I have been picking up more poetry lately
tightly bound in little books
ink blots on long gone trees

I hope that by reading more poetry
more lines and rhymes and colorful analogies
I could become a writer with words worth reading

I have read those books with prose
disguised as poetry, lacking meaning
and depth with such phrases like
You Are Air and I Breathe You In

I cannot stand the uselessness of prose
without thought
but I also cannot stand poetry
without impact

But I will keep collecting poetry
someone's thoughts on delicate pages
in case I happen upon someone else's words
worth reading

you are broken
when you don’t realize
love will make a fool of you.
even when all the signs tell you to run,
you choose to stay,
convincing yourself that you were made for this.
like our love story was one worth it all
we fought for nothing
thinking that everything will work itself out.

thinking that everything will work itself out,
we we fought for nothing,
like our love story was one worth it all.
convincing yourself that you were made for this,
you chose to stay,
even when all the signs tell you to run,
love will make a fool of you,
when you don’t realize,
you are broken.

soon or perhaps sooner
the ultimate upgrade
will be the game-changer
Quixote’s been chasing
since...
forever;

from **** to robo-sapien
by slight of man’s
intelligent design
coded to perfection
like heaven;

an ailing heart replaced;
a failing lung recharged;
the vigor of youth reclaimed;
the rigors of age erased;

with a singular click
or flick of a switch
on the wall to eternity
and beyond
where nanotechnology reigns
and the human brain
is a dial-up modem.

~ P

(5/10/18)

I found you

lone brick, of a million, one part of a mortared whole

your brothers now buried by time, without benediction  

progeny of clay, shale, you were born in a kiln as hot as all creation

dragged to this plain by spoked wheel and mule--sweat of the honest illiterate

long before the dusters blew the crops to hell, and Tom Joad's kin to the promised land

the mason who laid you in a proud straight row is now in the ground too

not a mile from you, where the county put him the hot Friday a man set foot on the moon

the bricklayer’s days with the trowel long past, his memories of you, your place in all weathers interred with him  

I found you , and you are the man’s legacy, he yours

Upon a milky hill
beneath the mounds of snow
Frozen with the horn I took
but was too afraid to blow
Beyond the sound of muffling
around the river’s bend
Walked a true love of mine
to whom I was a friend
Come cast your voice yonder
Your shrill towards the sky
I hope for your hand in mine
I am afraid to die

called, "when I am dead"

and what came to mind, while
pecking away

were thatched roof cottages, hedgerows
all along a cliff,

and waves below whipping against
earth's spine

farther out were great swells
and black ships foundering

sea serpents were darting through
the green depths

this spectacle was silent, the screaming
men, the crashing waves

even the charcoal sky, threaded with a
thousand bolts of lightning

birthed no thunder, though I didn't
wonder why

I was supposed to among the dead
where vibrations abound

though none pound against
eardrums

such silence, I was told, was tantamount
to solace

but men were drowning, and fires leapt
across the waters

and no passage led up the cliffs to home
and sanctuary from this terrific tempest