Something about women
in red dresses...
A vibrance, a radiance
an essence of vitality
basking bright youth
beyond all age.
The lines rendered
whether curved or slender,
sleek and elegant,
one with the material
one with the color.

Papers are flimsy, fragile
   so susceptible to time
      and harsher climates.

Scissors cut and divide
   thriving on irreparable separation
      to leave us in pieces and scattered.

Rocks are rough and tough
   facing--and looking--the worst
       while enduring every day and night to come.

My choice resides amongst the stones
   constant, long-lasting, dependable
      in the challenges that may have others call
      for support when they can't stand alone
   for maybe the times they lived were too much, too long
after facing the blades which cut them into small, segregated fragments.

I stepped outside long ago
if only to step some more.

This cool wind
so unlike Florida.
A welcoming to
embrace.

It'll be gone far too soon.

My neck finally tires
hanging like a bowling ball
tied and held
to one most old
and weary rubber band.

My eyes come up
on a night everyone knows.
We all have a color
coating our pupils.  Mine are blue
and guilty of ogling
even if this common sight grows
sadder and sadder
until it becomes
truly sad.

Many bright dots
freckling the sky--
and what body isn't
without imperfections?
--so much ours
so many.
Too many.

Those builders
of our own time
those without grasp
of selflessness
have such themselves.

Stinging night's veil
both by presence
and prominence.
with naught subtlety.

They shine beyond all
that have ever shone.  
Illuminating
glaring and blinding.

We are not so receptive
down in the dark earth
where neon signs pollute our eyes
until the sun dusts it away
only so we cringe
and close them again.

What then can a satellite show?

Arrows your choir.
Release.  
In come high soaring melodies
The air bathes in their aromas
A disguise for incoming piercings.

One strike upon the next.
Perseverance bleeds from every wound.
First it trickles
Now it pours.
When struck again
Please find my head or my throat.

Sleep is for the resilient
those who relish what they experience
and experience in the light
which dwindles and simmers
with the day.

Sleep is for those
who speak subconsciously
consuming the world
behind wearisome eyes.

Sleeps comes
as the escape
and recovery
while the world
impacts those who remain
awake.

Sleep is the fruit
of every harvest between days and nights,
so the encumbered may survive and thrive.

Sleep breeds the seed
sprouting essences of our minds
dormantly realizing.
actively collecting.

Sleep is the escape
that seizes time and surroundings
so let the end stretch
so I will never awake.

I only hope the darkness doesn't
invade you as it does unto me.
Too often I have scrambled
within the pits it digs
over and over.
My arms, my will
may be just enough
to cast you away,
leaving but one victim
to endure the neurotic torture.
Allow it to remain internal
so I shall carry it
alone and eternal.

I can breathe now.
The space once thinned
the air thickened
what was left
when it was shared
or stolen,
who can tell the difference?

I can speak now.
Where words were once vessels
heavy, bulging, bursting
and not a one
would not crash and break
when brought before you,
by choice
or coercion.

I can think now.
Every notion that could be ill--
that was ill--
needn't be fretted over,
their truth and honesty
can bask in the world
of my mind, where
my thoughts are the plants
that need nourishing
and my mind can finally bring out
the sun again, while my escape
and freedom brings the rains
breathing health and breeding growth.

Paths have been laid
   far and short
   narrow and wide
   coarse and moist
   brown from dirt
   gray with asphalt.

Spiders lurk and creep about
   legs poised and fangs ready
   craving another injection
   to feast just a little
   further, just a little
      longer.

We are the prey they seek
   stuck in their strands
   reaching everywhere we walk
   catching us as we tumble and fall
   not for comfort nor salvation
   just the cold strings of wrapture
   before the color of blood
      the color of life
   is taken from us.

The sunset is beautiful
I only wish you were here
to complete the evening

If you were
what would we do?
Where would we go?
Perhaps we'd just stay here
sitting on the steps
standing over the water
leaning on the buildings by the docks
simply talking
about how life has been
individually, several miles apart

Familiar our exchanges might be,
no small thanks to
our fancy flatscreen devices,
I'd still want to hear each word
while we do whatever we desire
because you'd be here
and we'd be together
at last in person again
laughing, smiling, jesting
holding and stroking each other
poking and patting in this place and that
all while looking out at the sunset
although I wouldn't want
to look away even if I could
from those deep brown eyes
flowing with the tone of your soft skin
and the groomed lines of your elegant hair;
perfect as a pristine painting
whether afar or in the details.

