His table
Is dented
And thoughts circumvented
By lingering memories
Of dropped self-inventions
A scholar, who sits
In quiet despair
Lacks joy in his heart
With grey in his hair
He pursued his dreams
But better than thou,
He stood on the beams
And preached to them how
His way or none
Go home, Coke and ***
He can't figure why life
Is boring hum-drum

Oxidization
Volcanic hills are blood red
With memories
Of water
Past
Atmosphere gone
Polar shift, done
Magnetic aesthetic
Still
As pleasing

Do you hear that sound?
The wind
Whistling through closed blinds
Drifting into your ears
Burning your eyes
Stimulating your mind
Days behind dance
Driven by unrequited
Painful
And provocative romance
Hollowing your eardrums
And pitting your chest
It's quiet
But so loud
I wish I could understand

Floating
Laughing
Smoking
Singing
Flying
Drying
And hopping in again
Something sharp touches your skin
It burns
A thousand needles
Of a jellyfish sting
It has a hold of your ankle
And is pulling you downstream
You look down
It's menacing
It's laughing now
And floating
Singing
It's quite demeaning
You fight and fight
But its grip is tight
It pulls you underneath the surface
As the trees around you
Become a world without you
What is that sparkle?
It's golden, silver, bronze
You see domes and towers
Fruitstands and flowers
You quiver
The jellyfish loosens his grip
As you wipe the blood off your lip
Who would have thought
The key to Atlantis
Was in a jellyfish's grasp
Either that or this jellyfish's secretions
Were super hallucinogenic
Either way
This is cool

*wait, how do they even have a swimming pool underwater
and functioning toilets
fish don't even have thumbs
i really don't understand
****

Drowning out through seeping acrylic
Unconventional canvas on a rickety easel
Not even possessing the power to paint
The broken wing of a broken swan
Despite her weakened frailty
She paints
Using her beak, using her feet
The swan finds it consoling to know
That the littlest, infinitesimal purposes
Are purposes
None the same

I have been witness to many things
You must fear not what cold winter brings
You are young, but the reason this bird sings
To you, sapling, this bird clings
Let go of your evergreen hesitations
Your leaves will fall in wondrous presentations
Followed by gazes of beautiful validation
Your stems a sign of majestic acclimatization
While your trunk grows larger and far more in tune
Your leaves will broaden to as large as the moon
To each passing insect and all birds here soon
Your pits to catch water as a natural spoon
You see, young sapling, you are a delight
Do not see winter as a source for fright
Each tree in this forest has seen the same plight
But all have continued their journey for light

Balancing willows on the tip of the earth
The ground below eagerly catching their tears
Their dilapidated easel is poorly shaken
But they have not given into such inconceivable fears
A thinking man's dream of peace forsaken
Only to build in one hundred drawn-out years
The simplicity of man has thus been taken
As the willow weeps for that so cavalier
Where the grease of industrialization so nonchalantly flows
The willow in his beautiful stability knows
That when man's irreverent complexity grows
His drooping leaves to wilt like a rose

A diagnosis to prognosis
Hypnosis to sleep
Meditation to mindfulness
A tragedy to weep
Venting to relief
In the oven to eat
The time in between
is time to keep

She checks her wristwatch
Counterclockwise
Against her former expectations
Of the metal
Around her wrist
She checks her digital clock
The one on the stove
That flashes
Flash, flash, flash, flash
Like a silent metronome
When the power goes out
And comes back on
12:31
12:30
12:29
Calm
She is still calm
Breathing
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale
Steady
Like the bobbing of a buoy, bouncing
Brazenly in open sea
You see
She sees
That time can be trickery
That conceptual thoughts
Provoke mystery
Illusions and delusions
Conclusions and intrusions
Seclusion
She has many things
About which
To think

Its soil is freezing as tired leaves grow
Through windowpanes and laden fields
A kind expression on each limb shows
The fruit on which the young bird feeds
Each nest a budding home for crows
To spread the old tree's last-sowed seeds
He's tired but at least he knows
He's what the life around him needs

The visceral admiration of one
The ******, on their knees, bow
Bronze cast dragging, alas,
One cannot fathom eternity
Fate in selfishness, determined, hauteur
Relentless and coerced
To be the one who hands his soul
At the feet of broken totem poles

Just light a light and let it linger
Don’t fall again into the bed
Cast me with your index finger
At least I think that's what you said
I'm running further toward something
Which excites me more than I can say
It's like the cup upon a saucer
It's like a towel made of grains
I'm soaking in the seaside stories
And squeezing out the ***** stains
Washed by rain
Washed by rain

Keep with you the breadth of hope
For deeply-defined melancholia
Can become pungent with despair
Journey alongside dragonflies in flight
For sedentary woe-becomes-me
Can turn the vermilion lake fair
In days of passing, through drops of daze
First pause and ponder that which shadows cast
For smiles in measurement and thoughtful plays
Bring forth merriment in a drought-ridden past

It's admiration, inundation
A secular or religious nation
A land of automation
Drowning in inflation
*******
And frustration
On each radio station
We claim dedication
But all we need is
Validation

Retrograde beauty
Sparkling, smiling down at Earth
As dusk falls and fireflies illuminate our own planet
She shines even more brightly
Despite the pressure
And despite the sulfur
Her terrestrial surface gleams
Having no moons
She's a solo entity
But our sister
She circles the same violent ball of heat
As heliocentric
As we

For birds abound
In shallow mounds
A marsh to sate their thirst

A vulture pen
A raven then
Out of the fire burst

Rocket ships
And planes are quick
But birds have made it first

November's crisp wind
Yielding the long ignored lust
For wonder, wanderlust
Be it transparent; paths no longer followed
The earth revered
Pivoting
An axis of existence
Absent of life; who, therefore
Capitulates to bitter blue?
A lack of dreaming
A lake of practicality
Energy; thoughts unraveling at the seams
When crystal is clear, as they are forming
Paths; a hasty consternation for life
To be pursued
Lived - not to only exist
And to lust, as November air brings this forth
Wander - a path to wonder

How wonderful it is
That we can see
And interpret
And comprehend
And contemplate
And dream
How incredible our lives are
That we can be
And breathe
And live, and feel
How beautiful the world is

The Yorkshire Rose, elegantly perched on the bridge
This was not London, or the palace
nor Manchester, where Mancurians are free
nor Blackpool, where the beach swallows
Glasses, towels, mussels clinging to rocks
The Yorkshire rose, drawn upon the bridge
Bullet trains, leading distances
Almost unfathomable in this very spot
Harrogate, bath water
Spilling onto the street in natural sulphuric geysers
Burning
The Yorkshire Rose, fleeting in memory
In ghosts of the abbey nearby

Words carve feathered, crude,
Beautiful walkways
For each witty and farcical bon mot
Spoken as though your mind turned
For each cleansing reflection
Gazing through the pristine waters
For each sparkling moment
Of escaping what is the most sought-after mundanity
Words are windows
Fitting perfectly into the frames for which they were designed
Yet possessing the capability to open
To the ever-whooshing excitement
If words are an inspiration
Why am I left speechless