Time spent in obsessive contemplation
Of infinite paths of infinite ifs.
How many if only buts today alone?
I could be infinitely different.

My head hurts, my soul is so uncertain.
I’m this, and not infinite other ifs.
I am from mistakes of pure carelessness,
I am random intentional choices.

My world is what it is, but is that all?
What remains of other infinite ifs?
I have memories of worlds that weren’t,
Of worlds that might be infinitely worse.

There is an unknown me inside of me,
Who pursued some other infinite ifs.
And yet, what if I chose right every time?
What if that unknown me is also me?

Calming with the softness of your skin,
Sated of my hunger for your kiss,
Nourished by the state you put me in,
Feeding this soul’s appetite for bliss.

Craving delicacies of your eyes,
Sensing sunrise warmth of your embrace,
Mornings such as this I energize
With anticipation of your face.

Awake to the honey of your tongue
And fluttering eyelash on my cheek,
You’re the morning hope of day still young,
You provide for me the love I seek.

She’s a figment for vulnerable men
Who see beauty through self-loathing windows.
Her beauty is far too much to take when
It pierces the heart where passion’s sin goes.

Ashamedly smitten men curse their eyes
For beholding beauty they don’t deserve.
They seek her attention, she ignores their cries.
They grovel on their hands and knees to serve.

Her nakedness sows men’s basest skin’s need,
For intimate contact with lurid thought.
She is the temptress, they’ll follow her lead,
Through gates of despair their lustfulness brought.

She strikes men dumb just because she is there.
They have nothing real and pure to compare.

Her voice lingers in the air, still and dead,
Stifling like oppressive August haze,
Stagnant musty pressure upon the head,
Like humid air that hasn’t moved for days.

Her voice lingers, her words stuck to my skin,
Putrid filth I can never wash away,
As unforgiving as a mortal sin,
I can’t be cleansed of what she had to say.

Her voice lingers, her “no” rings in my ears,
A branding iron of shame on display,
Her answer to my love will last for years,
Words I did not deserve to hear her say.

Her voice lingers, its echo like a pall,
Her voice lingers, “I don’t love you at all.”

Music—the score of victories,
triumphant cymbals of success
of orchestrated histories,
to regal anthems to impress.

Music—scribbled notes to recall,
arranged in sync with beating hearts
resounding with clarion call,
of overtures meaning imparts.

Music—felt across Earth’s measure,
in staccato revelation
that accompanies God’s treasure—
the symphony of creation.

Music—God’s whistle in the wind,
that piano voice, in us He set
the atonal key, blessed or sinned,
music is our divine duet.

You exist, and I wonder how.
Of desires I feared to allow?
From dreams, did God make you somehow?
By my design are you here now?

I longed for hair silky and black,
Hung to the spot I’d rub her back,
Who’d be my aphrodisiac,
By you I am taken aback.

Your hips are curved to my design,
Perfect taste when your lips meet mine,
Made as if by a poet’s line,
I am a man but you’re divine.

I saw you before I could see,
A thought I thought inside of me,
I sculpted you in fantasy,
How is it you have come to be?

I was not alive until my first breath,
Inhaling the spirit of the divine.
And yet I was alive without living
Till you kissed me and your breath became mine.

Each breath I took filled my lungs with stale air
But my heart remained dark as an eclipse.
Now the quickened breath that lights up my heart
Is the moment I seal my mouth to your lips.

My mouth only used for meaningless speech,
With a tongue that had no reason to be.
But you kissed me and its purpose was clear,
My tongue dances with yours delicately.

Breathing was just my excuse to survive
But I breathed in life that was less than whole.
Now I survive on the breath of your kiss
Kiss me again and breathe life to my soul!

There are two kinds of waiting:
Hopeful and hopeless.
Hopelessness is weary angst,
Violent eddies of despair.
Nervous pacing while staring
The mind battling the heart.
Hopefulness is jubilant,
Spontaneous leaps of joy.
Nervous tapping of your feet
Ready to meet life head on.
There are two kinds of waiting:
Hopeless and hopeful.  
But neither prevents waiting.

