To exhale
Compresses the chest
And in its place
Some chilblains,
Disgust for its being,
An annihilation
A ferocious hunger for itself,
Like the ouroboros
In every breath
Tempted by a life
For the moment gone.
To inhale
Invites it back,
A dispassionate process, no less.
The life thus stolen away
Impotent to the next breath
That I must exhale.
On this breath there comes a fear
A longing or
The urge
To lift my hands to my throat
And keep the life in my lungs
To quit exhaling
And never feel that way again.

An icy January
And the birds have gone.
One used to sit on a branch
And sing my mornings in.
I miss him
Like I miss my smile,
Four years, their absence
And this January has gone on a while.
Shredded flocks
By a shredding breeze
Have moved him, the bird
To places where he’s better suited.
I still need him
I want him here,
His wings cut swathes from the high grey clouds
And pluck me from
The icy January
Down here, resting in a hole in the ground.
I want to fly with him, the bird
I want to be taken from here
Every fleeing bird is an encroaching fear
That this January with become February
And perhaps another year.
If not some escape,
Then I hope he lands outside my window
And sings my mornings in
For I miss him
Like I miss my smile,
Five years, his absence
Wondering where he’s been
And when
And if
He’ll ever come again.

We’re all friends
By miracle, so soon
Comrades by the break of dawn
And strangers by noon,
As sure as the seasons
And predictable like rain
You can watch it with certainty
As a waxing moon wanes.
And when they’re gone
Entreaties refused to deign
--Like you’re an ugly growth
Or some fungal pain—
Then acknowledge a scale tipped
And gifts, given and got
The fair trade or
Reciprocation that it is not.
And how sad, and self-prophesied
The nature of ‘friend’
It teaches us that what begins
Is surely bound to end.

A crack up the wall
And the house is broken
A cloud in the sky
And the world is grey
And my faults are many
Even if they’re bridged
Even if they’re far gone
Cracks don’t go away.
Maybe all the bad things
We millennials possess
Is a gritty reminder
Of what’s in the rest.
The human condition can’t be that strong
Perhaps Gen. Y,
Just got it all wrong,
And we’re not new victims
In this generational war
We just bear darker versions
Of our parents’ sores.
But we’re young and stupid
We just don’t get it
It’s suppression versus reality
And we’re getting all the ****.
If we were laid brick
In a nice, big wall
The bricks, true, before us
Made us nice and tall
But when we look down
We only see cracks
Big cracks in the wall.

Hills ablaze
In the western sky
Smoke, it coils
Through the atmosphere
Leaving the eastern half
Charred and black
Of what the twilight could not sear.
It burns with ardor,
That western hill
The trees are tongues
And burning still
With kindling sun
Departing there.
The western coals
Can only stare
Coming hence, a blackenedness
Whose colors echo
Back and forth
From ebon South
To eerie North
There it seeks
To call it: “mine”
From black to purple
Blue—yellow
From there an angry Clementine
For sunk beneath
The faint embers
Did go indignance of the red.
The last to go
A calming blue
It leaves so peaceful
A daylight dead.

The question is
Where to begin?
Why, with honest heart
And boldly sin!
And sin I must
Against myself
Pinning the inkwell
A bespoken purpose
--The poetic confession
Since speech commands silence
And advances regression.
My courage it falters
And guts turn all queer
Neither could reckon
With our distances near
And confessing this outright
Is just plain absurd,
I hope I have made
My cowardice clear.
True, this is petty
And prideful at best
Poem’s the proper vehicle lest
My weakness runs wild
As ornery thoughts
And binds up my tongue
And stomach in knots.
But onward! I bore you!
My pen spitting gibb'rish
Thinking sense and writing none  
I’m too far to turn back
And the day is yet won!
But can I be blamed
For nerves all on end
When the single string in every thought
Goes day’s beginning to its end
And all around and back again?
This whole semester
I’ve felt a fool
Beside this mind of eloquence
Of enervating sensation
Like, I, a simple candle
And auroras’ collocation
On the clearest luminescent night
With incensing breeze blown left and right,
Coupled with creative flair
And womanly chic, short, brown hair
I’m distracted, diverted stupidly
A boy's been made
Of the man in me.
I’m a mustard seed among
Religious men,
And profanation blossoms
Brought to transcendent, if divine heights
My words reaching an Elysian place
Touching new Heavens
With (excuse the pun) Grace.
Please don’t hold daft obligation
That you must reciprocate
The sentiments, here, laid before you
And mushiness innate
But the purpose is here
Not to woo
Nay, to salve this tiny,
Yet consumptive flu
So for stoic, normal me
This is something radically new.
So excuse the upheaval
And heavily borne load
It’s just perseverance
Through pessimistic mode,
I know this is weighty
And clichéd and trite
But I've been made weary
(And that’s creepy a mite)
Through countless embattled days
And resultant restless nights
With no intention to do so.
I hope this has struck you
Not perturbed or amused
Because right now I’m trembling
Sclerotic and bruised
And will follow, oh follow
This to its end;
To see this message
Read in your hands.
But until then, condemned
To sleep sad and wake gaily
To think only one thought
And think that thought daily
And thought is of you
Of you,
–.

A flurry descends
Upon this town
Like a snow globe
Shaken up and down.
Given time
It does settle
Disappearing on
Glass and metal.
And when it stops
Then starts again
Squalls abreast
All down the glen
The clouds will tumble
And grey the dome
--Above the sky
--Above this home,
The winds, they sway
The wire of phones
The sun that shines
Once was not shone
While snow once more
Flung to the air
Where it lingers and tarries there
Then to rest on house and stone
To claim the earth that was its own
My fingers retract from the window pane
To watch it start
Then stop again.

