His:
My palms were sweaty
and heavy, but perhaps
the heaviest thing about them
were the two concert tickets
I was gripping tightly in my left hand.

Hers:
His smile was like a bonfire;
warm and you always wanted to bring your body closer
just to feel more of that warmth.
His palms were also sweaty.
Some of my friends say it was gross,
but I will always remember it
as one of the most charming things about him.

His:
I picked her up around 7.
Met her parents and said we'd be home by midnight.
Her father likes the Cardinals.
I'm a Cubs fan.
Yeah...

Hers:
My father is a Cardinals fan,
and he was a Cubs fan.
But, what I didn't tell him,
was that my mother was a Cubs fan too.
My father won't say it,
but he approved of him instantly.
Mom, if you can hear me up there,
thank you.

His:
Her father scared the living daylights out of me.
We came back at 12:06, and her father says
"You're six minutes late young man!
That's it! You're not allowed to..."
and as my heart is sinking he says
"I'm just kidding bud. Thanks for getting her home safe."
She still won't let me live that down.

Hers:
He was so sweet to my parents,
even after dad tried to scare him out of his wits,
he said, "Sir, with all do respect
that may have just been the most mortifying moment of my life."
I walked him out, still teasing him.
With this sassy looking face and a furrowed brow
he kissed me goodnight and said
"I only got scared because we've only just begun."
I think that's when I fell in love with him.

His:
Good God I must have looked like a *****.
I ask her jokingly every now and again
"When did you fall in love with me?"
All she does is chuckle and say
"When dad scared the hell out of you."
I think what scares me more now,
is that I know there's a part of her that's serious,
and I like that. I don't really understand why,
I just do.

Hers:
I couldn't wait to see him again.
I asked mom and dad what they thought of him
and mom said "He's a keeper."
Dad said "He reminds me of your mother;
Clumsy, easy to tease, but you can't help but love the kid."
Mom punched him on the shoulder
and then gave dad a kiss.
They both agreed and said "We'll allow it."
I was so happy to hear that.

Time;
I remember
a time when
cities were made
of nothing but Legos
and one's imagination.

Still,
even now
I can't help
but wish harder
that the cities we walk
were still made of that stuff.

Cardboard,
took us miles,
and paper planes
really did bring us flight.

So,
I ask;
Please,
don't let
your imagination
fall into stagnation,
like a Lego block
that gathers
dust.

Hey there, little light bulb.
Look beneath your sunny glow.
There lie a dozen empty flower pots
filled with seeds waiting to grow.

Hey there, little light bulb.
Stay lit, please don't turn off.
You're the life of the empty flower pots
and for their seeds you're warm enough.

Hey there little light bulb.
You've got quite a job to do.
Give those seedlings energy
and bring plants to life anew.

Hey there, little light bulb,
did you see that little sprout?
It's because of your great energy
that this sprout could come on out.

Hey there, little light bulb,
be proud of what you've done.
You've made the first sprouts rise
and their journey's just begun.

Hey there, little light bulb.
I know you're getting tired,
but look at all the growing plants!
It's something to be admired.

Hey there, little light bulb.
I'm sad you died today,
but in place of your sweet energy
are a thousand trees to stay.

By: Kevin Kurt Nepomuceno

Be as a kaleidoscope
and fractalize the mind.
Embrace the dichroic glass,
and break what limits bind.

Smoother than a marble egg,
yet tempered more than brass,
bemuse yourself entirely
with Millefiori glass.

For in its mystic ampule
birefringent voices dance,
and visions come together
should time befit the chance.

No turn, nor shake, nor twist
can break its hallowed grace.
Acknowledge its diversity
and revel in azoth space.

Its symmetry is blithe at times,
yet stunning through and through,
and dashing through its mirrored hall,
the light shall come to you.

There is beauty in a beam of light.
Caress its warmth and hope.
How wondrous still that beauty grows
with a simple kaleidoscope.

I don’t remember the first mushroom I had.
I can’t remember the last time rainbow stars weren’t falling
from the sky, why I’m addicted to jumping on flagpoles,
or why I shoot fireballs after eating flowers.
I’m addicted, but it’s not a problem.
I think.