Spaces
Between the letters of a word
Between the words on a page
Between each breathless sound I heard
Between those moments as I age.

Spaces
Between my eyelids and my tears
Between the sniffles of my cries
Between the drums of my two ears
Between the whites of my two eyes.

Spaces
The nothingness of emptiness
A place no physical exists
The center of all loneliness
The comfort of the pessimist.

Spaces
They’re places asking to be filled
They have meaning in their presence
To those both soulful and strong-willed
Space is where they find their essence.

Oh you bless’d eyes, how can I forgive you?
I trusted you to find beauty unloosed,
To hallow it, beauty from Heaven true.
But you wandered, looking to be seduced.

Oh you bless’d eyes, how can I still trust you?
I closed you at night with dreams as your guide,
And bid you find each day’s beauty anew.
But you opened, sought fantasy and lied.

Oh you bless’d eyes, why should I let you see?
I gave you the rainbow’s colors and hues,
To enjoy life’s beauty and majesty.
But you went dim, after the darkest views.

Oh you bless’d eyes, what sight now shall remain?
No beauty below, no solace above.
Please find me beauty to ease my heart’s pain!
But you’ve gone blind, useless to find true love.

Countless voices singing their little hymns
converge in a glorious harmony,
sing song lyrics that celebrate my whims
perform a symphony inside of me.

My heart conducts a most enchanted choir,
of booming bass sung to uplifting heights
and tenors sweeter than King David’s lyre,
a singer for each of my heart’s delights.

The joy within erupts in songs of praise
to a life hitting every perfect note,
and hearing what my inner chorus says
in melodies from places most remote.

All the conflicting voices had been wrong
until they all declared my love in song.

Like the fruit tree that every spring,
Blooms when it senses flow’rs should be,
Knowing at once what fruit to bring,
It has a flawless memory.

To see the sun rise every morn,
And know it never skips a day,
Forgotten not since Earth was born,
It’s memory can’t fade away.

When petals of a flower spread,
Ere they go dormant in the fall,
Entice a bee and feathered head,
It’s memory gives food to all.

When nature has a vital need,
It knows what God already knew.
As plants have mem’ry in their seed,
I’m born with memory of you.

The incessant need for togetherness,
More alone than a single blade grass,
Relationships that need foreverness,
As fused as are the grains of sand in glass.

Relentlessly seeking love through giving,
From an abyss of generosity,
To connect with loving souls is living,
With such self-proclaimed virtuosity.

To be close is just to make someone feel,
To give just to elicit emotion.
And love returned for giving is the deal
Like a returning pendulum’s motion.

This instinct brings innocents elation.
Why does it reek of manipulation?

This cloak of self-deception blocked the light
So shades of darkness were all I could see.
While the radiance of truth shined so bright,
Intensity of blackness blinded me.

A sorry past saw all future as lies,
And faithlessness had closed my every door.
While I knew light was just beyond my eyes,
My dead soul would not let me see once more.

But hope’s the curse of a defiant mind!
My need for love begged my heart to let go.
Accustomed to the darkness, I was blind,
When I looked at my future’s shining glow.

Squinting I let my faithful eyes adjust,
To happiness beyond me I should trust.

When the clouds part just a sliver
And the sun is like an echo,
O’er the Earth with light to give her,
To make a ray of sunlight glow.

Angels pass upon the sunbeam,
They carry light from God above,
Our so one ray of light would seem.
With sky awash in aural love.

A point of light from overhead
Expands around us from the gray,
Like a halo upon our head
Adorning us on our dark day.

To see Heaven illuminate,
When all the light has been obscured,
Reminds us that it’s not too late.
The world is sick but can be cured.