Oh, Luna
Carrier
Take my serenade
If this earthly love escapes
Then loving doors forbade!
Come, send my plea
Whilst I trace her constellation
And you, both
Hidden from mine eyes
Trace her hand, her heart, her eyes
To the other’s harmonization
If but for one night
Pity me, or give my heart
To her
The one, I know it true,
That you and I, Moon,
Both smile upon.
She whose eyes
Like lunar seas
So deep that hide such mystery
Whose hair enwraps my world
Like many-a brown meridian
From top to bottom
With energy
From end to world’s end.
Whose shadowy nature
Like paradox
Alights with creamy luminescence
To outshine her companion stars
And rears my gaze Heavenward
And implores my footfall north
To cross infinity on cadence and tune
Wishing to be where she stands
Her sublunary perilune.
Oh, I’m mad, I’m mad
Poor, Moon my only ear
For you are not the woman
Whom I wish, this song, to hear
And yet I dream
Beneath the Moon
Which I hope she dreams into
That this dream
Beneath the moon
Is one she dreams of too.

No,
Don't stop being perfect
If even in dreams
And known only to me.

A ****** countryside
Beneath the charcoal grey,
Whose bottom is alight
Shrouds the valley,
Blanketed in snow
Still and cool and quiet.
Gentle snowflakes kiss my cheek
Sitting fireside, with hominess
Warmed at the hearth of the sky
Hushed, the world, laying asleep
From holy halls, their lullabies
Smile, do the elements,
Their dream is what has become.
And so it is,
A dream, a dream,
Though I am awake
These little souls, their lanterns bright
Hold me to the end, across an endless earth
White in winter’s hollowness
I dream of you for all it’s worth.
Brave, must I, the motherly whitened path
And dream of distant you—
It keeps me warm, fireside
I thank the treasures, soul supplied.
My hearth is cold
With none to share
The brilliance of a chaste expanse
With none to help me stare.
I have a long way to that hearth
That I’ll call my own
The souls, the winter—Carry me home!
Soon, we’ll go
Your hand in mine,
Hearts akin,
Accoutrements of clothed embrace
We’ll go, so soon
Once I’ve stepped from this dream,
To have heated hearth of our own.
But now, I can’t
I follow the souls’ little lit lanterns
Through the valley in the snow,
I go alone,
In their solemn palms
As they carry my lost one home.

You are a dawn
Vibrant, full of light
Behind ebon clouds
In the middle of the night.

When my hand passes along your breast
—Your swooning tremors translated—
Done and quiet and motionless
Our appetites full and sated.
Nothing, no passion beats
Nor does heart sing of a bond
Mere means to untied ends
Cursed, that, to never go beyond.
Laying there, as you quake with delight
No feelings that burst
Try as I might
But, jewelry feigned and worn so prettily
Though you are not the first.
Wander oh, Wanderer
Through fields of cut-and-dry
And ponder oh, Ponderer
What it means, her and I.
Feelings professed in autumnal halls’ rain
True Heart’s contents gifted
Turned bed-pleasures again.
Is this then Love?
My mattress stained?
Is this then Love?
To entreat desires again?
My tongues are sincere, motivating that art
Painted with blood
Strained right from my heart.
But, perhaps, mine is a bad art
So prudish, so straight
Where her brushstrokes are cherished
Not the brilliance of her paint
Perhaps, then, I’m chasing
Pure metaphor
To find Love and love
Is what Lust is for,
So, then I lay empty
With misty dreams and starry eyes
My loving hands not deferred
But outright denied.
How can we, in what sense,
In Love’s definition confide?
To prove it’s only a metaphor:
Not literally applied.

I cannot feign the hate have men
For Winter’s barrenness
Dull and brown are hill and fen
But, oh, I cherish this.
How grey, empty the winter sky
Bitterly watching the Springtime die.
But bare, the wash, as painter’s pallet
And canvas cleaned anew
It lacks obstruction and blots of paint
From plumes of trees up high;
It opens up, so beautifully
Without undue or blotchy dye.
What’s more creative, liberating
Than perceptions’ application
Upon the canvas of winter portraits
Of open sky ruminations?

The wind that roars and shatters the night
Kills solace, this, and peace, that
What little balm is here for me
Is torn away
By the Wind.
Metal twists and whines out loud
These walls are bowing in
To entrap me like a seed
Encloséd hard
By the Wind.
Impassioned, is this wind-wracked night
Full of sadness, love, and spite
The wound inflicted long ago
Made gangrenous
By the Wind.
I see chains that shake and choke
Where their sleep is unpleasant
Bound by hands that do not touch
And laughed at
By the Wind.
There, those chains in brunette hair
And blue eyes and silver tongue
Turned away and turned back
Vivid life enforced on me
By the Wind.
Closer and closer the wind pushed walls
The farther you are away
The tightness, oh solitude
Your cadence carried
By the Wind.
The wind, the wind dissects the very earth
I split, it splits by loss of harrowing trial
The chasm it makes, pure anger bursts forth
I feel the distance as it grows,
An adult wound, mile by mile
We’ll soon be foreign people
Breathing foreign airs
So be it! I say, just let me rest,
You just keep walking from my mind
Blown back again, festering,
Blown back again
By the Wind.

