Hello!

      I mean

He
            Did you see the way she looked at him? That, that
            is either the craziest stare in the stars of our eyes or
            an indication of infatuation!
                      
                           I say, infatuation? Thought we'd done away with that long ago
                          
             It comes back in a different way however, with years of experience elsewhere
             when you end up realizing who your true friends are and how you've strayed
             from constructive friendships to chafing ones

llo!


I mean

           Hello!
           How are you?

I write all the time.

There is nothing I would rather do, nothing I can see myself doing in the future, nothing that makes my fire burn like writing.

That being said, my writing has yet to reach the ears of those who would appreciate it. Pending my inevitable gain of transportation, I will embark on a euphoric journey to havens of people who revere this art to the level that I do.

Case and point: where I call home at the moment is full of phony faces. Everyone, with a few brilliant exceptions, is afraid for one reason or another to make their true feelings and selves known. It's not that these writers I seek do not exist; it's that they are hesitant to show their faces, for fear of ridicule?

Ridicule for what?

Succeeding in capturing fleeting moments, powerful emotions that others balk at? Confronting head-on the darkest parts of their own soul and being? Not being afraid of what will come out in their writing, so long as it is true?

There is no need for ridicule, of course.

Excuse me, I have become sidetracked.

Ah, yes.

The world and our community of Johns Creek will be immeasurably bettered when we come to the understanding that masks just won't cut it anymore.

The truth is what we need, and until this is what we get, there will be a number of horrible side-effects of our disguises.

War, Distrust, Confusion, Sadness, Apprehension.

In truth, they dissolve.

Whomever you referred to, Allie, thank them for me as well. You have great things ahead of, behind, and beside you. Never forget your potential or your accomplishments.

Drift off to sleep among
Hordes of orange sheep in the fields
Behind the Walgreens
Not the one you know but the one off that
Long road to nowhere we went on once while looking for
A place so desperately different from the one we found

Where you can crumple up a newspaper and throw
It up into the clouds, waiting for hours without even a
Whisper from its knowing pages

Beside the factory and
Inside they make little boys and girls into great
Law-makers and road builders who have lost their ways and
Dreams and wishes somewhere inside the world's collective furnace and
May never return to the
Land of the crayons

Not so much vulnerability as
          wide-open hearts because
     ten years from now we'll look back at
                   where we are and note the
                                 change in what's around
                                                with a smile, if I have
                                                            ­     anything at all to
                                                                ­                 say about life

that's right.
                             We.

Oh here is my map
What does it look like today
Oh
Here among the kudzu walls, enthralled
With life and all its possibilities
How frozen the landscape, how
Bountiful the harvest of
Minds filled by ideas, concepts
Burning like the wasp stings around my ankles

Far from the place I will be far from
Soon, but now
Oh here I invest, to
Hear what there is to listen to and
Speak of things unseen, walking
The shadowy path beneath trees and
Taunted by the sun, as

Forever is a world of a word that should
Never leave its cage
                                  [remember the last]
Second before the grasses grew tall and the
Roof sodden with rust, a perfect sandwich
Rotting on your dusty counter to await your
Oh here
of disgust whenever it is you
Plan on returning

Oh here you are beside it
Chomping away at nothing beneath the
Beautiful fountain where
Time means next to nothing and nothing
Lives for time and whatever is thought exists
Not as a conjecture solely but in tangible or
Perhaps an intangible form of peace, a quiet

Hillside on which all good things grow
Inside or out, and no punctuation to
Restrain these words, no sire and
Yes ma'am I do believe we've come to the
End of our tour now, so

Be sure to take your impact with you and
Have a lovely rest of your night while we
Break the morning

My friend said she would turn into a cloud
         I told her that's physically impossible
She warned me her form was fading
         I was occupied elsewhere
She asked me if I wouldn't help her stay
         I didn't think anything of it

And when I turned around

                     She was gone.

How long will it be  
until the vast majority of
breathing beings on this little
spinning globe of ours recognizes
such undeniable similarities?

how racism and hatred, anger as
well as war leech the truth from our
eyes, (no world is black and white)

have we grown so distant to not
know somewhere between ourselves and
others lies the answer, never buried within or
too far out of reach, silly excuses

come, children
we may very well never make it
to those stars you reach towards so
you'd best get acquainted with the
right here and now

These words that span two hearts
       polarize each day's interlude
              

so close when elbows hug.

in essence, the laughter
for no reason other than "we
lack energy for meaningful
conversation" before the sun
pulls heavy drawers on this
little room of ours, all
snuggled up and pretend while
life remains frozen and dead outside,
time curled with us by the fire

Put trees in the back-
ground, shade built from
green and mahogany, lovely
little flowers with yellow heads
marching to the beat of your
eyelashes, skipping like stones
across memories

and in the foreground let there
be only you, only you
as you are

Even in the most unlikely places
We are reminded of the
Necessary nature that composes a
Melancholy side to live, in all its
Splendors, that permeates
The yell of our yellowing veils

Great zeppelins of consideration
Titans among petty thoughts
Coast through the oceans of will
In which few fish nowadays
Content merely to partake
Of the land life

Are we so complacent at present
To overlook the neglected mindsets on
Whom we have turned our backs as of
Late?

