I stopped believing in God
long ago.

When I was a boy,
my father would
scream and yell
at my sister
for her transgressions
and shortcomings
and I would
cradle a Bible
in my arms
in my room
and weep and pray
pleading for it
to stop.
I'm sure I made
some sort of
desperate offering
at some point;
a bargain of sorts
to take my soul
for hers.
Let it be me instead,
I'd pray.

All these years later,
my father and I
are estranged
and although I
no longer
believe in God
at times when I
find myself
backed into
a corner
I catch myself
praying again
throwing my pleas
in every direction
to any force that
will possibly
listen
and I begin to
wonder if a
prayer
actually can
be answered.

But I stopped believing in God
long ago.

*******.
I'm sleeping.

Here,
         Nobody here.
        
         Always,
                       Alone

it was
              as if
the world never stopped
         spinning
in those
few moments
       when
her eyes
met

his

I like my women
like I prefer my wine—
warm and smooth
and better with time.
Upon coming home,
I know what to do.
I'll loosen your top
and begin drinking you.
I’ll open you gently
with a smooth, fluid twist.
Let you flow past my lips,
first sweet and then crisp.
My head starts to spin,
my face feels flush.
My world is on fire.
I must be a lush.

.                                                The taste of                             the pain that
                                            you left linger in                   my mouth dries my
                                        taste buds and makes         me crave your quenching
                                     affections just once more.   Just one more last sip of the
                                  divine nature of your existence is but all I ask of you. Please
                                     just one last smell of the beautiful budding flower that I
                                       used to dream of and the same scent that worked to
                                        encompass the very essence of you and I that drew
                                           me to your sweet, rich nectar like a humble bee
                                             working hard to provide for his lovely queen.
                                                    Just one last glimpse into the beauty
                                                       of who we used to be. Just one
                                                             ­       last kiss then I let
                                                             ­                you go.

One sole warrior
keeps watch over all the other birdies.
He ruffles his feathers, sticks his leg out,
and pulls it back in.
He turns his head to and fro
and surveys the land.

A little chippy bird tries his luck and lands
near.

The warrior spreads his wings
as he glides
from branch to branch.

Three hops before he makes his break for
the sun.

the sun sets
      in western whispers
astral sagas
spill
         their wisdom
on the night's
canvas

and to the east
eternity

The air tasted
as if
a star had fallen.
The moon, her
             gallant glow.
A tear
from a warrior,
spilled
against the black velvet.

Like the sand
that seeps
through my fingers,

she slipped
away...

The harder
I squeezed,
the faster
she fell.

Now it
is her hand
clenched around
my heart,
wrenching the pulp
to satisfy her
thirst.

Tree without leaves.
Night without stars.
Book without words.
Street without cars.

Eye without sight.
Mother without daughter.
Joke without laughter.
Pond without water.

Lightning without thunder.
Clock without time.
Tea without sugar.
Bell without chime.

Life without Love.
Once without twice.
Me without you
just won't suffice.

tea light lanterns
     adorn
a spring fairy garden

draped
in a hyacinth melody
of lavender
        and whites

serenading a
   music box tune
atop
sun-kissed
      butterfly wings

Tending the light
at the end of the tunnel,
the magical mystery
that plagues the
                     consciousness of
you and I
becomes nothing more
than sinister
        celestial laughter.
A fallacy to some,
filled with redemption
for a penny per sin,
paths are carved and
driven into existence by
wear from
        constant
                      treading;
a symbol of the depth
of the mind’s dark aptitudes
to conceive and believe.
Simplicity overrun by
                  complex, anti-intuitive
conceptualizations of
the infinitism of
beginning
                 and end.

The lieutenant walked somberly up to me in the crowded walkway of decapitated foreign bodies. He raised both hands up to his forehead and stiffly saluted me simultaneously with each.

“Sir,” he said with a look of defeat on his face, “the brothers…”

Reading the melancholy look in his eyes, I took off running down the aisle, hurdling over piles of the enemy scattered all about the grocery store.

Turning the corner at the end of the aisle, my heart dropped down through my feet to the ground as I gazed upon the aftermath and fell to my knees. There in two chairs facing each other were my alien comrades, brothers as it were, sitting limply and almost lifelessly. Struggling through the last bits of pain, their thin arms set delicately on the arm rests of their chairs struggling to reach out to one another.

I began to cry.

Kneeling beside them, I softly grasped each of their hands and laid them atop one another as the distant stares in their eyes became more vacant with each passing moment. I placed my hand on theirs, lowered my head, and sobbed relentlessly as my breaths became short.

