Each turn of my life
is a play for thrills
remnant of the games
we'd throw our dice:
a couple of chance,
hoping for the jackpot
but settling for change,
living for the spin,
'till it's our role again;
a crap shoot fallen,
two die alone.

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.

This current resistance
in our duel circuit is
measured in ohmmms
of my meditated solace,
Mediated by the breaker
of a once-broken man
wary of a blown fuse
too burnt to salvage, a
lost cause to discard,
Replace & repeat with
each carless disregard of
the whattage we're wired
to handle, may a switch
on to off when overblown
prevent the spark that
burns down a home.

Hearts of stone melt
At heat tissues burn,
Blood to boil, into ash,
Muscle blown away
strengthless, weak
at Mercury's Ascent,
Wherein this fluid rock,
reveals molten flexibility,
An adept athleticism for
Love's sport alchemy
As  cold marble turns
to gold.

Art heals the creator
like scar tissue, sealing
cracks of a broken past,
Red-raw against pale skin
For the world to see that
You're recovering whatnot,
Till time fades these wounds
To nothing
a little makeup can't hide,
So we blend back in, to
Where we never belonged,
An find our identity within
Public display of deformation,
Striped naked, to express self
awareness, no more gruesome
enough to repulse, nor normal
enough to ignore the silver line
Between trauma and wrinkle;
scars fade, not vanish, but
keep us together regardless.

Violets rage
with indigo pulses
beneath the shadows
of your parents' porch;
Spitting purple, but
soaking the rainbow
from whatever light
granted by the sun.

My mind is its own body
of water, fluid emotion
at mercy to the moon
Sometimes rapid as
the churning ocean,
unharnessable, dams
each waterwheel I build
as if equilibrium was Hell,
& then
Sometimes vapid as
a stillwater lake, where
peace is dawn's ripple,
days' first surface breach
of a fish upon fly bait.

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.

A holy demure had risen
from the thoughtless exposure
that crumbled under her heels
each crux up Olympus;
And I, forever faithful,
belaying her ascent, unfounded,
delaying my own, grounded as
her head breached the clouds,
A fairytale if not for the landslide
burying me under stone proof
of her unfathomable scale
out of my rope-burned hands
that only God can measure.

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.

Rose by any other name
sprouting in the city,
does not sell as sweet --
A dandelion plucked
from Midwestern soot,
blown to the wind, assumed
Out-shown by gardens
of the proven perennial
(once Violet, Lily, or Daisy)
Waiting on bated baby's breath
to blossom beyond marigold,
an undiscovered exotic
For this concrete jungle.

My body is a temple and
on holidays, they prey.
"Come to the feast,"
An invitation to
forgive and forget
the sins and trespassings
of crucifixation.

The body and blood of
--oh Christ--
Taken by you, shed by me,
as this Holy wine saves us
from a judgment
between comforting beliefs
and cold, hard facts.

Love, Loss, Lust,
The divine Trinity that
brings us to our knees
in front of the altered;
Bliss-ed is he who comes
in the place of the Lord.

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.

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.

It seems like just yesterday when we'd give our affection away without a second thought. If they said they wanted it, we believed them. We thought, "if they're willing to ask for someone's heart--something so precious and complex that it needs constant tending--why would they do anything but cherish it?"

As it is, we do anything but nurture one another. If our hearts are gardens--each own's blossoming with combinations of colors and fragrances too beautiful to be anything but unique--then our minds are corporate oil drillers, buying up land with no greater intent than to turn profit. We invest in a lush plot only to **** the land--**** it dry of a natural nectar we cannot ourselves produce--and move on to a new plot of untouched, fertile soil: another new, untapped resource for our consumption.

What became of the gardens you destroyed? Are they as barren as the day you left them? Are they overgrown with weeds in pathetic attempt at recreating that former glory? Or have you never revisited the land that you once claimed, purchased, and called your own?

You know, you were beautiful once too; I can see it under the scars. I wonder who destroyed your garden, who drilled through your crust--relentlessly, mercilessly--until your soul gave and bubbled up to their hands for the taking. That's what brought you to drilling, after all. You're not consuming, you're replacing. You're trying to regrow.

But flowers don't spring from oil. You need a gardener to tend to your tarnished land. Yes, even as your surface gets greener, your well will be dry; give it time. Oil is born from seasons--generations--of an evolving land. With your gardener by your side, you'll get there. Trust them. Cherish them. And, above all, be their gardener in return.

"Out of the blue,"
he thought, hit on the head
with effects from the sky.
A pleasant apocalypse
balanced above the ground
where his attention lied,
Digging for secrets
yet ignoring the treasures,
burying himself alive,
Looking up too late
but just in time for me
to be free to fly.

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.

Our kiss is my
vulnerable bait and
we, worms on hooks
of entangled lines
writhe in pain with
tension tightening;
To pull us apart is to
lose your lure
us back together,
till no fish believes
our unnatural jig.

One ruffle divides
once allied kingdoms,
prosperity lost for
propensity's folly --
The stranger gained
is the lover lost,
the rival conceived
between the same satin
that birthed a union of
kings who can't crown
but wear as robes
what rolls off the shoulder
as you turn away (lying)
like a wave of intent
that shifts the tides to
flood empty channels,
a moat to surround these
castle walls constructed
in stone defense, having
forfeited our palace
to break this treaty.

I don't calculate, I experience,
Mapping a constant circle
Of endless enlightenment;
Your line of logic runs tangent
And I need no proof that
My limit does not exist.

They say the future artist
lives a privileged life.
Well you can't blame
little Ms. Thing
or Mr. Has-it-all
for inventing problems
Mommy & Daddy already solved.
If it's human nature to be discontent
and your life is full-fancy,
then our luck winner of life's lottery
has no choice but to create
a world of fiction,
expressing the problems
the middle are too busy to notice.

Partners in crimes
of war
on the battlefield
of love,
Like refugees
of war
Seek the solace
of love.

The night beasts assault
My mind, digging out
Of my brain, rampaging
Down my spine in fury
To commandeer my hand
And spill on to the page,
Released to the world as
My open-heart bridges,
Beckons them outward,
Afraid to close the gate
And lock them inside.

Light crept through my window at dawn
Illuminating the shadows of the creases
in his old imprint on my bedsheet.
That sun had set, but in the darkness
shadows fade, gradient into null --
the knowledge I ignored, now
trembling as golden rays
kiss my arm and tempt my mind,
Awaken the ruffles that remain
and highlight each cotton peak,
each contrasting up & down
rising further, rushing more,
'till the sun falls upon your face
when you open your eyes,
and I forget those fabric cliffs
that kept me from seeing
a new brightness you shine.

We all have a past,
We all hide it well;
We all forget that
We all hurt inside.

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.

I'm obsessed with recreating your hit, that natural high. Even with this unnatural stimulation, I'm not filling a void, but hoping to flood the same inspirational channels that have since run dry. You made me wet, dripping with emotions I thought I reserved for paper. But with you, the ink didn't flow from my pen. With you, the black words shot and swirled a world of white: each and every color imaginable. Now that you're gone, I'm back to black: a lack, an endless void of ink blots and crazy talk. And, now, back at my desk, these strokes are the gospel of a hollow man.

Love is between
Those too blind
To realize that time
alway ends.
The eternal moment
Lasts forever
With ignorant fervor
defending ideals.

Ever dreamers
Stuck on a notion
Ignoring emotion
for a feeling.
Validating security
By blissful mistake
In order to make
each stronger.