Soon they will prove to be valuable
Allies in a fights against a greater evil, fueled
By centuries of lackadaisical behavior when
Faced with far too many illusions for
One man or a hundred to manage

Explosions in the sky
Rip apart the shreds of thought I so
Desperately struggled to gather around myself

More beautiful than fireworks' light-hearted
Sighs, these demon waves penetrate
My ribcage, throttle my heart

Lights, lights, the unknown maestro
A landscape plagued by hiccups

We are what we love and not what
loves us
             balance in creativity
unchecked, if we stay scared, we
   cannot progress, see

I AM NOT INCOMPLETE, I am

a full picture in
myself that loves and chooses to
love another pigment, a specific
style of painting out a life, so

there is no "completing the
puzzle", only expanding our
beautiful view like a new
universe of stars winking with
open hearts

Shadow's fingers
making the contours of your
face breathe fire

About it, you made the right choice it
All worked out in the end there were
Parades and balloons and you earned a
Trophy
Earned, not received

And they never pop, never dull
Limp with fractured wrists and arms and
Popcorn full to the threatening point of
Bursting, but they hold on for you

Watch your eyes *****, spewing dark sky
Studded with stars in the hopes of
Outshining all our halogen
Smiles

this feels like waking up and
falling like the
       rain outside my window

where messages
    stall when they're in sight and I am
                   tortured by the unknown note

        unhinge and swing wide

  I can't sleep inside this
       distance that's between

A frivolous fire crept 'tween some toes
Climbed up a calf and met with a knee
Danced past a waist that nobody knows
Up through all that blind fingers see
It crawled its way over the length of the skin
And over full mountains of rib-cages when
It got to the heart
And found you there

No.
It couldn't have been me.
I was out for a walk
Reading poetry by the sign
That warns "Enter at your own Risk"
I was dreaming of dreams
Wishing for wishes
Far too preoccupied for that
Sort of thing

Why do you ask?
Is it something I said?
A casual conversation misinterpreted?
You're scaring me.

Anyhow, it couldn't have been me
I'm simply too
too
too
distracted
by you?

a friend
      (to walk beside and ramble with
whose thumbs need warming while
      deciding upon the right path
comfortable to the point of a sweater
      in faintly recalled initial fluster
just in case you don't notice the cliff)
      everyone needs such
a friend

There are times when everything is right.

Such times are coming.

"say what you
mean to say"

isn't as easy as french bread when
all the words build up inside your
skull like ideas born to a warm
dim place with inadequate
space to learn, convinced
to fight rather than
reason amongst themselves for
rationed pleasures like inspiration,
expansion, acknowledgement from the
conflicted world they call home, someone
that allows for only one or two
survivors every so
often, two bold witnesses
battle-scarred and cynical

limping to your ears

there's a quiet sense of knowing
in this fire, slow-burning as we
reach a state indistinguishable from
its freedom

my open heart, sure-footed as a rabbit on
pine needles in the summer, dreams
you here with me, two melting as
candle smiles climb our faces and
birds shriek their approval like
so many arbiters of the forest

Green is the color of life
Not the neon green of toddler toothpaste
Or the gray-green swirls of size-14 bowling *****
But the forest green, the deep vitality of a leaf or stem
Underlies every important thing we encounter

The shoots stuck between my toes, fragile leaves
Crushed under thoughtless steps from relative giants
Don't you agree?

The contemptuous, superfluous, inconspicuous, jealous
Lies we spout to justify our conformity when
There is no justification, no yelling
No calloused hands begging in corners for change
Dusty old tires churning along vacant streets
With dusty old memories trailing behind

It's criminal
               to bear witness to this startling beauty
         of red, orange, purple
           the natural painting that creates itself each night
                                                           ­                                                                 ­                                  alone

every which way and the colors
zing faster
            still could you sticky note
      me like candy down glass in a
rainstorm not wild
                       enough I'll just
                                                                take a quick breather and
                        we're back with
                all reds and maroons, learning to
                  tell the difference between (frustrated maverick
                       painters in wetsuits) and bridges and icicles
warm to the touch, is it too
much
     to linger on
               here with the water?
                                  but keep your head down or you'll
                     drown in the bundles of
                              soft pressure backwards
                          with live culture hands

Remember the time you asked
    why we can't just fast forward to the
        house and the wooded state and
                our well-trodden garden?

