These bristles twinge my hide,
For a second I worry of looking a poor shave.
I chuckle;
No one to impress now, silly.

I look down,
For a second I worry of looking a poor dress.
I chuckle;
Chairs aren't meant for standing,

                                                      ­                                                 I'll fix that,  love.

The river that flows from the depths of your soul;
It touches my hand in a sting of rain.
There is pain there, yes
In your waters.

A child afraid of the dark is in your eyes;
She looks through and sees nothing.
I am here, yes
A midst your waters.

The river brings cold to my being:
Lest I stay I die,
You breathe my life,
If I surrender I Drown,
and breathe no more.

I fear I am a blur to you now,
as the rain stings your eyes.
Your gaze eroded by water
Your gaze so cold and hollow

Promise you'll find a flame,
in the face of your flooding apathy

For not we grow cold and die.

and the river that flows from the depths of your soul,
shall take us dark and cold,
to sleep.

I braced my feet;  knees light,
And the lord said:  You shall not fly.

I firmed my earth;  legs tight,
And the lord said:  You shall not run.

I took my stride; afraid in blight,
And the lord said: You shall not go.

"Why?!" I begged.  "Why do others go while I stay?"
And the lord said:

There are words

So many words

That take much more of life
With them
As they pass

One more piece of the puzzle I could have kept
Had you just
used them.

I have given you all I can
To see your eyes
Blossom
Like old
Roses. A lot of rocks
The floor under
A sky of filth

But I am starved for words
I have dried


Watering a rock that will never
grow


They are gone
So gone

I often sit here and run my hands over the smooth shard of glass
that portrudes from my chest.
I feel it.  Everyday.  Everynight.
and wonder if someday i could yank it loose.
feel the pinch no more;
The pain of my heart as it warbles, trying to survive; cut in half.
I know i must keep one eye on the horizon, for hope ill see that day approach

If i look down, I know through this glass ill see you,
all that can be seen,
struck through my being,
and my chin will fall,
and my breath will shallow,
and my heart will
stop.

for you, in my head,
live
and all i feel,
all
is you

I                  w
      O           h                                                                ­                                
          F        a
           ­ T      t                                                        ­                                        
            E a
          N     i
      F             l
      E               m
     A                    e                                           ­                 M                                               ­       f
     R                     n                                                                ­   A                                                   a
                             t                                                                ­         S                                                b
              ­                                                                 ­                               K                                 ­      r
                                                               ­                                                       S         ­                       i
                                        ­                                                                 ­                       I                      c  
                                                                ­                                                                 ­   T           o
                                                               ­                                                                 ­       S         f
          T                                  m                ­                                                                 ­      E   m
                       H                         a                                                                ­                  L          y
                                  ­A                   n                                                                ­           F                     n
                                        T            i                                                                ­      I                              a
                          ­                    C     f                                                               ­       N                                    t
                   ­                         O          e                            ­                                           T                                  u
                            ­           U                        s                                       ­                         H                                   r
                                      L                        ­      t                                                          ­       E                                  e
                            ­           D                            


                                                           ­     I                          o
                               ­                                       N                         f
                                                               ­               T             m
                                                               ­                    H       i
                                                               ­                      E   n
                                                              ­                   P         e
                                                               ­                  R               s
                                                               ­                  I                 e
                                                               ­                   N                 e
                                                               ­                     T                   d
                                                                         
                                                                ­                                                         T                          v
                                    ­                                                                 ­                 O                         i
                                                               ­                                                   H                     c
                                            ­                                                                 ­    A                    e
                                          ­                                                                 ­         V      c
                                               ­                                                                 ­ E           a
                                            T                 ­           g                                   M                  r
                                            ­        O                     r                                  Y                   r
                                                           O                e                                               ­   y
                                                          P ­                    e
                                                      U                            d  
                                                        S    ­                    a
                                           ­           H                     w
                                                 M                            a
                                  ­      Y                                        y