When I looked up, the two brothers were hunched over and almost motionless setting next to one another staring longingly into each other’s black, moribund eyes. They gazed deep into each other souls consoling their sibling in their final moments, staying connected down to the last second. I laid my other hand atop their touching hands and cried gasping for air as I kneeled there next to their dying bodies.

As they passed, I felt the greatest sense of love I have ever felt for this set of alien brothers, whom I had never before met.

Today was yesterday’s
greatest fear
and tomorrow will never come
if you let yesterday’s fears
affect today.

Tomorrow is today’s
greatest fear
and yesterday will loom
if you let today’s fears
affect tomorrow.

But yesterday can never be tomorrow’s
greatest fear
and today becomes yesterday
if you let tomorrow’s fears
affect you today.

For thirteen years
the old man
watched
the sun rise
and fall
everyday
until one day
he did not.

Those were
the happiest
thirteen years
of
his life.

Wasting time on questions
is a sure way to go insane.
Splitting hairs and counting chairs
just put it all away.

Walking down the street on a sunny day,
I got my ******* my arm and I feel okay.
Heading to the bank because we're leaving LA.
It's gonna be a good, good day.

Mr. Bank Teller, how you doing today?
I'll just take my cash and be on my way.
You see I got my girl and we're leaving town.
Ain't no reason to stick around.
Next thing, it happened so fast.
The door swung open with a mighty crash.
"Put your hands up high. I'm gonna need your cash.
Let's be quick and don't half-***."

Mr. Robber, Mr. Robber
Please let me go.
Mr. Robber, Mr. Robber
Please let me go.

"Alright everybody no need to be funny.
In this bag, you're gonna put your money
and everything that you hold dear
I'm gonna take right from you here."
Whispy clouds, sky grey-blue,
I said, 'Honey, I sure do love you.
Here's what I want you to do,
take my ring never let it stray from you.'
"Robert, my love, please don't let me go.
Let's just do as we planned and go to Mexico.
Our feet in the sand, the sun in our soul,
together you and I, we can grow old."

Mr. Robber, Mr. Robber
Please let me go.
Mr. Robber, Mr. Robber
Please let me go.

Suddenly I turned my back.
I took a step and made my attack.
I grabbed him by the hands, together we danced
a unfortunate dance with much less romance.
With one fell swoop, I thwarted his plot,
forced him to surrender right there on the spot.
The people around they shouted their praise
for they would get to live to see more days.

Mr. Robber, Mr. Robber
You must go.
Mr. Robber, Mr. Robber
You must go.

In that moment when I looked lax,
Mr. Robber, well, he played his jack.
He reached at his leg, his finger was hot.
The people all cried when he fired that shot.
"Robert, my love, please be okay.
The police and paramedics are on their way.
The security gaurd, he got the robber.
Robert, don't go, you're going to be a father."
'Listen, my dear, I want you to hear me.
Where ever you go, that's where I will be.
Show our boy all the love that we have
and never ever let him forget his Dad.'

Dead Robert, Dead Robert
Why'd you go?
Dead Robert, Dead Robert
Don't you know?
Dead Robert, Dead Robert
Why'd you go?
Dead Robert, Dead Robert
Don't you know?

How does one deduce bravery?
By the weight of the task
or the severity of the situation?
No.
One succeeds in such a scenario by
their sheer sense of confidence
in their own actions.
Know
and you shall succeed.

Sometimes I wonder
what dreams have to do
with real life.
Are they remnants
of unconscious thoughts
from the day before?
Or are they
some strange connection
to the unknown?
Now I realize
that dreams are simply
dreams,
until you make them
a reality.

The fingertips of the trees leave space for the
sky.
The sun with his prowess gives them light
while
branches flow as veins of the earth.

Streaks of clouds like ribs to the sky,
winding
as an atlas of forgotten paths,

dance o'er shaded silhouettes
of
yesterday's bounty.

The fallen leaves of yesteryear's grace
ebb
to their resting and etch their monument
in
time.

And the moon, supple in her gesture,
whispers
the star dusted secrets of tomorrow's

fortune.

Shrouded by the shrapnel,
   the delicious taste of hate
fuels the burning fire
   that the greedy men create.

Sifting through the silt
   clouded by the dust,
love becomes a legend
   rotting old like rust.

If not for the power
   then surely for the space,
land consumed like knowledge
   nothing left in its place.

Distracted by the glory
   of imposing harmony,
your conscious is left floating
   at the bottom of the sea.

Bodies in the soil
   as souls float up above,
what happened to the notion
   the world was run by love?

