light shadow cosmic wanderer
tooth pick broken rainbow mirror
barefoot bard with teaks of Chan
given taken held up here
Maddening glazed and galvanized dreams
make for worthless surreal windows
classic hot rod metal screams
like broken swallows when the wind blows
Young and brave treacherous poisoned blood
leaning up against tenements on ***** sidewalks
chop and snort it on the porcelain
leave the toddler to his blocks
The mirror is hell bent on reflection
the gravy train has left the station
mindless maps without direction
in any given situation
and then the neurotic poet fights
against all odds the blue dressed gang
back pack stashed in plastic nights
the poet goes out with a bang
forget ignore each word he said
blue beard gumdrop reward awaits
on the barren graffiti rocks he's dead
in one of the south central states

while you were in India
did you see the tragic children
playing in feces and ashes
who would give the rest of their lives
to be held and loved for one hour?
Did that vision add to your sorrow?
Did it enlarge that hole in your life?
Did it drip painfully on your heart like hot wax?
When the painful wax grows cold and hardens
Run my sweet sister
Run like you've never run before
come out from under the rain
overtake the wind
Let the pounding of your heart crack
and break that paraffin prison
illusory intimidation is all it is
let it fall and melt again
and become love
for love becomes you

Once the North wind made love with the sea
and a tiny little wave soon came to be
Father Wind would guide him as he grew
His Mother was the sea he traveled through
and as they brought him closer to the shore
each day he would grow a little more
and safe within the arms of Mother Sea
He imagined just how big he'd grow to be
The handsome foam that formed upon his crest
was among his mothers gifts that he loved best
and the harder that his Father Wind would blow
the larger and the stronger he would grow
One day a fearsome sound came to his ear
an awful sound that filled his heart with fear
he feared something he couldn't understand
when he saw the other waves crash on the sand
He wept as he drew closer to the shore
for it seemed to him he soon would be no more
He cried and cried, "Alas! Oh woe is me."
with mortal fear of what was soon to be
When his Father and his Mother heard him cry
they told their weeping wave,, "You will not die."
"There is a gift you must deliver to the sand
then simply return to our love where you began
You'll sleep a while with Mother Sea, and then
Father Wind will guide you once again

Nature or Deity
what petty cruelty
or splendid mystery
that he and she would so distant be
in mind and manner and vanity
This is why they writhe and bite
or love as cold as winters night
We claw and kiss and spit in spite
We rage and pace and fuss and fight
or cut with words or flee in fright
in all of this we find delight
and die together blissfully

Did you happen to look at the world with my eyes
so you could inform me wherein beauty lies
Does the sound that you hear fall on my ear
Do you know the message that my word implies
Do you speak with my mouth
Do you feel with my skin
Did I lend you my essence without and within
Does my logic tell you what's false or what's real
that's why you can't say that you know how I feel

She saved us all from a life of mediocrity.
silly smart beautiful barefoot dancer in the flower bed
Nurturing to everyone leaving the least for herself
She was my best friend, but we were hell at parties
I remember her in a paper dress that was a picture of a cat
some hippie outfit, with a smile half way out of our house on wheels
Yoga dancing every day doing something for the sun
meeting each and every face of God
more often with the passing years
she would drink a disillusioned toast to lost chances and opportunities
as the medicine cabinet grew in color and content
Taking the brunt of our losses for herself
with inner mingled heaven sent victories and joys
One day she arose yellow as the sun and swelling
she took it lightly as a drop of rain
with one liners we'll never forget
"So much for retiring in Mexico." she would quip with a nervous laugh
It was the pancreas
some say the very worst place
but there's a point where pain is pain- inseparable from itself
I tried to make it home in time to say "goodbye"
I missed her by four hundred miles,
I'll put that in my box of guilt and hide it somewhere out of sight for now. She didn't go easy,
I didn't bother asking God why he would let her go that way,
thrashing holding on to life,
maybe hoping against that four hundred mile gap
that I put on a mantle behind a broken vase
She was my best friend but we were hell at parties.