               ­                                                                 ­             W                         a
                                                               ­                     I                                      w
   ­                                                                 ­        L                                                  r
    ­                                                               L                                                                ­  y
                                                             ­              E                                                          t
    ­                                                                 ­           N                                                 h
                                                               ­                     D                                   u
                                                               ­                                             S
                  ­                                                         T                                                                ­        l
                                                       ­   E                                                             ­                                        o
                                             A                                                                ­                                                              v
 ­                            R                                                                ­                                                                 ­                          e
                                          I                    ­                                                                 ­                                                    o
                                                   N                                                                ­                                              u
                 ­                                        G                                                                ­                  t



                                 A                                                                ­                                                                 ­   th
                   N        D                                                       ­                                                                 ­                         e
              T              E                                 ­                                                                 ­                                       o             n
                   A                                                                ­                                                                 ­                                l y               o
                     R    I                                                           ­                                                                 ­                       n        e           i ve
                                   N     G                                                                ­                                                         l o                    v
                                          ­                                        E                   d    










                            U N T I L  M Y                                                                ­                 I n  t h e
                  W O R L D  I S  L E F T  I N                                                                ­   h a n d s  o f
             S H A M B L E S    S P L I T  U P                                                        a  d I s e a s e  c a l l e d
                    A N D  A L I E N A T E D                                                                ­         G r e e d

A Man will ask himself:

Is the glass taken of half

Or given of it?


We hear this tale

Unworn and aged

(Like a fine wine

Save a rich cheese

Always a decadence

An adornment so sweet.

Fruits that our mother

Blesses us with)

and look into the crystal

Search for grace

We think comes from

Wonders of the light.

But man’s feeble mind

Is so beguiled

(Hoodwinked into

Vizard

By the lures

Of such a beautiful thing

As crystal.)

And rapt with greed.


So much brawn

Is put to

Pondering the

Substance

Of the vessel

(such thought

That manifests itself

In a disease

More blood ridden

Than a

Plague)

in materialism

(the silent

Murderer

That infects the

Mind of a

worldly soul)

and has no cure

To emerge from

A field of

Medical travesty.


When all has

Passed

And man answers

for his sins,

One will in the end

Discover

the question

That never works it’s way

To the lips

(If not even

Figments of thought

In words)

What have you to say
About the fill
Of a glass
When it has
Shattered
Upon the floor?

It’s a curious thing what a starving man will eat. Not that you would not know what scrupulous fingers pan the earth in desperation.

You walk by near every day, methinks. Too you see him.  Blink once and that boney shell will paint the back of your eyelids. Yet, you look away and dash the eye, leave him standing dark in the corner - the shadows drawing lines across his branded face; the wrinkles of a contorted sorrow.

I don’t blame you, surely, the same way you cannot blame a dim-witted hound for cowering away from the mess it has made. But you put him there, whether you tell yourself you did or not. You did. And I do blame you for that.

I know you remember that first day, with detail I’d wager. The two of you sharing a simple meal taking time as a novelty. A nice night perhaps, but your eyes are what gave you away - what swimming cries for love hid themselves in the crystal waters there held.

Whether you tell yourself he did or not, he saw it. One look like that will spear through a man and pin him to a wall, leaving him to bleed out unless some one can fuel his heart.

He knows what happened, could see through the soft maple skin birthing locks of smooth hair, all of which traced the Evan form up to your smile. But what he did not know was that he was plying with fire. He did not know the bountiful plate in front of him would be his last meal for quite some time.

I’ll let you in on a secret, though - something you’ve been told a hundred times. He loved you because you were perfect. Most would say that, a man rapt by such a feeling will fill in the holes, smooth over the cracks, and apply a fresh coat of paint, but you were different.

You, my dear, were one of those few that embodied what started the ideal of man calls an angel. A broken one in your case; an angel none the less.

