I am like
a small dog,
every second
I need confirmation
that I am loved.
Every absence
encases an eternity
of solitude.

Was I
a good boy?
I might have been told so
a few minutes ago
but how about now?
My self doubt
will last forever,
only to be dispelled the next time
you place your hand on my head.

But withdraw your touch
and the next eternity
starts again.

It takes but
a single glance
to win
what
heartbreak
cannot
achieve.

To see you,
as you see me,
is a difficult art.
To repress it all,
to paint over
all the vivid colours
you inspire in me
is a labour of love.

All I'd like
is to see you
as you see me.
But to hear your voice
is to fall for all the same spells;
of all things concerning you,
I am defenceless.

Will the passing years
dull the yearning
of a heavy heart?
Perhaps,
but how helpless
I feel,
how lonely.

She looms large;
Takes charge;
Lives fast;
Thinks last.

She feels sick;
Isn’t?
Acts worse
Dies first.

Summer blue
and egg whites
smeared across
the horizon.

It will rain soon.

DIGESTION
When the temperature is raised
Particles gain kinetic energy
And collide at a greater frequency.
The more particles that collide
The chances of a reaction occurring increases.
How many times have elbows rubbed
In hallways, no matter how crowded
Yet nothing happens,
Nothing precipitates,
Not even a cough
Or a wandering shot
From the corner of their eyes.
People pass
By or away
And yet hallways are still full;
Full of thoughts of other people
Full of longing
Full of the people who are missing.

USE OF ELECTROLYTE
The addition of an electrolyte
Reduces the coulombic repulsion
Produced by a solution’s ionic atmosphere;
An electrolyte allows ions to interact more freely.
A full bus is void of tension.
A stranger who writes letters everyday,
But crumples the paper before finishing
Is completed by the person
Who eagerly awaits a text on their phone.
A person with a bouquet of flowers
Catches the eye of someone lost in thought.
So many people who compliment one another,
Or an other,
Sit idly on a moving bus
Separated only by people
Who, too, are separated from their second piece.
You meet such people everyday
Who could have been,
Yet are not.

CO-PRECIPITATION
Something that is generally avoided.
An impurity that co-precipitates with the product
Can cause an overestimation of analyte.
Impurities can be caught within
The crystal lattice structure of the compound
Or trapped inside a growing crystal.
It may be hard to understand
Such thoughts still seem foreign
But I, too, have things that I remember dearly.
They are wrapped up with
Lists of groceries, and formulas
About distance and its relation to
Speed and its change over time.
It is all just things that have
Come to pass.
Such memories are hard to keep
When there is only one who articulates them,
But I am sure
Perhaps years from now
You’ll catch yourself thinking
For a split second
And then go about your day.

PEPTIZATION  
The breaking up of precipitate
Due the loss of electrolyte
Which strengthens the ionic atmosphere
Around the analyte.
In line at a bus stop
A glimpse is caught
Of the oncoming bus
And people shuffle
As the line moves up.
Never again
Can the same people
Line up the same way
For the same bus
We are too fragile
To construct ourselves in such a way
Where we can meet again.
Fate is too frail
Someone must leave
Leaves must fall
But someone always stays.

Give me strength
to act boldly
or courage
to endure myself,
I do not know
which to ask for,
for I cannot have both.

Silence
is pure
and beautiful.
One can make
such powerful
statements with
silence.
I do not need to ask
if I am wasting their time,
or if I am boring,
their silence
answers all my questions.

To happiness and health
and future prospects
of wealth.

I can never spell this flower's name
from memory.
If I were to walk through a garden,
would I be able to discern
the chrysanthemum from other flowers?
I feel as though,
this is how others
think of me.

To be known or not,
a flower is still a flower,
and that is not nothing.

I would like to meet again
Perhaps on sea or shore
If you would like to meet again
I promise I won't bore!

Someone such as she
With someone such as me
There’s no way I’ll believe
That such a thing can be
My face; synecdoche
She looks, dismissively,
She wants what she can see,
And not what I could be.

