The life of a poet
Is one of constant emptiness--
Empty pages, empty hearts
Writing is nothing
But a way to fill voids
Around and within us

We fill pages with words
That we wish in turn
Would fill us--
Fill us with the same presence
And purpose
As they hold on the page

We empty our hearts
And are left with nothing
In return
But a new sense of emptiness,
A new void to fill

Like a dormant volcano, it sits--
Not quite dead
But void of its once endless vitality
Passion bows to apathy
The depth and the vastness remain,
Its sheer mass still impressive
But like an ancient legend from centuries past,
It sits--cold and stiff and tired,
Drowning in a sea of dust and irrelevancy
What is death
But fuel without flame?
Dormant is not dead
Patient is the beast who slumbers through winter
As bitter and lonely as it may be--
Though he cannot be certain
He knows if he can endure the winter,
He just may be rewarded with spring

The reason I write through the tears at night
Is to get it all out--and if I get it just right,
If I use pretty words like catharsis and plight
And if they rhyme like a song, I think they just might
Make the pain a bit prettier, a bit softer, a bit light.

look at them--
******* air like blood
******* ******* *******
everyone breathing
the air ripples like water
it hums in my ears
humming humming buzzing
lungs like leeches
they **** and ****
and **** and
**** and
****

I've been scraped hollow--
An embalmed corpse force-fed with fluid
'Til I'm bloated and artificially plump,
But who can tell the difference?
We're so convincing, we bloated corpses,
Pumped full again like flat tires
We walk the earth in a daze,
Deaf and dumb and depleted and sore--
Our eyes droop, our knees spit and hiss,
Saggy skin and broken bones,
Yet somehow we blend in.

Our eyes we can shut
When we don't want to see,
Cover our mouths
When we feel we can't speak

We can plug our ears
When hearing's too much,
And pull away
At the unwanted touch

But our hearts, you see--
They've minds of their own
A content little beast
In a cage of bone

It disregards reason,
Rejects any rhyme,
Ignites and excites
At all the wrong times

But we must pay attention
When this beast stands *****--
Because maybe, just maybe,
This time is correct.

I watch the birds fly by
I watch them unzip the day's sky
I watch as they dart and dance,
Lost in an aerial trance
I watch them

I watch the people below,
With places to be and places to go
I watch them pound the city streets,
Deaf to all but the clock as it beats
I watch them