There is a harsh beauty in mathematics.
Under curves and over slopes,
Equations rise and fall endlessly
In a perfectly measured void.
Optimized, rationalized, sterilized;
Formulas that never lie,
Theorems looming before us
Like an archaic God,
A golden deity whose
Volume is maximized.
How I dream of drifting in this flux,
Concave up and concave down,
Riding the sign of my second derivative
For positive and negative,
For better and worse.
I would not travel alone;
With C by my side,
Friend, ally, brother,
Always paired with my antiderivative,
For whenever we journey back
Into the past, it is necessary
To have a companion to pull us out again
In case we are unsure of where we started.
Rules and laws
Strict organization, control;
There is a harsh beauty in mathematics.
Order; two plus two is always four.
Sines and cosines and theta
All dancing in the unit circle of life,
A conga line that joins itself
To form a mathematical ouroboros.
But the harshest of the harsh beauties
Presented in this Divine Subject
Is that though there is an infinite capacity
For positivity and growth,
So too is there the possibility of stretching
Endlessly towards negativity forever.
However, it is much more terrifying
To lie in the middle;
To be undefined, unknowable, and to add
Or subtract to no effect;
The most fear inducing, mysterious, and gorgeous number
Of zero; nothing yet something,
Infinite yet not,
The most grand of all contradictions.
A hole; a jump; a discontinuity,
Easily removed from life and smoothed out
If you just apply the formulas.
Graphs and coordinates, integers and ordered pairs,
Is that not what life is?
We live within the grandest equation,
Each our own variable,
Constantly solving for ourselves
With the harsh beauties of mathematics.

It’s a funny thing, time;
passing away on the wall,
not a care in the world,
just clockwise motion and

tiny

little

ticks

and all they do is tell you
that you've lost one second,
then another, and another,
until finally you look up
and there are years behind you
but the clock keeps spinning
round and round and round.

I was told by my peers  
That honor and valor  
Could be found in a far-off field,  
As if war was a scavenger hunt  
Wherein men of all ages  
Fought to the death  
Looking for little baubles  
And adjectives.  

I was told to return  
With my shield or on it,  
And how different those words sound  
When you listen to the shells, shouts, and screams  
In a far-off field.  

But when this land sleeps in silence,  
The locals can be grateful  
That all the young boys  
Looking for adjectives and baubles  
Have made a far-off field  
Full of daisies,  
Beautiful in the sun  
And graceful on the breeze.

She is the catalyst that makes my atoms split,
Fission in my blood, full of energy and heat.
And though I don't know my location or velocity,
I'm certain that I'm falling,
Trying to reach a grounded state
And form a bond.

A sudden spark in the darkness;  
the Old Man raises his head.  
Planes,  
he murmurs,  
I flew planes once.  
His vision drifts through me to  
four Vietnamese pilots buried  
in his memory and his sickness.  
Planes,  
he repeats.  

His eyes go dark again,  
twin contrails spread by the wind,  
falling apart in the empty air
of dementia.

Graceful, pale, and lithe,
Strung low on haunches,
Belly brushing snow
With bristling fur.
Eyes, teeth, and claws,
Muscles taut and ready,
Preparing to pounce
On unwary prey.
Rage, snarls, and instinct,
Caught up with crimson,
A killer in the snow,
Howling, haunting, hunting.

Her face is a grimace,
Concentrating on coffee, not looking up.
I don’t know her name,
But a lock of hair falls free,
Drifting down from the heavens of a loose ponytail,
Landing oh-so-softly on her delicate cheek.
What I would not give to brush it back into place!
But instead I just take my mocha and walk outside,
One heartbreak heavier.

Keep not your venom,
arrows, or swords;
pour them out like
rain in twilight,
and be cleansed
in the whisper of
tiny, peaceful droplets.