I understand now.

         And I would.

Fresh from the water
I embrace the soft yellow glow that
Fills my writing space

This week's end, a resolution to explore
And the crickets sound their approval

literally sick of a
dizzy world
            spin
ning spinn
ing spinnin
g sp
in ni
ng

out of it and
not quite sure what it was
in the first place

fade on down the road
spotty recognition

flaccid intellect

We are both the good eggs
Beating hearts and loving minds
These little bits of pure joy
Light our world up from inside

And that's what keeps me going
And that's what gets me through
When each and every morning
My waking thought finds you

There's nothing to do about nothing.

Nothing can, but nothing won't be there for you
It isn't really that something can't be done about nothing
It's that no one cares to do it

There's a funny little saying I remind myself of every now and then
It goes something like

I can do it; I can do anything; I cannot fail.

It's never actually voiced like this, of course.
Rather, it exists primarily as a sort of mantra that pops up during a particularly hard workout or when my fingers get sore practicing a tricky run; it replaces lost strength from within.

I think it's extremely important that each of us has a mantra or mindset that we can fall back on when we need to.

If not, we fall back on nothing, and we've stated already that nothing has no reason whatsoever to help you or to break your fall

Nothing will simply dissolve and reappear elsewhere, having already forgotten your cry.

But there's nothing to do about nothing.

Yet.

If it's not the waiting (bronze
string melodies take care of that) or
the dreamy silence of sushi beside
papers and pens,

                      why do I feel this way?

what is the empty?

each breath fills me to the brim like a
    pitcher of pure sunshine

   ribs
        e x p a n d i n g

                if I do break, it will be
            with the biggest smile on my face

every raincloud a challenge, a
puddly smile

"Gone away to
dream forgotten places up, rising
like a helium balloon in the lilac
sky, really"

"I intend to return soon, but who can
tell where the horizon will let
down, in which direction life's
tides might drift"

(that when you next scratch your
back I should appear an instant
later in dismay, a
bit too late to feel your skin
warm my fingertips on this
cold autumn afternoon)

My vision should be pretty good
                (but you are all I see)

Testify before your false god
        built of owned wood
        burnt to glowing ashes on
          pulpits like eggshells


    forgive all transgressions
  for to give
       merit to
     an inch to the game
                
                          will mean the end.

Maybe we all are the pins to
         explosive ideas
  and the world will shake apart
                   once we let ourselves go

It sputtered and coughed to life in my mind first
And I believe yours did the same
Worn paint, chipped and weathered
But fresh new wheels
Roaring down desert roads

Mind the way from Phoenix
As you begin in Santa Fe

The nights were the worst
Cold coyote howls
Lonesome worries

But soon another came into view
For you it was me and
For me it was you

Easing the brakes and turning the key
We smile and set up camp

always more things to say
always missing the chance

The pattern of mortal life runs
From the early explorations to
Gradual acquisition of knowledge to
Ultimate realization of this prize's futility

There, it cannot end
As the leading tone is
Always resolved
And the turn of the Being
Reveals dark places in light

Tornado warning for where you are**

good
      bring it on
                
   there is nothing here that I would miss
                                        so, sweep it all away
                                              if you please
       I'll cheer for you

just breathe
      and don't look away for a second

Leaves are martyrs
for a ruthless autumn

the stillness is never still
   and all the world is a
             door left ajar
        without you here

Plans have gone and changed, I'm
off and away regardless, couldn't
care more about this vagabond desire, I'll
burn the laughter down and run right out
of town, not stopping ahead for a yellow like
an eight-sided rule anymore, you've lifted
the unknowing latch and I'm out, I'm
out out
out.

There is so much to tell you
before I wake and with the ongoing
countdown of patient fingers, one
by thirteen days left in our time apart

the heart allows a small smile

for how time has sped along and led us to
where we need to dream, where we
need to be

and you stitch up my world
like a soft winter scarf, warm
and woolen, beautiful and
all your own

writers block with
all you beautiful people

knowing what to say
and not wanting to say it

knowing is the worst

like bending an idea around my
head and getting hopelessly stuck

move along now

The mouse
Knows he can fly
(She told him so)
He straps paper wings
To his paws
And climbs the Tower
Of Mouseville
To the cheers of all his mousefriends

Standing atop the Tower
His little chest swells with pride
At the sight of the crowd
The parades, the balloons
The thousands who gathered
For him, for his flight
His dreams are becoming reality

He sniffs the wind and concludes
It smells of promise
Of adventure
Of opportunity
Drawing in every ounce of air his mouse lungs
Could hold
He bellows
"I am Mouse
And I will soar"

The crowd watches as their little mouse
Takes a flying leap from the Tower
To splatter at their feet

A hush fell over Mouseville.

You'll take to the grave of their question
What did I win?