Dawn, o Dawn
Sunlight that spills over a distant hill
Teasing the shadows of wheat and knell
Filling the cracks with a soulful lit
Expose the face, the shining face
The earth that shies from night
Expose the blindness of the earth
Just as blind in the light.
The fury that melts the dew away
Casts me long away from me
I stood outside, the weeping fields
Seeking the escape I need.
Futility, oh misery
It pulled me back, the seed
And forced embrace, to love the day
Despite spurn, implore, or plead.
The coming day, I hate the man
No friend of mine is he
Every day, oh, Dawn, oh Dawn
A disappointment to me.
Ev’ry step of Apollo’s path
Is paved with bitter tears
Each minute, forced to swallow
To see my failure’s leers
Each time the day begins anew
I’m forced into a darker world
One where pieces of the previous day
Are halved, split into
Shreds and shreds Oh, dear, oh, dear
You’d think spirit’d be all but dead
But what kills him more is not his thought
But what my eyes continue to see
When those eyes were drawn to me
The sun shows never was
It existed in the dark
Obscures like barley’s shadow does
And if, of course, it’s fantasy
A book intent with end
I’ll rip and claw the dawn away
And fiction I’ll defend
For if you’ll never grace my field
And reap the fruits that grow
I’ll just raze them, sky and all
The passion the earth will know.
A fictitious world, much more surreal
I love my own creation
The sunlight unveils the bitter truth
They are not food, but cremation.
If I could stop the coming dawn
If even for a moment
Darkness would bathe the far corners
Wasted lives atone it.
But that is bunk, the dawn knows that
Reality is taken in full
Who ever knew a crisp fall morn
Could be so utterly cruel?
Laying here, the sun moves on
Soon we’ll both be dead
To face the face, my misery
Confines me to this bed.

Wait for the day
That you finally have the guts
Wait for the day
When words finally come
Wait for the day
When you can hold her close in every regard
Wait for the day
When everything is perfect
Wait for the day
When the moment is perfect
Wait for the day
When your excuses stop making sense
Wait for the day
That you’re the twinkle in her eyes
Wait for the day
When she comes to tell you everything
Wait for the day
When she’s confident to come near
Wait for the day
When she’s holding on to you
Wait for the day
She finally has the confidence
Wait for the day
When she looks at you
Wait for the day
When she’s not with him anymore
Wait for the day
When she’s happy
Wait for the day
That never comes
Wait for the day
When you’re still waiting.

Pt.1
Love is a race
Gun fire to exhaustion
With runners, the lovers,
Kicking up rocks.
Digging, digging,
The stretch in sight
The thing, their body straining with all their might
And the crowd all cheering
The race neck and neck
Lauding the  winner, he loved
Gets the medal in his hands
I’m watching the celebration
Back at the start
I didn’t even move
Didn’t even start
Pt2.
I knew I’d crush
If Hope were involved
That *******
Held my hand
And told me it was hers
Though the door is tightly shut
That hope it still lingers
Last string on my harp, plucked clean
Hook, line, and ******* sinker.
Pt3.
Congratulations,
I hope he treats you well
I’ll retreat, again, to my little hell
Just goes to show the value
Of patience.
Enjoy each other, please.
Congratulations.
Pt4.
I never thought I’d win
And yet certain you’d be mine
Your boyfriend told me
Wordlessly
Just how pointless
Trying is.
Pt5.
*******,
I’m a loser again.
Who ******* cares?
We’ve all got our pain.
I’m nothing special,
But he certainly is.
Pt6.
Why am I *******
About this common occurrence?
It happens all the time—
All for naught
My romance.

Let’s go away,
To my haven in the wood
To the lazy, little river
Stay longer than we should
Let’s watch the sun
Lay across the leaves
Chase it with my car
Go until we’re pleased
Let’s just stand
In some field
Dance with the breeze
In each other’s eyes yield
Let’s just forget
The daylight will end
Your light is my light
So we can just pretend
Let’s lay here
In the dark, dewy lawn
We’ll go away together
But let’s stay here ‘till dawn.

I watched through tears
--That streamed like the one out back
And the scattered clouds
--The ones that floated overhead for years
A twilit ridge inurn the sun.
It was one of those rising hills of my youth,
One my infant eyes always thought
Gave birth to the moon
Time and again.
With its innocent face smiling
That worldly crispness is lost
And the foggy past is far more defined.
Who are these forms I've lost?
They are but phantoms,
(I tell myself)
And now intangible, those memories
Acidic and dusted with sugar
Held suspended and taunting, like
Feet at the mouth of an open casket.
The cold, bitter knives of impersonal
Reunion
And rejuvenated promises
--Only now remembered, only now forgotten—
Illuminated once again
In the dark.
Passing onward and through
--Like our time together—
Exactly like wind through these **** dead branches
And this grave: winter-bare.
I remember the vivacity
How enlivened the sky, that I
Each day for granted took
And how so much smaller, in my youth,
The mountains afar looked.
But there is no home,
It died when I left.
The poison I fought
Has become the blood which pumps the heart,
Now corrupt,
Antithetical.
Nothing is more colorless, not sky,
Nor hill, nor moon,
Or ever more formless
Than what I once called home.
Now that only exists is deteriorated
A rotting house:
Four walls and a roof to keep
Hatred dry,
Windows and lamps, so
Hatred has eyes,
And all the people that
Hatred hates most.
How cozy it must be to sleep in
One’s own bed, no?
To have some stable place,
And an ounce of certainty?
As for me, that will never be
Again.
Though the house is open,
Lock, room, and all
The home is closed forever
Without a proper epitaph.
Vain death.
Vain,
Vain,
Death.
Now all I can only turn back
And flirt with shadows
Just outside my arms
Walk with images
Shifting, growling, and oh, so dark
--mere abstraction
--future so stark--
With no companion but defeat.
I can’t hug a memory,
Nor cry on recollection’s shoulder,
Nor can my mother or sibling console me,
And I cry alone.
Maturation is merely widening a distance, so
I should let them go,
Bid them adieu
Because, I can't be homesick
For a home
I can't go back to.