And I don't
even know
the father's
name.

I wait
for spring;
the petals
on a fleeting breeze;
the scent of grass
made soft by the warm sun;
the hymn of life
started by the first birdsongs of the morning;
the faint hum
of beating wings
as a bee lands gently
on the pistil of a flower;
the lukewarm night
where the moon peers curiously
at the yellow-orange tinge of sunrise.

Today,
I am singed with regret.
I have forgotten
how to find my way in life,
my reasons for writing poetry,
as well as
sunscreen.

Boredom is the enemy of
contentment.
To love
is to mould the other's
emotions,
for better or worse.
We cannot get away
with a passionate
nothingness.

Her last glimpse of me
Is of the dark tones of my shirt
Smudged into the shades
Of a busy crowd.

A stiff breeze
brushes against
flushed cheeks,
chattering teeth
and naked hands;
a winter night.

If not,
I will settle
for
tenderness.

I am justly inadequate
no one knows my name
the strangers I pass by
all treat me just the same.
They never ask about my day
or if I feel okay,
we all look on in silence
repeating yesterday.

I am justly inadequate
I work hard to be not enough
my conscience is never heavy
but my heart isn't up to *****.
My hands are warm and loving,
callused, hard and rough,
a willing heart without a reason
just never has been enough.

I am justly inadequate
I stare out windows thinking that
if I could just be someone else
then I would get a chance
to be the man I could have been
but as I am, I know I can't.

I am justly inadequate
no one knows my name.
And every time I try to laugh
I can only muster shame.
I try to smile,
once in a while,
to trick the gloom away,
but I still know that I am
inadequate any day.

Cherished memories
Rendered
Shameful,
To be suffered
In private.

I confess,
I do not know if I will make it.
The road ahead is long.
My time here is short.

I have heard
that the end of each journey
is just the start of another.
I hold these words closely
as I walk into the encroaching night.

Whenever I am around others, I often think of how I should treat a stranger.
Do I treat them with equal disdain and caution?
Treat them with a consistent coating of hatred?
A hatred that transcends bigotry and racism
To achieve misanthropy in its purest form?
Or rather compassion, a struggle to understand despite regrettable conduct?
More lately, as I have grown older, I have opted more for compassion.
As a child, I often had sympathy for others,
I always found something in my mind for someone to be sad about,
And in my heart, I ached for them.
When I had become older, I thought this as a means to look down on others,
And it must be stopped,
Thus sympathy was replaced with complacency
Which flared, sometimes, into anger.
This anger developed into distrust, which blossomed into disbelief,
And this disbelief gave birth to disdain.
And for a while, I could hate someone just by looking at them,
Or by witnessing them in the midst of an unsavory act.

But as an old man now,
I opt for compassion.
As a child, I believed that people should be mourned for,
As a young adult, I believed that people should be hated,
And as a dying man, I believe that people should be forgiven.
For years, I have wondered what it meant to be compassionate.
Was offering a seat to an old lady on the bus compassion?
Was tightly clasping hands with your partner during ******* compassion?
Were the two inclusive or exclusive?
Did you have to tightly clasp the hand of the old lady on the bus during ******* to show compassion?
Was compassion tough love?
Was compassion for the greater good?
Was compassion being fair?
Or was compassion allowing someone to cheat?
Was compassion the courage to tell a lie?
Was compassion the courage to tell the truth?
Was compassion knowing when to make a compromise?
Was compassion all this and more?

I think of her occasionally, on this long train ride,
On this journey to the end of the night.
What I remember of her
Is the calm sun with the thunder following it,
I remember what I wanted to do
And I remember what I did not do.
I remember her fondly,
Free of hatred, free of lust,
Free of any interpretation other than someone that I had loved.
And although there are many ways to express compassion,
This is mine for her.

I wish desperately
for the opportunity to announce that
The moon looks beautiful, tonight.

For me, it is like a fever dream.
One night, perhaps.