I can see flying turtles with wings.
They keep throwing hammers at me.
I punch bricks
hoping coins come out of them,
because I somehow got the idea
that if I got a hundred gold coins
I could buy myself a new life.

I want a life with a steamy
red hot princess
in a flowing pink dress
living in a bourgeois castle
where the smell of peaches
breathes life into every fiber
of my mustachioed being.

Sometimes I think my brother is green
with envy, when all he really does is pick daisies.
Why should he be jealous?
He’s taller, slimmer,
and he doesn’t have to work as tirelessly as I do.
But, I’ve always jumped higher,
reached further, and punched harder.
It’s not my fault he chooses to stay in my shadow.
That little *****.

I sometimes ride on a green dinosaur's back.
I’m a baby floating away in a bubble,
and that dinosaur saved my life
far too many times to count.
He’s my best friend.

Sometimes I like to put on my blue hat
and pretend that I’m invisible.
Sometimes I put on my green hat
and pretend I’m as hardened as a mafia gangster.
I am Italian after all. It’s in my blood.

I want to quit, but I can’t. I don’t need to.
I’m doing fine with these mushrooms.
I feel larger than life with the red ones,
and the green ones
resurrect me.

As I sip succulent absinthe
from the mouth of a cyan sea,
I succumb to a seductive grin
and sell my soul to thee.
 
There it is, a dappled smirk,
on your sinful lips as well,
and now that you are willing,
we have a tangled tale to tell.
 
Come now my sweet euphoria.
Caress me in your kiss.
Send me a twisted alibi
and wrap me in utter bliss.
 
I am the tainted murmur,
I am the nimbus quick,
and as one, we are miasma,
to the sickest of the sick.
 
Your skin a sweet oasis,
my hands a greedy verve,
the sense of touch engulfs us,
and we muster up the nerve.
 
No couple more visurient,
none filled with more desire,
no passion burning brighter
than that which we perspire.
 
We slow from our nirvana,
and slumber into mist,
dreaming of how it all began
with one etherial kiss.
 
By: Kevin Kurt Nepomuceno

Someday,
my hands will be full
of callouses,

old
with wrinkles,
like ripples
in time.

The skin
will flake and dry,
and I
will give thanks
as I sleep.

Someday.

Give me rest.
The kind of slumber
that toddlers protest during naptime
but succumb to with a stream of drool
on their rested faces;
the kind of slumber
that enables my grandmother
to nap in a rocking chair
with a book teetering on the edge of her lap,
the sort of sleep
that wakes me up
an hour before the morning trumpets blast;

give me that,

because I'm tired
of the sheets clutching on to me
like handcuffs
engraved on criminal wrists.

Among addictions and vice
there are none I want more
than an addiction to the sunrise,
a vice most forgiving.

The taste of alcohol,
inciting the bellicose beast
cannot satisfy me,
and I have tried.

As for pleasure,
the kind that makes skin crawl
and the breath heavy,
needs more than itself to satisfy,

so I searched on.

Chalices of wine and paper smoke,
skin and bedrooms bathed in moonlight,
the allure of quick satisfaction
could not satiate my thirst.

Only one scene has been constant,
delivering me from my vices,
partner of the morning skies,
far from tinctures and tonics,

the sunrise.

Tell me that you love me and that you'll stay,
because time takes passion slowly away,
and I don't care if you forget my name,
but all the same,
remember how I made you Feel.

See, love is just a word with no meaning
and more than once I've been left dreaming.
Hopeless romantics can't compete
with how much I succumb to cold feet.
But, all the same,
remember how you made me Listen.

Smell the dead roses scattered about.
The petals die amongst new sprouts,
just as this, you spoke my name,
but all the same,
remember please, our Taste of freedom.

My Senses spin with unfulfilled desire,
and upon silent lips, the coldest fire.
Yet still, I wish to hear that phrase,
"I love you," more than ever these days,

but all the same,
and upon my name,

what you couldn't say
I cannot blame.

The spirals swirl
not one the same
for every finger
and every name.

Identity
in skin and lines
on appendages
that reach and pine
to belong
in a crowded world
where hands break
and fingers curl.

Deliver me
from this rusted space.
Take my soul,
leave not a trace.