My eyes fail me, the spirit is but a ripple, an echo
Afloat on the sun cast waters
With parting gifts and wine
The hands, the toil, push me on
But,
It’s pretty, the ripple, the sky and I
Like bodies at a funeral
My soul crying
Mouths are sighing
"How very pretty the evening sky looks"
As it looks back on us, two bodies,
Day and me
Dead and dying, dying, dying.

Oh, Muse, bemused me, no true self have I
Many a-mask have fallen to paint me
My canvas is contrite and still I lie
And, oh, for Fortune you’re denied to see
What foul bristles wash and stroke mien anew
Today was blue, yester a shade gayer,
Tomorrow, expect my art gift to you
Quick, more pastels! New friends, another layer
But, like any piece, Time wills it ‘way fade.
And perfection tainted by the past one,
Please ask yourself, who amongst is not made?
And whose vibrant colors have not mixed dun?
Come, let’s look on at my new piece,
So the patrons of my art ever increase.

Peace in emptiness
The pale scope this circle is,
Like a shawl draped tightly on my neck
The sky hangs with intimacy
And yet so distant and emotionally raw
Its biting breath attests
Confined to converse with a babbling stream
And speak so vapidly
One can see, so peacefully
Thin veins, they creep on water’s top
Its vitals miserably languid, slow
And the fish condemned to stop
The sounds, the scene consume in silence
And make the world one
Because I sit here in defiance
To its outside I am numb.
Is this Peace? Perhaps, perhaps.
If it’s all alone
Because this is kind of lovely peace
The world does bemoan
I wish its concrete impermanence
Their busy lives atone,
For subtle sanctuary and plot for one’s high throne
I say to you, that you can find
Here, with me, all alone.
The leaves can be our wallpaper
The grass, exquisite rug
These stones, china of antiquity
Carved in Orient fashion
The moss will be our bedding
The hills our occupation
The fields will be our sustenance
The pond, couples' libation
I’ll christen this house, and you my bride
With gems of pretty ether
We’ll be each other’s sole possession
My hand will rest beneath her
Love the world, our home, our home
You and I, our love outlasting
Here, at Peace, and all alone.

[Let this be a gift, my lover not met]
Let this be a gift, my lover not met
This shaky sonnet of weak, boyish hands
With eyes that gaze and trembling mind beset
I live up the dream, stupidly make plans
Await as your gentle brown hair flits by
Marvel the saccharine scent of your air
Contrite by the mind bewitching my eye
Guilty for my presence in yours, unfair
Your lithe little hands in my crumby own
And cute red lips pursed with naïveté
Pouring out poetry like pregnant tomes
And you’re wisdom abundant, be it may
Be you different with quirk, an odd one please
And I’ll always be the one who n’er flees.

Love is like leaves
Falling from trees
The cold causes us both to fall
The heart is at ease
When the skin is pleased
Warm sheets for our survival
Icy snow falls
We’ve given our all
That warmth enweaved in severance
Never mind you
One lasts of two
Dead branches bud with petulance
But never despair
Be tender with care
The leaves will fall again

New zeniths, gold peaks, wrought art by the dawn
Replete i’a chorus befitting a god
Surreal i’ the sound, arrest hearts to beat on
Perfect not i’ the void of song, of we awed
We be humbl’d by that seraphic tenor
And that feigned haughtiness, urge, morale arise!
Hoist high the gift which holds none the better
Evoking the spirits in a calm’d sea of eyes
Turned aloft, to masks or tried bounds of that range,
Caught on the line betwixt life and a fantasy
We watch and we wait for our lives’ swift change
I lament for the throngs, you, that won’t see
Souls alight brilliantly, rushed by your song
And who will forget you when you are gone?

At once reality, his matter found
Blue eyes arrested by the lighted set
Behind those ****** pieces, cyc, and sound
And heart’s threshold, at its suff’ring surfeit
A dazzling sun's ray of magenta silk
Rippled, suspend, to black cascading down
Obscured surreal faces of Love’s own ilk
Two silhouettes collude don one pink crown
In a scene effulgent, swelling refrain
Whole being exposed and seen from afars
The artifice washed bare, cleansed once again
Pretty in pink with lovely, lovely scars
One arm outstretched, clasped her aura’d waist tight
Falling like dead stars, tears bathed in pink light

The daytime has come
But the daylight has no sun
Only a bright moon

The night has fallen
But the darkness has no moon
Only a dim sun

Horizon is blessed
By some dread revelation
Sun exists in moon

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.1
A jaunt through halls of death’s portents
The portraits, the colors the gallr’y transcend
The ceiling, so high, a silv’ry grey
Walkways bathed in that milky ray
Patrons babble their ephem’ral talk
My strides and mind, against their walk

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.2
Stoic thoughts worn without defense
Entwined in fleshy accoutrements
And like the forest, soon to be
I’m wearing down acuity
I can’t enjoy an adverse face;
I’m simply looking for my grace

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.3
With grace on mind, my waltz in knells
My heart, I feel, it heavy swells
With that strange thing, hard-pressed for words
Fleeing, fearing like a flock of birds
I cannot mourn what never lived
My wish, in your heart is that it is

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.4
Never mind, I speak too soon
Your loveliness silent, cool as the Moon
These shadows bespeak a certain doom
Embattled me, in the past I loom
Forgive me, my sophomoric tongue
Forgive this sad song I have sung

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.5
In due time, I shall reveal
What and how I intend to steal
To repay what you stole from me
What I exposed when you spoke to me
I don’t not hope (and yet I do) that you are plighted blind
I truly hope, this awestruck boy, is weighing on your mind

