Some people want
nothing to do with you
until your success
becomes something
that they **envy

Painters hands always so messy oiled up
reek of turpentine smoke moonshine
Alizarin crimson streaks lamp black roots
their faces gesso'd to unreality they fan
brushes broken
canvases filled to their brim
much as poets
who reek of  one day's and starlights
mountain peaks they haven't seen
Martini's black in white spaces, coats waiting to attack,
tie up.
With dried up pens, filled notebook paper.

she writes of the falling days
- knows them well, one can tell

simple things like string
and wrappings
autumn and swallows -
hollow places she has seen
in boxes and photographs

and so it is -  the falling days
the number of birds at my feeder are fewer
no more humming, no painted buntings
-only my homies come now, my vato birds, my mijas

the cardinal, both red and green
the nuthatch and chickadee, the titmouse-
all three
the wrens and finches, too-

and the blues still like to bathe
in the pyrex baking dish sun warmed
on a sunny day-serenaded by the mocking
one hopping from grub to worm below

- my usual feathered friends
not caring about the weather-fair or foul
and in the pale blue, a gull still laughs
at the folly of it all-

leaving goes slowly-
a spiraling, a gust of wind-
days slowly graying
shorter, lightly fading
- friends, they go

the falling days, change and leavings
leave me - well, you know...

i see the simple things
that soothe, like string
and wrappings, swallows -

- autumn, you know?

r ~ 10/6/14

Smiling politely in the local store,
another happy shopper that most would ignore,
but what torrid secrets lay under her grin
the tainted stigma of that hidden sin,

she wraps up her fears with the things that she’s bought,
packed into bags without a thought,
the knots in her stomach drive her insane,
for she knows that tonight there’ll  be anguish and pain,

She drinks her coffee and stares at the clock,
It’s ticking hands seem to laugh and mock,
her doleful eyes are starting to mist,
as she thinks of the bruises made by his fist,

Violently  thrown onto a bed,
pinned down and stifled as if she was dead,
pretends not to feel the hatred and pain,
as her virtue is stolen again and again,

She’s sick of the broken promises and lies,
prays to a God who never replies ,
Its all tucked away where no one can see,
longing for the day that her soul will be free.

At twenty one thirty ,
and far away,
she made up her mind
and couldn't stay.

Her pain was too much,
for her to bare
I tried to reach out,
but she didn't care.

At just seventeen,
she had been through hell,
Could not escape
her molested cell.

Nowhere to go,
seeing darkness around,
No escape for this girl,
only hell bound.

I begged her to stay,
she said go away,
Why do you care?
I bowed down to pray.

She grabbed the blade,
going deeper every time,
Slashed her wrist,
I cried and I cried.

A thousand miles away,
I am now in somber.
Why did you leave me?
I will always remember.