Sweet angel, tell me everything.
I’m not afraid of anything.
Let your worst troubles speak aloud.
You won’t transform to a dark cloud.

Sweet angel, I’ve made space for you,
A safe place where you can be true.
My love has ears for what you say.
Your troubles won’t scare me away.

Sweet angel, we’re beyond compare,
But we’re more than a love affair.
The two of us want something real.
Stressful days are part of the deal.

Sweet angel, we’ve laughs and kissing.
There’s no fear our joy’s gone missing.
It doesn’t matter what you share;
It’s sharing that proves love is there.

Sweet angel, my love ain’t too proud.
A little sadness is allowed.
Don’t let your down times change to fear.
When those times come I will be here.

Mr. Newton and Einstein can keep it.
So far I’m handling it all on my own.
Unlike Isaac who’d under a tree sit,
I don’t need gravity to keep me down.

They say when you’re happy you’re flying high.
But that must mean we’re destined for sadness
Because no human can stay in the sky.
While gravity just adds to the madness.

Pain and suffering from separation
When true love should attract us together.
And it’s gravity’s sole occupation
To pull two bodies closer together.

A cruel scientific duality,
With no power over my massive heart.
I have got no use for you, gravity.
When it seems I’m always falling apart.

She draws attention with spellbinding dance,
No man has ever looked and looked away.
So much mistaken beauty for romance,
Those men who see with just their eyes, her prey.

Her body is the uniform she wears,
Nubile and innocent in father’s eyes.
Enchanting beauty fueled by endless stares,
Of men who see with blindness idolize.

She’s only all the beauty, nothing more,
And nothing else she ever wants to be.
The promise of a Siren on the shore,
Exposed to every ****** on the sea.

She’ll never lack for men she can control…
Just not men who see Beauty with their soul.

My courtship is like autumn chill,
An omen to the nervous trees,
Who hold their warmth by staying still,
Before the comfort of green flees.

The steady chill has no effect,
The leaves resist their urge to fall,
The branches hold ever *****,
Resisting the whistling winds call.

With the first frost there is a change,
The tree becomes vulnerable,
The nakedness of its trunk is strange,
But change is inevitable.

My poetry has worn away,
The leaves you wore for protection,
That frost came when you heard me say,
Magic words of my affection.

Holding hands, we’ve got a reason
To be together.
Taking a stand, for a moment in time
And forever.

We’re all here,
Because we care,
About something.
We each speak,
but together
One voice matters

Sickened by the news,
Hate against Blacks and Jews.
Schoolchildren aren’t safe,
Tiki torches in our face,
their light shows, we’re all one race.
No one wants your view,
But I do,
And the women scream,
“Me too!”

Arm in arm, defending our rights
For each other.
Sound the alarm, have we stopped caring
For one another?

Thoughts and prayers
Are all we hear,
We need more.
If we all,
speak together
Our voices matter.

We can’t feed our poor,
But the rich keep getting more.
Instead of bridges,
We get walls.

When did we go blind, to the suffering
Of the stranger,
who’s our neighbor?
I can’t just be for me, if I’m free,
So people, follow me.

Open your eyes, staring down power
For freedom.
Time to rise, pray with your feet.
We need you.

Speaking up,
Because silence,
Grows evil.
If we all,
March together
Our footsteps matter.
We spend more on defense,
But we never invest,
In those we most need to protect.

Land of opportunity?
Shutting doors?
What future is in store?
Now is our time.
Get in line.
Your voice,
Is mine!

Residing at depth so deep,
Encapsulated by madness,
A heart once broken heals itself.

Darkness itself has no meaning
There, where light has never been seen,
The place that hearts must go to heal.

The infinite is closer than
The distance away from sorrow
A heart must travel to be healed.

A place no love can penetrate,
Where loneliness is redundant,
Broken hearts become whole again.

In that beyond, the seconds tick,
As time, ever the master waits.
Time, immanent time, heals the heart.