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.6
Ev’ry flow’r in this great land
Could n’er be bless’d by that sweet hand
For I hope that bloom of my own
Could occupy that pale, lissome throne
I’m shut up, locked, I drone
Pure pulp to you, my abounding tome

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.7
Those sweet waters, cursed to dry
My mouth and austerity slated to die
Melting, am I, in boyish infatuation
Your cataract rising on my muddy station
My fruits of mystery, your gaze turned sour
And my exposure, to me, a dower

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.8
Despite my mantra “Be forever alone,”
That short, bobbed hair and cadence bemoaned
A stoic foresight, so brutally sought
Does shy away, that training for naught
This emotion, I fear, the superlative begets
Despite I have not even told you yet

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.9
Give me grace and stability too!
And though our meetings, infrequent and few
I’m undermined by fervency
With just the thought of you and me
I must remember to take it slow
Though through my darkness, it certainly shows

[A jaunt through halls of death’s portents] pt.10
I feel my heart is full to bursting
Yet I still feel a limitless thirsting
My eyes, my cheeks flushed and red
When I think myself inside that head
I see myself within that face,
Humbled, I share their time and place.

Epilogue
The reality is coming quickly
I’m anemic, undone, distracted and sickly
Heart cries out into the leaves
Every time that fair one leaves
Enlivened, at sudden, so make haste
Please, oh, please, grant me your grace!

Cooling air, the senses assault
Done is the day, I’ve earned my salt.
Daytime light has turned on me
On moonlit streets such trickery
The pleasant splash, those leaves on foot
Make drunk these nostrils, nectarous soot
Pensive mood floods the mind
And of their beauty I’m truly blind
I do not think of Autumn whole
Only alms within my bowl
As you’ll see I’m leaf inspired
Though their rudiments I have mired
Autumn ring, the chilling tenors
Rejoiced and played in earthly manors
That icy rush makes cold the spirits
Yet conflagrates ye adherents
That festive smell, incense the air!
No motive o’yours ever err
And though the day leaves more hastily
These changing leaves get the best o’me
Transient seconds plump and inspir’d
Of your natural portraits I’ll never tire
The mountainside, my most treasur’d mosaic
Whatever great works, it’s more archaic
Falling to the ground, like listless colorful rain
Whether as the nemophilist, or seated behind a pane
These little souls returning to earth
Fill me with the greatest mirth
Though they exemplify an age ended
Verbiage they have transcended
I’d fill my days with gallery mileage
Gladly glut with their splendid sillage
As they flit, the stuff of dreams
In their midst, pure sophrosyne.
Day or night I’m overcome
Eyes wide open and stricken dumb
Overcome with words and tune
Bursting forth, this ideal plume
And like a flower, complex in bloom
Can’t be captured, hemmed and hewn
Vapor these words, though fall inspire’d
No due medium, pen or lyre
Untouchable this golden essence
Wealth of ideas, gone in seconds
Appropriate, it seems to me
My head, my thoughts a leafy tree
Arrives the autumn, gold and dun
Thousands escape when I reach for one
So I’ll just watch in quiet awe
The beauty whole, no hem nor haw
Not try to make that art my own
Won’t reduce it to rhyme and tone
I’ll simply revel their naïve lull
Ephemeral, yes, but never dull
Shout out happily in leafy halls
Marry to words what return my calls
Leave thou ******, in pulchritude pall
And question not what comes of fall.

These ides have kept me thus far
Sustained, am I, eternal
By their food of self-sacrifice
The jester’s tasty wine
Imbibing insults wrought by fool’ry
Again, reciting the dirge for pride
But the ides have kept me thus far.
Despite the ru’nation
Hoist! Ye ru’nous hands
My repute in mortification
A fool by their and my demands
I see my shame, long shadow cast
In light of sobriety
Ignominy and truth of me
Divorc’d n’er they be
Still taste of cheap liquors, distilled society
But the ides have kept me thus far.
Full knowledge, have I
The disservice I do
Only time will heal the wound
To shy away, acceptance is
A lovely balm on par
My image in tatters, though brazen I be
The ides have kept me thus far
Let them laugh, for I know they do
Not to me, but within and among
I am your entertainment
The source of all your jeers
My life, a blund’ring show
I am an actor, my blight for years
A part to play, it’s pleasing though
To thrive upon your mocking and time
Comforting knowledge, that
A fixture, am I, your Thalia
The ides have kept me thus far
Erected austerity, enigmatic walls
Fortifications around me
Charged to keep the chaos in
My heart, it truly calls
I am not so noble
As the sun will attest
Know me as the ascetic,
See the shrieking eccentric,
Know me as the philosopher
See my wit pathetic,
Know what is outside is purely for show
See that is internalized, is
So ******* antithetic
Each and every time
I hide my face in shame
My pride and my name, my actions did thus mar
But I will heal, I always do
The ides have kept me thus far
This is my mantra, an empty cadence
A mist to latch on to
With every refrain of wretched debauchery
Each weekend played anew
Though I stay to bear the howl
Of my dissonant, ugly hymn
I listen to the hardened ones
Their failures but a din
I wish to change the thing I am
At least to those who know
I’ve heaved the chance to the icy mar
Onto the cracking floe
I feel the daggers of humiliation
Plucking at each stitch
I’ll just smile as though I like it
For in effect I do
But it’s becoming unbearable
The walls beginning to bow
Imperceptible, if my resolve she lasts
Though this is nothing new
But I’ll just grin and carry on, for
The ides have kept me hitherto.

