I aspire to become
The person
That my dog thinks I am

11 years ago
I was walking on top
Of a small wall
Along the sea.

I tripped
And fell
And smashed the back of my head
On a sharp rock.

I came to
With my father and mother
Looming over my face.
Now that I think about it
It was pretty convenient
That they would find me there.

I have had a good life,
But to me,
It has been too good.
I have done nothing to deserve
Anything that I have.

I think back on that time,
Walking on that sea wall,
And wonder if the last 11 years
Have all been a dream
And I really am
Still by the sea
Seconds away from dying.

I know only
how to dream.

The worlds
I have quietly
put together
are not so different
than my life now.
But there,
everything is laced
with moonlight;
a soft glow.

I am free to indulge
every detail.
How many times
have I imagined
how the wood
of a window sill
would feel against my finger tips?

The drops of mist from crashing falls
descend upon my face
and scatter in the whirling breeze
to dance in playful grace.

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.

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

If only I could
emulate the flower.

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 you forget, that is fine
We all forget sometimes
If you forget, that is okay
It's easy to forget someday.

If you remember,
Do you look back sometimes, too?
Do you remember,
I ponder.
Well, do you?

Do your friends
Still talk about me?
I wonder.

I could write
on emotion alone.
Through bitterness,
I sought beauty.
With rage,
I expressed
the torrent within.
All was aflame,
all had burned brightly.

But now,
it is naught but a flicker.
I pass time quietly,
as the ash of past emotions
blanket the landscape with grey.
I am tired.
I fear I may
never recover.

Why the obsession
of not experiencing pain?
So what if all that I do
or try
is a futile effort?
Pain is reassurance that
I am correct in my feelings,
and rare proof
that connects me
to great poets of the past.

Everything in my life
is filled with a lightness,
a brevity,
I do not take anything too seriously anymore.
All is as it should be,
just as my pain should strike me bitterly,
my affection will act to unburden me
of emotions too heavy to carry in secret.

There are only dire consequences in loving too little,
One can justify the suffering associated with loving too much.

There is something terrible welling from within me,
Sudden anxiety and hate!
What a concoction!
It drives me up the wall!
I am compelled to act,
And yet to act on what?
I wish to retaliate
But it is as if I'm grasping for the wind!
An invisible enemy!
No matter,
If this is punishment, I accept it wholeheartedly.

I only wish to live honestly,
No secrets! No lies!
If it is as though I am nothing
then so be it!
I am nothing!
If failure is the price for honesty,
Then I will covet failure above all else!
I do not want for a sense of happiness,
I want finality!
If you are done with me,
Then that is that!
I will be no more!
As the morning mist is to daybreak!

How can a man wake each day
And find his image in the mirror constantly disagreeable?
Surely, there is a limit,
Something must move him to action.
Even if I am regarded in disgust,
at least I can come to terms with that,
but I'd rather know than to struggle with self doubt.
I am willing to accept myself for who I am,
However there is no mirror to tell me what exactly is my worth.

You may ponder, "but oh, what does he mean?"
I am embroiled in inner conflict!
I wish only for release,
Let me be worth something or nothing,
In the long run it does not matter,
Just let me accept myself for who I am.

"One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail."

I glance at
an empty seat
an unanswered text
and a cold cup of coffee.

You didn't have to say yes
to a date.

During the time
in between
my two most recent mosquito bites,
we had met
and you had left.
Tonight,
I pensively trace over
the brim of the
first mosquito bite of the year,
reminiscing.

I often find myself
Retracing
Footprints
In the naked snow.

For a while,
I ponder of
The person before me
And the places
They must go.

Few things in life
feel as divine as
forgiveness.

To be told
that I am worthy
of a new start,
feels miraculous.

For all my mistakes,
I am not without hope.

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 to emulate
the chirping bird
who sings freely
amongst its peers.

Too often
I am caught up
in which words to say
or the placement
of a line.

Seldom
do I actually write
what I had felt.

There is futility
in this relentless
carnal
thirst
that paralyzes me
like a knife
in my gut.

i revile ***
yet it is inescapable.
literature is
littered with it
as if
it's something
worth celebrating,
to be written about
over and over again
with the same words,
with the same ****** phrases
that attempt to approximate it
to something pure
pristine
something valuable,
as if it is not done
out of utter necessity
to keep
that knife
out of their gut.

the intense desire
to put a ****
into a ******
or an *******
is worthless,
yet unrelenting.
it is as bukowski has said,
a dog from hell.
it comes like the tide,
it never leaves,
whether it is satiated or not,
it's always there,
creeping,
waiting,
throbbing,
what terrible stuff.

if to truly love
one must ****
then love is not worth it,
then love itself is futile,
to give is nothing
and to reciprocate is nothing
in the face of eternity,
i am so tired of it,
let it stop.

