Sit alone, forgotten room
An empty piece of paper
You clear your mind, blow out the smoke
And open yourself to thought
A minute passes, an hour
Begin to wonder if it will ever return
And then it does
Hand grasps at pencil
Words flowing out of your head
Fill one page, then another
So many thoughts, all rushing
To get out, to be heard
Inspiration has left its mark
On you
You will not forget its touch
Ache in its absence
Revel in its light
It is you, and you are
A part of it.

It's nothing special

Only smoke and
                             mirrors | srorrim
        most of the time


            
                          Except when it isn't.

I'll explode and fan outward, touch
everything in the whole world because

desperate laughter is the worst kind

If only wishes came true.
I know they do sometimes become reality, but personally I consider that to be nothing more than chance
I guess what I'm after is

If my wish had substance
If I could ask for something right now
And be certain that it would be

I would wish

I had the courage to tell you what I thought of your smoking and your drinking before it led you to where you are now

Maybe I could have stopped it.

I would wish

I told you how much you meant to me, had that conversation with you before the world fell apart for you

Maybe you would still be here.

I would wish

These wishes had the power to change something.

The problem with our planet
(at least what we currently face)
is one of ceaseless travel,
indifference to space

Do trees protest their rootings?
Do ants fall out of line?
Yet our minds tend to wander, it
happens all the time

If only we could focus, but
our energies disperse
how easily we trail off into
arguably worse

It's not globalization
or the fault of the night news
it's all the me's forgetting
the importance of the you's

Strike up a conversation, and
acknowledge what's around
how else will your new neighbor
learn to bake that lovely pound

cake?

That is a tree
And this is war.

Have you
              twisted yourself up to see if you can
Have you
              passed the night awake by fire
Have you
              come to realize the significance of significance
Have you
              come to recognize your realization as flawed
Will you

I want to fall asleep with you in my arms
You know I trust you

You know.

The clock says smile and
  rush along the clock
     says we should eat heavily and
        drink until the oceans shrivel into
           our cups like death as a
               fire tide

The clock says hurry now before I
   get away from you, turn off the road and

****
             no more time.

I'd like for the world to get a little
colder
           so I could have an excuse to curl
          up with you beside a shared fire

(as if I need one)

This is the
start of the rest, the
good bits - hang in
there

Don the mask it's
    time to go

soon we won't have to play this game
                          anymore

Who am I
                     if I cannot
                      bring myself to realize the
                      nature of the word

I know you.

Who am I?

life is only ever going
to be what we rely on it to
produce

Remove the news from
Inside your mind, you're
Soon to lose all
Sense of time

nothing, it seems
always returns

the sound of the life
surrounding fragile
breath, do you know
what you have
                          
                            no?

­then watch it peel
off like a cancer and
sink out of your
murky sight

to bloom and
writhe and if these
thoughts have any
weight to gift three
blazing candles in
a night or two

rest assured they
will

No matter the day
Be it morning or noon
No matter the time
The hours pass soon

Love is all
All my thoughts
All my dreams
My everything.

I wish for my baby
Wish for the fall
And despite all this madness
Love is all

the thought that I'm a lucky
person and luck
has nothing to
do with it

Is this all you will register as?
A change from 2132 to 2133 on my views.

I hope not.

I'm slightly out of
practice, a bit bent
out of shape like a
paper clip faced with
Rhode Island's taxes

at first glance, it might
seem as though I have
forgotten all I
once knew

first glances are rarely
accurate

what I do know is the
things that make you
you in your own
words, things like
cooking or
poetry or
smiles

these things don't die, they
hibernate until you're
smart enough to
wake them up

to preserve forever in
a bubble of memory
rising to the surface of
your mind's Great Lake

and grow skyward like
ankles to men before the
sun sets on this adventure

before we realize the everlasting
nature of the day and follow our
own thoughts to the heart
of the matter

It's not an idea, it's
    a concept. No,
  It would take too long to explain
       It, it is too difficult because
            It only exists when it is
               Visible and without it, it's
                          Impossible to see
    What is it?
                        It is important.

swept up in the most
beautiful night

there are no
words right now

Your voice.

I wish I could be aware of my previous and future selves
How much there would be to learn
Let me lay down
Let me sleep
Tell me I'm not too far gone
For my heart to be alone

I stare into the sun, twisted and
Aching from the things I put myself through to ensure
I am strong enough for you
And dream of a day that we will live
In a short while

It's raining and I'm cold
and I'm wondering where
you are

I mean
every word.

There is a certain fragility to kindness, an
impatient expectation of a return on
your investment

Slowly losing my grip on reality

Given the crowded
state of our world, you'd
think we would have figured
out a way for one half to find its
other by now

/ seems we choose to
chase after money

/ can't buy me
love

Every so often, we
/ become fish out of
/ water on a dock

flailing about for a
/ bit, then right back where
/ we ought to be

Time is a patient collector

/ eyeing its prize behind a
flawless tapestry of
insignificant celebration /

to whom we'll all
one day belong

Can't feel anything
Does this mean I'm dying?

at times the /
weight of this /
world drops like a /
guillotine between bits /
of rational thought and soft /
unassuming despair (the quiet /
sort that wants to skip to the end)

sing me a song, prove
to me what I can't quite put my finger on
(after these tired feet come from their shells)
face to the sky like a flame

Do you eat words like I do?
(Swallow them whole and kicking)

Don't fear it
Embrace it.

Then it will leave you alone.

every few years, look
back on your prior
hopes with
disdain

how naive you were
then, but surely
you know
better now

your future self laughs.

It's darkest just before the dawn
but darling, you've been far too long from
these arms now that, left to one, grow
tired and fall limp like rags to sleep

come home and we'll make known
all the ways we both have grown
or just ring my phone, and
let me know you're there

the real world, the world of business and
coffee and hurried hallway "how are you"s is
brown and gray and
stuffy

so I sit in my corner
and silently explode
into color

you kept to yourself

and that makes everyone wonder, now
that you're gone

and I tried to explain that sometimes there's
nothing you can do to change
someone's mind, no sense
wondering whether a
simple good morning
would have kept
you around

hindsight is 20/20, but
nobody saw that coming

tell me about
                     you

not that
hum drum shell like
fake western tourist traps

let me in

Loads of people
milling about

like ants

food, water, money

do ants stop to consider each other?

maybe we should

linger, you
/ spin my breath like fire, I
/ burn dreaming, form
/ your name, a shimmering coal

even at distance, I
/ trust its glow