Tonight,
I dread to sleep.
My fingers are restless,
they yearn to write,
but alas,
I have nothing to write.

It is not that I have been bled dry,
it is just I have not lived.
To sleep,
to live,
it seems that
I am unable to do either.

Where passion wanes,
patience will succeed.
Even embers are a sign of life
and must be cared for
lest they turn to ash.

Lucid dreams
are my only bridge
to those an insurmountable
distance away.

There is no ship
that can breech
the barrier of time.
There is no ticket
destined for yesterday.

To those of my past,
if only I could impart
a fraction of
the tenderness
that swells from my heart.
I remember you all
with a special fondness,
one that can only be
forged by
lingering regret.

The moment in passing
and the
moment incoming,
smudges into the other.
Time blends effortlessly with itself;
hours melt into one another,
days are indistinguishable,
but the difference between
the past and present
is as evident
as a knife in the gut.

One must wonder
if pain
is the burden of memory,
that to preserve the past,
one must pay dearly at the present.

We are all capable
of blissful tenderness,
we are all
lovers
waiting for Spring,
to bloom with
the flowers.

i have written
hundreds of poems.
in reading them over,
i find that
i have written
only a little bit of
poetry.

the passing of time,
the seasons,
of scenery
and people,
have scarred me;
embittered me.
i am now a more rigid person.

i dismiss my older writing as
pretentious;
uninspired;
misguided.
i wonder if
i should suffer the same verdict
when i,
once more,
re-evaluate.

in light of such a thought,
i marvel at
how little poetry
can be squeezed from a single life.

She was short
Short haired
Short tempered
Short lived.

I am fortunate that she
can act as though nothing has happened.
It is a mercy!
However, in rejection,
I am afforded one luxury
which makes it all worth it:
She can see, clearly, how I suffer.

I write to
relinquish myself of
private sorrows.

I read these poems
and think to myself
"I have not suffered enough".

They are nothing,
least of all
beautiful.

Perhaps I had lived,
Just as petals
Of a flower
In autumn.

I am tempted
to bear my heartache
as pure bitterness,
but
I know that there is
a blissful sweetness
that is
just as accessible.

How shall I carry
my memory of you?
Should your image
be framed in my
petty bitterness?

For you,
I know only
tenderness.
For you,
there is only love.

When the heart is in anguish
so few people matter.

We are all consumed by flames
which can only be quelled
by the delicate touch
of another.
But it only matters who
not how.
As long as they try,
we can come up with an infinite amount
of justifications
to excuse ourselves of our sadness.

But think of those who try
and do not a thing for our sorrow.
They are the ones who write poems
about anguish in their hearts.

Cloaked with
a false sense
of dignity
and importance,
I convince myself,
halfheartedly,
that if I can last
just one more night,
everything
will fall into place.

But with the dew,
the morning sun
evaporates
each drop of hope
I had mustered
in secret.  
Today
is the same as yesterday,
perhaps a little
worse.

I slip slowly
into irrelevance,
into the night
which I struggle with,
the night which
I now know well.

Of all the things I e’er done,
The talks I miss the most,
Of which to night would not succumb,
Or morning force repose.

Of all the things I’ll e’er do,
I hope once more to say
The words which I had come to find
Were absent yesterday.

For all the things I wished I did,
I wish that I said less
As silence is much better heard
Than nonsense, I confess.

On particular days,
when the weather is fine,
it is difficult to distinguish the cerulean sky
from the sea.

I stare listlessly from a window
on the 13th floor
and envy the flash
of a passing seagull.

It passes me by
as if this is all
nothing
and fades into the shoreline.

I suffer bitterly wondering if
I had been as meaningful
to someone as
this seagull had been to me.

I could be at peace knowing
I had amounted to at least that much
during my
short time here.

Perhaps then,
I could forego
the whole chirade
and let her pass me by
as if it were
all nothing.

