People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.

I never saw a man who looked
with such a wistful eye
upon that little tent of blue
which prisoners called the sky,
and at every drifting cloud that went
with sails of sliver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
within another ring,
and was wondering if the man had done
a great or a little thing,
when a voice behind me said,
"The man's got to swing"

For he did not wear scarlet
nor did he speak of it,
for blood and wine were red
and so was the color on his bed.

He looked upon the garish day
with such a wistful eye;
the man had killed the thing he loved,
and so he had to die.

I used to write
My secrets in the sand,
Knowing they would never stay
Long enough to be told.

I used to just swim,
pulled my hair up and never
Really tasted the salt that foamed
After the crash.

I've ran in the sand,
Sure, but never have I
Ever let it smooth my
Skin into what it could be.

Before today, I've never
Let the current take me
Under and feel what it's like
To always come back to something.

breathing the turquoise like lavender,
and sipping the blue summer.
bitter cold clouds glide and morph lava lather,
floating whispers cut by sweet pineapple sunshine.

soon, a moment, now
rhythms ripple the sky like skipping stones
we jump the music like puddles
splashing in the frequencies.

cobalt bass rumbles the earth hungry,
pumps the air with springing spirals
pushing and pulling the senses,
reverberating through cells.

heavy mud humming, stomping
echoes through our atoms dizzy;
balancing tuned body to innate electricity
the fizz of circulating lemonade energy.

we jump the music like puddles
splashing in the frequencies.

strawberry melodies spilling ribbons,
dolphin leaps of the spaces inbetween beats,
lines of colours overlapping,
colliding, mixing, merging, blending
in with the forest.

washing over souls the life fire sparkles
like a clear water cleansing harmonies,
sound waves crashing against inertia.
phosphorescent glow of re-charged love
for the world, for being, animation

flowing through burnt smoky ashes
of sapphire charcoal skies;
dimmed radiation of chlorophyll emerald days.
the smell of salt, dry bark, fluffy carbon mists,
trembling lights softening the eyes'
grip on outlines, loosening lies.

watching the cycles of patterns
tumbling colours through a mill rotating,
and the silence of listening
when the music comes to an end.

Awkward - as the infinite
Black of night against
A background of baby bonnet pink.
No sustaining verse issues from
An unreflecting pool
Stagnant from deprivation of
Refreshing waters of life.
Cold intellect attempting
To compose poetry alive with
Crisp sunrises, rolling streams,
The perfume of a bashful girl -
Cold intellect, anxious and sad,
Desperately trying to
Regain a solid footing on earth,
Make its stand in a world
Of daisies and mockingbirds
Before it's too late.




- fr

I'd say:
**** 'em
but that's not my character.

My character is to worry
and overthink
about things out of my hands and up to
Fate.

Fate is a funny thing;
it's cruel
but also caring - at times
and I guess we weren't meant to be,

'Meant to be' is a
construct
anyways. Is there really
only one person out there
that you're fated to be with?
'Cause I find it hard to believe

Hard to believe like
you and I
were 'meant to be'. Fated
to cross paths and fall in love
at least I think it was love-
but who really knows?
Maybe that's why I'm indifferent

I'm indifferent because- while
for me it really was love
my first everything- you
said it too easily. And
love is never easy
it's messy like;
well...
Fate or 'meant to be'.
There's really nothing I can do

Nothing I can do to fix this
roller-coaster disaster on steroids,
but that's over exaggerating,
'cause I don't know why
but I'm ok;
with Fate dividing us. Since we weren't
'meant to be' in this
mess, love. And that's fine,
it's ok.
Now you're too far away

Too far away both metaphorically
and literally. There's
a gap
that's impossible to cross
without Fate there to back us up
when we've gone over that ledge
and crossed that line. We aren't
meant to be- to go back
is impossible like love. So
I hope you're ok, are you fine? I
don't want to hurt you
but
there's no fixing this.
Without making it worse.

So I bide my time

fate says
we aren't 'meant to be'
love is too complicated
so i'm indifferent- to protect myself from
the pain that comes with my inability to do anything to
bridge the metaphorical and literal gap between us

So I bide my time

A crescent moon
creates sublime
mountain silhouettes

Against an unclouded
background dome
that is the Milky Way

Beneath which cool
vigorous breezes -
carrying scent of pine
and highlands river -

Drift over underbrush
where crickets sound off
in their perfect pitch
monotone.

And sitting here
on the wilderness threshold
I await
philosophical and literary
inspiration, but
- nothing.

So, simply a nod
in gratitude
to the unadulterated
vista.


- fr