Rocks ripple my river reflection
as amber and caramel leaves spiral
from sleeping oaks
landing atop water as lily pads
and clothing my mirror image.
I envy the resting trees,
tucked in for the winter.

Georges Seurat paints my vision,
my eyes see through his art,
but that's the nice way of saying
you are closer if I shut my right eye
and farther if I shut my left.

Somedays, I read "O" as "Q",
and occasionally, you aren't you.
You are that person whose face,
hair, and build are similar
to that other person I know.
Your voice will give it away,
unless you walk close
on a cloudless sunny day.

American barcodes
All sit with a grin.

American barcodes
Can’t you see my skin?

American barcodes
I’m wearing my mask.

American barcodes
The police don’t ask.

Woe be to the lady of seasons!
Persephone and Demeter argue.
As neither can forgive dear family,
we are lost! We are sunk! Polar icecaps
melt to the tension of their bickering.

Poseidon’s domain increases ever more!
His power does drive our beaches and shores
higher! Higher! Higher ever more!

From the writer’s chair
Words explode from thought

Rising from the seat
With both feet planted
As roots in the soil

Head soaking up the sun
Like photosynthesis

The lips, the gateway of the mind,
open to form the singing of birds,
the blooming of daffodils,
and the colors of paintings.

My pen slithers in poetic taboo
For as it writhes, you’d think it frail
Sliding along the garden’s morning dew
Polished diamond-shine upon each scale

Writing the lines as though I rhyme in schemes
Reptilian only within my dreams

Apollo’s chariot rests
below the horizon’s layers
yellow, pink, and blue.
Breathing in the sunset,
night’s chill takes the air
with chirping crickets
hooting owls
and starlike fire flies.

A rose blooming in a summer rose bed
stops to envy you as you smell the roses.
For two beauties sit in the picture,
but neither is the rose.
The sight of you is a wonder to my eyes,
one that keeps me warm through winter days.
The grace inside you is as beauty
and beyond my words to explain.
So when I fumble my syllables,
embrace me as the rose embraces the rain.

Love sits like a rock, ticks like a clock,
drops like a thermonuclear warhead.
Never ending, resists bending, snaps
back like a palm tree after a beach storm.
Unfazed by summer's heat, talks on a beat,
grand standing through each of our eyes.

I promise you I’m not worried
About the trials of life

I promise my nightmares
Mean absolutely nothing.
That the vivid visions
Don’t dance in my mind
Or send me painful messages
That haunt my day.

I promise you I’m not worried
When deadly air topples the world,
Closes my recreational parks,
Locks all my favorite restaurants.
I’ll just sit at home like a good boy
And play around with little toys.

I promise it’s all just static,
That the sky can’t weather
what my mind can dream,
That I’m not falling apart,
At the seams microscopically.

They say all is fair
    In the chase after the wind.
        As it blows to the North bringing frost
                Snow falls upon my love as war and lust
                                          become bed mates.

Lawns of grassy blades
flow towards the nightfall
through a silver dust squall
snowflakes spin cascades

Jack Frost pays the cost
putting us under his thrall
while we're held in his loll
Demeter's daughter is lost

Hades imparts frosty shades
until Persephone's call
ease's her mother's bawl
ending our snowy escapades

River water kept flowing
Time kept ticking away
Seconds never seen again
Faded from the candle’s flame.

READ the poem before your eyes.
Speaking aloud is a pleasant surprise
for the sitting poem, in disguise,
is waiting for a reader to watch it’s sunrise.

A tree falls in the forest,
and it doesn't make a sound.

A man yells in the forest,
and local wild life forms a mob.

A man falls in the forest,
and he doesn't make a sound.

A tree yells in the forest,
and we all run like hell.

Sewn together to be torn apart,
bitten, beaten, ripped to pieces.
Put back together with used parts,
over time her quality decreases.
Drifting like petals in the gentle breeze,
the Doll goes where the wind blows.
She knows hell would have to freeze
in order to get a brand new set of clothes.
A ribbon wrapped to cover a tortured head,
wooden buttons and her bow colored red.