It seems so far away
My youth preserved that precious little thread
Convinced a price I’d never pay
Convinced I’d never be dead
I thought my skin iron armor
A shield to all the shifting forces
The forces that nature threw at me
Until I saw life at its sources
And for lasting life, was my loudest plea
Never before
Have I seen so visceral a scene
Until I witnessed life escape, stripped to its very core
And on that pavement, so impressive a rouge sheen
Tears shed from my iris
Like I could change the horror
And shrieking like my efforts pious
Calling life, to my side I implore her
For him, I beg her company
For me, I’m no source of council
Though I cry, don’t trouble me
For I’m not the one that woman killed
I can’t express my grief
No petty conglomerate
Could afford me relief
For I’m not the one that woman killed
His blood was steaming
On that September road
By the sidewalk, dun and grey
Like life between its anti and node
I can only cry so much
Before it no longer matters
And it becomes another event, such and such
And its significance becomes a thought, to the floor it clatters.
Don’t cry for me, though I’m rife with ill
I don’t need it
I’m still alive
I’m not the one that woman killed
Think about that body rushed away
On determined heels
To the hospital, on precious time played
His fate, despite man, sealed
I’m not there, no fruit to give
My presence not by his dying side
Though he screams to the empty, futile air
My efforts can’t discourage his departure nigh
Though the sun may rise
Thougt the babe born
Though the shoot will rise
I will still morn
His loss, the rotting human soul
That sits in a wooden box, rested in the solemn hearse
Carried off by the bearer of palls
And buried deep beneath the earth
I’ll lament the loss, I’ve lost it
So very suddenly placed, without abet
This event so caustic
I’m face to face with death
But I’m not the one you should morn
Despite the tears streaming from my face
I’m not the one with the greatest of ills
I’m not the one you should be praying for
For, I’m not the one who that woman killed.

Why am I always bereft of the thing that I seek the most?
I always seek a willing soul
A soul who would entreat my own
And I the same
I, the slave of my nerves
A slave to the pulsations of my skin
The very thing I’ve always hated
I want hate
I want to hate myself
I want inspiration
That comes from the hate that flows
So freely from my finger tips
So beautiful a thing that passes by
So ignorant of what I could say
What I could appeal to
What drunken emotions accentuated
By the feelings of night
My pointless words
My sickened intellect
What I perceive as truth and the right way
I’m sorry to everyone
All those with the displeasure
Of hearing my obtuse
Faked heart, faked mind
I’m sorry
But I’m not authentic
I’m a replica
I’m not genuine
I’m a thing so pinioned around
The thought of ***
It clouds everything else
I want this false notion of love
I want a distraction
Something that keeps me away
From the emptiness of existence
I don’t want to face it alone
There has to be someone who thinks my skin worthy
There has to be an individual
I didn’t trick
Someone with
The very fantasy of love within them
Someone as foolish as me
With fake blood pulsating through their heart
Like me
Someone with the raw, acknowledged beat of lust
Flowing through those impermanent veins
Like the worthlessness
Extending from every extremity
Nothing is right
There is no light
Goodness has gone beyond me
Genuine Morality
Only the flame of passion
Ebbs in my matter
Not that story
Not that fantasy
Only a lie
One I can’t even abuse
Everyone is gone
I feel like life
Is but staring into a mirror:
Nothingness
Abstraction
Distance
Let this failure,
This over interpretation of a life
Die in the obscurity
Of the night Time
Good night all
Enjoy your lives
If only I could distract myself
From the awful reality
Like you
I want to be like you
Where life has meaning
Like action has sway
I am nothing
And never will be.
If only love could find me.

Come to me, Lady of Summer,
Hold me fast with blossom’d arm
Kiss me like a lover
And whisper floral words like I’ve known no other
You’ve given me the strength I seek
To grow my spirits vernal
To flee my love, all for naught
No union e’r eternal
And yet you linger to torture me
Witness me mortify
To shrivel up in your callousness
Let to air to fin’ly die.
With each passing
Of every hour
Your embrace grows cold’r still
Still am I to find the vitals
Which you try to ****
You’ll succeed because I let you
I long to feel your touch
And pray to false gods, the gods of hope
That you will feel as such
When that lonely woman comes
The Lady of the Snow
And blesses me aptly
She’ll show me you were just a phantom
Without I am truly happy
Yet she will leave
They always do
And abandon my love once more
You come again, my love anew
Yet again I’ll grieve
Resultant of my petty wish
That I’m your only lover
Though disenchantment is my blessing
To see beneath the lie
I’ve always wanted to enjoy your grace
Yet void of sky awaits me nigh
No normal man would grovel
And incense your waning passion
As I do
AS I do
As I will always do
For you abandon me
And give my gifts to better men
To those I call normal
And leave me leveled like
Foot of crushed hill
So now I retreat
Into my head, my hand
My eyes I blind, my mouth grows dumber
I spurn thee
I love thee
Oh, Lady of the Summer

I will walk a road
Of rimed old men and invisible children
A barren scape, all uniform and erudite
A scene to some, so meaningless and sullen,
But to me, I crave such to behold a ****** white.
Corrupt, it is not, despite my trek.
At Peace, my soul, at rest.
Baptize this ailing body, come the advent of night.

