Caught in your thicket of embellished verse
Trite but resolute
Efforts to crack the indestructible  

Here you say:
Willowy white Lily-of-the-Valley
Softly flowing waves of ecstasy
Delights a recessed heart
And resurrects the willful soul

I say:
No one knows the heart of one
Cast onward towards the billowy grey
Destined to revive
My vain attempts at life

You seek a crown of gold
And yet the heart is fallow
A famine of the soul
Unbeknownst and unconcerned
The poor hunger for food and shelter
And you have an appetite that’s never satiated
The many feasts of endless delicacies and wealth
Has not spoiled your cravings
Yet they who are lacking in all that is tangible to you
Have something you lack and cannot acquire
They give to others that have less than them
And feel their anguish
And revel in their friendship
Their crown is empathy

Life has provided me with circles
Infinite paths that lead to endless crossroads
A maze of possibilities etched in clay
And defined by a tormented soul
I am one that has fallen into hell
Sometimes I wake to music
A familiar tune that echoes from childhood
When rainbows were good omens
And the night passed unimpeded
Now I pray for that endless sleep
Where the night is infinite
And the soul is nullified

If I had but a wish
A reward greater than heaven
I would give
However, must you demand?

The Elephant ask that we leave them in peace
The seal asks us to lower the club
The trees ask for more time
But you ask for the world

The cold and weary ask for a blanket and a place to rest
The hungry ask for just a morsel
The abused ask for safe passage
You demand the world

Every morning at the same time
Get up and do your business
Business can be business or a combination of one and two
It involves paperwork and need not be in triplets
Try not to push too hard, lest you become: Stressed
Smell the coffee brewing as it lingers like gym sweat
Read the rags as they’re piled high. You really need to discard the old.
Did you remember to wash your hands and disavow
The pipes clang and rattle as the tap is closed
It reminds you of the 2009 Earthquakes that brought utter destruction to your life
Furloughs, pay cuts, layoffs, and lost dreams
How times have changed in seven short years
Every morning at the same time
Same **** different days

Reverberations from prior years
Appear and disappear then appear again
Long lost tirades find their way back to life
To wound once more with vigor and ferocity

Grammar is your shield and without it; a wasteland
Without that perfect period or comma or semi-colon
It confuses the unspoiled linear thinker
Out comes their sword to slay

I have grown tired of kittens, slayings, and Trump
Rest the fingers and close the lid
There will be a savory morsel in the morning to LIKE
Stop measuring your life by the friend count

Facebook is another reality
That stalks the innocent
And convinces the sluggish of its lies
It must be true if it’s on the Internet

He’s taken at the end of spring, alone in
White sheets that are wrinkled and soiled.
Never to smell the bleach and rubbing alcohol
The ambient sounds of the ICU floor, with
Ringing, buzzing, beeping, and ethereal voices.
Eternal peace, they say when he is given last rites
He can hear what they are saying, but it’s still a dream
Wake up and rise like Lazarus
But the voices are farther away, and the light is dim
He doesn’t have the strength to play jacks as the
Voice urges him to come out and play.
Flashes like lightning and muffled tin can, ringing like
The bells at mass before the taking of the Eucharist.
It’s time to wake out of this dream
He has things to finish. To start. To do.
Pinching himself doesn’t work like it used to.
Rolling and screaming. Nothing.
The tin bells turn to cow bells that turn to Jingle Bells
The movie of his life plays faster and faster
Eighty-five years of home movies
The curtain closes as he says,
This must be eternal peace, as the voices say
Fade to black

Remember, my fair weather friend
When all that mattered was coffee in the morning
I don’t laugh when you call it your drug of choice
Coffee in the morning is serious business

A staring contest that I always win
An hour of small talk then we get to the meat
You cry and I sigh
We drift to a place where hollow feelings reside

Docile thoughts evolve into ravenous beasts
Why, you ask?
Answers raise more questions
Never ending questions

The sun is reaching its zenith
We are descending
I want to step carefully down this hill
You choose to go down in summersaults.

How is it that I am floundering on a raging sea?
With waters as smooth as the limbs of Daphne
The only occupant tossed to-and-fro
The others, still as corpse

I have placed myself in such peril
Trusting in my own sly counsel
Navigating a path, pointless and interminable
A fool with an appetite for defeat

Am I to believe the barn swallow,
And build a home of mud instead of dreams?
Tangible, instead of that which is without form
I choose the dream and its glorious deception

Rise above persuasive fear
And tempt that, which is fleeting
You; Amiable and true
Have a voice, strong with fluent motion
Attest to your bold inheritance,
And seek a greener meadow
Pure and of sound understanding
And brave through life and solemn respite
Your crucial test is a lifespan of challenges
So gather your reaping’s and halt your desire,
To look back on the past and venture ever forward
Where light emanates and darkness has no grip

