I cry now, without
recognizable feelings.
Okay, back to work.

Slithering through leaves
Something looks at me and blinks
And whispers, "come hither"

Come down by the sea
And see what remains of it
She didn't leave much

The shimmering sands
Show me what I want to see,
Stumbling, falling down.

Stop dragging along
I despair of carrying you
Stand and walk instead

Perpetually,
Lightning twists through me,
And I stand transfixed.

A thorn that moved in
Has sprouted many branches
Now twists inside me

The world, reflected,
Looks back: a mirror, a well;
Different, but same.

At what price comes change?
I slip out of my cocoon,
But I cannot fly.

Come on over here,
Stay with me a bit longer,
Wait for the world's end

What is this I see?
A name is necessary ...
Without it I'm lost.

Bored, listless, waiting
I drag myself through the day
A miracle comes

Pummeling bare wood
Just to get even with me
Doing what was done

Have you seen my arm?
I lost it on the highway;
Someone borrowed it.

Turn yourself to me
I am not without mercy
Am I alone judged?

I quake with feelings
That I thought were long suppressed
Why do you taunt me?

I feel I can burst
The next push is the last straw
Ending my struggle

Slow motion breaking glass
Descending  along with me
To streets far below

Run, run, run!
Through the field, but
Wait, wait, wait!
For me, I'm not
As fast, and
Look, look, look
At me take a fall.

No, I'm not ready yet!
Please, you don't understand,
There's been a terrible mistake.
Yes, I know this is the right
Address, I was supposed to come here,
But I'm early, and
It wasn't supposed to be this way!
I know, I know, I said I wanted it,
But that was some time ago,
That's not who I am anymore ...
... no, open the door, stop the
MACHINE! Before it crushes me ...
... I'm up against the
Wall, and it won't be long now, but
Just a few moments more?!

I submitted my case,
"as you can plainly see",
I understated,
"I'm not quite happy",
And was promptly
Laughed out.
Oh, hah hah, they said,
It's way past the time
For that;
What've you been doing
All this time?
Well, alright, I said,
But don't blame me
For the shape of things to come.

Sometimes I get
Overheated
And my mind
Swirls down this
Vicious path, in a
Whirlpool,
Turbulent,
Wild,
With a radius of spin
Ever decreasing,
Steadily moving in for the final drop ...
... At the last moment, I awake, and
Reach out to grip
Something, Someone,
Anything that can
Halt my
Descent.

I haven't written for many days now
I've been gone, somewhere, somehow
I've failed, in a way, to keep on writing
I got lost again, in the day-to-day fighting
And wore myself out,
But it wasn't a waste
Coz once again I can taste
The bitterness
Whose only purpose is to light a fire
That obliterates my procrastination and desire
And makes me want to come here
And throw out all the garbage, and all I hold dear,
Till I'm left with nothing, but that's no loss;
Writing every day is the secret sauce
Of life and love and happiness, so
Peace out, everyone!

A creeping crawling pain
That seems to control me
And slip away when I try
To find its controlling
Tendrils that have yet again
Succeeded in making me do
Something that I regret

The tide of life
Ebbs and flows
It washed me up
And drew me back out again
I cannot say
Whether this time
I've landed on the same shore.

Wow, I've been
Out of Action
For a while; I fell
Into the same old trap again.
The mind traps, the clever subterfuge,
The adversary always lurking.
When I let the poetry stop flowing,
It's pace and rhythm
Was replaced by a colder circuit.
Here's hoping I can
Claw my way back again.

The fervent quest I felt I had been on
Reached a desolate dead end.
I cannot see where to go from here.
I fear I must know retrace my steps,
A long way back,
And join the rest
On their well-trodden paths.

Fat and lazy I gave become,
With fat and lazy thoughts; what
Lies beneath this guarded self-deception?

Ooh, I told you, didn't I ...
... but you wouldn't listen!
The cycles of time march on, they do,
Days, and weeks, and months at a time.

You're left reeling, wondering, staring,
As your phantom plans unravel.
Don't make these plans, I told you,
Don't fall for wishful thinking!

Yet it felt convenient at the time,
To deny these uncomfortable facts,
That gnawed at the edges,
Persistently. And so you
Brushed them off,
Distracted yourself
With Toys.

Now those distractions have faded,
And it stares you in the face;
What will you do?

It's comic and tragic,
The cycles,
The ups and downs.
Sometimes the devil wins,
Sometimes I do
(But usually it's him).
I'm tired of these
Unnecessary spells of
Unceasing torture, they
Leave my
Body racked, and
Levy a terrible toll
On my mind.
"Crack!", they say.

You feel when you should think,
And think when you should feel;
No wonder you're depressed.

I awoke; I had dreamt
That I had lost it.
I looked for it but did not find it.
It was not where I had last placed it.
I diminish every day without it.
If you find it, you may keep it.

If I didn't talk in my sleep,
You'd never have found out.

No more time to stand and stare,
A growing awareness of the wear and tear
Inflicted on my mind and body with each passing day,
I move within the confines of my life,
Sandwiched between the roses and the stone.

I betrayed myself
I hurt myself
I cast myself down into the well;
After all it was I ...
... I deceived my self.

I feel for those who envy;
I envy those who feel.

This animal will be the death of me,
It leads me by the point to
The cavernous places, the lulls.
The greatest cowardice is in not caring.

... unstable it was, so I retreated to a corner,
Not wanting to be tossed around like the
Bits and Pieces that flew around me, making me
Duck for cover and carefully look around, to
Find what I came for.
But no, not today;
Not in this dream.

The preset grooves along which I now move
Both fascinate and terrify me.
I wish madly to change course,
But I cannot stop wondering
Where I might end up.
Thus dazed, I roll on.

Write!
You lazy, you ignorant, you ****** fool, write!
See the storm that rages!
Turn your eyes downwards, below the surface,
Look to the depths,
See the forces that give rise to forms above!
Then look within — you are not!

I cannot say
What I want or
What I like;
Fake things intrude
And obscure;
As far back as I can remember
I have always faked my feelings.
I am a fake person.
At some point the fake self
And the real one did fight,
And the former won,
And not content with victory,
Did seek to root out the other.
Yea, I have done ******,
And live on with the terrible
Knowledge of that horrible act;
I am a fake person.

Somewhere it was
Where I misplaced you.
Now I retrace my steps,
Looking within the
Pools of streetlights,
Hoping I don't need
To look in the dark places.

The poem in my dream
Was much better,
But this will
Have to do.

What if the gentle change,
Long promised,
Never arrives?
The state of things
Shall then prompt
A less gentle one.

A time for hope,
A time for despair,
And now, fortunately,
Bed time.

Take these grains, and
Fling them everywhere.
Ye shall know the world,
And it shall be
Inside-Out.

These eyes, and
These hands, they
Tell me, I must
Change
My life.

Let me climb
The tree, beyond
Where it pierced
Through the clouds.

I kept
Putting off
Life,
Until one day
It had
Passed me by.

A strange dance
Of circumstance
I jolt awake,
Revisit the quake
The scene of the crime
Where I made mine
The Great Refusal.