I only wish
that you were here
beside me.

Do all birds fly so suddenly so?
Has the prowess of my wingspan
imposed too much?
For that is an escaped motive
and is only what I am.

I seldom call
Yet when I do
I sing
with intent to soar
until my pitch conducts the winds
Bestowing me the cream
of all flocks.

And yet these skies
though far from vacant
are populated more by clouds
than by those who would requite me.

Too many feathers
broken and chipped
While my
presumably unbeknownst competitors
assume roles beyond me.

And here I reside
Biding for that right hour
of that right season.

If the screen were to expand
subvert and swallow the world
who would come with me?

If I had the choice--
if we had a choice
which would we take?
An interpretation of Vulcans and Klingons,
a blockbuster's version
of outlaws in the Caribbean,
maybe a future soon to be
where computers speak
as if they were the ones we love.

Past troubles could break away
for that new start
so many of us so often want,
as if renewed from our resignation.

Goodbye, cruel world,
for we seek a fantasy.

It is an illusion.
We are ourselves a story
and no story is without conflict,
we can face and resolve our own ourselves.

Don't let the escape steal your mind
allow the challenges to stake their claims
and stand forth, showing your face
in all its terror and fear.

The Things I Wish I Could Be

I wish I could be
one of all instruments;

the singer whose voice
transforms his audience into a choir;

the writer who drops his reader's guard
making a beautiful decimation of every self-made fantasy;

the actor ripe with nominations
whose prestigious Oscar breaks him open before the world;

the photographer who captures moments worth infinite words
while instilling that perfect piercing silence;

the painter of elegant simplicity
or ponderous complexity in every brush and stroke;

the icon strangers seek for reason
looking upon for inspiration;

the husband who gives and comforts
appreciating the angel he's been bestowed;

the father wise and guiding
with enough laughs and smiles to last their whole lives;

the chef and the baker serving only the best
scrumptious entrees and desserts;

the encyclopedia of experience
answering questions obscured from the web;

yet beyond all things
I wish to greet death with a smile
knowing my life, however lived
was worth those years.

She offered me her heart
And I broke it.

I kept a piece
It once stung
Like a glass shard piercing flesh.

Yet now I feel it
Form and essence
Warm and tender
Longing to be touched
Longing to be held
Longing to be loved.

On one hand
I feel like the thief
The taker of what was never mine
to take.

On the other hand
I feel like the giver
Who offers his heart
to another.

Maybe they in turn
Will shatter my heart
Taking a piece
Which was never theirs to take.

When the time comes
I will rebuild my heart
The heart with a piece now missing
And I will only be able to repair
With the piece I stole before.

Endless static rattles my confined domain
home to voices familiar--
always unwelcome.

Prolonged imprisonment; desperation
yields these chains not of mass.
Mere figments they are.

Are the screens and their unintelligible,
motioned illusions abstract enough
to conjure a new image
to obsess over?

Nay, I remain tranced, ridden
in dismay.  No fulfillment.

Every image I decipher
escapes with the last.

Will trickling like icicles
before summer's Sun.

Subject I forever am to
this sadistic therapy.

The same doors open
from bedroom to bathroom
and house to car.  
A poor vehicle, it's body stable
yet barely in service
so poor--
cracks and scrapes,
half a grill missing,
the brand and emblem since eroded
and long withered.

A turned key
brings either exhausted
startles or sputters
congesting from the engine.
Or is it just the ignition?

All familiar moments
from the same minute at the same turn
initiating the redundancy to follow.
So that car--my car
shall endure
upon my abandoning
from the minutes before morning's end
to early evening's last light
swelling from the sun's sultriness, creaking
where wheels meet brakes
and they the axis, springs and suspension
as the thin cold does to frail human fingers.

Less seems to be certain
than it is to most.
No goal, no path
no certainty in the expanse of this
equally wandering sphere.

Yet I do not long for life
to be a never-ending circle on repeat.

My mystery lies in mystery itself
The clues are there yet
scattered, fragmented, apart
like leaves and rocks in a
trickling bed of shallow water.

Harmony may well exist
between these minuscule pieces
I only wish my puzzle was as complete.

Anybody can feign beauty
on the outside.
But true beauty
comes from the inside.

Surrounded
All of me contained
Attire but another layer, another mask

Wounds heal and bleed,
heal and bleed, heal and bleed,
Pain never yielding

I observe, I witness
only shadows
and not the glistening
which bore them.

Except for one
at a time.

Time between each flash
inconsistently lapses.