I was raised among the autumn leaves
Subjugated to the seasons    
And the mirth of the wind
Transfixed by the passing moon
That sad old man
Who claims to be wise, yet utters nothing
More guidance I have found from the lonely Lilac
And the vole; and the sympathetic rain
Than I have received from Luna
For I am lonely and fear that soon
I too will be the aggregate
Of time and erosion

Glistening crowds shuffle in detached cadence
Sweating long necks on a production conveyer
The boardwalk
Pungent saltwater and fried dough coalesce
Ocean meets carnival

Teen screams and seagull shrieks
A multitude of color variation
Red to black
A scent of Coppertone and Noxzema
To ease the pain of the vain and pale

Summer at Happy Hampton Beach
Arcade upon arcade
Clinking bells and whirly sounds
“You're a Winner!”, the mechanical voice screams
Summer fades as do the summer flings, until next year

I seek a harvest of hope and bliss
You reap what you sow, it is said
But sow as you may, hope and bliss requires
A willful soul and mindful heart where
Malicious spirits abound
Making the ground fallow and unworkable
A vermin called dogmatism and self-righteousness
Seek to emasculate a once fertile land
How do we reverse this pestilence?
I say hope should not despair
Our union with the universe
Guides our way
Our reward is bliss

I have all that's required for a loner’s life
One set and nothing more
A heart that’s given and received not
One soul, true to its way
On path’s that show no bearing
Passions without servitude
And still with desperate moments
I cling to my loneliness in the company of strangers
With great joy, if you can call it that.
I marvel at the quietness of the autumn night
Whose passing I will mourn
As mist gives way to snow and snow gives way to grief
Will there be no one to share my wonder?
This is what they call the hermit soul

You take more than what you're due
Replacing joy with tears
Compelled to a destiny you thought was yours
Will you ever get it right?
He is a lonely, ****** soul
Delegating his passion from one to another
A back office Romeo
Roll it over and accept your penalties
Replace the tears with self-determination
Toss it all away
Cast it in the fire
Lob it in his face

It was just a game
We played at night
Just before the dream world
Spell a word on our backs

When you drew an "I"
I said, “I love you”
You said, “Good guess”
My turn

I drew an "I"
You said, “I love you”
I said, “Good guess, but no”
I have to leave

That was twenty years ago
I still remember that
It’s a game I don’t play anymore
I would never get beyond “I”

I am what I am, or who I want to be
Sewn from the ethereal playground
I am what I am, and just pretending
Thrown from heaven to seep in earthly goo
I am what I am, lifeless and full of ambiguity
Favored in childhood by no one
I am what I am, leftovers again
Wishing to enter the otherworldly mind again
I am what I am, and will be evermore

If I were Love
Or the rain
Or that prickly feeling
Or the pain
I would be
Above all
And below
A wretch
If I were Love
Or the dirt
Or the dust
Made up of rust
I would be
Love

I remember looking up at the tree tops
The wind blew and lifted the great leafy branches
Up and down
As if fanning Pharaoh in his magnificent palace
I can feel the prickly heat of that day
When I was five
You told me that she would not be coming back
I think that is when I first wanted to die

When I close my eyes and look into the darkness
I see the reverse image of swirling time
Glimpses of you, but you are not there
Like Schrödinger's cat, you are alive and dead
But all it takes is a potion
And my eyes will remain closed for eternity
The ease of which, has its own damnation
For this life still coddles and excites
And allows me to weep and moan
When I close my eyes and see you in the darkness

She spies the ants in bewilderment
A linear and meandering path
Undulating like a wave on a flat ocean
They are deliberate and sure

The ant spies the girl with indifference
Her path is unknown and random
Undulating in and out of reality
Her scars are deliberate and self-inflicted

The woman spies the man
His path is like the girl and the ant
Undulating like a *** of boiling water
The wounds he exacts are deep and copious

Standing afar, watching your face
A wince. A sneer. A despondent stare
I could write a book, a thousand pages
For a thousand faces

Imprisoned by your own enigma
You define your life with simple words
Whose meaning escapes even you?
You are complicated

A place - innocuous from the outside
Where resides, pestilence and ambiguity
A maze of vacillation where names are forgotten
In this place, the harbinger of unrequited dreams dwell

He is the maker of disillusion but also a friend
He never wishes to escape; I bind him with the disingenuous power of righteousness
When he is set loose, it’s with malice and slaughter
Vulgarity is his weapon, which he uses indiscriminately

As quickly as he is summoned and let loose
He returns to his domicile, weary
I fear this demon more than death
The relationships that it has overwhelmed
Too many to mention; too few remembered

Control is never mastered where flawed reasoning endures
Society asks to cage our demons
Confine it and marginalize its power
How can I when it’s who I am?