Purgatory?
Heaven? Hell?
They're all the same.
Can't you tell?

The world will turn
even when we're gone.
The moon will rise
just as the sun.

Our fingerprints
will disappear.
Flesh and blood
crimson to clear,
just as this
the world will fade
from dust to dust,
the one fair trade.

Take not then
this life for death
take instead
my gentle breath.

Teach me then
to breath deep and long
to fill my lungs
and make them strong,
to brush my fingers
on another's tips
and learn to love
by touching lips;

for when I die
and lifeless lay
upon the ground,
no words to say,
at least then
I'll have lived a life.
I'd have learned to love
through pain and strife.

Incandescent light bulbs,
when they share their love,
it tends to light up a room.
As for pieces of broken mirrors,
they're really just smaller new ones
awash with life experience.

So, when you told me
that you were broken
I begged to differ.

The difference between
a broken lightbulb
and a dead one
is simply shattered glass,
and the difference between
a broken mirror
and a dead one
is the person looking in it.

So please,
you may be broken,
but without you
I have no light,
and mirrors are useless
in the dark.

The sound of silence is a chainsaw
with no fuel, longing to gnash its teeth
against the husk of sweet bark.
It is the cold wind on a winter’s morning
that sweeps across a frozen Lake Michigan,
gently kissing the motionless street sweepers
in the city beyond.

The sound of silence
was never the sound of one hand clapping,
nor was it ever kosher.
It was never the final breath
of a young wanderer dangling
from the husk of sweet bark
that chainsaws longed for.

The sound of silence
is the paper blanket given to
homeless men and women,
the aftermath of broken plates
in the home of a south side apartment,
the lingering misty droplets
in a bathtub full of cold red water,
all of this
unheard and unseen.

The sound of silence
is not the absence of sound.
It is simply not noticing
that a starving child was whimpering
in the first place.

21 years and 9 months;
that's how long it took
for me to realize
that every morning
we all have 2 choices:

Open our eyes slowly
or open them quickly,

and it was always about attitude.

The first
is a drug.

Sheets pull us in
as if they were
an injection,
an infection,
holding us captive
in a warmth
that can only be temporary.

The second
is freedom.

A quick flash of light
sings our eyes awake,
like a shout,
like a shake,
letting go of the night
in a shotgun moment
as the first breath of air.

Of the two,
I wish to be the latter.

It's a nuisance to leave dancing to chance
and to sit by and sigh a sigh of mild high relief.
It's brief, but for a moment there's courage
and the courage builds a bridge.

But "look out," comes a shout
from seemingly miles away
and your gaze blazes below.
There's a troll beneath you.

It wields a shield made of lies
and a club made of fear and dead wishes.
Make it swim with the fishes.
Silent let it be, and cross the bridge.

Beyond the concrete dance floor,
ignore the three harpies' bait.
Don't wait. It's not too late
to quicken your pace.

Tread carefully. Don't be lured
by the drunken eyes,
or the devilishly devilish propaganda
for *** on their clothing and skin,
because it will hurt in the long run.

Head towards the sundress,
and the toga dancing next to it.
They're friends of yours,
but not yet.

So don't repress your desire to dance.
Take your chances.

Since when do you drink tea?
Because recently
you told me
that tea
was not your
"cup of tea."

You didn't tell me
that inevitably
you'd be
drinking tea
with everybody.
So when did you start drinking tea?

It wasn't because of me,
so stop drinking tea
in front of me,
because obviously
this isn't about the tea.

"sorry"
that it took an extra two minutes
to get to the house,

that the air is thin
in the mountains,

that you're not "used to"
driving through thick forest,

because I'm sick of being reminded
that there's not enough air to go around.

The forest you drove through,
photosynthesis?
Still happening,
which means,
oxygen.

The mountain air,
yeah, it's thin,
but ******,
we should be used to it,
at least by now,

yet still,
those extra two minutes,
those same two
that you keep adding a "sorry" to,
please,
enough *******,
just stop with the "sorry."

I know it's not your fault,
yet still,
please just bear with it for now
and be silent.

Nothing you say
can put oxygen
back into
a dead friend's lungs.