What poetry do we say sounds like the truth or life?
How many paint a proper picture of things before us on an internal canvas?
But how many things bring out the poetry all on their own?
In this way, a proper tomato sandwich contains much more than juice, seeds, skin, and pulp-
It contains the thanks of a season's worth of work, wrapped up in a translucent layer, tough enough to veer a dull knife into finger, but thin enough to steer a sharp blade into herbaceous flesh,
Deep enough to pile high on a plateau of simple starch, waiting for the juice of a life grown outside rather than mixed in a sterile kitchen.
This fruit emerges from a jealous ground who would stockpile these gems away from the mineral salt and the crushed spice that brings meaning from the ground
Is this why the tomato harvested from another's nearby garden tastes all the sweeter than that plucked by an anonymous picker miles away from the pleasure it provides?
The summer provides the climate to agitate one so deeply that they burrow into the soil to find the refreshment that would quiet the tongue of hunger and bring resolution to a disquieted mind, so far removed from comfort.

In these stuck between hours
I discover the noise of being
that comes from an atmosphere
not used to being heard

The warping of the wooden doors
goes on unabashedly.
Like animals in untouched climes
they scurry along unaware
of conscious eyes that stare
only for selfish reasons

The observer adulterates
a once selfless night

Nowadays the timbers under
the floor have lost their
native timbre, taken on
a softer echo of carpet covered servility

Even after mistakes are recovered,
these once savage floors can no longer reclaim
any primal creak after being tucked into
domesticity for so long with soft footsteps of children
paired with repressed stomps of soul-starved adults
left cold by countless other floors never once
imbued with the life of a home.

We sit in tightly crafted boxes by day
forcing our feral souls to be still.

When we leave our daytime offices
for larger, comfier coffins,
the same spirit we once stifled
rips off its chains of productivity
in favor of a rarefied air full of possibility.

As we soar without any pretension of advancement
we forget that other life that appears with an overly punctual sun.

Through no fault of their own, we fault these day to day doldrums
through bleary red eyes while the true culprit of freedom
waits amongst the thermals until the night breaths anew.

I see new growth emerging from an old tree's heart.
A new sapling sapping strength from what would enrich generic soil,
contributes something unknown to an unassigned

Future

Instead this exacting branch emerges to claim the universe for itself.
No longer can this unnoticed, rotting stump contribute to the greater good
but feed instead, a unique life so it may one day
die and have the chance to fill the old soul’s soles.

The unlabeled, non enumerated vagaries of our world
cowardly whinge in the background
while the assertive actions of the flowers
and falcons shout out loud for their own preservation.

Food chains serve as feeding trays for those cells
who have bound together with that joie de vivre
necessary to drive the generic engine of nature
in their direction. This predilection
to protect the potent and powerful
among us is not simple chance

but a predetermined proclamation
from our divine protectorate pushing
the proper paupers forward until they find
themselves ensconced in the holy foliage of nature's glory.

No creation of merit can be created
without first digesting
the written-down genius
of those whose shoulders pad our feet.

The writer is a carnivorous beast
with an eye for talent
It would be a fool’s errand
to venture into a vacuum

in an attempt to find anything
of artistic merit.
The greatest accomplishments recorded
by a collective arthritic hand are merely flawed reflections
of the natural beauty in others’ magnificent work.

A writer puts into words
the common thoughts
of the people who won’t
elaborate upon their own condition.

So it lies with the beleaguered scribe
to illustrate in tomes both engaging
and mundane what the rest of the world
would gladly walk over.

There are no thanks for reminding
the world of it’s shortcomings,
but there is also no rebuke for shining light upon
the sullied truths for which no one wishes
to lay a claim. And therein lies
the writer’s world-

cared for by few and searched for
by those who have already recognized
the societal malaise dripping
all over the front pages of tomorrow’s papers.

A fool sits alone.  
Not dumb but naïve
drinking ideals that were both sweet
and biting on the uvula of his thoughts-
thoughts that once resonated
from truth no longer ring true.

This terminus of sentiments that started veritable journeys
in the muck of questionable sources
housed his hopes
while he dared to dream of a day these hopes may be fulfilled.

But over hills and plains filled with grating winds
of inquiring eyes looking for lies so intently
while false truth slips through their gates,
these hopes gained grit.

Grit built in truth,
and to hazier eyes,
grit grained with wisdom.  

So our fool finds himself at a
beginning wrought from this inverted journey,
He’s discovered his truths to be soggy
with the living mire of human deception.

No longer does he sit
with starry eyes
hoping for truth,
he has found it by traveling backwards
through experience until he stands upright
amongst the crawling with lies filling his head.

It is in this moment when all he sees is deceit,
that he knows he has found the truth.
No longer does he believe in it,
he understands how ill-fitting that word has come to be.  

In the grand cacophony of the human experience,
the sterling ring of truth deafens.

It takes a qualified lie to reach our hearts.

Above our heads exists a vast ether of ideas
and we’re lucky enough
to feel the rain from time to time.

These drops manifest in
our music,
our words,
our dance.

So don’t curse the weather man
with the tacky yellow rain jacket.
Rejoice in the coming deluge
and cup your hands to receive
this
communal
water

Open your eyes
so these enlightened raindrops
may find their way
through to our souls
so steadfastly guarded
against
heavenly
intervention.