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Mar 2017 · 342
The Pursuit of Fairness
Joseph D Mar 2017
The child is at the park.
The child is happy.

"What am I," he asks to the back of his mind.
"What is that flower," he asks aloud.
For it was in a vibrant patch that lay a speck of total green.

A lone stem for which its color does not show,
"until it has the chance to fully grow."
The parent had finished her thought.
The child only picked up one word.


The adult is at the park.
The adult is curious.

"I understand," she says to herself.
"I agree," she continues.
"We are truly lucky to have ever experienced anything at all."

The garden is colorless, a small patch of snow lingers,
It can be difficult when you feel an end in sight.
"We should not take what we shared for granted.
We should be happy.
I should always love.

Sometimes things you see, can be the hardest to find."
For Grandma
1942 -
Apr 2016 · 330
Snake in the Grass
Joseph D Apr 2016
Survivors of the first pattern that feared death
Born a slave to the chain of events binding every breath

This story was written, but the last chapter is torn
All efforts to piece together a story to fit in, but a mirror is all that's ever formed

As your breathe fogs the final pages
Words form like thoughts on shower glass
Take the time to teach those that take time for granted, and maybe then it won't be seen as a snake in the grass
-
Apr 2016 · 323
Content With Limitation
Joseph D Apr 2016
I find the further you run from darkness
The more you forget what light is
No effort, no drive in the slightest
Not convinced I'm more than a casted mast for my shadow
Set sails for the other end of this fish bowl
Can you end a true existential crisis
When you think you may only exist in the family memory VCR tape

The more encapsulated I feel the less inclined I am to escape
I feel free to be trapped in this cosmic frame rate
Click, fast forward, turn this bowl into a mote
I'd sooner call myself depressed than test the true universal remote
Dec 2015 · 365
Draft
Joseph D Dec 2015
The slower the beat of the soul,
The faster it's vessel goes
When reality's the only dream
Where you don't want to get out bed for
Everyone eventually must also slow
And scrap for change to pay the toll
When the road splits at the seam Thank those yellow lines of metaphor
Dec 2015 · 304
Observe,
Joseph D Dec 2015
While in slower beating of the soul,
The quicker it's vessel seems to go

You begin to scrap for change to face the toll
The toll where eventually everyone must also slow

What should you do when the road  splits at the seam?
When there appears to be the one dream without the will to get out of bed for?
You thank the thoughts that drew those yellow lines of metaphor.
Oct 2015 · 551
Three Certainties
Joseph D Oct 2015
I walk this passage of three certainties

There is no turning back.
The fog's blanket is eternal.
Only the next step can be seen.

Not all doors unlock with a set of keys

One foot stalks the other.
Only to reach a sign of fate.
Dead End never seemed so serene.

Change replaces fog as it lifts with ease

The road forks left and right.
The next step grows but which one ends.
Seems two roads I must choose between.

Not all that is certain appears in threes
Aug 2015 · 333
SclerAltocumulus
Joseph D Aug 2015
The wind greets every blade of grass it passes in song of life's movement, sounds of soft words whisper in my ear, the frame of the butterflies jump before my eyes along the path and fill the white clouds with rain as tears trace the lyrics in translation. My imagination.
May 2015 · 472
My Glass House
Joseph D May 2015
The man throws burning coal in his cracked glass house he's trapped in.
It would be foolish to ask anyone how the man got got there, even he does not know what happened. When asked he would respond, "Frankly, worrying about it just seems old fashioned"

But here he lays, eyes wide under the moon again. You'd assume this sky goddess is his best friend, since his insomnia lets the sunrise mark his day's end.

He scratches into his big window to the world
Am I  insane when I'm still awake and my dreams fade in
And I start to think I created the universe I was made in?
I want to step out of this books frame and read all of the chapters
But I'm starting to think I'm going break long before this glass shatters

