Fireworks thunder like
Stars long gone,
And I’d remembered
Something Grandpa once said –

“The world’s a wonder,
But home will always be
Home.”

And the fireworks still thunder,
But I’m the star long gone,
As I’d remembered
Something my son once said –

Innocent and earlier mirror’d,
His eyes were all that’d speak,
“Please.”

So now, I knock, atop the “thunder”
Calloused oak ‘fore, “father,”
As I discover, come echo’d only answer –

Whispers brought the cold, and the scent
Orchids wrought, “tell him to hurry;”
Once and an only gasp I’d hear too late.

Each heavy breath

falling in and out of time

with the hollow stroking of the clock

ticking endlessly into the dark distant unknown.

Your limbs

carelessly strewn amongst the ever­building clutter

provides a careful serenity;

A calm that dangles precariously,

waiting to fall into the surrounding chaos.

Tense and untouched,

my eyes will keep you safe.

it's the american dream
freedom and great gain
i can't fit that picture
inside of the frame

it's a book of fiction
it's like a no win game
soul caught, get me off
***** is my only friend

i can't see that image
inside of my brain
why can't i get the picture
to fit within the frame

if alcohol's so bad
why does it **** the pain?
soul lost, get me off
make me whole again

Oh but I am yours
I walk down the street and I see you
You visit me in my dreams
Then I wake to this nightmare of reality
The time away from you has made me
Realize I love you more
No matter how hard I try to push away the thoughts of being with you
I'm still picking flowers for you
Gathering them for when you return
I count the days and watch the hours pass as if it will fast forward To the part
I close my eyes and I still hear you
As you say
"We will have our day"
I cry as I hear you say" I love you"

Autumn racing red and gold
behind half-open eyes of icy blue.
27th Fall. Step into cold
          and race through
          alleyways I've known.
A crunching stride, solitary breaths.
               Staccato notes
banged out on sidewalks' grey scales...

               ...I'm every inch
          of this softened ground,
these shoe treads, hieroglyphics...

               ...My town appends
                      its runic fate
                                    onto
              my story's granite page.

Crisping air, engulf my lungs.
Ensconce my face in drowsy weather.
Sleepy eyelids, sliding down
to Main & Dow Street. Watch me hover
                                         along the margins.
These last 4 months of quiet aching
engraved in me come roaring out now.
               Autumn streets stay silent.

And Kendrick Park
               has whispered low
                              in bashful rustling;
I climb the boardwalk,
               my thoughts are gilded,
                              responding slowly.

The breeze abates,
               it's halfway warm.
                              Bellevue & Lewis
I am a statue;
               smooth, cold marble,
                              still in November.

And, soon, the Summer comes with angry glares.
And, soon, this stony face will disappear.

These months will always linger in me.
Does my ghost haunt this place already?

I'll return here every Autumn when

October signs off on the Summer's death.

And I'll be tracing all your features with

forgotten footsteps' ancient hieroglyphs...

she is an asylum,
her walls drip blackness
writing every word
that neglected
to slip past her
teeth,
she sleeps on
****-stained spring
mattresses as the
clod tiles bite
at her heels,
hair and skin hide
beneath her fingernails
as palms are twinged,
the padded walls
whisper screams
of coercion; wrists
bound by silence and
tightened by insanity.
to bedposts
rusted,
her hands retired on
ridged thighs
hugging her
goosebumps with
convulsions of agitation.
her mind
scratches melodies of an
insomniac,
the flickering lights choke
her vision and blind her speech.
a room of contradictions
irregulating regularities
intoxicating sobriety
hallucinating reality,
the muffled screams
that weave through
the fibres of the
pillow clinched tightly
in her lap harmonize
algorithms that pull
each padded wall
towards her howling
being — centrefold the room,
as the walls hug her body
she awakes and paints
antonyms to
perpetual despondency

Sleep did not come
and his stomach was a sea
of acid festering on the rotting
husks of swallowed lies
and quarantined pain

objects too sharp to fit into any
puzzle strewn over
carpeted floor   they lie in wait
to **** their tithe

Every one a knife

every stab a cruel joke
painting him into the corner
where he belongs.

When my doctor diagnosed me as a schizophrenic,
My mother broke into tears, like it was worse thing anyone
Could be, I wanted to tell her to stop, it was starting to feel
Too unreal, I have been living in this mind for so long,
That I have turned against this world, which
Looks at me like I’m a burden to carry, I talk to air
Sometimes, it’s not insanity, not everything you can’t see is
Insanity, I sometimes see my grandmother, and I tell her
I miss her that I’m sorry I wasn’t there when she counted
Her last breath, you might feel it to be weird, but it’s not worse
Than this guilt gnawing at me, my mind is a canvas painted
By thousands of painters, and the pictures here don’t make sense,
But art doesn’t need to make sense.
I feel like a graveyard sometimes, haunted by the souls
That will never leave me, I feel like a morgue sometimes,
Walking around with my own corpse, that bleeds sometimes,
I am not abnormal or special or weird,
I see constellation in people, and I see a ray in you
When you smile, my hand stutters objecting to human
Touch, and I don’t call out for hugs, but this body could use some
Warmth, my imagination doesn’t run ahead, it goes round
And round,
Living in this body, is like inhabiting with a foe,
Which slowly takes over you, and you have no shield,
These meds help you sleep dreamless at night, but
They won’t protect you, nothing will be here to
Clutch on when demons that resides in you arrive,
So all you do is crawl on your bed, trying to take
As less space as possible, not letting the fear
Cover every part of you, you think you’re still here,
But you’re not, and thats exactly how it feels like
Living in a schizophrenic mind.