I remember the tops of clouds,
Looking as far as I could see.
I don't know if the Pacific
Is a pretty place,
But at altitude,
At least it's sunny.
Under the cumulus blanket,
Man makes his own clouds,
Thick with metal and smoke,
All black and shrapnel,
And God help you
If one opens up around your wingtips.
I remember nosing down,
Gritted teeth and twisted belly,
Eyes flitting between instruments
And the little ship
Getting fatter and fatter
Through my prop.
You wait till the last second,
Drop your ordinance,
And pull your nose
Up and up and then
You push that little throttle bar
To the limit,
And then the **** black clouds
Start up all around you,
And when your big baby shakes,
You know something's wrong,
And you cry out
"Buck? Buck?"
Like I did.
And then you don't know
If your face is covered in tears
Or blood from you or Buck.
I remember landing on that carrier,
Big and metal and gray,
Like a big tombstone for your friend,
And your plane is the coffin.
**** it, I remember.

A sacred betrayal, bound in blood,
And stained with the little canals
Of salty tears.
Torn and rent, broken and used,
Held hostage
By a monster in a lover’s breast.
Fists, feet, words;
All become weapons
In the hands of a beast.
Shame and fear persisting---
Quiet devotion and regret.
Once, before two became one,
There was passion, love,
Burning hot and bleeding red.
Now, two hearts again,
Made separate yet bound together,
A crimson wound upon the sacred union.
As a cruel child tortures a fly,
So too does this husband
Rip off the wings of his paper angel,
Throwing them down in the fire
Burning long; ugly crimson where once
Thoughts of love roamed.
Those roads, those heartstrings
Are now scars, paths overtaken by callous foliage,
Ne’er again to be traveled
After the reaping of a vicious love.

Sharp eyes and sharper beak,
Senses keen and predatory,
Talons waiting to rend and tear;
Yet, still a thing of beauty,
Of wisdom and of calm,
Now soaring through the clouds
To the ethereal eyrie.

Entombed in chrome, steel, and speed,  
Humanity slays the night  
With headlights,  
Banshee engines screaming  
V8 defiance,  
High-octane ghosts in the exhausts  
Bellowing spectral smoke,  
A motorized mausoleum  
Driving away from nature  
And slipping into darkness  
In the midnight heart  
Of a graveyard city.

What tortured verse doth speak of pain?
What rhyme doth voice this painful smart?
What words can soothe a battered brain,
An empty soul, and shattered heart?
Alack the day! No more am I
To live, to hope, to write or love.
Indeed, I fear mine end is nigh;
I wish to go to Him above.
Without my Love to guide me through,
This tempest's rage doth seem too much.
And now mine heart doth lifeblood spew,
I gladly go to Death's cold clutch.
For as I'm here, and you're away,
There's nothing bright about the day.

His skin is desert sand and ashes,
Eyes breaking through like rocks.
Every heartbeat is a ******'s shot,
A double report echoing in the mountains of his chest.
His breath is mortar fire,
Explosive in the desert night.
His blood flows thick and dark like oil,
Driving the war machine ever forward.

Something wicked this way comes;  
incensed, ravenous beasts,  
matricidal, snarling hordes.  
Invasive species, apex predator.  
We never had a chance.  
    
Monuments of blood and stone  
reaching up to the heavens in towers,  
each of their dens its own Babel.  
Expand out, they cry. Build up. Dig down.  
Rip out its heart and throw it into the fires!  
Use its energies to feed the war machines!  
Cut everything in two!  
Break the bones, drink the marrow, split the essence!  
    
But entropy ran out; expansion gave way to collapse.  
The process reversed;  
their emptied mines filled up with corpses,  
drained lakes drunk with blood,  
all their great sanguine works collapsing.  
    
And now it comes down to you.  
Stand among the ashes of seven billion souls,  
your brothers and sisters turned to dust,  
cast your Ozymandian eye over the sands,  
and tell me it was worth it.

Wheels throwing dust and grit,
Engine a mechanized roar,
I drove out into the desert.