Searching for the answer in
   songs instead of violence
will teach the angry men
   to listen in the silence.

Explosions in the distance
   while you sit on your throne,
trying to build heaven
   so you can call it home.

Overlooking reason,
   big business is the key,
asserting all your dominance
   despite the people’s plea.

Creating too much sadness
   is also too much sorrow,
we must pray to see if
   there’s light left for tomorrow.

Seven billion hearts
float amidst
crimson tides of
revolving tendrils.
Obscure in their
nature, forlorn
in their plight,
a path coalesces
from their pleasure
and pain.

On the wings
of angels,
do they fly?
Torn from their
natal host
in a vacancy
of eternal slumber,
do they reside?
Their leaking orifices
exude the lost prophecies
their primal heir
toiled for.
The timelessness of decay
in a vast plane of
logic and enigmatic
illusions.

With grandeur abreast,
wiped from the millennia
of ancient tales,
do they remain?
A mountain of reason
overlooking a murk laden
lake with prospects
aplenty conceals
the hidden wisdom of
their inner youth.
A barren pursuit
of friend
and foe.

Or inside their fever wrapped
marrows, do they fall?
Further from emancipation
to the gallows of
thought and ill-fated
treasons, do they fade?
An infallible musing
of periled destiny,
ripe with the
wounds of the
forgotten dust.
Their revelations a
twisted grove
of fate
and misfortune.

Seven billion hearts
float amidst
crimson tides of
revolving tendrils.
Once symbols of
idiosyncrasy now
footprints on a
black canvas, a single star
in a universe of eternity.
Simple in their movements
yet aloof
in their time.
A perpetual reminder
of the wondrous
before
and after.

syndicated stars in the celestial sphere                              
a marksman fine tunes his aim.

heaven haunts the hallows                                                          ­
two deep inhales.

an entity in the empyrean                                                         ­     
his hands tremble.

noble as the natal night                                                            ­      
two deep exhales.

amidst astral auras                                      
a bead of sweat falls down his cheek.

a nebula nurtured                                            
chatter from a robin across the field.

a dimension divine                                                           ­                     
he closes his eyes.

the orbit orchestral                                                      
moonlight shadows the land.

aphorisms of aligned astronomy                                                      
­his shot rings out.

hold the handwritten harmonies                      
*a cloud of smoke left in his place.

How could I have been
such a fool once more?
Should have learned my lesson
a thousand times before.

What a game we play
for the ones we wish we had.
I should be grateful
although I feel bad.

My door swung open
before even a first knock.
Life is one big question
when we are staring at the clock.

And the clouds hanging over my head
make me want to stay
right here where I’ve sat so long.
What foolish games we play.

Smooth as sandpaper.
Limbs stretched in all directions.
Cleansing has commenced.

I broke one of my mother's figurines
when I was helping her move the
Christmas tree downstairs.

She glued it back together but it wasn't
quite the same. The visible cracks still
a reminder of what occurred.

She told me it was fine but I felt so bad that
I bought her the same one again so it
was as if the original had never broken.

Now she proudly displays the two side
by side and insists that the original
is her favorite.

Buy the ticket,
take the ride.
The feeling that I hold's
sublime.

Long hard hours
full of pain.
A world of knowledge
I did gain.

Books and tests and math
and gruel,
I came and saw and
beat this school.

Now sitting on the steps
I wait
to take that walk
and graduate.

What lies next
I do not know.
On to bigger things
I go.

Here I sit as the clock strolls along.
How much more time till' this is all done?
The angst and grief and time that I waste,
All so that one day I may have a taste.
Tell me this and I'll do that.
I can't put up with all this crap.

The feeling is back.
The one that I lost.
Why find it here?
And at what cost?
My sanity dwindles and I digress.
What I would do just for some rest.
Pushing yourself through life's many bends,
Do they understand the message they send?

Growing up, sticks and stones.
All these things will wither your bones.
Tired and wired, pushed to the edge.
A new beginning, a trim of the hedge.

Other people, they throw it all off.
Under my breath, I sit here and scoff.
Friendly or not, it is up to me.
Time to find out just what will be.

Looking through your life
like a fish tank on the wall,
what you come to see
is not what’s seen by all.

Bubbles and formations
lurking in your path,
seeking all the answers
you may come to find that…

Fishy, fishy in the sea
won’t you one day come to me
through all this transparency.
Fishy, fishy in the sea.

Two fish, three fish, blue fish, green fish.
Which one will I be?
Bait the hook and cast the line
while I wait patiently.