon a thought
Or a thought
Or a thought
Or a thought

Maybe a kind word
Will lift this veil
And allow me the strength
For a thought

A windswept chill cuts to the bone
Wave and whirlwind play upon each other
With determined gait, I walk to Author’s Ridge
Syncopated volleys of half frozen drops
Released from the heavens
For are we not in the company of the enlightened
Resting peacefully; Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau
I take breaths of frigid Concord air
And fill my lungs with hopes of inspiration
But fallow is my spirit
And then,
Trickling drops of frozen rain, finds a path down my naked neck
And there is planted a seed
And a poem
At Author’s Ridge

The chill of an autumn morning
A rising steam as the fallen leaves exhale
The lonesome trees have given up their glory
A carpet of red, yellow, orange, and brown

An overcast sky with no definition
Is but a blur
Movement indiscernible
There is wisdom in the sky, revealed to a few

The smoke of the day’s first fire ascends
Wafting its familiar fall fragrances
Brings warmth and comfort to the soul
And campsite memories of long ago

We pass the bleak and barren cornfield
Stippled with autumn’s harbingers
The Raven
They stare with the blackest of black eyes

I am free to sway from my precarious perch
Outstretch my wings of sullen words
And soak up the shadow light
Of another winter’s night

Morning is nigh and blanketed
By dawns lethargic cotton-bally sky
Melodic chirping and the droning on
Of another winter’s morning

The Sun’s warmth has yet to reach my hollow bones
Motionless and afraid
My indignation is not yet complete, reticent
Of another winter’s afternoon

And the light that once illuminated my soul
Has dimmed on this weary day and
I take flight as the red dusk promises the hope
Of another winter’s evening

Your path is well worn
Like the old Indian trails still visible in winter
Your life has left a wake of possibilities
Its ripples, forever spreading – wide, firm, unencumbered, vast
To think of autumn and feel the evening chill for
You are embedded in my every thought
Anger, love, discontent, beauty, helplessness, ecstasy
I am ready to find my cliff edge
To spread my arms and leap
Knowing the perfection of gravity and its consequences
I fear that our entanglement has been broken
Magnets, repelling with the same polarity

A mood as dark as a winters midnight
Haltingly adrift, she is rudderless
Bound to a coastal route
As she nears the quay, she cries out
But emits no sound
As strong currents
Guide her soul
To deeper depths
And perils
Where light has no importance
A salient angle away and afar
She collapses in upon herself, like the Black Hole
Black does not describe its murkiness
She is lost to humanity

I think my heart, a fallow one
A tool of perdition and an instrument of vanity
It beats slowly as if to stop; nothing can rouse it or disrupt its cadence
Not even love

A broken man
Sees the morning light
And crafts a dream
Soothing his broken soul

A broken dream
Sees the morning light
And crafts a man
Now two with broken souls

Captive of the heart
You are a willing prisoner
You fain the life, a poet's soul
And bristle when love, like writer's block
Amplifies the anguish
And is joyful of your impotence
Above all, time is not a comfort
It ticks down louder and slower
Until time stops and stills it's beat

I Walk through the lonely ancient woods
And hear the voices from the Cedars of Lebanon
Whispering a truth known to all
But remembered by few

A felled branch reveals the wound
That smells of comfort and wisdom
Your knots are like the eyes of God
Scrutinizing my every intentions

I feel at ease as I rest in your strong arms
And think --
If I had a choice for a final resting place
It would be under your majestic feet

Change is a truth that has many meanings
Many paths that divert and transform
From good to bad
Bad to good
To mediocrity and back again
Change has brought me full circle
Like the seasons
Continually in flux
Aroused by love
Or a word
Or a purpose
Or the realization that I must change
For the sake of change

Ragged stone cliffs frame a wanting sea
The podium of black moods
Grounds of final thoughts
The twenty second swan dive
There are easier ways
I’ve been falling for fifty years
And the bottom seems no closer
I can slow the descent with outstretched arms
A type of crucifixion without the nails and sin
You have no idea what goes through a mind in free fall
There is no reminiscence, only now
And still I hear it said that there’s someone in a darker place
I know; I passed her on the way down

My soul awakens,
Into darkness that knows no light
A blackness that offers warm comfort
Encased in the fluid of life
Mumbled voices I cannot interpret
I am clutched from my cocoon
I can see light and nebulous shapes
This is new life and soon
I will forget a past life

Have you ever considered what the world would be like,
The day after you die?
For you, it has ended
For them, it goes on

On and on
The grass continues to grow, on and on
The sun still shines, on and on
Wars rage, on and on

Minute by minute
Family and friends grieve, minute by minute
The worried parent waits up late, minute by minute
Wars rage, minute by minute

