They say of me, and so they should,
It's doubtful if I come to good.
I see acquaintances and friends
Accumulating dividends,
And making enviable names
In science, art, and parlor games.
But I, despite expert advice,
Keep doing things I think are nice,
And though to good I never come--
Inseparable my nose and thumb!

I love you
But I hate you
I’m heartbroken
But I’m still breathing

You were my world
Now I’m floating in a vacuum
Never Ending
It’s only black

I wait,
Every week
Looking out the same windows
Waiting for your return

But you won’t come back
You moved on
You found her
I just never found him.

‘What is it like
to meet me
without your
ideas about me?’,
you ask.

The question hangs
between us,
two strangers,
curiously suspended
in not knowing.

I don’t even
know your name
yet we meet
and share this
moment,
eyes locked
in tender gaze.

I had no ideas
about you till
you asked,
now they flood in
tripping over
each other with
habitual ease.

‘I have no ideas
about you,’
I think…
But why then
am I surprised
by the softness
of your voice,
the Irish lilt,
delighted by
your insights,
your honesty,
and open clarity?

Enchanted by
this moment,
this opportunity
to meet you,
to dwell in
the mystery
without fear,
no name,
no history,
no map to
show the way.
I cannot fix
you, pin
you down,
fit you in a
box and stick
a label on
your tongue.

And, I have
no mask to
hide from your
unblinking stare.

A Zen master
once said
‘Not knowing
is most intimate.’

Now, knowing
this to be so true,
a smile grows
in my heart
where fear
had once
taken root.

I drift among the spheres
Sipping coffee
Colour swirling
Like a VanGogh

We gather at the failing tidesinging our harbinger songswhile dawn casts its amber net of morning.Then moonlight turns to a doubtable hazethat sharpens to reveal the edge of a confident horizon.Unyielding, unstoppable,it forces us to bury our petty woes under sand.Enough, it saysBegin the day, it saysCreate the day, it says.

escape the fear,
escape the fate.
run with all your might,
but your already too late.
fall in love,
fall in hate.
it's up to you,
but moment won't wait.
go to heaven,
go to hell.
time stands still,
but only time can tell.
believe in yourself,
follow the crowd.
speak with your heart,
let it sing loud.

It was an ostrich who asked me
to give stick my head in the ground.
He looked like what you think
an ostrich would look like, with his head in the dirt,
and the bright, pastel lights,
that come with things
from your imagination.
I colored him with crayon.
I could make rainbows with crayons back then.

I wish someone told me
what it meant, to get lost
in the dirt. I became a stray dog
digging all those holes.

I lived in a junkyard. The one on the side
of the highway next to the billboard
the Christians put up to help stop divorce that said
"Honey, Come home. The kids and I love you."
I slept in the back seat of a car with fleas
and ticks, stealing my food from a truck stop diner
until the day someone took the car away.
I had nowhere to go so I stopped
licking myself and left the junkyard to become the man
I am today. I got myself a job and started sitting
in the front seat. I even have a bed now with nothing

between me and the mattress but a sheet.
I have a taste for gin and girls who are buried
in borrowed wedding dresses.
I still lick myself sometimes because
old habits aren't easy things
to quit, like asking for extra
fortune cookies, hoping I will get something
good this time.


I shouldn't have been a man. I should have
been a bird, like the one who told me to
write stories in the dirt and whisper tales to the gnarled roots
of unnamed wild flowers. And never illustrate, he told me,

especially with crayon. You could get lost searching
for fortune at the tip of a crayon.

Paltry people project putrid opinions, propelled from puny pinpoint brains, in their pint-sized prickly pineapple pulp heads.

If they stopped and stayed silent, stood still and listened, stuff some significant people said would seep in, and seem simply superb when seen with acceptance and socially sensitive skills