The sullen June rains
Clear as the sun breaks through and
Rises like a phoenix

The oak tree stands upon firm ground; an ancient
agreement with the earth. Autumn leaves agree to
nourish an infertile land if the contract is ratified. The
monsoon winds have no arrangement and are indifferent.

The snows of Kilimanjaro blanket a primordial volcano
and has an agreement with the rivers. Its melting glaciers agree
to flow freely and nourish a thirsty land if the contract is
confirmed. The sun has no arrangement and is cold and unmoving.

The soul resides freely in each of us. Ours is an immortal covenant.
If we agree to honor our bodies and humankind, life’s pact is
affirmed. Death has no arrangement and is uncaring and heartless.

She did not ire against the fading light
The mystery of death did not perplex
But comforted her enervated soul
As she acquiesced to fate
Her last words extolled the joys of life
And love
And the sunset

They walk in lockstep
Ignorant of the words they repeat
The excess of your covetousness
Sickens me to no end

I had respect once
Only pity and disgust abounds
Once a leader of men
Now a disciple of intolerance

You wished I was never born
And yet I was
It was not for your edification
But mine

I am a ship floundering in a raging sea
No sign of land to ground me
Your hateful words are like barnacles,
Attached to the timber that is my soul
Although my mast is made from the strongest wood
You attempt to smash it to pieces with your severe gaze
I have not seen a clear day nor night for weeks  
There is nothing to guide me
Nor Star nor sun nor kind word
I fear that one more gluttonous wave will capsize me
I am lost at sea

Love has many types and tones
Depths and heights, unfathomable
And some, infinitesimal
Love is confused and lonely
One sided and disproportionate
It knows hate not
It does not masquerade
Love is pure as the morning sun
Subject to natural law
Rich or poor
Happy or depressed
Life or death

Love
Bewitched, tender
Yearning, thirsting, feeling
I fear my heart will burst
Ephemeral

She came upon me with the weathered wings of a late winter nor’easter
Howling with screeching ecstasy and the anticipatory trance that follows
The piercing, splintering painful delights that reaches into my depths
Enigmatic eyes that judge my every motion
I drop my guard; flinging my shield of past tragedies to the barren ground
I’m caught in the sticky web of love
Wrestling halfheartedly attempting to convince myself I have fought the good fight
I hold on tight to anything within reach before the gales of temptation commence
I sense pain, delight, emptiness, belonging, blackness, and enchantment simultaneously

She holds the power of life and death in her grasps and won’t release her hold until I allow her to suffocate my heart

You say you've loved with all your heart
Dug down deep and pulled out a plumb

Reached levels of ecstasy with numbing toes
Except the ones that went to market

And still, there is hurt in your eyes
That can never be repaired by Botox

With every action, there is a reaction
But Newton’s Third Law does not apply here

Your soul speaks the language of the Universe
But lacks explanation in the vernacular

And when love is dead and gone
All is not lost, the sunrise is but an hour away

The heart, mired in the thick black sauce
Beats less for love but rapid with deceit
A craggy instrument that lacks the elegance,
Of the newborn

Awakened each day to seek new meat
To ****** upon and ensnare
Her waking and ending thoughts
Seek to tarnish the golden rule

Mrs. Ess, you are a sight to sea, and see, and si
The hair on the hairless, rise to heaven
While those of us in your presence
Seek a shadow to hide and peek not

I have a memory of those days
In Maine, with crashing coastal waves

When reading was a future right
Mom read, “Blueberries for Sal” at night

And that huge nameless tree in the field
At dark, a dinosaur concealed

Walking a stray black cat with a string
That ran up a tree and could not cling

Mom had to climb that tree, pregnant
And retrieve the remains and remnants

I remember those days, quite well
And the fake Christmas tree smell

The revolving multi colored light
That lit our fake tree until Twelfth night

In Maine there is snow, whiter than white
And memories that induce me to recite

Why does a heart break?
And why must it always happen to me?
You must suppose that I am not true to myself
How can I be genuine if I do not know myself?

The judgment I place on me is more hurtful than yours
I spare no cruelty in the mirror of life
I am unrelenting in the retrospect
I live in fear of me, myself, and I

When I was a child, my parents once said
If the sun is shining and the rain is falling
The Devil is kissing his wife
I pictured his wife as my kindergarten teacher
Mrs. Hill
That was when I could associate a name with a picture
She had a beehive style hairdo
Her hair was as tall as the Hollywood Hills
In those days when nature called during class,
You held up one finger or two
Now that I look back, did it really matter how many you held up?
Mrs. Hill didn’t respond to my hand gestures
The consequences were embarrassing
And to this day, when I see the sun is shining
And the rain is falling
I wonder if Mrs. Hill remembers
While she's kissing her husband

Music
Passion, wistful
Devouring, seizing, engulfing
Mellifluous voice of the soul
Fluid

My capricious mind
Where have you wandered today?
Who have you offended?
What retribution awaits?