But to you it’s like rain drops on your skin - it never seems to sink in, and it’s obvious you go about it that way. You have inside you the purity to crack a man in half and bleed his corruption out. But you don’t seem to realize that, and never will - I’d bet.

To you it’s just rain. and had you looked any closer, you’d have kissed the tears of a dying poet.

Thus far


I coin my faith to love


(That which so binds me to this pole,


Bidding that I press the rocky earth in with perpetual circles)


And toss such currency to faith as it hit’s the gentle waters down a cobblestone well

I watch each delicate thread

Pull away

(Frail twine,
The string of life,
Warn from wash and
Off white)

The plink of one more

Surrender as

One by one

Their little hands

Let go under the pressure

(Too taxing;
Cracked glass
Invasive fissures
Wiggling their way
Downward until
Wrath forces its way
To the surface)

And prepare to lose

(Control
Tumbling upward in a
Bittersweet cone of
Fermented
Nineteenseventyeight
Exquisite wine
Ready to shoot
Straight to the brain
Unraveling the ties,
Letting the pieces fall)

Myself in fragments

Scattered upon the floor

Of who I really am

(or who I never knew
But learned to grow
Apart from.
Caged in my fear
Savagely
Awaiting freedom
So prohibited
;Slavery)

Until I shed my shell

(the painted
Actionfiguretell
Of the mold
I came from.
An assembly line model
Struck in posses
Clothed in garments of
Rejected leisure)

And feel my truenity

(the gentle nature
Peel out
And bloom
Like the dark rose
I’ve seen time and time again
Amidst a lot of pebbles
Waiting so eagerly
To be picked by
The one naïve
Green soul
To let the eye fall
In color
And lick the blood of christ
So tainted
With illusion)

***** the finger

Let the blood run out

Bleed me out

( ailments birthed
of a gentle betrayal
disease my being.
embalmed of any
logic for sense
the salvation of patience is
left by the wayside;
a token for those who
stop to think )

My sanity ridded

Corpse

A poor excuse

For my former self

(falling)

And the scarecrow dreams(




                                                                                


                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                    to fly.

It’s

Not a token drawn around the neck, but

A

Jewel upon the finger that will forever dream

Sad

Memorys branded into the very tissues; a

Thing

Made to torment the mind until the day comes

When

Our earthly mother calls us.

The

Fruits of our nature dry a bond that's

Only

Broken by the lord himself. My cries, the

Sounds

of Hades in the pounding of my death

Are

scarabs that peel the skin away in

Footsteps

Treading across my soul, leaving scars

Of

Which I may never again love.

The

Thorns grow in craters of damages

One

Has, with no way back; leave

You

Without the means to help and cannot

Love

without something in return.

Walking

out will not chase me

away

I shed tears in the face of my anxiety,

Gentle

Warm

But They do nothing to resuscitate the hardened exterior

Jagged

Cold

I sweep the floor on my way to your feet

Begging

Weeping

Breath to me life I know you can give

Love

Heart

Save my soul that’s in your hand

Withered

Beaten

Naught can but you, my love

Trust

Trust

Can tell what I know you won’t

Lie

String

Only I can do what I’ve never wanted,

Lost

Found

I conceive no fact to life

Down

Deep

My only salvation in your arms

Love

love

So cold it leaves me in the rain

Alone

cold

I bind the chain around my ankle,

Straining

Chaining

And surrender to the depths of your waters

In you

In you I am safe

This gentle face shown through a scratchy glass

Will trick my mind across the bridge to walk

And catch my eye to stop when meant to pass

And leave me sprawled inside a frame of chalk.

The lines that break the sky and draw her smile

And bleed into the grooves and out of sight

Amidst my mind are lost but for a while

And carve a brand new meaning in this light.

I wonder if the glass could be undone

However fright’ning that the truth may be

To bring the gift of truth so better won

And lay my mind to rest as I can see

To look inside and peer upon the gears

Will only go to chisel in my fears.

