Seeds for birds, and seeds for me. 
Seeds that grow for me a tree.
Nature grows, and flows, is free;
As the way I share my seeds.

Feel pity for the turtle,
Born captive in a bowl.
Swimming in a circle,
A life been bought and sold.

He has his natural instincts,
Engrained in DNA.
I wonder what he thinks,
Being captive every day.

To him, it must feel wrong.
A missing link to life.
Pondering all along,
Why his surroundings don't suffice.

If released to the wild,
Survival would be scarce.
He's been captive since a child.
Born an artificial heir.

The turtle knows only this society,
It's what he's been born into.
His intuition - alive, indeed,
Tells him what turtles do.

I watch him in his tank, a curse.
How it must feel strange.
Born to fulfill a turtle's life purpose,
But forced into walls, by humans who exchange.

I feel pity for the turtle,
Then realize my foolishness.
Humans, too, know the artificial -
Yearning for natural happiness.

We build up our own glass walls,
And bear children to not see,
That there is life beyond this all,
That offers more than we think we need.

We, too, are like turtles,
Having a purpose to fulfill.
We overcome so many hurdles,
Within glass walls that ****.

A throng of poppies
like a lolling maroon tongue
that slumps into water
hundreds of crushes
split the scene
sunlight licks through trees
with a warm caress

autumn foliage comes to play
a swell of golden shapes
dangle from spindly arms
dance over the river
shimmering cerulean
as molten steel
on a late October morning

I was born on a belt
In the factory of man,
Rolled into a home,
Labeled and stamped.

My life was made honest
By ink on a page,
And my future controlled
By a system of wage.

My whole life thus far,
Two decades of lame,
Incompetent bureaucratic,
Institutional reign

Has seen us shuffled down
The educational lane,
Made unified products;
For unified gain.

I was an infant sounding out
vowels on labels fixated with
complexions not hearts.
Sermons spoken spilled salt

on wounds shaped from moments
when the sword was mightier than the pen.
I was mute as black blood
streamed letters the mature read

and dismissed as chicken scratch.
Pleas to unlock the chains noosed
around my heart, never heard,
until my ears opened to self acceptance—

the song hearts dance to without shame,
the vernacular spoken without stutter.
The key frees my soul from shackles
and dissolves the branded lesions borne.

They were just words.