Danny drops his broad bottom
back on the seat
beside his wife
at the food court
with 3 donuts for himself
each soaked in oil and fat
and each thick with white sugar coat

“Danny, why do you eat this stuff…?
That’s all fat, three donuts of fat,”
moans his wife

“Not really,” says Danny to his wife
who eats lettuce and carrot
and who looks like a knitting needle
*“Fastfood donuts are healthy;
look at the air in the middle -
but no doubt
one has to get through rest of the donut
for sure
but the air in the middle
is pure life-giving health
when one gets there”

Take this lifetime from me now
For I no longer can allow
Yesterday to be my plight,
My farewell into the night.

The chanting seas, the morning breeze,
The gentle touch of careless ease
The beauty of eternity
How could you be so cruel to me?

I see undying skies afloat
Embrace the sweet November note
We left out there to die in vain
As I now try to stand again.

I gaze upon the mystery
Of what it was you meant to me
Of tears I now shed quietly
Regretting what will never be.

You never said, beloved friend
That I would suffer in the end!
That I would have to face alone
This universe of dark unknown
This solemn fate of agony
This everlasting misery
This bitter cry for harmony
That slowly eats away at me.

Announce my parting, I will bow
Take this lifetime from me now.

Scarcely a street, too few houses
To merit the title; just a way between
The one tavern and the one shop
That leads nowhere and fails at the top
Of the short hill, eaten away
By long erosion of the green tide
Of grass creeping perpetually nearer
This last outpost of time past.

So little happens; the black dog
Cracking his fleas in the hot sun
Is history.  Yet the girl who crosses
From door to door moves to a scale
Beyond the bland day's two dimensions.

Stay, then, village, for round you spins
On a slow axis a world as vast
And meaningful as any posed
By great Plato's solitary mind.

Do you ever wonder... about us?
I do,
It seems like I do every day.

Maybe it's because you met someone else,
and I was a fool to let you go.
Maybe it's because being stuck in this limbo feels worse than hell.
I don't know.

All I know is you linger in my soul.
I try to let you go,
But when you are about to,
I shout, "No! Don't leave!  Stay, stab, torment..."

You're the only thing I feel anymore,
I'm afraid of feeling anything else,
I think that maybe one day,
we'll just get over each other,
and that scares me more than this pain.

You're in my heart,
never to leave,
a siren calling me in,
and leaving me crashing upon your shore.

but, do you ever wonder... about us.

Because if you do,
well that's enough.

As he goes to the washroom I sit and stare at my palms
I don’t know what to do
I almost pull out my phone to distract me from myself
Stop
I enjoy the silence
I allow the clinking of glass and chatter of folk to calm my restless heart
Something irritating
A laugh
Exploits of the night prior
My temperature rises  
I try and drown out the boisterous banter with my thoughts
How can people speak of such trivial things
Why am I plagued with pondering the contradictory nature of everything?
My mind
Wandering to those thoughts I suppressed long ago
Marinating in dreams unfulfilled and forgotten
He returns
I sigh and smile
I wish I could have thought a little longer
He talks
I laugh  
My desperate soul carries on

I always told my friends to think of words as chocolate
When someone writes beautiful things
It's Galaxy, it's Cadbury's to me
You hold them on your tongue and you savour
You want more, it's sheer gluttony,
But people applaud you for that,
You don't get fat on words,
People won't judge you when you sneak downstairs late at night for a midnight snack of words.
You're still a size 12 when you've overdone it on the words.
And poetry? Well that's the best chocolate there is.

not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the wat to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped
at a little cafe
in the hills
and the passengers
entered.
he sat at the counter
with the others,
he ordered and the
food arived.
the meal was
particularly
good
and the
coffee.
the waitress was
unlike the women
he had
known.
she was unaffected,
there was a natural
humor which came
from her.
the fry cook said
crazy things.
the dishwasher.
in back,
laughed, a good
clean
pleasant
laugh.
the young man watched
the snow through the
windows.
he wanted to stay
in that cafe
forever.
the curious feeling
swam through him
that everything
was
beautiful
there,
that it would always
stay beautiful
there.
then the bus driver
told the passengers
that it was time
to board.
the young man
thought, I'll just sit
here, I'll just stay
here.
but then
he rose and followed
the others into the
bus.
he found his seat
and looked at the cafe
through the bus
window.
then the bus moved
off, down a curve,
downward, out of
the hills.
the young man
looked straight
foreward.
he heard the other
passengers
speaking
of other things,
or they were
reading
or
attempting to
sleep.
they had not
noticed
the
magic.
the young man
put his head to
one side,
closed his
eyes,
pretended to
sleep.
there was nothing
else to do-
just to listen to the
sound of the
engine,
the sound of the
tires
in the
snow.

the vultures at the zoo
(all three of the)
sit very quietly in their
caged tree
and below
on the ground
are chunks of rotten meat.
the vultures are over-full.
our taxes have fed them
well.

we move on to the next
cage.
a man is in there
sitting on the ground
eating
his own ****.
i recognize him as
our former mailman.
his favorite expression
had been:
"have a beautiful day."

that day i did.

The stars twinkle like glitter
The wind gently touches my hair
The night air caresses my skin
Sitting in the grass
A cool summer night
Thinking about my life
As the crickets chirp
And the frogs croak
I see a shooting star
Make a wish
For a life full of happiness and love