At night I close my eyes to see beauty,
and then in the morning I open them.
This is the essence of being awake—
to open your eyes to live your dreams, or
live without them because you don’t need them.

All the world’s beauty to appreciate
includes the beauty worth dreaming about,
and beauty about which I dared not dream.
There is beauty in darkness and in light—
who am I not to fall in love with it?

I’ve dreamt of beauty I could not describe,
but nor can I describe beauty I’ve seen.
To encounter beauty is irony—
it stops my heart and makes me feel alive,
touched and moved by ethereality.

I thought I heard a chirping bird
just about this morning’s sunrise.
Don’t think a mating call I heard—
sounded like a shriek of surprise.

I was surprised, too, and quite so.
Not from the bird’s chirp. Well, perhaps.
There were puddles instead of snow,
and snow-plowed mountains in collapse.

That chirping bird and I both saw
the cautious springing up of spring.
But while that bird sang to the thaw,
I don’t think I’m done worrying.

Seasons ’round here don’t change like that.
Although winter has one more freeze,
the bird on its Tree Ararat,
celebrates forty-five degrees.

This morning it was just one bird,
soon maybe crickets will chirp, too.
But I think spring is seen not heard,
and that chirp’s too good to be true.

My sons, there’re things I hope you’ve learned,
About the proper way to live. 
And with any respect I’ve earned,
I’ve fatherly advice to give. 

If you’re alone and can’t connect,
There’s a girl and you can’t reach her,
Know that love follows intellect. 
Aspire first to be her teacher. 

To say “I love you” frequently
Is only good if you are true. 
The pain of loving secretly
Will always eat away at you. 

Nurture your curiosity,
Though there’s sometimes no solution. 
Let asking be your specialty,
And learning your evolution.  

Identify the righteous way,
Aware of who you’re meant to be. 
Your mirror at least once per day,
Should reflect pride in what you see. 

Each morning that you see the sun,
Appreciate your sense of awe. 
Know your soul will always be one
With your father’s God of Torah. 

Always give yourself to others
You can’t be selfish and content. 
If you err and hurt another,
It should never be with intent. 

When life gives you a broken heart,
Even if that heart is not yours,
Just find some wisdom to impart. 
Let self-compassion open doors. 

When you have children of your own,
And I’m in Heaven up above,
Know this, my son, you’re not alone—
Inside you is your father’s love.

Flayed and tattered,
Torn and shattered,
Bruised and battered,
Never mattered.

Self-invocation,
Self-immolation,
Self-molestation
No consolation.

Bridges burned,
Lovers spurned,
Disgrace earned,
Nothing learned.

Heart conflicted,
Soul afflicted,
Self-inflicted,
Contradicted.

Hard discipline,
But genuine,
The only sin
Is giving in.

If I could taste your kisses on my tongue,
Then I’d be stealing nectar from the gods.
Your kisses like ambrosia keep me young,
Like bloom of endless summer goldenrods.

In this, a moment calls our lips to meet,
To kiss like kisses are the only touch,
Your lips the honey nature made so sweet,
A sweetness which can never be too much.

Our kisses in our intimate embrace,
Without a thing to come between our skin,
Our immortality is face to face,
You open up to me and let me in.

If life is never-ending when we kiss,
Then let us not that moment ever miss.

Spinning, turning from night to day,
the world goes around and around.
“You’re wrong! The Earth is flat!” some say.
They’re wrong. You make the world go round.

Each day the sun will rise and set,
with songbirds as the morning sound,
all might seem calm and still, and yet,
your love’s making the world go round.

There’d be no stars and no night sky,
no constellations to be found,
if we couldn’t bid the Sun goodbye,
and you didn’t make the world go round.

The world greets me each day anew.
Time passes though I hold my ground.
Time itself seems derived from you,
because you make my world go round.

This tunnel of vision
defies indecision.
To choose with precision,
I hide from derision.

The voices outside me
tell me lies to guide me.
With no one beside me,
I hear what’s inside me.

