These past couple of moments have been beautifully ideal,
I feel carefree talking to you, somehow that brings a lot into question, what's fake and what's real?

Maybe it's due to my unchangeable inability to trust.
Do we actually believe someone is being genuine without expecting anything in return from us?

These insecurities, you didn't cause them.
Still in my eyes you're a flawless, tainted gem.

So perfect, your faults make you perfect.
Only for a second do I believe that maybe we're worth it.

But how do you turn a nonbeliever into a dreamer?
A no-faither into a hoper?
The blind into seers?
The mute into preachers?
The immobile into runners?
The numb into healers?

The obvious answer is you can't,
*No ungifted man can.

Collectively dismal
Dreadfully sinful
Covered in tinsel
Was a sunken dimple
A quick nibble
Elongated ******
Playfully twiddle
Covered in spittle
Quick to belittle
Before her acquittal
It seemed so brittle
Quite noncommittal

Thomas came from the school of hard facts
No Gradgrind, yet, had slipped through its cracks
A Bounderby born saw light in this day
Believing flowers belong outside with the hay

In Louisa G,
Thoughts would flee
It was clear to see
Just not on bended knee

The girl would gaze towards a flame
Far too majestic to tame
And there hours would disappear
As “Fancy” hesitantly slipped near

A circus of thought
Nine oils bought
*****’s distraught
Isolation caught

Her father left home
A sad clown made to roam
Metaphor in a poem
Lost, no need to atone

A foster child of Logic
There’s no need to frolic
Study enveloped her life
While Louisa became a wife

Married and bound to an age differential
That made her hubby seem quite parental

Thomas had begun new work
Money earned, quite the perk
Then it vanished with great haste
Gambled away like simple waste

His sister, Loo, called to bail
Thomas, who had found life stale
Her few possessions drift away
On donations to her brother’s dismay

Time moves on with little give
Debts build like the weight of a fib
Soon Thomas pleads for far too much,
100 dollars, please rush

Louisa, was completely tapped out
Her brother had broken an ever-flowing spout
He used every penny of the girl’s love
Then drifted, like a fleeting dove.

Her husband, Josiah, sat none the wiser,
Cuddled by the facts of a rude little miser
Then came a parliamentary heart of house,
James snuck in quiet as a mouse.

Mr. Harthouse was a man of great esteem
He came to Coketown on track-lines powered by steam
There he met the wife of a cold little man
And his pursuit of affection began

Lousia had no need for affection
Or for that matter unwanted attention
Yet, as Thomas fell
She thought the notion seemed quite swell

Conversations began with ease
Mr. Harthouse was certainly no ******
Operated amongst the ideas of her school
And even sat earnestly while listening to Stephen Blackpool

…

A servant to no deviant will
And master of a mere peasant’s skill
Stephan spoke in broken phrase
Sentences flowed like a tainted maze

A public speaker the man was not
Still, in front of many, he unraveled a plot
The man spoke with flagrant passion
But, it drifted off in latent fashion

The entirety a man stood casting doubt
Blockading the meager man’s route
Stephan carried on until all was lost
His employment in fact the first major cost.


...unfinished :(

sometimes i can't trust myself not
to buckle under the weight of
your near enough's and almost
words you can't quite force out from
between my teeth. like the accusatory
cutlery your eyes never fail to
reflect this would look better with
the lights off and between sheets but
then again i always have had trouble
with the twin tormentors dark
and sleeping. sometimes i feel as
though red is the only colour i know
and you insist on inhabiting it you have
ruined sunsets and arsenal and jelly
for me. like i was not made to walk
through fire just as well as ocean i have
merely forgotten the way spoon fed
on ashes and bad pennies glinting
off the electrics i refuse to give you
my spectrum. sometimes my
ribcage admirably lives up to its
name and i find myself choking
on thoughts i'd sworn not to
inhale. like non newtonian fluid
i have inherited your sudden cusps
and contradictions lit up momentarily
only to be put out when i am around you  
i find myself craving cigarettes.

Roses are red,
Oceans are blue.
The green grass is soft with truth.
But somewhere out there,
Without a hint of despair,
I sit there in glee
Under the willow tree.

My parents have gone
Somewhere nowhere near.
Yet I shall not shed
A single tear.
I look up in the sky,
And see the birds fly,
Wishing someday to be free.

Roses are red,
Oceans are blue.
The green grass is soft with truth.
But somewhere out there,
Without a hint of despair,
I sit there in glee
Under the willow tree.

Heedless and lean,
I scramble in the weeds.
Playing with the bees,
I wonder what I need,
For I have no greed.
And just for me,
And whom I shall be,
I'll do myself one good deed.

Roses are red,
Skies are blue.
The green leaves are soft with truth.
But somewhere far out,
I do not scream or shout.
For I sit there in glee
Under the willow tree.

My wife, a psychiatrist, sleeps
through my reading and writing in bed,
the half-whispered lines,
manuscripts piled between us,

but in the deep part of night
when her beeper sounds
she bolts awake to return the page
of a patient afraid he'll **** himself.

She sits in her robe in the kitchen,
listening to the anguished voice
on the phone. She becomes
the vessel that contains his fear,

someone he can trust to tell
things I would tell to a poem.