I used to write the saddest poems
About your ghost.
Now time passes away
Without much thought of you,
Of us.

I can inhale life without force
Because your absence is no longer
My uncomfortable past,
It is my comfortable present.
Never again to be disrupted
By our chaos.

I burned us to the ground,
And now I've found peace
And freedom
In our ashes.

my eyes speak out a narrow street
notorious for fatal accidents
scorching everyone involved
leaving impertinent witnesses
hence silent gaze shies away

exposure, self-denied
to keep from harm
avoid collateral

and not just eyes but words
they slip they cost they hurt
the best the most
bitten tongue cannot dissolve
no, bitten lip cannot contain
boiling recklessness

come close meet walls
cruelly transparent
self-defused bomb
a self-contained woe
window shopping
a blink away from shattered showcase

a teeny tiny
whited-out blank space,
the tenuous boundary that separates,
higher man from untamed beast,
so powerful when respected,
the crowning hallmark of human acclamation
we all do wear by right of birth and breathe


you see it right?

that invisible peaceful white
spatial, tiny yet palatial dot that separates
us from rack and ruin,
the mighty differential pause between

in civility and incivility

come not to preach or harangue,
my counsel kept within the
between beats of a mournful drum,
respectfully and slowly banged

each silent separation a prayerful plea,
the inserted peacekeepers of our spoken words,
employ well those powerful pauses that refresh
the speaker and the listener so well

leave behind your
self-righteous disbelief in others' beliefs,
that morphs into no toleration,
an arrogant surety,
that surely the ****-ytical results of
your thoughtful processes,
inevitability correct and brook no resistance

the shrill strumpets
of either side
confidently worship at no church
but to the false gods
of their own mirrored reflection,
who smiles back approvingly
at those who scream the loudest...

outlaw the outrage of your rage,
come to my white clothed table,
put aside the wrath of overbearing,
represent your disparate conclusions
with harmonious, breathable pauses
to reflect and respect
our distinctive and distinguished differences

no one ever lost a reasoned argument
that began with a considered, well tempered

good morning

what has this to do with
only love poetry?

*well, everything...for you must love thy neighbor
as you love yourself