I can find my out.
I’ve always done without
others knowing my route
or what I’m all about.

Though the tunnel’s unlit,
dark and loneliness fit.
I’ve made myself commit,
Straight ahead, and don’t quit!

If God created the World
        and all its Beauty to see,
What Beauty inspired Him,
        like your Beauty inspires me?

If God created the World,
        As Art for eternity,
What vision did He behold,
        Like yours is beheld by me?

If God created the World,
        where Love makes Man want to be,
What Love motivated Him,
        Like your love motivates me?

If God created the World
        within His own timelessness view,
What causes God’s timelessness
        Like those moments I’m with you?

If God created the World
        to bring living Life anew,
What made His life worth Living,
        like mine was not before you?

If God created the World
        but lived in His Creation,
What a World He would create,
        with you as inspiration!

I hear your echo in silence,
Your voice speaks to me in quiet,
With ears that hear feelings, not words,
In a heart to amplify it.

Your clearest words were not spoken,
But they resounded in my ears,
In a heart tuned to perfect pitch
Of loving feelings that it hears.

I listen to your heart beating
To know the words you have to say,
My heart understands love language
Said from a million miles away.

In despair that causes deafness,
Hope is the comfort your voice speaks,
With ears you’ve given to my heart
Your love is what my silence seeks.

The whole wide world would end
If the sun ceased to shine.
But my world would go on
For as long as you’re mine.

The Earth would be destroyed
If the planets collide.
But I’ll live forever
If you’re still by my side.

If every cloud opened
And all the living drowned,
I know that I’d survive
If I have you around.

Though I have no power
To survive mortal strife
It’s just a simple fact
That our love survives life.

I wish I’d known you longer,
Met earlier, been stronger.
I wish I’d not spent those years,
Without you, with all those fears.

I wish that our paths had crossed,
Met earlier, I’d been lost.
I wish I’d have had the chance,
Without you, knew not romance.

I wish I had known your name
Met earlier, it’s a shame.
I wish I’d known who you were
Without you, past life’s a blur.

I wish that though we never
Met earlier, forever
I wish endless love and so
Without you, I never know.

The pantheon of misplaced fears,
Whose walls were built on oppressed tears,
Has been well-guarded through the years,
Hiding from curious man’s ears.

There is no faith that threatens fears,
Afflicting the weakest with tears,
No faith like that withstands the years,
Silent in curious man’s ears.

Unchallenged faith the true faith fears,
To give compassion through the tears,
Where questions repeat through the years,
Faith needs curious eyes and ears.

The curious confront faith’s fears,
The curious fight through faith’s tears,
The curious give faithful years,
The curious give faith their ears.

I have not that divine intercession
to pluck the right word from all been written,
that gifts to few the art of expression,
to write the poetry of the smitten.

I pen verses of no significance
that sing melodies in my ear of tin,
embarrassments to poets of romance
in whose company I wish I were in.

Oh, to write odes to nightingales and urns,
with love as an extension of my quill!
Although I do not lack passion that burns,
I’ve not the talent that matches my will.

Here is another literary blight
authored by one who just thinks he can write.

She breaks her own spirit from misplaced shame,
Afraid the world will know how she’s failing,
She never looks past the mirror for blame,
But wears a smile to hide that she’s ailing.

She guilts herself into constant giving,
But knows she needs to be taken care of,
Yet of that need she is unforgiving,
And of the fact that she’s not yet in love.

She’s constantly spinning out of control,
While frustrated she feels constantly stuck,
Lesser folks around her seem to live whole,
But asking for help makes her terror-struck.

Friends keep saying that she deserves better,
If only her neuroses would let her.

At last is this the morning that I seek?
To be awoken to the sunlit skies?
The morning melodies of the bird’s beak?
To end slumberous thoughts of dreams and lies?