I feel the fear
overtaking
this prolonged era.

Fear unto darkness
What remains
of my own luminescence remains
contained within.

I will bare only when a
Light pierces, blinding
all I know
when I finally open
my eyes.

When released from
societal confines,
mockingly posing
as structure, newfound serenity
is confused with discord.  

Manifest inner conflicts
and God-like shadows
will be cast.  

Chains snap and allow
wounds to heal, or crush
from beyond bone.  
The absolute of life
is only grey so long
as we breathe.  
Is birth or death the light we seek?  
Are we more blind
when facing that light, or
the pure dark pitch
of silence?  

Perhaps life will dictate
this presumed ascent
or descent
before we're unleashed beyond
withering forms dancing
aimlessly on a speckle
of the universe.

Take a step back
--believe me, I did--
and see that the pain
of love is a universal,
defining trait here.

Where are the words
--where is the celebration--
for obscure
pop culture references?

Surely some overly obsessed
Game of Thrones nut
has some worthwhile words
to share
if but for a day.

How warm I feel
lit like a fresh candle.
I illuminate in anticipation
longing your graceful presence
dawning within me
a long yearning.
Sensation pierces my chest, unfurling
a tranquility that soothes
my newly welcomed scars.

I'm overcome with breathless desire
for we, two pieces in the puzzle
to at long last conjoin.  
The time till now
may seem brief, yet sights
are but faint fingerprints
when feeling one's whole hand.

With you there's comfort and care;
I'm convinced dreams can be lived
experienced in full
even when we're awake.

Trust me,
I am willfully overwhelmed
by your shimmering glee.
When you approach, I feel
like a lit match
easing me into a euphoria
one should never be without.

And suddenly, so subconsciously
trouble fades into the eternal night
while our fire grows
small in size yet vast in volume.

We poets
we love depression.
We don't desire it
we just gravitate towards it.
We seem so naturally fit
we can hardly think of a better couple.

We hate the trap it sets in place
we can't seem to avoid slipping in.
We lack that single, moral strength
we see and crave so much of.

We are obsessed and
we are loners, and
we wouldn't change that if
we could, for it is merely who
we are, who
we end up becoming, not what
we choose to be, simply an effect
we see in the cause of life.

To that boy
before he became the poor
specimen in a sea?

Drowning taunts
root the doubts.

His whims departed
long and prior
to the last age of innocence.

Clouds dance no more
than his weary legs
in halls of crowded isolation,
what role can exist here?

That once youthful spark
streams its last thin streak
leaving no more lines
left to draw.

Am I among those they write
deep in the threads of contempt?
For no one truly can be
a hero to all.

We all imagine the songs
powerful and triumphant
will someday be our own.

But what is desire?
What is the facade we wear
day in and day out
to power the most illusive masquerade?

What if the turn from my childhood
was never a turn at all?
Is it so strange, is it too far
of a line to draw
that I may be the villain?

Perhaps we're all simply searching
in desire for an adversary.
The call to arise, the call to spur us forth
from the pit too many have found as solace.

Now what if I am
not even a pawn
and barely a sheep
in life's great puzzle,
or is it a mystery
never to be solved?

I long for the moment
I'm desperate for change
I've bit the blind eye
And now I wish my own would remain shut.

So who or what is to say
that I won't snap like the thinning rope
caught in a chokehold?
My dear is the victim
and the fall is too far
to survive.

Where shall I be when
my final spin has spun?
Will I drag to a halt or
careen face-forward?
A gradual decay
or a shot to crack the wall,
either way I may merely be
the villain.

Shadows thrive upon complexity
Vague and nonsensical
The untrained, without resolve
Welcome all to cast their shades
Deeper inside they oft reside
Wilting, transfiguring
Til the field they presume to preside
Flourishes with roses black
as obsidian

Yet the seed may still be planted
Yielding a flower tall, light and bright
Consuming those beneath until vacancy remains

High is the Sun, white is the Orchid
Tempered radiance, gradual growth
More shall fill the newfound garden
While Day brings its gifts
Crescendoing by the simplest
of cool Spring breezes
Coming and going through
The end of another season
Promising its constant return.

...rays of sunshine
are but the shadows they cast.

...life's luster falls
  beneath stones in the ground.

...mountains once congruent
  falter to a crumbling world.

...wondrous, cloudless skies turn to
  overcast in the coming crimson doomsday.

...spring and summer suffocate
  as winter greets Fall like tears to lost vitals.

Without you
there is a constant reminder

I've failed.