Day by day
Family and friends live their lives, day by day
Hope for peace survives, day by day
But
War still rages, day by day

Her panting
Wheezing

Eyes, a second lid of Vaseline
Mouth gaping open

As if to scream out but
Nothing

Take your turn to clasp
For the last time

A last exhale
White as clean linen

Pendulous eyes, weary and bleak
Immoveable shadows, the unseen torrents
Coyly divulge the once impetuous spirit
On his shoulders, he carries a colossal weight
For his is a cleft vessel, rudderless and floundering
The rise and fall of each swell, brings neither hope or despair
He contemplates the gilded life, an absurd apparition
And slithers back to obscurity where the worm and dreams cohabitate

Copious paths mine heart must travel
Through briar patch unrelenting
No threat of gale or fiend unseen
Shall rest upon the blood moon’s shadow

My soul has cast from its sullen shell
Molting triviality and unearthly urge
A meaningless existence
Screeches, Release Me!

A silenced mind is my greatest desire
Free from all the revulsion that surrounds me
Your pity has no place in my heart
If you must cast a stone, then send it my way

It charms the blackness in my heart
Wading through the depths of the despair
Emerging for air then plunges deeper
It seeks out the weaknesses then clings like a cancer
Squeezing and squeezing
Rests then squeezes again
I’m convinced of my faults as I’m cross examined every minute
Because time is measured in pounds here
Autumn gives way to cooler winds but this
This is a season of endless clamminess and emotion
I’m reminded to bury this thing that I’ve created
It’s a construct of my making, as if I’m a God
And if I were God, I would end this reality and blanket it in blackness
Like my heart

My burden in life
Is abundant and eternal
An open gangrenous wound
Hidden in full view
A pathetic soul

The plethora of medicines have ***** the mind
And replaced it with a thick tar
That makes cognition, onerous
I care for nothing
Feel nothing—am nothing

A means to an end
Has me captivated
Fixated on the task
Relief is at hand
But I lack the strength and courage

The heart beats on its own accord
I am free to control its cadence
But love is its only ruler
My despotic master

Try, as I will
My hardened heart resists not
Love’s melodious voice
My despotic mistress

She reaches in my chest
And resuscitates the blackened cinder
I thought you lifeless
My despotic love

Cleft chin and sullen eyes
Scour the grey, lifeless sky
For signs of the retreating moon,
And the after-glow of her vanishing soul

Must I wait another day or night?
With expectations of another revival
The rise and fall of her ephemeral spirit
It slashes and flays before it slumbers; restless and tortured

I watch with enigmatic wonderment
How do I accept the wounds, bound with salt and sea-foam?
The passion of deep red fluid that runs through our veins
That spring like geysers from a gentle touch

We wake to the moon glow and dispelled dreams
Gaze upon the ceiling in the dark
And from it, all moving things appear and disappear
“Particles”, I exclaim!

Your silken skin, trembling to the touch
A scent of sandalwood, wafts as it soars
Your pant, accentual-syllabic verse
Beats ever faster, no ration of time

Awkward moments as two become one
An everlasting symphony of fire
Quenched, after the crescendo of the night
Descending from a dream all in my mind

I wake early on weekends to a ritual of writing and
drinking the life giving elixir. My temple is the abode
of the green mermaid, where she summons the weak
with her siren songs. It’s said that she has no soul.

This is where words are born in my mind and placed in
ambiguous order; meanings known only to my soul until
the rational mind unscrambles the mess. It’s hard to be
profound with the loud world music in the background.

Trouble brews when the temple is filling to capacity. They
want my table. They don’t know I’m trying to weave a
fabric of words that will change their understanding of (place
question mark here). I am lost without my muse.

A change of venue is in order. I’ve lost my purpose and
words. My teeth are stained and my mind is no longer malleable.
I’m invisible to the passion that once inhibited my soul. I’m cast
in an ocean of blackness where the green mermaid reigns.

A transformation in the wind
Not a gentle breeze that emancipates
A lion tooth's angelic mane of seed
But a monsoon that threatens a souls complacency

The cycle of life and death that exists in all
A passion that ebbs and flows
The gust descends and reveals its riddles
From death to life another phase begins

The resilient fathom and unravel the mystery
The frail are sightless, seeing only the gluttony of their ignorance
Resist the wave of ambiguity, which seek to batter and disfigure
Death is the path to rebirth where being is eternal

A footpath that offers joy and agony
Success and failure
Hope and despair
A trail of wonders and judgments

Rejoice in the pain of lost love
Revel with delight at doom and forebode
Ours is a journey of enlightenment
With plunders worthy of life