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

In the coastal forest at Odiorne Point
Paths meander under and over
Bramble so odious as to create an impenetrable wall
And distant sound of swell and surge
My nose recoils from the endless spoor of sea
Where upon a rustling of leaves drew my attention
To the vain wanderings of a scant grey squirrel
If I were a meager rodent of the furry tail persuasion
I would have purpose, direction, and courage against the iron horse
However, I am just a man of no resolve, course, or valor
Therein lies the rub
And coastal jaunts should never be made by depressed men

This I made from discarded words
A rewashing of once fertile derivatives
They made her bustle when recited
Her face, red with passion and lips unrestrained

And now, this newness I have not felt since her
I fear this one will discover my deceit
My lack of originality
Verses meant for another

But once old is new again
And these words have found fresh life
But when I find my soul again
Then will it bring forth new fruit

Regret
Having carved eroding chasms
A million miles deep,
Deep in my thoughts
To grasp with flailing talons
What might have been.

Had I crafted eloquent words or
Shone a brief interest and
Not toppled that deceptive pedestal
There might have been
What might have been?
Regret

This stage of life
Does not allow for reiteration
Only regret
And with all that
We ponder
What might have been

Rise up placid moon,
Through narrow bands of fiery cotton *****
From indigo to cobalt blue sky
Your motion, docile and free
And that sliver of silver light
Your cycles are said to guide the uninitiated
When you are full, they burst
For you are the light of the underworld
Full to new, new to full, and everything in between
Your shadow hides a secret as does mine
But yours is easier to reveal
There will come a day when earth shall release its bond
And you will be free from earthly influence
Just as death will discharge this soul
To meander from our earthly bodies
Free from the confluence that is body and soul

What a man you were
Your knuckle, hard as rock
Knocking on my seven year old skull
Flash anger that came from nowhere
Did I remind you of someone you hated?
I remember, buckets of years ago
Now you, with “old timer’s”
Those days forgotten
Now, my time to disappear
By tomorrow, you would have disremembered me
But I remember, I still carry the lump

It was unexpected
How could it end so soon?
Without warning
A life’s crescendo
Like a song ending at the second to the last note
Never to hear the final note
No closure

A cast shadow, my other self
Speaks not in flowery meter
But waits time immortal
In the darkness of a conscious mind

In spite of myself
Itself
Yourself
Drawn on every word I utter

Anticipating a near, full, or half truth
The night has no faith in reality
But a certainty that light is a millennia away
And that shadow rules twilight

My shadow has departed
A dim luminescence has not the power to prevail
So casts my follower to the depths
To wallow in ineffable sorrow
Where heartache mutates to anguish, to scourge, to death
And lucidity has no foothold
And light, no admirer

From whence you came, oh specter bright
Allured by sin, this troubled night
The haze of which, its solemn mask
Brings a fate, A fearful task

Upon life’s meager soul I pray
Replace my aura, black to grey
For though I lack an inner light
Allow the grey to seek the white

My poet’s soul I hear it said
Has only words of doom and dread
This be not true, I take to task
If love is all, you needn’t ask

I sit alone, at a table,
meant for someone other than me.
Waiting for the flash of inspiration or
a synchronistic event that
will change my plasticine life, molded
by someone other than me.
I’m here, when the sun fights its way to
be seen on it’s lonely track across the sky.
Today it’s cloudy but somewhere, the sun is out,
only to be seen by someone other than me.
I read your email and wonder—Why?
Why would you choose someone other than me?
I read the news, to take my mind off your email,
and read of a man, hanging from “The Black Bridge” and
wonder—why does it have to be someone other than me?

Soul
Alive, astir
Gliding, enshroud, obscure
Awaken my tormented soul
Nomad

The Soul, my eternal interloper
Disciple of numerous incarnations
And admirer of the disembodied spirit
Cast from me, my dear

What are you good for?
For I truly do not understand your counsel
My Albatross in life
Shadowy in death

I wait for a glimpse of your light
How do I draw the curtains to
Enlightenment
How many more manifestations?

We were here once
Another life
Together
When I close my eyes
I can taste the memory
Your touch like
Rippling electricity coursing through my skin
Reminiscences of a thousand years ago
Maybe two
A different time
Those were the days that bind us
For a thousand more
Soul mates

It’s nearly half a month since the equinox
Drenched in the cold among the dead
Anticipatory of any color other than grey
The tree branches disfigured from winter
A lone squirrel zigzags to avoid the quiet killer
The pancake maker
The meandering bruin seeks to devour anything in its path
Leaving a wake of topsy-turvy blue wheeled bins
Spring is that alarm clock with the inviting snooze button
Where is the warmth that was promised?
Where is the rain that is dreaded?

