My father was a philosopher, or liked to pretend as much.
He couldn’t look at the world for what it was, but rather what it represented.
“This tree isn’t just a tree,” he’d say,
“It’s a symbol of the wisdom of man,
growing until it’s cut away, stripped, and used for God knows what purposes.”
To me, it was just a wooden friend made for climbing.

There was a frozen lake near us he often gazed over while driving to the 7-11 for cigs.
He said it was a perfect image of impermanence:
a beautiful crystal sea with solid skin, soon to melt, and become a bathtub to wash the local compost clean.

My brother and I go sledding on our snow days.
If you don’t, well, it might as well be a weekend,
or a grading day,
or Flag Day.

We’d slide across that glassy plain on our bellies,
our hearts beating through the ice;
music for the fishes below.
It was in those days that I thought of my life as perfect,
and I realized all the possibilities that the fire of my youth could fuel.
Well, one day our hearts beat too fast,
or too strong,
or the fish wished to meet the musicians, or something happened for reasons which I still can’t come to terms with.
The glass… it shattered.
And my brother fell through the other side,
to dance with the herrings and sturgeons till he was all out of breath.
And he tired quickly of the dance.
And I wasn’t a strong enough partner to lead him off the dancefloor.

My father, when he heard the news of his son’s new hobby,
it was as though every book he ever read,
and every four-syllable word he ever knew,
and every overdrawn metaphor he ever spoke were all just a weird series of lies.
He swam into his bedroom, and through a blizzard of thrown pictures, sobs, and “*****” he calmed himself to stupor.


He went in the room my father, the intellectual, and came out as Roy, the sorrow-drunken spatter of roadside slush.
Whenever we pass the lake, he no longer comments on what it represents, but rather what it is:
“a ******-up graveyard for innocent little angels.”  
The world is no longer a set of symbols, but a tangible environment,  
though one he looks at through a lens of tears and amber bloodshots.  
My father is no longer a philosopher, but a poet, spitting out sonnets of regret and rage.  

And as for me, I haven’t really much to talk about.
I guess I’m sitting stagnant, frozen.  
I don’t want to be like my father, but I’m realizing it’s inevitable.
I haven’t felt anything genuine since his heart beat its last song.
Hell, I don’t even sled on snow days anymore.  
They might as well be a weekend,
or a grading day,
or Flag Day.

I’m squatting in a chairless bathysphere,
a rusted windowed pearl of a vessel,
leagues away from any honest light or life.
I’m locking my knees to pointed right angles,
trying to keep the tendons taut;
if they relax for a single moment,
the surrounding ocean will spill in.

It comes down to the reflective question:
Is it better live isolated and uncomfortably,
Or slowly die with your atmosphere stuffing your throat?

The answer should be obvious,
but when your thighs scream and your forehead melts,
it’s hard to put yourself on such a pedestal.

I sweat and focus on how satisfied I will be if I keep squatting;
How impressed others’ll be and the things they’ll say!

Against all odds and immeasurable pain, he tensioned his body for *** days.
Imagining such quotes warmed me, and filled me with a salted hope.

And as I obsessed over their admiration,
a sudden shock went through my body, following a swift splash of skin.
My *** hit the cast-iron floor.

My eyes capped white in panic and reprieve.
I gasped -

In last eve's dream
We lay amid tall grass
Aside slow stream,
Share wine again
From one stemmed glass
Press lips, red stained
Ever avow our tomorrows.
But sun soon comes
Day demanding chores
Reverie must rest undone,
Mind mask its sorrows.
Pages once torn
And cast to wind
That new stories could form
Still flutter back in
To sweeten dark nights
Still real, my secrets

.
I am part soul,
I'm here for a kiss.
I grasp at her stars'
photosynthesis.

My long lost Atlantis,
a rose from dead seas.
She shows me the doors,
but hands me no keys.

I'm the fallen columns
all scattered about.
"Twenty thousand leagues!"
I heard someone shout.

She's my chipped chiseled stone
below the mucked mire
that leads me beyond
Calcutta's cold fire.

Ah! Lethargic genius,
there's gathering birds
where dogs lap at the *****
we mistook for your words.

She hides in my veins
while it's raining outside.
She's my universal
osmosis suicide.

She really is...






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~sweet cherry blossom

losing their power to cling

paints an old man's sky-


a pink path softly
lays at the foot of Mt. Fugi,
as a young girl collects withering flowers-

in a brown wicker basket.

                            ~

Soft clouds slide up one side of Fugi,
and then they slide down the other.

Koi leap through a thin veil of petals-

and water.

Cool rivers winding like time...~













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Count the stars in a moonless sky
as Borealis dances alone.
Reminds me of a cold, distant fire--
or childhood memories churning.
                  *
Making their bed on the cooling sand,
a new lovers' fire consumes.
Embers crackle and the night rages on
while the rest of the world's slowly burning.
                  *
Borealis, twists and turns and
sings,"How sweet the sound,"
as a sleepy ocean lullaby
comes crashing to the ground.
                 *
You've got comets and Cupid's
arrows falling all about
as dolphins race through
an electric atmosphere.
                 *
Where time and man
co-exist as thought,
when you choose the right door
you're outta here.
                 *
Count the stars in a moonless sky
as Borealis dances alone.
Reminds me of a cold, distant fire--
or childhood memories churning.
                  *
Making their bed on the cooling sand,
a new lovers' fire consumes.
Embers crackle and the night rages on
while the rest of the world's slowly burning.
                  *
Borealis, twists and turns and
sings,"How sweet the sound,"
as a sleepy ocean lullaby
comes crashing to the ground.






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