Poet’s pens write to take flight
Like paintings of the open blue sky
And the moon lightly lit at midnight
Growing as trees from Japanese Bonsai

Visions of green briery vines,
Red roses and blue violets,
Written in measured and timed lines
that glide by, like descending pilots

Readers see the shadow on the wall
Writers see the vision from down the hall

I shout inside my skin,
broken outside and in.

I sounded strange to men,
deranged to the women.

I shutter to my pen,
I live in the lion’s den.

Hello resident of apartment 6B,
I'm so happy you think
I'm your stinking mongrel's
best chance at a bowel movement!
While you're at it,
go play with some matches!
Better yet, park your car
next to me on the street!
I have a real job,
and I'm not employed
at Don's Johns!
Maybe if you set
yourself on fire,
you'll see me as something
other than a porta *****!

Up flew the moonlight tide
flying like a stairway to the clouds.
The light blue stars twinkled
showing the impressionistic side
of the art that is supposed to be
the playing of dice by the four forces.
The beauty of it all seems suspicious.
Never mind it all, lets swim to the clouds.

It all starts with
the perfect crust.
Not too thick,
not too thin,
with just the right
amount of crunch.

Classic crust

Listen up, caviling charlatans.
Forgo the sporadic rebuff,
luminous is the dark
and shaded is the light,
the path to endless days.

If the vagabond's respite
is fraught with retribution,
why continue in shambles,
instead, covet his ways.
Don't lament the shadows,
cry for illuming rays.

A flower is poetically redundant,
I'd rather use a bomb with wires -red, green, and blue.
Cut one, let's see if she loves me!

Swinging it back
Gulping it black
Sugar is too sweet
To symbolize
Emotion

When the answers are rigged,
change the solution.

Absent of thought,
I wait for the meal
that we know too well.
I know the noodles
will seem undone,
the flavor will remind
of times past where I knew
nothing better than easy food,
but I brought it anyways.
I don't want a photo
of my childhood,
I just want lunch.

Beasts within fight
to emerge above
ranks of blood.

Know your place,
run with grace,
avoid the club.

Tear into necks
filled with flowing
thick crimson juice.

Twin devils bite
under moonlit night
with primal fright.

Endure great strain,
know each pain,
avoid the club.

Silence is the great communicator.
It tells when to shut up.

Hello, my friend
from the wall.
You follow me day by day.
This game we play,
where you mimic me,
is my favorite.
When I am next to a fire,
there you are next to me.
You are there
like I'm the most
important person in the world.
You’re the friend that never leaves,
and you never mutter a word.

Day opens up with light
and darkness owns the night.
Of both times I desire
the sun owns day with its fire.
When sun dims, slowly adrift,
it gives the waxing moon's lift,
with pale beams softly sent
to show a world that's shadow-bent.

Today I became a tree huger,
because yesterday's random hug
ended with the red and blue blinking lights,
a frontal shot, two side photos,
and my new roommate
who has claimed the top bunk.

Even Smokey the bear influence
couldn't save us from this forest fire.
Oil and fire will soon be mingled
with human anxiety and distress.

A battered head,
a bleeding brow,
washed in silence.
This is a prayer
for the victims
of ignorant violence.

You don't know when it started,
you began feeling half-hearted.
The peace within is broken,
you want speak but your choking.
And you can't let it go,
never be unspoken.
Often you're left in stitches,
yet your soul is worth untold riches.

A dusty street,
where the children meet
that have no alliance.
This is a prayer
for the sufferers
of ignorant violence.

One day they're safe, then they're not,
wars are not what we sought.
Explosions only leave what you believe,
while the helpless mothers grieve,
crying for help from God.
The angels aren't coming,
their sounds are leading to nothing.

This is a prayer
for the shattered vagabonds.

I met love with open arms,
embracing it without alarms.
Caution to the wary ghouls,
the table top is not for fools.
She tasted sweet, felt smooth,
and this heaven was mine.
Life is loose and uncouth,
love isn't only cheese and wine.

Through my eyes she was immortal
and had nothing but lucky charms.
In her presence, there was a portal
to a place where we'd do no harm.
She tasted sweet, felt smooth,
and we'd meet on cloud nine.
Life is loose and uncouth,
love isn't only cheese and wine.