I don’t really know what I was searching for;
The horizon, maybe,
Or a full helping of emptiness,
Something I couldn’t quite touch.

I wanted a fistful of the intangible, really,
Chasing ghosts out West,
Hunting for the tattered remains of the American Dream.

Somewhere past Phoenix, empty tank and heavy heart,
I looked up at the night sky and saw what I wanted,
Amid the sand and the stars, cool beneath the desert moon,
I discovered freedom and revelation.

Standing here upon the verge
Of who I am and will become,
Eyes wide with wonder
At the infinite possibilities,
I encounter pause
In the face of two questions
I never had to ask before.
Who am I?
Writer, friend, lover, doubter;
An emotional jack-of-all-trades,
Eager to learn yet scared of answers,
What am I afraid of?
Ignorance, death, loss, myself;
The four great evils
That all men and women face.
But let it not be said that I fear aging;
For the chance to gain
The experience and wisdom
Necessary to answer these two questions
Is one I take with open arms,
Drinking myself in
While my heart beats double quick.

I let my mind wander
Down dark streets with
Watching eyes whispering
From windows and
Trash-filled sidewalks
And as always
It found you
With your eyes dancing
Behind the glow of a cigarette
Inviting my poor mind
To just step into the alley
Nice and quiet-like
And with your pistol in my back
Emotional bullets snug and tight and ready
I finally asked myself
How did we get here
And when?

I had wings, once.
They were lovely things,
Soft and white and pure.
They cast such pretty shadows,
Carrying me up and up and up.

I decided to catch a cloud,
Wisps between my fingers,
But nobody told me you couldn’t;
They just slip through, like innocence,
And I was left disheartened.

Wings failing,
I fell down into the dark,
Hating my wings,
So soft and white and pure,
Casting such pretty lies
As I fell down and down and down.

An arduous trek over the miles,  
Through the wreckage and rubble  
To face the storms, the dust,  
And the man-made darkness.  
Still, I travel my own path,  
Walk the lonesome road;  
My memories, burdens to bear---  
Whispers of the Old World,  
Clawing through a wasteland  
Of thoughts and dreams all my own.  

Mistakes were made  
And lessons learned.

Let not our love be compared to
the rose, for Time shall surely
claim its crimson beauty.
Instead, let our love be
the sands of a vast desert,
that though the winds may
shift, shall remain eternal,
burning hot across the eons
as does my heart across this
great, terrible distance.
For you, the journey over the
dunes is made worth the heat and
flaying winds of doubt.
To be with you in the Oasis,
hand and heart intertwined,
our minds betwixt around each
other, is the truest love, for though
the abrasive wind shall always blow,
neither of us will ever bow to it.

124 miles to go.  
This interstate is ethereal,  
Some dreamscape made reality.  
Other cars pass and fall behind,  
Navigating the lanes,  
Keeping between the lines.  
Each has its own story,  
Bursting with life and tears,  
Which always go hand in hand.  
I wonder if, like me, they  
Are on the road to something new.  
124 miles ahead of me,  
There is a place of rebirth.  
Behind me, so many roads;  
My experiences caught up in mile markers,  
583, marker, 356, marker,  
Now only 111 miles to go  
And getting closer all the time.

Autumn wind shakes the boughs,  
Leaves whispering just before dusk,  
Words of peace and serenity  
Easing the world into a slumber  
Quiet, tranquil, and deep.  
The rustling, the sonata;  
Mother Nature’s baton  
Slowly, gracefully, meaningfully,  
Conducting a twilight all my own.  
    
Fading sun in my eyes,  
I’m just another mind in need of rescue.  
Heart and brain cast about  
Like common trinkets,  
Emotions crafted into the strings  
Of an ethereal instrument,  
Playing note after lamenting note  
As if such artistry would fade  
To darkness with silence,  
Or fall like leaves  
In this willowy autumn wind.