GLUTTONY


Go ahead and gorge yourself upon gallons of gaudy garments,
Gaining more weight got by galling garish goods I guess won’t
Ground

Let loose to the luscious luxuries of lackluster lemon and
Lots of lulling bedtime letters that will surely let at bay the
Ladies

Unravel your unctuous mind and unwrap the unstoppable urge
That undeniably lives under unruly layers of
Unproductive

Together bring the talk of taking another tackle to your taciturn tally,
Taller the score and take down the tormenting tickling
Tack

Over and over in obscure ovals until objective becomes apparent
Only leaving orbs of former obliqueness’ obliging to
Object

Never again nourish the need to negate the null to nonsense,
Leave behind the knots of then and live the neat of
Now

Yesterday was yellow in yielding to yearning and
Today is your yet to the question of no or
Yes











GREED



Gradualy every great thing grounded in your gaudy life will grain,
Falling from grander to
Greed

Run away you realize will render you ridiculously reeled
Be the regal recall of natures
Ranting

Even then elude the everlasting elasticity of your sins
Only to elect your own faults and
edict

Evermore entrapped in the entity of your greed which eels
Its way through your
Etiquettes

****** to depths of hell’s dungeons you will go down
If you never fix your
Deeds.







WRATH



Wound so tightly your will won’t save you when the
Day weans of light to
Wear

Repent all you require if you really must, no reprise
Will be your
Reward

Again and again you’ve all but alleged all of your agitations
And now do you
Abject

Too many you take to the top and through to the terrible
Tale of
Tartaras

How do you have your hallowed hot-headed hate now
Had by all you
hocked







SLOTH



Silently slithering fangs strike and pierce into your supple skin
The serpent of Hades himself forcing you to succumb to
your sloth

Legs let leave your longing to linger standing
The lull of the luscious leisure of laziness
Calling you

Over and over you omit the need to oblige
Object the obscurities and overcompensate the
obligation

Though it takes away tell of your toes, stunning your talk
Teathering you to a tree and leaving you to the
terrors

However hollow the halo, the hearth of hasty hearts, may be,
you cannot halt it before is has you in its hold
sleep








LUST


Linger in line a little longer until your litenous lust
lessens to lethargic
larceny

Undone and unset you undermind your unity
and uncite all uncertainty, understand to this
ulcer

Slung across a slat singing sultry in your stipple,
you slew to sound off your
sanity

Taught thoughtless logic tenderly apply topical treatment
to tape together the tatters, tonight a temporary
Tylenol








ENVY



Eject and exact illusions of elected goals eluding your reason
So eject them for
Ever

Never return, never negate the negligence of this nuisance,
Need it
Not

Vanquish your venomous vicarious visions so vivid
I assure you not very
Vivid

Yearn no more and yearn by years how yellow
Can yell the
Yetti








PRIDE



Perniciously palpable pigs of pride that so prate way their progress,
Putting all but prosperity in their own
Propensity

Ridiculously cold rendering the most righteous of realist,
Even relenting to the racketeering of a
Rider

I too see an iota of insolence in intemperate impostors
Of what internal instances tell us is
Intimidating

Down the street dally a day and discover how detrimental
Such a disease dilutes the delineation of our past
Delegation

Even if one ever eludes the elasticizes of this eccentric extortionist
Eventually another will emit it upon to you again
entirely

Leave then.

   If it so pleases you.

             I cannot take hold of why you wish so

But I cannot force you by my side, freedom a blessing.


I will tell you one thing though, that I find hard to pair with your leaving

                     That if you go, furious angels will bring you back to me

               And we will be as one once more

So leave if it so pleases you

I’ll see you again.


On the wings of a saint.

However softly do the heavens surrender to the soft thatching,

Through which a delicate silver scratches the path.

The brittle night kisses the skin

And leaves subtle rosy lipstick


The man is full this summers night

He can almost be seen, waving

Saluting the crystal sky as if to say

A word or two of keen wisdom


Alas, he cannot be heard, the distance too great

Scream into a pillow and lay to sleep

But a night owl he must be

For the night light’s still on.