New England’s ravenous ground is ready
For winters waiting cadavers
How long must they wait?
Spring is anticipated with its many preconceptions
It eases in and is hardly noticed
Warm days intermingle with the frigid
Until frost is an intolerable memory
Spring is manic depressive

I am tired of the summer
With the assumption that warmth is good
Green is better
And a sunny day is the Cat’s Meow

Here is my assumption.
Summer kills when
Angry throngs riot and loot
When one of theirs is brutally murdered by The Man

When the funny man hangs himself
And makes me want to do the same
When intolerant zealots demand -- Convert!
Or else die

When your legislator takes the summer off
Before completing their job
And when monsters
Take an innocent young life out of lust or convenience

It could be that summer really is a murderer
On the other hand, I may take it too seriously
I await autumn and its cool breezes
And less news

The fragrance of a memory
From childhood long ago
I’m brought back
To a fenced in back yard
Crayola blue sky
A burnt umber ground
Islands of green and yellow grass
The scent of Summer Hill wafts
As the unseen is revealed
A dream is remembered then forgotten,
And you say it didn't happen
I recollect the aroma that says it did

And so begins a Sunday morning
The radiant yellow orb making pathways
Through the clustered oaks and pines
And shadowy amorphous forms race
From field to field and far beyond
Avian hordes arrive as if by magic
To populate and preen
This is a cathedral built by no man
Where only the utterance of wind
And light of equality
Express a greater truth
Than that found in a shuttered building
Where minds are closed and unfamiliar
And formality is lifted among them like a golden calf

We clash with unabashed ferocity
One of us; me, unaware
That a third is present
A flower, blossoming will wither
When watered with resentment
O’ little girl, sunflower
You stand in an empty field
The luminous rays of the morning sun
Comforts you until the gale of your fathers fury
Runs its course

Ominous feelings
Grasp my heart as the phone rings
It’s the wrong number

The cadre of gawking onlookers
Catch a glimpse of the latest casualty
“She was so promising with such stoicism”
Her loss is our gain

Their expectations had no bounds
The opportunities were hollow promises
Their duplicity complete and final
She got her pink slip at 5

Too far I have traveled
Year after year
Mile after mile
But never leaving this town
Enslaved with ignorance
Segregated from the cultivated

Arise from autumn meadow
The days last thought
Of you who chose a path
Not measured or guided but sign less
And yet, you walk with purpose
Resting in unfamiliar territories
Aware of the incongruities of your route
And still, you had the vision
Earlier years were fraught with ambiguities
And muddy trails made for slippery ramblings
And then, you wrote a poem
Your heart found its medium; and soul, its pen
You write with depth in a shallow sea
How magnificent life is, when our path is clear
And the autumn meadow allows for one more thought

I gave birth to a thought today
A shiny little supposition
It wept about all the possibilities
Endless creativity
One concept after the other
My thoughts began to multiply
The kinetic energy of ideas colliding
The chemistry of the mind
Has created an epinephrine drip
Then I heard the voice of an angel
Say, “Daddy, this is my science project.”
And now the birth of a thought
Gave way to a Supermassive Black Hole

There is an old trestle bridge
Soot black skin
She summons the half living with her
Siren’s song
A melody heard by the tormented
The rope, laced through the lattice
An intricate weave
Claims another
She lives, that others may die
Her reticent soul is a comfort to me

The cornstalks vanished overnight
Shaven fields once flowing, green and gold
Like Dad’s evening whisker stubble
Ghost limbs of the cornfield

Flocks of nomadic Ravens
Feast on the invisible
And scowl with those empty black eyes
Impervious to man’s judgment

And I think,

There is nothing as beautiful
Than the first snow on a barren field
Shadows playing with the evening light
And dance among the vacant mounds

I have cradled my gloom
And somehow nurtured its growth
Strong and unfettered
Like offspring that feeds on its parent
I fear that it will devour me
Nevertheless, it is my creation
Manufactured with ease
Yet I have created this monster and hundreds more
As I slay one, another slithers from the depths
Of my heart
Where good and bad is a *******
And life and death is equally coveted

The dark season of cold, pallid vastness
Has not broken the tenacity
Of the first snow fall
Heralding the purity of the colorless
And the aroma of burning pine

This opaque mood I am in
Rejoices for the dark season
Yellow and brown ochre highlights
Burnt umber trees of plasticine
Molded by the hands of nature

In my mind, I am alone in this one-way reality
And yet, I delight for the dark season
If I could share this sensation, I would not
For it’s the prelude to a poem
About a cold and distant soul

Words were all we had
So long ago
Echoes of the destitute heart
The ramblings of an arrogant poet

You thought of me as the prophet
Foretelling a future that would never be
You discovered the truth and left
Leaving me to wander the desert

A parched soul
Hungering for the tangible
In an intangible world
Will this journey last another forty years?