Once a hairy neanderthal
whose name we shall call Grom
found a heavy piece of wood
and thought as hard as a caveman could
until at last he understood
to him the role of King belonged

He knew he couldn't hesitate
to split every fellow caveman's pate
till on their knees they would await
King Grom the greatest of the great

but then another primitive man
sat in his cozy lair
and thought in his primeval stew
how old Groms rule he could undo
so through the air a large stone flew
and parted old Grom's hair

It all started so long ago
with poor old primitive Grom
with time and thought there'd come a day
as sinners cursed and saints would pray
humanity could stand in awe and say,
"Behold the Atomic Bomb!"

Sight, the colored canvas's in my mind
the sun the sea the land beneath
every thing upon which you've shined
your revealing light becomes belief

touch, the silent message born of love
another gift from life to life
to know the softness of the skin
to know the sharpness of the knife

Sound,  the music of reality
the beating universal drum
Life's continuing harsh symphony
It's never ceasing gentle hum

taste, the message from the tongue to brain
the bitter warning not to eat
both pleasure or a type of pain
the polarity of sour sweet

Smell, the priceless talent of the nose
giving flavor to the air
wherewith we appreciate the rose
and separate the foul and fair

If we as all humanity
were simply accidents of time
what use would all these treasures be
to know both wretched and sublime

I looked upon the shelves and sought
what overrated writers wrought
philosophers and hitchhikers
their name gives their poems clout

You who suffer for your art
like lovers have been torn apart
paper gives immortality
Is that what it's about?

hundreds of rejections fly
into the trash bin bye and bye
criminals and kings they are
the victims of self doubt

Our vision and our hearts incline
to air our laundry line by line
will we one day sit upon the shelf
immortalized within without?

There is strength in the ground
There is light in the sky
there is life all around
to lead you and I

in a dance of  all dances
we have danced since our birth
and we should keep up our dancing
till we're one with the earth

We will dance with our hearts
we will dance with our minds
with two steps ahead
only one step behind

no matter how long
or in what circumstance
we will sing with life's song
and join in life's dance

A little bit of shameless rhyme
Could be a way to bide my time
Rendition of the muse's muse
Of which I am inclined to choose
Simple words from simple thoughts
Timeless classics I have not
Inside my my mind wherein I try
Carefully, to learn to fly
Serenely through a paper sky

I call it bad poetry.
Sometimes it's just stacked lines.
Sometimes it's banal and trite.
I break the academic rules
and write songs to be sung by fools.
Maybe I don't suffer enough
to write about tragedy and love.
I call it bad poetry.
Maybe I'm out of touch.
There is such a thing as too much subtlety,
maybe not enough,
or maybe I impress myself too much.
Maybe I'm insecure and out to lunch
and, although I want the world to hear,
I try to beat the critic to the punch.
I call it bad poetry
manic rudimentary ramblings
of a man child with poetic constipation
and stuck in a quatrain rut.
This feeling is nagging
Is it a love song, or self indulgent bragging?
Set a rhyme up here and there.
words are words and there is plenty to spare.
Mind is racing-  feet are dragging
Just one more rhyme will get me there.
Then freestyle for a while
with that smug self satisfied smile,
and write some more bad poetry.

I believe in love
I've known it
The pounding heart
the butterflies
the lack for breath
the heavy sighs
being alone in a crowded room
falling into her eyes
and drowning forever
Every sensation sacred
to touch her
to taste her
The sound of her breathing
Her voice
Her passion
her smell
The unique mysterious
smell of her body
Her ***
Oh the sight of her!
Breath taking beauty
awesome splendor
Her image imprinted
branded blazoned on the canvass
of my soul
with colors and hues impossible
to recreate or simulate
outside the eyes of my mind

Tragically though
the depth and intensity
of a love that is found
is exponentially
dwarfed by the grief
of a love that is lost
the weeping mourning insanity
of a broken heart
I knew love
I knew heart break
I lost myself
in my yearning for death
I became
a cowardly drunken dog
skulking in the streets
drinking from the gutter
running from everyone
and everything
Licking my infected wounds
choking on the poison discharge
of bitterness and remorse

I know love
Whether by laughter and joy
or with tears of sorrow
Terrible wicked sweet
Mother of songs!
I would gladly endure
one year of your hell
for one hour of your heaven
I lay my torch
at the tomb of our love

I want to be cool  
chain smoking drunk with trash bin
filled with rejection

Unkempt hair sunk eyes
red from cigarettes and *****
suffering for art

provocative  lines
suicide at sixty two
now immortalized

Old scratch walks up and down in this world.
Not some misunderstood romantic tragic figure,
but the father of lies.