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

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 am ready to drift
into the endless night,
as if it were an ocean.
Like waves of the tide,
my dreams will wash over me.
But I do not mind.
In them are
the reflection of
the stars.

It is only at night
that the constellations can be seen.
Here, I can find my way.
Which dream,
which constellation,
shall I see tonight?
Who will appear
by my side?

What wonders a night of sleep can do,
if you can fall asleep.

The curtains in a hospice room
Are nicely pressed and clean,
There’s not a hint or trace of doom,
Nor speck of hope to gleam.

A wedding dress, she will not wear,
Instead, a patient gown,
While waiting in intensive care
For her doctor’s next round.

You will not find her sitting there,
At least not as of late,
She must have left to go somewhere;
Forever thirty-eight.

A shadow cast across the room
Adopts a lonely size
Familiar, singular;
Belonging to a bride’s.

The turning of a curtain’s cord,
As the breeze blows by,
Rattles in an empty room
Which was occupied.

What good are words that can’t be heard
Or read by whom they’re for?
An open fist that grasps for wind
And memories from before.

She’s waiting in a wedding dress
Perhaps her groom is late?
But that is fine, she has the time;
Forever thirty-eight.

Yesterday
My classmate died
In a hit
and


run.

I scour the local obituaries,
And yet I cannot find his name.
Though I knew little of him,
I have little reason to forget him.
Perhaps, if I grow older
I will stand at his grave
And somberly ponder
At that epitaph of squandered youth.

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.

fellas
what's with
all the arguing?
words won't solve anything.
strip him down
and take his ****
and measure it by the inch.
that'll decide it.
beat the **** of them
and whoever
doesn't die first
that's who's right.
carve chunks of flesh
out of his arm
and make him dance
while he *****
a thousand pretty women,
just so he can show
how the facts are on his side.
let him pray to god
and ask
to **** every *******
who is different
and let god do as he does
as if everyone was a *******
philistine.

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.

I don't want to tell her anything
That's what makes it fun
To have it all said in my eyes
For me,
That's what makes it fun.

When she looks at me,
I think I see
An angel in disguise,
But whats she sees
In a guy like me
Is nothing to her delight.

But that's okay
I don't care,
To be loved is not the goal,
To have her even look at me
That's what makes it fun.

There will be others
after you.

But
none are
as you are
to me.

I am as snow in warmth of dawn,
I cannot linger
for too long.

Each passing day
is a step down
an ever diverging
trail.

Is it useless
to wonder
if these winding paths
ever cross?

How many
will see me again?
How many
promises will be
kept?

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.

A fish
that chokes
on water;
A poet
who struggles
with words.

Today,
I fight irrelevance.
I wrestle with it
as one wrestles with
shadows or
the urge to *****.

I must admit,
it is an overdramatized,
drawn out tussle.
In my head,
it is as if the world is
collapsing,
memories reduced to
cinders,
my being
turned to ash.
But in reality
it is just another passing
of the day,
as one lends itself to the next,
the nights growing shorter,
all is well
it seems.

I cannot come to
agreeable terms
with fate.
I cannot accept that,
for certain people,
I have already lived
my moments of importance.

Each time I remember
the few fragments
of intimacy in my life,
I become less convinced
that I should suffer
in passivity.
There is a pang of desperation
reverberating in my heart
that moves me to action.

Somedays,
I wish no more to reminisce,
I say
silly things.
"I shall recreate my memories,
but this time with urgency,
vivaciously,
with life
and love,
and create from it
new memories that
I will struggle to believe
are mine."

I go out
and find no one waiting.
Had I not been here long enough
to have at least
one person
think of me?
Such are my thoughts,
as I look pensively at the moon
with memories of
a head resting against my shoulder
or conversations with
people whose names I have forgotten,
swirling in my head.

Summer blue
and egg whites
smeared across
the horizon.

It will rain soon.

The pale blue
that filters through
my closed curtains;
the sting of light
as it pries open
my eyelids,
one at a time;
today, i am alive.

Because I am such a short girl
Perhaps you cannot see
That the love I have for you is true;
You are my destiny.

You said you only like tall girls
And I look like a twig
But where my height may lack, my heart
At least stands twice as big.

Those other girls are heartbreakers,
They’d never think of you,
They paint themselves as art sculptures
And force you to think too.