Catch the dying truth
That moves a thousand miles a second
To seize what is, or what should be
Concealed from view where all can scrutinize
You see the sky; I see the stars
You feel the earth; I feel the pain
How can you explain the Universe?
Is there no draft that can penetrate your mind?
Closed to apostasy
Open to dogma
And still you insist that we are new
That Intelligent design is tried and true

And the dying truth is that I too, am fearful
Of what lies beyond the silence of the mind

Bend and twisted beyond recognition but hardly broken
A resilient soul that weathers the eastern storms
You are the seeker of inspirational thought
Finding pieces discarded by the hopeless and helpless
A discoverer of minuscule wisdom, you make it yours
And you share its obscure meaning and summon the light
For many years, the numerous have seen you a far off
Like perched eagles, they seek the opportunistic ****
As they strive to entangle and captivate your soul
You will suffer with the endless disappointments
One day, you prefer death to the infinite fight
And when all is lost, you find the passage that will
Lift you from hell into heaven and restart the cycle

The vastness of the summer field
Has lost its innocence to autumn yield
From whence the green has turned to brown
A once joyous day returns a frown
But with spring’s planting, revived and healed

Refrain oh urgings of wanderlust past
My sails have lost the wind, on teetered mast
The hearty bellows of a nor’easter gale
Has caused my depth to weep and wail
And fear the evil my spirit amassed

I am a farmer’s soul; born to seed and harvest
A reaper of words, and mortal darkness
I seek from all around, and all within
And dream of a life that might have been
Where love past is all but heartless

The four leaf clover
Springs mystical compass points
North, east, south, and west

I took a gamble and asked the question
A spectacular mistake not to see the irreverence
In your quantum answer
A parting shot across my bow
That sinking feeling

His hard eyes stared me down
The remnant of a smile
Now a distant memory
It’s funny how the eyes can relate hatred

Out of nothing came a blow
It made me see stars-for how long?
I can’t count but I’m a **** good smell sensor
What I did to deserve that smack, I may never know

I miss my friends from that place
I don’t know what they call it but I remember its smells
*****, ****, fear, and death
Why did I have to go home with this guy?

It started as soon as I got to his digs
Couldn’t hold it
There were others here; I could smell them
But they are gone

I used to remember everything
Now it’s a blur
Head smacks all the time
I hate the stars

What a fool
He took me outside and unlatched the spike collar
Took off, full speed
Not looking back, gonna find another pack

Upon a path that is no more
A way, a way, deep in memory
The natural parting like hair on a newborn
Having a beginning and an end
Pause, as you look upon the path
That is no more or will ever be
And the wind will whisper in your ear to remind
That this path belonged to another
Yours is there
Along the fence that borders the meadow

My memory vault harbors no treasure
From youth it’s where I store tragedy
A vacuum that ***** up heartbreak
A Black Hole where grief and pain cannot escape
Memories replay over and over
Death, disasters, accidents, and misplaced trust
And yet I’m sad when death wipes a vault clean
Where is happiness stored?
Something other than Christmas morning
But there it is; a happy thought.
I should dig deeper with a bulldozer instead of a trowel

On a meandering road, many years ago
Our destination unknown
We came upon an ancient and majestic oak
Its branches, bare of clothing;
Autumn’s demand of an offering to the soil
We stopped and did not venture forward
Observing only from a distance
Knowing that if we walked among its greatness
We would not see the fullness of its truth
You sketched it
I sat in awe of it
Years have passed and she is but a memory
The tree no longer stands except for the lifeless remnant,
And your sketch
A cruel beheading
I live knowing that it's greatness,
Rooted below the earth
Is a soul larger in death than in life

The oak tree revisited
It’s been twenty eight years since I visited the oak
Still majestic in the over growth
Towering above its brothers
Hours spent gazing in your eyes
Arms out stretched, calling me to your *****
The last time was after she left
And I thought of dying at your feet
But you gave me hope, old oak
Ageless in your foundation
And my many woes have you endured
I call you friend, ancient oak

See the people watcher
Still as a mantis
Endless ambient sounds, unidentifiable
Does not prevent his gaze
He studies her eyes; her smile
And undresses her mind
The watcher finds himself
Transfigured
Her thoughts are not easily uncovered
A coffin, sealed; undefiled
The watcher will only find him,
Looking out as he looks in