-
May 2015 · 944
Birds (10 w)
Joseph D May 2015
If only perfect birds could sing, trees would be silent
May 2015 · 585
Grandparent's House (Home)
Joseph D May 2015
the domicile of three generations
not all those labeled grand reside within the walls
the walls so effortlessly visualized within the mind
and within the inner palpation of the body
but a part will forever remain stained
even in new-found renovations
you can be away for a day
or maybe many weeks
but just a new paper on the walls
as you flashback to once dragging fingertips down the lining
of the hallway in which the dimensions are imprinted
a void is created in absence of the tactile sensations
so here I stand on this porch
the edge of my personal universe
an extension of myself built in brick, wood and my own bones
at first woe overtakes and what can be a form of fear
the future disappearance of a home held so dear
comfort resides in my own realizations
when the memories last in my mind
i know to say
home is here
May 2015 · 953
Oneness (7-11-7)
Joseph D May 2015
Do you not feel yourself grow
As you move your eyes from the stars in the sky
To the blades of grass below

Holding strong to your ego
An attempt to escape relativity
Grip to the oneness we know

Do you not feel yourself change
In the sensation of new experience
Becoming one with you, strange
May 2015 · 1.6k
Personal
Joseph D May 2015
I try to follow life
In every way that it turns

Orderly chaos
Following sporadic patterns

Always asking what matters
Finding myself stuck in my minds caverns

**** being down to Earth
You can find me floating in Saturn's rings

Do you know how bad it stings?
The pain it brings?
Not being able to catch the tail of the comet when it sings

My mood swings breaking down my minds playground
Looking in the rubble for things already found
But we all learn
Being a child is nothing that stays bound
May 2015 · 500
Primitive
Joseph D May 2015
The rush
Coursing through precise veins
Person turned personification
Slave to your own chains

The push
Over the edge of our personal cage
Don't look down on me
Unable to change locked on stage

Hormones, emotions
Ecstatic pleasure, boiling rage
My own whips
My own pains

Reflection of the ugly
Pushed forth on the style I scratch into existence
My poem, my self, both primitive
Art and I kept at subsistent distance
May 2015 · 456
Diving
Joseph D May 2015
...Lips sticky
From this last breath of life you give me
A single arm extended
Blood dripping down spelling my fight has ended
Cutting my fingers hanging off the edge of the universe
I let go of the blessed curse that is self awareness
Falling turns to a dive
Careful becomes careless
I've never felt more alive
Finding myself submersed in infinity
To be born again
A new life a new world
Unknowing of my divinity
Where am I?
Who am I?
May I borrow a breath from you
So I can put together the pieces?
I must find the extent of how far this realm reaches...
May 2015 · 420
Grow
Joseph D May 2015
The tears when I first see you taste no different than when you leave.

Where does the time go?

The stars in your eyes are almost blinding, but provide me clarity.

The suffocation helps me to breathe.

You hold my hand through this parody.
As we wilt to grow.
May 2015 · 707
Cell to Cell
Joseph D May 2015
You fade into consciousness.
No, it did not feel like a slumber,
nor does it feel like night or day.

This new found scenario
Oddly left you without confusion.
Almost without looking you knew,
you were in a cell.
Bars closed, but left unlocked.
No one is there to make you stay
You know what to do.

You head towards the cell gate,
Walking without feeling the ground push back against your feet.
As you walk out, you find more cells as far as the eye can see.
With a lack or surprise you look into one and see yourself.
So you take a seat.

This reflection of you separated, seen in tears.
You watch the show; yourself.
And the moment your focus becomes absolute,
Everything around dissolves,
Replaced with a hospital room.
But you remained in good health.

Now you don't see another form.
You seem to be one.
The same feet that felt nothing,
tremble under their own weight
As if the floor that did not make itself known before
Was pulling you with the strength of our sun

Eyes fixed in a stupor
On the elder relative that had once stood with beating heart and warm skin
He's dead
He's gone
From seeing to feeling the emotion
You understand it's the state you're in
These tears are not hollow as you believed the cells had been

The moment you reach this understanding,
You fade back and see yourself.
You stand up with elegance and ease,
And walk down the cells as if to see what's in store.
Window shopping yourself.
A different version, a different age behind every bar.
The floor still absent to your feet,
The only thing pushing is the natural desire to explore.