I let you out to absorb the Sun’s rays
And you amble off to seek shade
Your stubbornness has no limits
As you fail to return at the appointed time

My unsympathetic mind
Why have you turned your back on your friends?
Do they not attend to your ego?
Like flies on carrion, their interest is symbiotic

This morning I had a premonition
It was perplexing and brought consternation
There was a rabbit that crossed my path
So many bad things happen to rabbits

Days and dawns have risen and fallen
My mood, like the New England weather
Has transformed in short time
Resembling the howling nor'easter
Each greeting, cold and methodical
And when I close my eyes
I can still hear your rapacious voice,
After these many years
Am I the dying abode that you inhabit?
The one, that gives you life with each thought
Be gone, you devilish succubus

A forceful pace, it's not a race,
When reading just for pleasure;
Your book is due, you never knew,
More time is what you treasure;

Today, I search for meaning and enlightenment
A light from afar has illuminated a path
A path lightly trodden
Trodden with hopes and fears
Fearful of what lay ahead
Ahead of what is inevitable and righteous
Righteousness is a narrow road turning right nor left
I’m left with a sense of reverence
Revered in my search for enlightenment

What I see, I do not love
Imperfections thrive with limitless combinations
How can one view their reflection and fall in love?
It is my eyes that I see first
And I wonder what he’s thinking
Like the Sacred Heart of Jesus painting in my grandmother’s bedroom
I turn my head left and right
And his eyes follow me but this one is in judgment
I find imperfections in his face too
*** for tat
I know that I won’t share the same fate as Narcissus
I can turn away because I know his deficiencies and failures
So, he reminds me everyday
In that other world
In reverse
My twin reflection

I sit at my desk with unremarkable posture
Crooked back, crouched forward
Hands, shaped like lobster claws
Ready to pounce on the invisible prey
However, my quarry is a thought, not yet set to reveal itself
Scrambled thoughts of memories ferment
Oozing out and dropping to the floor
Trampled on
A phrase or two lifts and permeates through my fingers
A loud click of the keyboard, followed by another
A symphony of automatic gunfire
This is a war zone
A killing field
Then silence
Coffee at nine
Internet browsing for the rest of the morning

Orphaned Souls falling like coal snowflakes
An overabundance in the heavens? Perhaps
I see them strung together to form wiggle-less worms
Eyeball floaters blocking ethereal visions
They bring phantom smells of lavender and patchouli
Then vanish as if aware of my presence
It’s but a dream

Today, one more was added to the soul heap as she left the body
Another bereaved soul
Why does this force me to breach my beliefs?
Am I not content to be a slave to my own ignorance?
It requires less work and I’m tired

Enlightenment requires a mind as vulnerable as the Universe
Free to fall from grace
And the confines of the caged soul
Each door that opens presents another that is locked
I fear I lack the strength to break open these barriers
But I so desire to catch the wafting souls drifting from dream to dream

Your words have hit their mark
Spun out of malice and malcontent
You take no prisoners
As you stroll the field of my defeat

I would have gladly parted in unison
As you call my bluff
And now, who is the bravest?
We both depart, half of what we were


Our shadows have no form
Amorphous and soulless
Buried in self-pity and loneliness
Will nothing arise from this destruction?

Perceptions of the man I am
An amorphous facade that blinks in and out of existence
That counts its lifespan with every beat of my heart
There is no permanence or longevity
Because that is what I choose
And what I choose is fleeting
Like a first love or a wispy cloud
I cannot define the man
Or claim to know my own intentions
Because they are fluid and unwieldy
And harken me to a time when darkness ruled
And light was a concept without meaning
Or validity, or attainability

Replicate
Castigate
Litigate

You tell lies
Then we vote
Still you win

We’re sullen
Ripped apart
Suspended

Tacit rage
Complacent
Acceptance

Of naked thoughts, unbridled and free
Scattered to the wind, a dearth of harmony
A rip-tide of bellowed speech and angst
Ready to pull apart this ragged seam
And erupt into a festering wound
Divided are two houses with splintered factions
Erases with ease, that which is sacred  
Even to the ungodly
What hatred and guile exists
That they cut off their own heads while declaring victory
A foreshadowing of the times to come
Must we burn down our own house?
And rid ourselves of the most defiant.
Or seek to persevere and gain back dignity
And harmony and charity and peace

Pugnacious mind of mine
Seeks an end to this winter fog
Your ramblings, on and on
I close the shutters, for spring is not in sight

Pig manure emasculates the air
Not a farm in sight
Your ramblings, on and on
I find solace in the bedroom closet

I hear the car door slam
The front door slam
Your ramblings, on and on
I chamber the round then nothing but stars