"You deserve someone who'll wipe away all your tears and tell you it'll all be ok."

                                                           ­                          *Well ****

I stood as still as I could.
Trying to hold in my breath, trying to turn invisible, trying to melt into the wall I steadied myself upon. My heartbeat thumped in my ears drowning out all other sounds.

Were my feet nailed to the floor by fascination? or was it disgust? The knot in my stomach laid no reliable argument to these rushing emotions.

My eyes followed his hands; the way he gripped her hips, the way his fingers traced her jaw. My eyes also followed his lips; how he pressed them almost reverently against the base of her clenched neck.
I watched as he inhaled her scent like he was being squeezed out of breath.

She struggled against his grip. Her eyebrows knit together in an unsightly frown. She halfheartedly pushed him off her weak body. It almost looked like she didn't want to resist, but her pride pulled her away from yielding. She was shaking, her form disheveled, yet it wouldn't sway him.

I felt a stinging in my eyes, that all familiar burning I experienced when I felt that twinge of paranoia. That burning paranoia that plagues me now, as my worst fears are embodied.

How could she easily dismiss him like that?
When I lay nights awake craving his skin, his breath, his words.

I have spiraled out of view, just a faceless backdrop in his hopeless love story.

How could a person hate and love so much at the same time?
It just goes to show that the world doesn't work that way, it works to crush you. All these emotions spurt out at once, as a lesson for all the lucky fools watching you.

And all of a sudden
it doesn't matter anymore.

Where you are,
where you were
why must I care?

We were already separated
by those invisible barriers.
Bound to some unseen threads.

You to me, and I to you
were illusions.
Like characters from a novel
striving to meet between lines,
shocked
by an unhappy ending
occurring all of a sudden.

Little red riding hood
Running through the forest
Doesn't even see the wolf
She doesn't feel his presence

Little red is rumored to
Have senses keen and quick
But she doesn't feel his pounding paws
Or hear the snapping of a stick

All she thinks is "Get to grandma's
"Before it turns dark"
But he's sneaking his way to her
Blending in with the tree bark

Her heart is pumping up a storm
From all the adrenaline
While he is hiding in the bushes
His stare is quite intense

Just before she can stroll by
He pounces from position
And strikes her with his paw so hard
She loses her ambition

Seeing death before it comes
She curls into herself
Her life just flashes cruely
To where all she thinks is "help"

A bang as loud as thunder
Echos hauntingly to her ears
And she flinches away from where
The wolf should have been, submitting to her worst fears

A gentle voice calls Little Red's name
And she snaps her head up fast
Seeing a dead wolf lying there
All she can think is "at last"

Remembering the person who'd called her name
She witnessed a scene of her grandmother
Slowly lowering the tip of a gun
And giving her a smile like no other

"Well done, grandmother," Red quickly cheered
Clapping her hands as she stood
But her grandmother shook her head and sighed to herself
"You've got dirt all over your hood."

(happy  belated first birthday, po-hymn)*


To whomever you pray to,
And if there is no such icon,
Then I hymn-hum to you, this tribute


Let all my mistakes, my typographical errors,
Like writing poem and getting back po-hymn,
Bring delights to keep, to grow ancient on my face,
For from every accident, we grow and bend,
New tree leaning towards our collective inner
Sun Ra.

I am no David, psalms and hymns,
Unreadily exist, so dug deep Lord,
To write this prayer, for my brethren.
Just one day, someday, let heaven
Grant only poets births, no passings took.

Give us goodness and grace
All the poems of our day.
Shed special light all about our faces,
From our shoulders, rise up insight inside our heads,
Brighten, enlighten, give us eloquence and sanity.

Let our missives dismiss the gloom,
Polish, remove the tarnish, we cannot secret
From the all seeing confessions taker,
Honesties writ daily but never published.

Give us meter, yes, give us rhyme,
To make sense of the grey days,
The black hole invaders,
Given iris-shine be our responsibility,
But a sweet nudge, prithee,
Enhance our impoverished ability.

This Sabbath day your fog-hide
Your gift of bay and beach
So quiet implore, beseech,
Keep the sailors safe,
And your poets saved.

I ask much.
But I ask for all of us,
There are so many such
That are booster-chair needy
That I am succumbed, overwhelmed,
Enormity fearsome needs help even from a deity.

Small words, big hopes.

If you cannot grant it,
Won't wait for intervention,
Do it myself, answer prayers one and all,
Best I can, starting now with this
Po-hymn.

July 13th for always
Pohymn.    Such are prayers born

The things I do for love,ask my shoes.