I pen a poem
about
a beautiful
flower,
and think that maybe
it is about a woman instead.

in disgust,
i throw it away.

not that i hate her,
the contrary,
but to me,
it seems,
a flower cannot be a flower
and a woman
cannot be a woman.

Ambiguity and indecision
Allows room for
You and I.
When I write you and
I
The emphasis is put on me.
I am put in isolation
To exaggerate that I am isolated.
When I write
You and I
The exaggeration is that we are separate from the text,
Thus one entity amidst the rest of the paper.
The reader,
When reading aloud,
Puts an emphasis on
You then I.
You are brought to the foreground immediately
And I follow right after.
You, thus I.

Here a relationship is formed
And is seen clearly between
You and I
And
You and
I.
Similarly you and       I
Achieves a similar sentiment
But suggests a different context.
I am looking afar at you
But the position of distance is still maintained.
It is, therefore,
Subtlety that gives meaning
To simple gestures.

The establishment of position between
You and I
Then must depend on subtleties as well.
Ambiguity gives room to grow
But a name
Can only stifle it.
When should things be taken literally
When part of poetry
Is to write in exaggerations.
I don’t know how to talk to you
I and you.
You and I.
Therefore I will take your word for it
And stop there.

If a poem
cannot be read
by for whom it's for,
then the heart asks,
what is it for.

I have envy
for the flower.
It blooms quietly,
blind to the world.

If only I could
emulate the flower.

He turns to look for her in bed
And does not find her there
He rushes to the barnhouse shed
To find a toppled chair

And hanging from the ceiling beam
He finds two longing eyes
Two eyes too young to yell and scream;
Two eyes that did not cry.

Not stunned nor torn, the boy walked forth
To cleanly cut the rope
And brought her gently down to earth
To clean her off with soap.

Not here to dwell, not anymore
The boy had said aloud
With her on back he closed the door
Without making a sound.

i spend more time
thinking of writing poems
than writing poetry.

it strikes me as rather odd,
as most things require only
the act of doing it for it to be done.
paradoxically,
when one thinks about what should be written,
one can no longer grasp
what it is they had even intended to write.

and so i pick small details;
that is all i can do.
and i layer them, one atop another.
perhaps among my many poems
is the one single poem
i had meant to write.

Hesitantly at first,
It stutters before
Being forced open
By an impatient passenger;
The doors of a train.

Better jealous, better hated, better
Dismissed than be allotted false praise and joy.
A man is his own pride, his own defeat
He ought to know his place and worth; his price.
Besmirched with equal fault, with equal blame
Not one may stand pristine nor pure, alike
The worst we deem in those disdained at heart.
I flinch when I recall the days before
I saw in each a flicker of contempt
As if it could no longer be concealed.
An honest life is all I want to lead;
No pittance due, no pity earned, no worth;
To hate myself and be hated by them.

Selfishness only breeds jealousy
is a phrase I have repeated
hundreds,
perhaps,
thousands
of times.

It is like medicine.
In a bout of melancholy,
I simply must repeat this phrase
a few dozen times,
and I am okay,
in fact,
maybe I am better than okay.

When exactly shall I learn
that I do not need to be a part of
anything?
I can do an act purely for the sake of the act itself.
There is no need for self gratification.
Surely, there are others who have
lived selflessly before.
Then what is my excuse?

Under my breath,
I mutter once again,
Selfishness only breeds jealousy,
ahh...
It doesn't really help, does it?

Having been given much to contemplate,
I struggle to dissociate myself from desire.
The interactions I treasure
stem from a perpetual longing for more.
Such thoughts are dangerous
for we are as pockets of air
floating to the water's surface.
We are only together briefly
before dispersed by fate.

What then will become of me
when I long for that which
has already passed?

To say less
is more telling
of how I feel.
Oh, how life seems
so loosely constructed.
We never express ourselves honestly.
One must infer meaning
from shadows;
we understate ourselves
or even lie,
in hopes that in this
the truth can be understood.

I find peace
In the early morning
While I wait for an empty train
On a platform
As the sun rises
Out of the winter haze.