Put this matter with trowel and ***,
Into the dark and fertile ground,
With each hit, he loosed the soil
A once happy man thou condemned to uselessly toil  
His claws, cracked and broken shells
Jaundiced with the duty long days that did require
Lamed by grief and forced to work
Here, till the end of days, within this garden, this mire.
Deep does a ****** live here, past the clay and bedrock
Like the pride and valor and resolute spirit of the domineering ****
Or so her mien, it does beget
Or some other erroneous sentiment
That she, not he, were to bear this labor.
Within the ground, he did remember, in his spritely youth,
He planted, and thought none of, but a seed,
Into this verdant splendor, which bore that infernal ****.
And, thence, thereof came a fruit,
Of malignity infinite,
All the while it poisoned the ******’s white and water’s pure,
As its eerie little spines proceeded to take root.
Her garments poised to emulate white, instead
The ******, to him, had lost her white
Or never had white at all,
The ******, to him, had lost her white,
To him, the ****** was dead.
The fruit and seed, effulgent and pretty, to those who saw them bloom
Attractive were they so to them, irresistible to behold
That they, to him with great chagrin, did immediately consume.
“But the ******,” he cried. “The ****** has poisoned them!”
Yet they continued to eat.
“We do not believe you,” they replied, and slept ceaselessly on their feet.
One by one did they all collapse from the toxin of its juice.
The ****** watched and laughed, of caution was there no use.
Powerless and sullen, he stood, for remedy was far passed.
The ******, now regarded with delight,
Has he, poor, poor man, to tend to his blight.
The garden gone, its cleanliness perverted,
His words were ignored, and thrown wayside,
His admonition he so heatedly asserted,
The ******, her words never to be trusted
Had won over the people, whose homes she sought to entreat,
And with her rite, so treasured, so adored,
They enslaved and force him to his mire, to tend to the rag and filthy lands
Where he would remain with the garden
His words, his skin so like the sands

Predecessor of the morning hour
Bleeding through the gilded fringes that hang aloft in the wood
Breeze withheld its embraced dower
Humid casements held where I stood
The singeing lash did not come
Caged o’er the ridge
Melancholia, and the sky did shun
Ebon armada sent all the cavalry
Halberdiers and lancers, to contend a bitter rivalry
The brooding cataract washed
And I could only run
Towards pale shades and curtain rods
Towards uncertain suns
On the backs of Titans, the shoulder of Atlas my flight took rest
Before I, the ashen dome expands.
As though at my behest
And through the slaughter, the fray(!)
A presence of the light of day
Through the flush pillars
And fell beasts of rain
The bones of its enemies
Could be seen
Naked, exposed by eye so tiny and wan
Dispersed, did they
Frightened by valor of dawn

I’ve been watching for some time
From afar the deep and low valley
Watching the leaves fall
Of what hope they can rally
For not ray nor beam
Nor excitement I seek
Only the bejeweled recluse with the golden hair
The blue eyes and tongue abounding, yet meek
A beauty not to sever
From the mountains of my youth
Against all attempt
My failed past endeavor
To bring those impartial arms closer to my own
But, alas, she proved far too clever
And escaped, perpetually I bemoan
And where you took leave
Still spurns the suture
Dark blood freshly drawn
I bleed for another, though soul turned to pewter
And I stumble weakly like invalid fawn
The gauze did atone
Anesthetized my brooding
Until the reclaimed throne
Did sanctify its queen
Too little, too late
A penance not paid
Impatience could at surface readily sate
And showed me in acetic recollection
My folly not to wait
But, escaped your grace, my grubby hands though groped
And words did not flow forth as I had hoped
Simple gesture; a wave or two
And the separation broadened again, same as the first time I left you
But, I’ve been watching for some time
The creeks and the crags
Knowing the leaves will always return
And the fawn thus wanes to mighty stag
In hopes for a band of our own from the pitch of time discerned
I fashioned this life for you
And encircled you in my mind
That what persona I do beget
I was just hoping for you to find
A poor choice for but one of many
An ill-conceived and hasty plan
All done for you, my beauty
Planning for a future
Before it even began
And now, after I’ve waited for what feels like millennia
These clipped wings refuse to span
And this valley wracks me with mania
Spirits sink with the sun
Ink drips from the vein
Turn to verse written in vain,
Smears through the valleys
Like eloquent stains
An escape from memory, dazzling and dun
But the valley vast, maw is wide
Too far, too unwilling to outrun
The Beautiful, the flitting
Inescapable Morgan.

So this is what they call anomie?
A grayness,
A blank,
All things devoid of beauty?
When the eternal arms,
Have left me to my own devices,
To toil in deaden land
To paint futile pictures?
I’m wading through waves, through fires
Surely to send a man to delirium,
And as though it never came to pass
I sip unsweetened tea.
What rips men apart,
What fetters pull him in twain,
Simply move me with sway
And don’t move me at all.
Tears rush like the flume
Admonishments thrown
And I can only sigh in frustration
At all this petty emotion.
For man fills his stage with characters,
And bleeds ink all within his works
Aspiring to his own audience, the god he is,
I simply abuse this alchemy
To bide my time till death.
Call meaning what you will,
Fill your life with love,
Fill your life with gold,
with God,
with spite,
with studies,
with yourself.
I cannot,
I do not,
I know not these simple pleasures
Perpetually I am not full,
For there exists where faith should be
A deep impartial hole
If I could be normal,
If I could be normal,
If I could love,
If I could believe,
I’d turn away from it,
And choose to stare uselessly into my faithless hole,
All things beat on, as they be,
And this conviction, be it ever so keen,
That existence and living are useless things,
I’d still see what believers still see
That being the world as beauty,
I’d only see it with a more grayish hue
(Without the pretension to know what is true!)
And see the sense it lacks to see
And commit myself to this anomie.