The dew this morning wet between my toes
The chill of air not warmed yet by Sun’s rays.
Are these the gifts to which my soul arose?
Or like the morn am I still in a haze?

The brightness of the Sun turns the moon pale,
As life responds with cacophonous stir.
Do I have clarity to now set sail?
To leave the dark and dreadful, as it were?

But lo, a Sun that’s high above the sea,
Shall not be morn till you’re in love with me.

I think with my feelings, not with my mind.
My persistent heart leaves my brain behind.
The world that I see seems ever so real,
But I can never sense more than I feel.

While reason and passion fight over me,
I experience emotionally.
Instead of judging with thoughts in my head,
I’d rather resolve them in dreams instead.

I occupy life as if fantasy.
Truth without feeling seems a fallacy.
I trust in those instincts that bring me tears
And tune out rational words in my ears.

I’m giving up on following logic.
Too many thoughts have been catastrophic.
I no longer care what I’m thinking of.
From now on I listen only to love.

My heart frozen by icy rejection,
Not able to escape this shiv’ring chill,
Never felt the warmth of love’s selection,
Always feeling cold and alone and still.

My soul was frigid from not feeling love,
Frost bitten fingers from no one to touch,
Hopeless that someone fit me like a glove,
Yearning extinguished from burning too much.

Loneliness trapped me like a sheet of ice,
From which I would look out and curse the sun.
Love when love was not returned was my vice,
Prayed to be melted and you were the one.

So you poured out your love and I drank it,
Your love wrapped me in warmth like a blanket.

The girls never loved me.
Never when I was young.
Never when it mattered.
Not one tried to hug me.
I still feel how that stung.
Fixing what was shattered.

The girls never loved me.
I wrote poems each day.
I placed it in her hand.
Not one wrote back to me.
They just walked away.
It never worked as planned.

The girls never loved me.
Though they admired my mind.
But just to help with school.
But to really love me?
They may have been too kind.
I just was not too cool.

The girls never loved me.
But somehow I survived.
I made the uphill climb.
Someday they would love me.
Their needs had not arrived.
I was ahead of time.

There is no darkness, no fearsome
emptiness we allude to as
an excuse for sadness. We ne’er come
into the light each of us has.

Those restless nightmares, too evil
for scaring us into shameful
weak banality, so we will
live cautiously and shift blame still.

Where has your hope gone? Did you cast
it out of you, like some demon
you could not exorcise too fast?
It’s there, in the world you dream in.

Lazy darkness comes, too easy,
while to make light needs energy
of asking for life to “please be
constant inspiration for me.”

All criticism
Comes from the illusion of bravery,
From the pedestal
On which the lowliest men sit highest.

All criticism
Is someone’s projected false confidence,
From the pedestal
Upon which those who can do no wrong fall.

All criticism
Is a descent to egomania,
From the pedestal
Above small specks of blinding delusion.

All criticism
Derived from eyes whose lenses are mirrors,
From the pedestal
Elevated by its isolation.

If you ask me how deep a love should be
Don’t seek an answer quantitatively.
Love’s to be measured qualitatively,
Except that I love you infinitely.

If each love is its own variety,
Which one is the one between you and me?
Is it type one or type one hundred three?
My love for you is love infinity.

If you ask how much love I give to thee
For fear love might exceed capacity,
Man never loves to his ability.
Except me—I love you infinitely.

If you need me to love descriptively,
Each day I love you more infinitely,
I need new numbers mathematically,
For I love you more than infinity.

The only thing that’s saving me right now,
From full collapse of love’s desperation,
Is when I need your touch that I know how
To call upon my imagination.

Our bodies have spent so much time away,
But love we share is close enough to touch.
That’s why I feel your presence every day.
I’ll see you if I close my eyes too much.

There’s never enough time to hold you near,
Yet imagination shall never rest.
The feeling in my soul I hold so dear,
You are inside the heart inside my chest.

The you that’s real just had to plant your seed,
So that imagination fills my need.