He has no choice but to pound her back,
to get her to let go of my arm as she bites down hard.
She says she hates me because I pulled her hair when she was a child,
I am a vicious man who lacks control over my anger.
I don’t disagree with her memories, but she adds more than I can remember,
In the moment, I can have blind rage and not remember a few minutes before.
She thinks I hate her, but I don’t. How can I convince her otherwise now?
I am no longer Father. Dad. Pops. I am my first name.
I see the wall that I created whenever I try to talk with her,
Not made of wood, but concrete. It’s made of a Roman mixture that will last for thousands of years.
My wife says, “Give it time”, but time doesn’t erode this wall.

I see you creeping in the night
Ephemeral spirit that haunts my darkness
And lurks within my shadow
A silent whisper in my ear
Cast your lot with me,
And see the riches I will adorn thee with

I see you skulking in the morning light
Ephemeral spirit that haunts my day
It’s harder to see you in the blackness of my shadow
But I can hear your distant whisper
Join my legions,
And enjoy the camaraderie of kindred spirits

I tell you, I am but a solitary man
Capable of withstanding the allure
My rewards will come from enlightenment
Not from a whisper
But a whirlwind
Sudden and furious

I have trodden many a creature under foot
A few, unbeknownst
The bug has an intolerably short life span
And shorter yet, under foot
Do I traipse out of spite or cruel wonder?
No, it is just my disregard and shortsightedness
For I have been trampled upon,
From creatures smaller than me
They stir upon me, feelings of a bug
A distant rumbling of thunder
As I count the seconds after seeing the flash
There is a heavy weight upon me
Imagine what is stirred in a bug

A desolate roadway, endless and meandering
Once well maintained, now splintering asphalt
Wrinkles of the aged silhouette
From the cracks; earthen mounds of despair,
Grow with each passing season
The overgrowth of malevolent verse,
Blanket a once fertile mind that traveled these roads
Undeterred and unfettered
Memories that are incoherent, comprised of fragments
Lost to time
The never-ending scavenger

In his youth, his father’s words
Were like a steel sledge; beating down his spirit
A malleable soul, formed in his father’s image
Forged by the fires of maleficence
Now tempered steel
A two edged sword
A weapon created by words
There can be no happy ending to this story

It starts with an anonymous thought
The voice in my head that screams lies
It sounds like me, but in a higher register
Repeating phrases that will not stop
Competing with the high pitch ringing

I open my mouth to exhale and allow it to escape
And close it quickly, preventing reentry
I stand at a distance and observe the voice
As it is reborn into another monster,
Each time a manifestation of the last

To slay the monster only allows a metamorphosis
The thing grows larger and more powerful with more words
Words like vinegar and baking soda
I know when it will quiet down
But I’m not ready to die yet

I am but a wanderer seeking refuge
Finding shelter in the arms of one cherished
But this sanctuary lacks congruency in my heart
Now, I acquiesce to hope and conviction

We mourn the loss of a child called love
With youthful enthusiasm it was encouraged
But if one loves the child more than the other
Love grows divisible and rebellious

The pain and anguish of the vanquished,
Need not to be in vain
All feel the sting of relinquishment
Soon, a fleeting memory

The soul intuits destiny’s detours
Like a mouse in a maze, we seek a prize
Worthy of the pursuit
But are we mindful of the past costs?

Beneath the willows lion mane
A place to hide from earthly ruse
My cherished memory of younger years
Under the sacred umbrella cloak  
Shimmering tentacles move about
As the wind brushes gently and the sunlight gallantly
Filters the afternoon illuminations
I am in the belly of a jellyfish
Swimming deftly in a sea of dandelions
Tomorrow marks her demise
Another memory left to its devises

At first, apathy, as one who wades through the gibberish
Then despair, as the wall grows taller and shadows of endless blackness
Stretching across a known landscape of misery
Built with mortar of ignorance and pride
Even you were amazed by its advance
By its ambience of nothingness
And how it is not persuaded by your rational mind
Not even your tapping finger is heard anymore
I’ve adorned it with webs of ivy-lies and pity-vines
And you have whitewashed yours
It takes a word and action to regain peace
Never to be spoken because of this impenetrable wall

Encapsulated in time,
Refusing to release me from its clutches
Only to relive all my imperfections
Over and over and over again
Time is a perplexing thing
Moving forward and still,
We are trapped in the moment
It ravages the beautiful
And turns us to dust
To quote from a wise old sage,
Is to speak the obvious
For we are all a wise old sage