Offering unconditional love
Taught me so much
but fulfilled so little.
An open-book cheat sheet,
You had all the answers
without doing any work.
I've concluded
that you actually like
problem solving --
Neither the cheater I supposed,
nor a student of love,
You were unimpressed
by a perfect 10
While I was smitten
with a solid 8.

Upon reflection,
I was learning a lesson
someone taught you
in your school days.

True, I am a wreck,
Blood-soaked burgundy robes,
My claim to the royal throne
Of fame and fortune,
A car crash of
glowing metals & effervescent fumes
Or shipwreck where
rotting wood conceals treasured gold.
My art speaks because that little voice does,
Compelling me to risk a
Crash & burn
If I'm lucky,
and if we're not.

I have no choice but
Total breakdown
To build an empire from the shrapnel,
For energy is neither created
Not destroyed
But transferred
From our love to my expression.
True love is as fluid
As the metal magma
resolidifying
on the side of Highway 10
Or the swelling ocean
that holds her majesty
in a watery grave.

I'm sorry for your loss, but
I take solace in destruction;
it provides the raw materials
to forge my vision.

The artist is as stable
as he is self aware.
Reflecting his world,
projecting on yours;
He fulfills fantasies,
fears & fun,
in his work and
Out of the alleyway.

A captivating mind
held captive by
A need for novelty,
The artist must express
his thoughts--
Dark in private made
Light in public--
or enact them out:
An eventual addict
or shiny superstar.

Every so often
You're unearthed
in my mannerisms,
Relics of the past
Uncovered on accident
and up for interpretation.
The strangest winds
Blow the dirt off
That certain eyeroll
or inflection,
Offering but clues
To my past
and our fall from grace.

Our civilization is over;
No collection on pedestals
Can change that,
Though it's kept on display
So we don't forget our history
And spare ourselves from
Being doomed to repeat it.

Each annual August
I wonder if some ocean or pool
caught off guard in the sun's shine
as a fleeting mirage
nonetheless God's natural will
for that fleeting moment of perfection
seen out of the corned of your eye
that dazzled your soul
and peaked your curiosity
before accepting the unexplained
and retreating with a quick shrug
to a life of ease & understanding
and the paradise water
Reminds you of my
blue-eyed gleam.

Golden or Fragile?
I ask my heart
as they wrap it
around their finger
like soft metal,
Forming to each gesture
and trusting some
Irrevocable integrity to
Bend but not break,
a malleable soul
Worn by the years
that promised an alloy.

I sat by the lake
sipping coffee and feeding the ducks.
In between breadcrumbs,
I dialed his number.
"Your call could not go through."
I grinned;
Could not, not would not.
Long since the city summers,
I finally found our stillwater space:
a sense of security that felt
as serene as my remote arcadia,
disturbed only by the footstrokes
of a hungry mallard passing by.
No breadcrumbs for him.

"Call failed."
Call failed, not I failed,
and I picked apart the stale bagel
to dip in my coffee
and feed to the ducks.