What do you think of when you hear;
Prison?
May 2015 · 1.6k
Bats
Joseph D May 2015
One would observe the habits
Of the black cloud of bats
Once a day, at the same time
For as long as they have kissed life
Have moved as one out their cave
Tasting the open air easing lungs filled with cavern grime
Only in the midst of darkness
The stars oblivious to the sunshine

A stray speck
One would think part of the cloud that escapes daily
But wanders astray from parts unknown
He sings
You can clip my toenails
But you can't clip my wings

In what most would guess was confusion at a first glance
Was truly nothing of the sort
He enters the cave confidently
Continuing his song with determination, an angel with a task
My skin is my mask
He enters

Neither the cloud that was once a seasonal storm
Nor the speck
Was ever to be seen to leave
The stars now know what sunshine is
And you start to recognize
The truth took its form
May 2015 · 2.2k
Bittersweet
Joseph D May 2015
-Bitter-
I gasp for the same breath you exhale
To me like sugar, but far more sweet
I grasp to the drug I call your heartbeat
You are the boat
You are the wind and sail

As I embark a trip so promising.

-Sweet-
What am I grasping to?
This question brings a tear to my eye
         Why?
I ask what, not who
A question more bitter, somehow tastes better
Knowing the tear is the answer that would upset her
And as if in a snap, the tear takes shape
Part of me believes you are just a means for my escape

Oh how bittersweet is loves blossoming.
May 2015 · 742
A Mother and Her Son
Joseph D May 2015
Trudging along in slow melancholy,
The child,
Side by side with his mother asks,
"Why?"

She says, "I'm sorry,
But it has been a while.
Four, long, full moons like no other,
Making for another passing by."

"I know. Time has passed,
But I do not want right now this sorrow.
I know it will not last, but..."
The child looks up in innocent youth,
"Can't we go tomorrow?"

"Easy now, young one," the mother calmly in return
"For it is with great honor we knew my brother at all in this life.
And with death, we learn."


Look at the elephants in their fascinating way,
How they remember where a fellow member lay grave after many of day.
If only we could know what their calls truly say.
May 2015 · 310
My Brain in Silence Sings
Joseph D May 2015
****** happens
Has there been one culture
Rendered in isolation
That did not rid another being of its sensation
Everywhere you see
It's almost sadistic
Making death depressing
Then turning it into a statistic
Truth becomes cryptic
I miss it
So now songs,
My brain in silence sings,
About believing I had wings
Take over
Do I need them?
Yes
Is this freedom?
May 2015 · 7.6k
The Pen and Paper
Joseph D May 2015
What a sight to see
Your perfection shining through my flaws
A reflection so pure the universe comes to a stop
Pauses in applause
She declaws the frightened dog that learned to act one with the wolves
It pulls me
Yet pushes me greater
For my soul it is the knower of all
The wisest translator
The pen
And paper
May 2015 · 1.3k
Stars
Joseph D May 2015
If stars could talk
Would their words shine as bright?
If stars could talk
Would they only talk at night?
If stars could talk
Would they know we are near?
If stars could talk
Could we even hear...

The stars do talk
Not with words but with a twinkle in time
Their speeches paint a picture of the past
Passing along universal wisdom so sublime

Look up at the sky and listen.
May 2015 · 1.0k
Walking Through Walls
Joseph D May 2015
This is what it means to be
A product of inhuman ingenuity
I'm not creative because I let my brain spill from the palm
Leaving a note in screaming whispers
Just to disturb the calm
We all hide under the monsters that live in our bed
You try to talk through to them
But no response is a silent gun aimed towards the head

The world just keeps on dancing when I silence my own song
A spoon full of my own personal sugar makes it seem better
But on the inside it's a new shade of wrong
Staying numb somewhere down the line of feeling
Kneeling to the window of opportunity blocked by another buildings ceiling

It's time to walk through these walls.
May 2015 · 799
Welcome
Joseph D May 2015
Welcome to my,
Addictive personality.
Where it's always
Just one more glass and one more puff.
One more bite.
One more show.
One more song.
When you never have enough,
The urge is too hard to fight,
A battle lasting too long.
I just don't know where to go.

Where should I be?
Who should I talk to?
Just look at all the drugs we do,
In the process of giving up.
I just can't win.
I don't want to...
Be me in any state I'm in.
May 2015 · 253
Untitled
Joseph D May 2015
Art is playing God.
The pen and brush have the power to create life,
And the power to take it away.
We are art.
We see it everyday.
Each stroke individual,
Like the fingerprint left on the glass.
Singing in color as we yawn the new day welcome,
And staple our now into the past.

— The End —