Old scratch stands behind the curtain
and raids the caravans loaded down with good intentions
He is the wicked warlord in the horn of Africa.

He is the self serving dictator with ridiculous hair
murdering his family in paranoid fits
while his people eat bark in hungry desperation.

He is dengue ebola, ecoli, the plague..
He is rage and landmines in the soccer fields
He is dysentery and influenza and krokodil.

Old scratch walks to in fro in this land
with infectious breath and violent laughter
He is the womb of grief and lost hope.

twenty thousand crying skeletons
with bloated bellies blinded by thirsty flies
each and every day old scratch ushers them
to the only relief they will ever find.
while another twenty thousand wait in line.

We give it a face, a voice, and a name.
I'm so glad we have old scratch to blame,
otherwise whose fault would all this madness be?

Once there was a man
who had nothing in particular to say.

He forced his stacked lines,
and on occasion, some rhymes
-nothing in several shades of gray.
He spoke of an illusive muse,
and a starving white sea,
things that never were,
and things that used to be.

The word wielding ghost
remembers bouncing checks
and eating roses off the stem
in taverns and bars
that would tolerate him.

and jigsaw puzzle pieces in the sky
and a brandy sniping toddler
who threw his bottle in the fire.

Now the narcissistic saint of wasted time
contemplates the day that he will die.

Elusive thoughts
picture word calligraphy
exhibitionist

human absorbing
sight sound senses and minds eye
celebrate and grieve

source of frustration
shameless timeless love for it
blessing of the ******

I'm very sorry
I'm not impressed much either
sacrilege of words

It finishes here
will be forgotten shortly
I'll wash my hands now

Gravitational.;
Signature of time and space;
It's only the wind.

I've been in touch with the earth
from eight to eighteen
I've tasted the the dirt
Oh, the abrasions I've seen!

I've been one with the pavement
I've been one with the pain
I've contemplated the  gravel
when I jumped from a train

I once communed with an animal
then communed with the ground
When my equestrian skills
were not to be found.

When I channeled the energy
of a poorly taped line
of an aerator machine,
I expanded my mind.

The lessons in life
can be deep and profound,
and, for a blue collar sage
the lessons abound.

I strolled among lavendills
in the pithy piney plodding hills
bearing the brunt of burdensome *******
as I garnished  grins of whippoorwills.

On a plateau-ish plain  of prickly peet
I felt the bog beneath my feet
tickling my toes with ****** tainted thorns,
I remembered gnarling days, and stood forlorn.

Pickled poesy pomagroups
foretold of future ladle scoops
in caligrating loop the loops in styles
reminding me of marching troops.

In shifting shylock shapes of time
with ripping radishes of rhyme
I began my daring dew descent
to the lowly muppet mugging climes.

When, on sordid stony steppes I stood,
amid the brash and boorish wood,
wenting where I was, I brought
a hinting hackle pang of good.

Today I saw him.
There but for the grace of God.
His jacket worn

He, in warm weather;
bundled up like it's freezing,
talking to himself.

I hear those voices.
I talk to them too some days.
I wandered in time.

City jail pads
are where they sent us to hide.
Just to be beat down.

I escaped that life.
Medicine and help was there.
I came to myself.

Social offenses,
An affront to guilty eyes.
Those voices plague them.

Wounded minds they are.
There but for the grace of God.
I just got lucky.

I love the way the colors smell
in the morning drenched with dew.
I hear the red birds song.
It's like I'm listening to you,
and you're telling me that every thing's okay,
and there's no need to worry,
because I'm going to find my way
someday.

Sometimes the sound my sorrow makes
is jagged cold upon my skin,
because I miss you and the time it takes
to return
from the dark place where I've been.

blows my patience all to hell
but only time will tell.

Yet nothing grows above you,
on that little spot of ground
where all my countless selfish tear drops fell.

You're memory still
won't shake this chill.

I taste the front door view we shared
even in the rain
It reminds me of your kisses
but the feeling's not the same.

Now I love that sharp pain on the right
that often wakes me up at night,
and reminds me
I might see you real soon
and then
we can make love on the moon.

Sometimes out here in the world
I have to shake you off
and bite my lip.
I can't let them see my soul unfurled
when you touch me on the inside
and I almost lose my grip.