There is an old adage
About the silver lining of clouds
As though compassion, camaraderie
Bless me
Like seraphic light and sound
But the light of day
Is destined to perish
A boyish heart, naïveté
Adjudged to inurn a body I can’t save
There, at the crest of a mount
There, at the foot of a grave
Mouth, icy
Screams, like vapor
We stood on the mount
The light beginning to taper
Such eminence we began to doubt
The skies wept for what bond withered
Empty sentiments
We lay thither
And wrote the epitaph aloud
On our own masonry
And there the clouds came
Light refused to shine
Hope refused to grow
We sang a song to commemorate
We sang the empty refrain
I laid your body in the hole
And then you did the same
We sought the sun, like fools
In abandoned, loveless houses
Behind the mortar of schools
In the gap which separates
We ran
Towards the wan and sallow horizon
To escape the clouds
Which swallow the dawn.
Yet, it runs on ahead
Buried beneath oily coffins
In which I’m just a nail
A body and a whisper.
Mother Sky weeps
As I rest, eternally conscious
Condemned to witness a cyclical end
And let my blood, precious
Its exeunt, you contend
We are impervious
And towards the dawn, herald our song
Of triumph, love, camaraderie
We’ll galvanize the heavens, our victory so loud
But all that is before me
Is abject, loathsome clouds.

Dear...
This haphazard poem was written solely for you
Matterless, what you came garbed in
Fever elicited, passion anew
You’ve graced me, the repetition of ‘could-have-been’
I loved the way you speak
Of knowledge and triumph
And I, bumbling and meek
Tirelessly I sought and now still seek
Your council, your court
For my amusement, for my sport
Conversing over a poisoned well
I listen in genuine
Raise my voice
Sing with my friends amongst the din
Higher on the pillar, you I hoist
Pure skin my well intentioned hands mar
Clumsily, I lean into a similar heart
To discuss life and literature, fantasies these hands take too far
How eloquent the silk you weave, which you impart
Which inveigles and entices, cajole us into the city
On pale page, the street lamps and dim moon, art
Palpitations and liquor test the pity
Of light and fire
I cannot help but explore your shapely form
And yet, without bar
Across miasma, my guide is a cute little hand
Solitude, the pulsations do doggedly solicit
I just want to be close, you grant this
Bewitched by the creamy satin of pale skin
Distantly, warmly, I gaze in those God-given sculptures
Of the richest green and azure hues, bespeak feminine
Engaged in the other’s stare, two drunken apers
The night, black as sin,
The mould of outcome of we are the shapers
And I shape regret that rises with the sun
You come back vividly and lucidly
Distant and opposite, worlds across, you from me
A nondescript ghost in the corner
Who speaks so placidly
I remember with regret
I remember with exultation
I’ve ruined our relationship
Our relationship topical felicitation
I haven’t had time to apologize
I haven’t had enough time with you
If I ever see you again
I’d mend everything
I’d discover the girl behind the name
And cleanse the projection askew.
Love, Me
Dear...                 .

What of exactly is a friendship lost?
Over minute trifles so easily tossed?
Or one that disbands in the cataract of Time?
Something worth pain and blood? Which is absolute and wonderful?
And so, too, can it be asked,
To which man is authority given,
Of such astute austerity endowed,
The man to pass such judgment in good faith and conscience,
Is none other than the crowd.
But, irrelevancies, I totter!
The worst is to be discussed,
For far beyond the scope of reason,
Have these travesties been concussed.
For here, I give to you the corpse of this bond,
This once turgid child of innocence
So, perhaps, its unadulterated substance may quickly manifest
Yet, I pray, I hope, I wonder, its marred and tattered mien profess
The noxious tonic it did consume,
Of ancient spleen and venomous ardor,
To rend its former pulchritude, to hands of untouched fury placed,
It suffered the most insufferable fate to befall upon any beast:
To reanimate, to thrive, to live once more,
In the hands of a tyrant and aimlessly exist
Necrotic at its very core.
This beast, this creature of hated stock,
Was my burden, my cross, to bear,
One, I weep to recollect, of part and parcel of my own flock.
But, I did this, I bore this, along with many others,
In spite of righted timbers,
In spite of rationale,
In spite of my fiber and moral code, that kept us forcibly constrained
For the sake of you, authority
For the sake of tranquil minds
I stood obstinate at the lineaments, between those contrasting foes,
In the self-imposed, childish Purgatory,
Completely indisposed.
Between the shining, gleaming face of holiness, and precipice of spite
For manner of serenity and cowardice perpetual,
Confronted this creature, I did not,
For the sake of you, dear authority, for the sake of stable place.
Children we were, yes, but no less severe the gravity,
For the winnowing of unity, at the yoke of caprice, is to blame.
A real friendship will endure, endure through the boreal,
Endure through the malice, the vitriol,
Will breathe new and longing appetite for breadth, for universality,
Of which all parts must maintain accountability.
It must stand resolute no matter how formidable the ballast,
It must be calm, objective, and outlast the harrowing feelings change may accompany,
Will sacrifice and encourage wellbeing,
It must imbue recollection, a past so beautiful,
Be a comfort in the presence of shame and humility,
Its essence, a friend itself.
But I can no longer pay, at the cost of sanity,
I can no longer give what little remnant humanity to forge another bond,
One made of dead and long-forgotten parts,
I can not, I will not,
I am sick, I am weary for all of the injustices I have done
To watch as the seed of hatred continues to bloom,
The veil of falsehood walk without shame,
To see her stride of perverting intent, tainting the world with touch,
Is a miserable folly to me,
A crime which I let permit,
A coward I was to not stop this, to not lay this matter to rest,
No,
My beleaguered hands put this evil in the ground, and left it to the tides of fate,
It grew, beyond my capture, beyond my strength to control,
Into this horrid ****, this miserable plant,
Which, still!, it grows sans disannul
To take responsibility to this, on me, I cannot err
But, naturally, none to the plant, it seems,
And this is only fair.