With no more reserve than a drunkard

She and I part the broken mirror with puerile strokes.

The splendors of a woodland romance

Offering more than can be had in this world.


More swimming than waltzing,

Through the pool of molten silver

The moon has left us to play in

We place each step correctly


Out here only the elders bear witness to passing, She and I,

And  adrift in the Garden,

senseless of the path,

The shadows offer a place to hide.


A niche in the woods is found by I

And anxiously taken up by she

A seat is made away from the world

And begin to float in the warmth of it, she and I.


Drowning in bitter yearning,

That, a liquid chilled by the spring night,

My hand finds its way to hers,

And we together.  Us.

I watch the weaning day trace ribbons in the sky outside this Bayers café window. The last of the light darts behind street posts and rooftops, embalming any sense of the natural world from this concrete hillside. The very stragglers of life seem to flee into the gentle cracks wiggling into the pavement. Perchance there the earth may offer a warm bed for the night.

A sickly blue begins to tug down on the tendrils of the once cheerful summer sky, much like closing the shades in a cheap hotel room, leaving the world to pull the covers over its head and be lulled asleep by the soft glow of holes in the patchwork. If only there were a ’Do not disturb’ card to put on the door.

A token of light clinks off the window as I watch a young man raise his camera and poise himself, his thin brown hair struggling to stand in the increasingly aggravated breeze. An elderly man behind him too feels the strain as he is to be the last to walk before the rain. Both are pictures through the fogging window.

I glance down at the pale New York Times flung onto the small table in front of me. Grains in the wood scream in agony as the christened edges slice white across its surface. I try to read but the ink is smeared. It occurs to me that this crinkled mat of parchment is the only trace of me ever being here.

Perhaps the young man outside the window sees what I see, even though I know he cannot see me. And I know that when the lens winks it will tell of a lonely newspaper and a shadowed chair, but perhaps the one inspired artist who came along with a camera will try to read the tears between the lines - a forgotten man’s words to the world.

Let us go then, you and I

As the train bears west

To no eternal end.


Watch the world go by,

More or less.


If I am out of my mind,

I have no preconceptions.


But it is time,

One the edge of reason,

You and I.

A day when you dont smile,
Is a day when a sickly feather,
torn and withered,
falls from the sky.


Somewhere a saint feels the winter chill,
of a lightened load.


I spend these days scouraging,
collecting the fallen pieces,
praying with them to show,
that someone cares.


Someone knows,
and weeps with them


I pray only that they keep you,
under their wings in warmth
away from the world of man,
even though your woe takes away their standing


So smile, love
The saints themselves are on their knees for you

I often sit here and run my hands over the smooth shard of glass
that portrudes from my chest.
I feel it.  Everyday.  Everynight.
and wonder if someday i could yank it loose.
feel the pinch no more;
The pain of my heart as it warbles, trying to survive; cut in half.
I know i must keep one eye on the horizon, for hope ill see that day approach

If i look down, I know through the glass ill see you,
all that can be seen,
struck through my being,
and my chin will fall,
and my breath will shallow,
and my heart will
stop.

for you, in my head,
live
and all i feel,
all
is you

A drill to the brain sha’nt cure the cancer of my heart,
A song so sweet can’t thin my blood of the past,
Flattering tongues run rant will play their course,
But I fear, oh I fear

There is light
Perhaps
Amidst the night

I felt his hands smooth the pieces,
With such love, oh such love
Spin the wheel and mold my clay
Thawed by his warmth.

There is light
Yes.
There is light.

Alas, the glue will not hold,
And my pieces fall away
I turn for them
For I fear, oh I fear.


There is light
Yes
But it burns too bright

A doe following intermittent lines
I’m blinded by the glare
And dash for my life
Leaving him

There is light
Yes.
and it blinds me