I thought I heard you laugh last night
just before you let me fall asleep.
Pretty soon,you'll know that I can keep
all the promises I've made,
about the best plans that we've laid.
Oh baby I can't wait

but I still love the way the colors smell
in the morning drenched with dew
and when I hear the Redbirds song
I feel like I'm listening to you
You tell me everything is going to be okay,

and another day
is just another day.

Thank you for the golden bridge
upon which to retreat.
Thank you for the sacrilege
that makes me incomplete.

Make way for peace and better days;
find solace in the fact
that you can't ever change your ways;
or the judgement that you lacked.

Your chemical imbalance wreaks
havoc on your life's desire.
The familiar voice begins to speak
when the synapses commence to fire.

Let the madness muse ever be
the source of your inspiration
for your self indulgent poetry
and witty penned frustration.

In the cobwebbed corridors of thought,
or the murky depths of pain,
the answers you've forever sought,
questions they will er'r remain.

Let the four line stanzas roll
for all the patches on my soul
Muse I bid you to begin
to gently move the mind and pen.

Imprisoned in this cage of rhyme,
I slowly heal over time,
Although events can take their toll
they sew patches on my soul.

So much more than hideous dreams;
the profaned paper stacked in reams.
Lovers that have come and gone,
circumstance  I stand upon.

Pain of body, pain of mind,
hopes ahead, and loss behind.
I blush as crimson as a rose
for some of the patches I expose.

I feel I should apologize.
All this rhyming seems unwise,
but in all  of this, my only goal
is to show these patches on my soul.

I went to the sea to heal my heart.
I found a balm
in the sighing waves,
the soothing salty air.

She's a fickle lover; It's often said
by sailors and ******,
and other lost souls
whose songs become the wailing wind.

The mad man has the saddest laugh;
maniacal and strange,
with tears in his eyes,
pleading for lost love's return.

I'll climb the rigging and heave the line
perhaps in time
I'll forget why I came,
and only curse the northerly wind.

Three points off the starboard bow
I see her walking
on the waves.
My heart still has far to go.

I've come to laugh that burnt tragic laugh
of men who stay
too long at sea
and now I've forgotten why I came.

The pretense of circular reasoning paints the eyes
a misty shade of dull.
Eyes that view, from the dragon perch
of a counterclockwise carousel,
imagined scenery with a sprinkling of dreams.

A Gothic vision of crashing waves
against the grayish cliffs
that rise to a foggy grass clad plain
where sits the emblematic gabled home
with ****** in the windows.

The calliope moans a dragging tune
to match it's steady spin.
the sound of wind through tarnished brass
archaic and unsettling, a broken drag
of whiny sounding notes in a symphony of impotence.

You seem to look and dress the part
of the person you portray;
feigning superficiality for acceptance in the world
I, myself, am not for a second fooled.
You are the very essence of substance and depth

The carousel comes to a gradual halt
a hesitant dismount;
back to your prison of practicality and need;
visions pass from ominous to pastoral tranquility
The eccentric dragon of blue and gold awaits your return.

Posing thoughtfully at the cliffs edge
Longing for life's release
Against the scornful gaze of the sun
In soft chaos and charming havoc
Dying is much too easy.

Under a glass bell
sighing cause I like the sound
everywhere is light refracted
feelings are fickle sprites
under the scattered lights
loving yesterday
living today
yearning for the comfort of night.

Can you weave some words for me
on the worn out loom
vying for the perfect texture
enter the unknown stranger
recklessly whistling by the tomb

Know the friendliness of time
never speak of what is stolen
every fit of fury
every soft stroke and broken line.

All the lights came on at once
clear and humbly piercing air
over the fabric of hearing
under the rattling of bones
stirring souls and thrashing hearts
Too many dreams for just one pipe
in and out of consciousness
calling for yet another dance.

If you built bridges as well as you burn them
If you had all the friends you've lost
If you sought out your lessons to learn them
If you had at least considered the cost
If you had all the money you've wasted
If you had restrained your addictive life
If you took every problem and faced it
If you avoided dissension and strife
Oh.
It was said long ago
You reap what you sow.
The end.

Pugnacious pundits having parties,
on the left and on the right.
Lowering sanity and lifting madness.
I hear countless words that all seem trite.
Too many fall into their trap.
In happy splendid ignorance,
Clowns perform, and we're all prat.
Such perfectly played incompetence.