In the end, it all hit the ground,
bliss can't make up for love not found.
My feelings made her face the music,
she did something to shatter my heart.
She was sweet, moved smoothly,
and she could have been my one and only.
Life is loose and uncouth,
and love's not only cheese and wine.

The beginning of the end should begin with you,
but you're not the end of the adventure,
you're the only scene in a never-ending love story.

An arrogant frost begins to melt,
dripping from the red shingles
onto the progressively muddy ground,
where dark green lines sprout,
erasing the icy past.

Slow growth of small buds
colored pink, red, yellow, and white
take the dream of warmer days
as a twisty hot mirage
strikes the distance.

Life shakes the leaves off the tree,
as all turns bitterly dark,
orange and brown,
and crumpled up on the sidewalk,
chilling down to the beat
of the pidder padder of rain.

Warmth is removed from sensations,
colors fade from a distance to white,
glazed with the purest icing
as the world turns a new shade of grey,
colored only by the feeling of crystals
glimmering like diamonds.

I bow down my head
straight into the pillow.
I whine a funny sound
and wonder about duty.
Life seems to be all
and all seems to be
nothing but disappointment.

Anointed to be dead
from the first time I was alive.
I strive to show hope,
to be a silent messenger,
but duty seems to hold me back.

The great deep red within
always wants to fight back.
Smack the wrong until it's right,
snack on the souls so easily broken
by a single word that refutes their madness,
while my face turns to a smile.
Walking a mile in my shoes
is being hungry for relief.
Starving for sanity shows my vanity.

Tic Toc at the midnight hour,
peddling along louder and prouder.

Clock my dear friend,
you've done it again.
Every single second I learn
that time has passed,
and you're consistent,
I hear it sixty times
within a minute.
And he continues.
Smugly taunting along
with that perfect timing
envied by all musicians.

My friends describe me
as a man of few verbal words.
Funnily, the words are chosen
poorly for someone who
thinks so much about what
a person should and shouldn't say.

Last year, a classmate told me
she would get at least three words
out of me before our study group
quit for the night. I responded,”You lose”.

I rip through a dream
like I'm coming apart
at the seams of the heart.
I turn my key, but I won't start.

A shadow cast over days past,
like a mast spread for a wind blast
hailing from the wintery north.
Don't think it done until the day's won.
The mistake was made,
the spider web spun over a grenade
that landed on our shores.
They attacked our backyard,
yet we don't act scarred,
we brush it off despite
their continued shelling,
like we can refuse what they're selling.
Telemarketers don't send tapes yelling
that we're all gonna go to hell.
Only enemies that know
we have already fell.

Caramel leaves fell as the wind shifted,
to spell the first days of Autumn.
The sun was shot westward,
hovering over the blue marble
as it radiated with playful heat
that waned out of sharp boredom.
One by one, each tree became bare
like the sound of a lonely metronome.
And within the cold isolation,
each tree said it found peace.

Fire sleeps within all 
the brightness makes the darkest shadows seem small 
can you feel the embers burning? 
and what will fan the flame? 
  
Embers rise high with a gust 
dancing ashes pays tribute to beauty 
of fire purifying all it will touch 
as if fulfilling natural duty. 
  
The longer it goes, the flames go higher 
and that feeling of madness, lust, and desire 
brings us to where we are, 
the kindling point of star-fire.

Love is the sanity we all keep,
the feeling from others we all seek.
Love is a feeling that gives you life,
despite the fact she's not your type.
Even though it can be used to hurt much,
nothing heals more than the human touch.

Sleepless nights filled with voices,
memories, and fearful noises.
Hug your pillow and trust your choices.
Breath the poisonous air of muggy summer nights.

Faded tree figures loom near,
visible as a smear
on what used to be the Mona Lisa.

The great work of art
goes to waste
as its paint is fingered,
by each person,
like its some sort of photocopy,
covering the masterpiece
with old, dirt, and impurities
that are not naturally occurring on skin.

Leonardo da Vinci would be appalled
at our treatment of his gift,
made to be given to one person,
yet he loved it...
and gave it to us instead.
Now stare once again
at its poor condition.