They’d never think of sacrifice
They’d never think of needs
All I would do is fall for you;
This beating heart still bleeds!

So with this rope, I’ll stand up proud,
And have it break my fall,
I’ll feel like I am on a cloud,
And happy to be tall.

On my ship, I set sail,
To where Musashi had failed,
In search of a spot to rest my head
Upon a foreign seabed.
As I leave the city port
I cast my eyes homeward in farewell
And catch a glimpse upon a cliff
Of a canvas on an easel.
Perched upon a little chair,
I spot a girl with paint at hand,
Who takes a pause to watch the sea
Part and mend at my hull’s command.

I crease my sailor cap and raise it high,
And wave to her as I pass by.
She returns to me a gentle stare
And dips her brush in paint with care.
My wandering eye is now affixed
Upon the glow of this fading girl
Whose eyes meet mine for brief moments
To watch my fleeting goodbye unfurl.
Who does she see, from on that cliff?
What boy will she now paint?
Will she remember how I look?
Or keep my features vague and faint?

Her cliff now sinks beneath the sea
To rise again, from under me,
As this ship goes from trough to crest,
Riding waves for seas southwest.
The waves now pull me off, adrift,
To oceans foreign, to currents stiff,
Trapped within the torrent’s pull
Where a storm awaits in full.
I wonder when she turns to the sea
Does the breeze redden the skin of her cheeks?
Does she watch the rolling clouds
Blend with the white of the crashing tide
And find herself somewhat resigned
To a deepening sadness trapped inside?
How will she remember me?
What will that painting look like when it is done?
How long will she think of the boy floating away
On a sailing ship set toward the sun?

Ka か
Ke け
Ki き
Ko こ
Ku く

I write,
Over and over again,
As if chanting silently
To ward off
Forgetfulness
And a growing sense
Of impending mediocrity.

It seems that
there are some lessons
that can only be learned
the hard way.

My footsteps,
like finger tips
on a piano,
play a
lonely song.

Each step
Upon the pavement
Feels as though
I am lightly tapping
The keys of a piano.

Each step I take
Is another note
In a clumsy melody.

For a second I am convinced
That there really is music
And now it is my turn to play.

If I am to be lost,
then let it be;
I shall be as
a grain of sand
in the currents of the ocean.

I reach for words,
to claw back from the depths
of a terrible
listlessness.
But I cannot find them,
I cannot even write.

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?

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

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

It is a dance,
A longing
Set to the rhythm,
The nuance of
Furtive glances,
Unspoken words,
Chance encounters,
Innumerable coincidences
And a terrible solitude
Of the soul.

As these things accumulate,
It begins
Like embers given life
By a soft breeze.

But the second it is touched
It turns to sand
And slips through
The cracks of the heart.
One figures out
That something so fragile
Cannot exist.

I have been called,
a few times already,
a hopeless romantic.
I am misunderstood!
First, I must ask,
what is it that I must hope for?

I strive for pure, absolute love.
Everything else is beside that.

I only want to love
for the sake of love.
I only want to express love,
for the sake of expressing love.

I do not hope for reciprocation,
which is what I suspect others suspect of me.
I am successful if I can express affection
in a readily appreciable way.
If I can express love,
I can attain fulfilment and satisfaction.
I need nothing more.

When given the choice
to treat a loved one with either
bitterness or tenderness,
must you really think twice about your decision?
Then at which point does what you receive in return
play a part?
Will you really deprive yourself of the opportunity
of giving love
if you receive nothing in return?

Selfishness is at the heart of entitlement.
To say, "I will not give if I cannot receive"
is the peak of entitlement.
It is natural to feel pain in the face of
total rejection,
however this is only the burden that you must bear
in the name of love,
proof that your feelings are steadfast and genuine.

To withdraw your oaths of affection
after the fact
is an admission to have never loved at all.
I must remind you that
your emotions entitle you to nothing.
We have no reason to be selfish.

Again I ask,
why deprive yourself the opportunity to give love?
Shall you really withdraw water from a beautiful flower
that blooms in someone else's garden?
If affection really drives us,
is the wellbeing and happiness of the person in question
not more than enough to suffice?

I find that in matters of pure love,
the self is rarely concerned.
The self is merely a vessel to deliver.
How is it that we have arrived at the notion
that is also a vessel to receive?

Alas, I do not mean to say
that we may only love one person in a single life.
The contrary.
There is always room for someone new,
and there is always room to give,
and to give freely,
without expectation to receive anything in return.
Would you not agree that this is the mark of
pure, absolute love?

It is a wonderful book.
It has not changed my life,
but confirmed it.

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.