Meet me down by the old creek bed
The scary rotting ligneous bridge
Rusted metal and wood warping
Dropping a man into the muddy bottom

A clothespin and a playing card
A cereal box robot reflector
Dusty road that’s gravel sharp
Bled my knees and bent my bicycle wheel

I swung on the old vine tree
Playing out my Neverland fantasies
One lost boy no fairies in sight
No mermaid kisses or decent Pirate fights

White wooden saw horse
Played Battlecat to my He-man
A cracked wooden board on
A frayed twisting rope

Peppered grey house with old trimming
This is where I found my beginnings
Old man dead now the woman’s gone to
Pretty soon I’ll forget all I knew

Two miles down there’s a dead man’s farm
Row after row of white tombstone
Faded glittering grey monuments
That is where I will meet my end

The beautiful dawn burnt sky
Clouds colored with purple pastels
Blue and bluer night shades
Beauty in the nighttime

The killing fields blood soaked bandages
The fanatic’s face distorted with rage
Beautiful language turned to bile
And the corpses rise in piles

The flying birds singing
The squirrel trying to hide
The dog barking playfully
The deer running at night

The Cops throwing tear gas
The cops shooting young blacks
The cops get off scott free
Blaming the black community

The warm rain washing my raw skin
Splashing in puddles
Laughing with old friends
Rinsing away the stress

The starving child
The bitter pundit
The crooked politician
All of those nasty statesmen

It is getting harder and harder
To separate the hate
From the beautiful things
The music from the screams

And I keep slipping and slipping
Faster and faster into the depressive darkness
Defeated by the heartless
My heart is breaking and unlike the dawn
There will be no light coming

Been living on cans and that garbage food
Late night out back behind that convenience store
Thin pickings but they’re in separate bags
Donuts and pizza ain’t that bad
Park bench or playground slide bed in the summer
All night coffee at twenty four hour restaurant
Sketch a couple of pictures write a couple of poems
Read a book or two a day
Fifteen mile bike ride in the summer swelter
Crash at grandma’s after twenty four plus hours up
Sunburnt starving but I am still living
Never learned how to be a man but then again
Better than being a rotting corpse mannequin

I was the flower that longed to be loved
Dried and dying quietly crying chloroplast tears
Broken stem, parted petals trembling
Against the harsh summer winds
Longing for soft soil and gentle rain
To nourish me and wash away my pain
The last lost rose in a broken garden
Still wanting what I never had

Everybody is nobody
To somebody
A homebody
Aged female
Children gone
Wrinkled skin
Brown eyes
Rotten teeth
Holds tightly
To old memories
As they slip like mercury
Between her fingers
To be forgotten

Tired old veteran
****** back
Body sore
From the last fall
Hurts to breath
But at least
He is still alive
Holding down
The old folks town

The sidewalk ***
Hungry and lonely
Looking for nothing
Affection forgotten
Joys lost to the
Ravages of time

Little boy bruised
Abused
Miss-used
By angry adults
Tormented by other teens
Hazel eyes hold no light
Only finds hope in
Razor blade delights

The middle aged sage poet
Stumbling through life
Half awake
But more alert then others
Wrinkles of pain
Under his eyes
Those bags are full
And sag so deep
That they burn

Not movie stars
Or pop divas
Nobodies
Forgotten remembered
And lost again
Fragile beauty
Breaking with time
People who I claim
As mine
My brotherhood
We are all beautiful nobodies

Life gets painful
There is more hurt
Than joy
More rage
Then any page can handle
I forget myself
Lose precious moments
Stew in the sorrow
It takes hours or days
To remember
I am a creature of love
And all that pain
Stems from frustration
All that suffering sees the suffering of others
I need a joke,
I need a laugh
Before I split myself in half
My mood is an infection
A virus that spreads through my being
Humor is the antibiotic
To fight off my depression