One final journey to the sea,
The last wish of a grizzled old warrior.
From the sands and dances
Of the American West,
To the blood and bullets
Of the Western Front,
Roads traveled by
A lone Apache.

Somewhere along the way,
He became my grandfather,
Replacing that which I lost
To drink and bottomless spite.
Better than his predecessor, naturally
Walking the path of a grandparent,
With stories and lessons for me,
His capitan.

Now, I walk with him
Along life’s shore,
And as that grand, beautiful ocean
Breaks upon the rocks,
I feel his stories and lessons
Rising on the salty breeze.

Air slips between my fingers  
Like sand through the hourglass,  
Flowing over my outstretched palms  
As the road leads on into darkness---  

Turns, bends, and forks,  
Split-second decisions,  
All my tiny victories and mistakes  
Ticking by like little mile markers  
Leading out of the world I've known  
And into the uncharted night---  

A limitless void of possibilities  
Just outside the reach of headlights,  
Always one step away,  
Shying away from the brightness  
And slipping between my fingers---

That which you were,
You were,
Yet that which you are,
You are not,
For we have not forgotten.
One cannot be gone
Whilst remembered.
Bright in life, now shine brighter
For all that has been,
Is,
And will be.
Ethereal, infinite;
These words become you,
And we shall meet upon the golden shore
At the horizon.

My future’s been told by the rain,
quietly reading my palms
with droplets cold as tears.
Divining my fate,
falling fast and free
from somewhere up above,
mystically dripping down,
Pouring out like tears
Into the palms of my hands.

This, the singular moment in time:
my past, present, and future
all roiling and breaking on the same shore,
and like an island
I stand bearing witness to all that is,
the man I was, I am,
and I will become,
meeting here with palms upturned
and open to the rain.

In the distance, a piano
Sings quietly to the night.
Surrounded by trees,
I stand facing the sound,
Eyes closed and body swaying
Back and forth
Ever so slowly, the notes
Drifting to me on the breeze
As I stand in the woods
And twilight, trying to find
My place within the world.
Here, the breeze glowing
With the soft light of music,
I find my place,
Listening to it all,
Note by lamenting note.

High in the saddle, reigns taut,
We galloped away from home,
Proud steed and lean rider
Searching, searching, searching
Seeking from the world
A meaning of sorts; such is the folly
Of the Young.

Long and arduous has been the ride,
But worth it if only to see! The ruins,
Columns in the sands bleached white
As if to be the picked-clean bones of
Those that came before, macabre
Testament too the Singular Truth.

Closer to the ground now,
In more ways than one.
I left my horse buried in sand
And miles, miles, miles.
Such is the Truth of things.

But alas! At last, a meaning!
The Grand Epiphany, you see;
For the further I wander from home,
The closer to home I'll be!
With this Better Truth in hand,
I stopped, turned, and chose a new heading
Towards home.

I know not what the light shall bring;  
New secrets come with dawn,  
And ne’er can I learn them all  
Before from life I’m gone.  

Yet out there off the beaten path  
Where weaker men fear tread,  
Discovered I the knowledge of  
The living and the dead.  

Such secrets as a God might know  
Lay now within my reach;  
And so then did I call to Death,  
A lesson mine to teach.  

Appearing then in front of me,  
The Reaper, dark and grim.  
I told him all that I had learned;  
He took my soul with him.  

And in this way, I found my death  
My end of time and space,  
And learned the secrets of the dawn  
Are best left in their place.

To exist in moonlight,
And moonlight alone,
Is to live the night
As a reflection.
To be much less bright
Than the start that shone
Is the cost and plight
Of this perfection.
But does it make it right,
Just moonlight alone,
To survive the night
Without correction?
Under the moon's sight,
Skin as pale as bone,
Everything's alright
As a reflection.

Fade into the night
not as a silvery soprano scream,
but a willowy whisper of what was.
Though Fate,
                      and Time,
                                       as well as Death
may eternally put Us to the scythe,
We will not yield,
nor can We.