Some people die in Texas.
Some people die in Spain.
Some people die in their sleep.
Some people die in pain.

We were all in love with trauma.
We were all in love with the same
ideas we projected onto people
and disguised with their name.

I don't live in nine-eleven-land
and neither do my peers.
I've been monitored by other people's Gods
for twenty-two ******* years.
Coffee pots and cigarettes
stimulate my day
and keep the thoughts streaming,
that eventually fade away.

Some people die in Utah.
Some people die in Prague.
Some people never get married
or have the family dog.

We were all in love with status.
We were all in love with goals
that would make life poignant
and make ourselves whole.

I don't subscribe to the thought
that my thoughts necessarily matter.
If life is a horror movie,
then I'm the fake blood splatter.
Bible thumps and dead eyes,
are all part of my design,
and how I live and where I die
means to separate my mind.

the bells rang to alert the heavens
of earth's whereabouts
watery evening oratory has tinged
allegiances to rightness blue with tears
recent tales amplify the heaviness
of every word
will echoes offer heat, take away the
ruthless blizzards, will they?

-c.j.

Walking to work
Pausing to watch westering geese
Cross the early tints of sky
Formation fraying from V to S
One day Ill fly away
Remembering another morning
They turned in air, downriver
Whilst you slept
My hand pinioning your bare shoulder
Lips kissing your nape

As I read your poetry
I wonder if it's true
Do the demons that help in rhyme
Really have a hold of you

And is the one you say you love
Not returning you the favor
In the poems that you pen
Is this all your life's behavior

Does your father really raise his fist
While your mother screams
As alcohol flows freely in your life
Or is it just poetry

Are you on the verge of suicide
And do you truly cut yourself
Do you feel that worthless in your life
Is what you write a cry for help

As I read your poetry
It often sets me off to wonder
Do you write about yourself
Or do you write about another

Two separate divided silences,
Which, brought together, would find loving voice;
Two glances which together would rejoice
In love, now lost like stars beyond dark trees;
Two hands apart whose touch alone gives ease;
Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame,
Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same;
Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas:—

Such are we now. Ah! may our hope forecast
Indeed one hour again, when on this stream
Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam?
An hour how slow to come, how quickly past,
Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last,
Faint as shed flowers, the attenuated dream.