For years I’ve wondered as I wept,
What’s the use of things I’ve kept?
Dusty, broken, put away,
Is there a reason for the things I’ve saved?

Moments pass when I dance alone,
Thinking about the things I know,
Leaping bounds beyond my feet,
Is there a reason my heart still beats?

Sailing by the current's way,
Listless memories begin to fray,
But I turn my head in a righteous rage,
And watch the ashes turn to flame.

Harvest fruits of this tree,
Can no one tell what's left of me?
Living life in this endless cave,
Clawing away from the inevitable grave.

Watching a sunrise turn to dark,
I lament, have I left my mark?
Bits of life run through my hands,
Every moment a grain of sand.

Running alone for many miles,
Against this desert rain I smile,
For fresh beginnings keep me alive,
I know what's waiting when I arrive.

Oceans wash my restless limbs,
Fading out as the twilight dims,
I listen closely for one command,
In the silence, I reach for hands.

Glistening in my closing life,
A shining spark has yet to fight,
But I close my eyes and breath in peace,
Letting go for a sweet release.

I think that
They believe
They can hide me
In a box
Forever.

They
"Only
Want
To
Protect
Me."

But it isn't
Protection
When
The surface
Isn't
Permeable.

Nothing gets in
And
Nothing gets out.

And
There isn't
Air to
Breathe.

I sit in silence, trying to bring the
spirit down to meet me face to
face, so I can shake the hand that
made me

I sit and listen for the voice, but
my tarpaper heart keeps singing
in my ear about all the love its
found... it sticks to memories and
grows with every smile and
                                    gentle sigh

This heart of mine remembers
everything and reminds me of the
times when I was pure naked
awareness...
                        I try to get back there
but I am stuck remembering and
grasping at the past which I forget
is still here in front of me, the
newborn babe of the present
which everything has conspired
                                            toward

I sit in silence and remember what
it was like to bathe in the ocean of
souls... to see all of life in the water
of the clouds
                           before I had a body
          
                                            I was this

A river, uninterrupted and
                                           unending

We are all poets, lovers, and children
standing on this revolving rock spinning into the void infinite,
casting pennies to the rushing stream wishing for cheaper fares
wondering as far as we dare  
with nothing but our heads about us
and our hearts beneath our chests
kept apart from all the rest.

I always ask her why, cause you gotta pay to play.
So don't fall in love with me, unless you got more than one
Reason.

And there is no do-overs allowed, no repeats,
And that's why loving a poet is or can be a
Huge pain in the ***.

Sad Girl, Write Till You Are Righted

Awake to an inbox not overflowing,
But drowned
In sadness.

Despair,
A close second.

Tho oft I rise to/o that awoken-swollen-emaciated river,
Somehow your ache, worse than mine.

I figured out why.

If we write of it,
It some degree lessened.
So when I gift you my words,
It gifts me easement some in return.

But reading thy cries, an exercise,
Teeth-gnashing frustration.
It brings no relief.

So sad girl,
Write till you are righted,
May be it will snow on July 4th,
And tho unnatural,
So is thy grief.

Nonetheless, write me write me all about it,
Right us,
For tho snow falls, its loveliness,
Makes the heart rise up in gladness!

Is an old poem of mine that I tender to you to turn your mind away for just, even just, a few minutes from the sadness and the depression that I read about in poem after poem.  I am an old man whose sighs are recorded in the lines on his hands.  It will be better. You will be loved.
Be brave.


Lead to Gold, Philosopher to Poets

When the philosophers abandoned
castle turrets for ivory towers,
lost was the secret of
I and thou,
of turning lead to gold,
but these cagey, canny scholars in new residences,
who traded
perspicacity for pensions,
before they left,
they tasked to the poets,
a singular task,
cloaking them in a life long responsibility
charging them as follows:

Be the harpooners of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhaposdy,
exhort the loopy
to light candles of illusions,
canonize the nursing mothers to deliver us
the kinder Ishmael's who will revel,
lead us with warmth and apprehension,
with the strength of sinews
fixed and flexible,
we will believe and
they will teach the rest of us
that the first commandment
is to empathize.

**with clinical observation,
dense and demanding,
make us laugh at
the comedy of our situation,
the comedy of our conscience,
our free to see,
the peep show of us,
explicate and deconstruct
our unexamined lives,
help us to extend the boundaries,
record the voyages of our timepieces,
declare us all free and victors,
file away the chains of language
and declare us all poets

A famous artist took his painting,
which commenced life as beach driftwood,
whipped it with a chain.
Made it all
chipped and nicked,
and called it, antiqued.
He liked the way it looked,
and had it put in a museum.

God looked down and thought,
"****, I do good work,
Just look at the human race!"