By the grace of Neptune, and the humor of heaven,
We are free to carry on erroneously.
To the unsounding ailing, time has no meaning,
And in reality, indeed, presence is fleeting.

Patrons sit in a Chinese restaurant,
They look like quilts.
The subjects of anonymity. Trees bent down heavy with fruit for their families.
Rich with memory, they are the royalty of fortune, having found
nothing perfect, but something adequate
that makes sense of the wild
Of city towns and streets. They hold close to each other,
like jackets in this coming winter weather.

Sorry tonight,
the road was long and dark
And I could not see my friend,
or at least her face, in my mind’s eye.
Sorry, I guess, for being numb and devoid,
and yet my apology is a feeling,
thus I hope yet.

It’s been so long that I do not mind lying,
though by truth I had better yet set that down,
for I can’t keep track of myself, a mess I’ve already become.

Yet things are not so bad, not so barren as the tough vine,
I wake up every morning and, bless fate, I have a means to follow, that means within my heart. Were that means ever to die, may my heart beat again that I may reform some new means, one away from fate, one made within the realm of honesty, where my agency resides.

Speak easy as led by good feeling,
a meaningless pass,
a meaningless pass.

Kindness may be a simple vanity,
I know some of you may struggle with this-
I do too, and to this I can't demur.
When I was young this was not a question in my mind,
And though I was not particularly kind, I was simple,
It was only after I decided to try to change myself,
No matter the cost...
That I was made aware of the darkness within.

On the bright side, however,
Some artists have made it abundantly clear to me:
In great failure comes simplicity.
And others say that the truth is that we are our own masters,
and that it doesn't matter how much time we have left,
only what we do with it.
So pessimism may be handy.
"Let heaven come slowly..." - Emily Dickinson

Green to the eye
begets the visage: life-
Startlingly simple,
a color tells it all.

So ‘tis with the note
and the morning earth is smelly-
I ask,
by what happy accident
is everything made plain?

Like a dog bearing its belly
or a moth sleeping in daylight-
the unapparent thing of life
these words just cannot say.

Somebody I never knew
already passed by here.
Myself a traveler,
a stranger local,
told me so, my dear.

I long to meet,
and retire at last
into your willing arms,
wherefrom then, my friend,
will we await the end.

But for now,
I travel on, in search of you,
my dear, whose soulful gaze
has drenched my soul
into the continuing days.

What should I say to you,
Other soul,
Who sparks a funny feeling in my heart

Some time set aside for a long-distance friend,
Sound like a prayer,
An indulgence in friendship, but food for the soul

boem
da wurd get put in da field
big ol grammar
big nemeanin
we say gud ting
or say Emotshun
du not mattuh
boem sez

How great the space when without us,
how far stars seem to be,
when you, me, and the whole world by
parts just cyclically.

Are greetings sorrow
til tomorrow?
Are parents here to be?
Is absence kinder,
desire blind
to sheer simplicity?

Something immense, beyond the scope,
helps me here to see,
only the things I am shown
to not belong to me.

The living day, at sunset,
scatters all the happy creatures.
Suddenly it gets so quiet;
everyone is gone.

How frightening this is at first,
being left without a warning,
while dark descends with a cool,
and nothing minds but silence.

What a somber feeling,
to have walked a changing world,
and then having to stop for nighttime
reflects a deep unease.

Unwholesomeness at times erupts,
a simple thing to see it thus,
it clings to me and me to it,
for a place to stay another day.

So if I sit and let it pass,
as a friend I once 'hey'ed,
it will pass by, satisfied,
as a hat-off to a stranger 'bye.'

Oh sadness I now do invite
to dine with me whenever she pleases,
for I understand her loneliness,
therefor, let her be with me.

Oh sadness I now do trust,
for nothing more she wants but this,
to know another soul, to wit,
a name which satisfies memory.

Oh but sadness I now not know,
for what is her utmost depth,
do I trust myself to hold civility
when she at herself is best?

Sometimes I get mad at spiders,
forgetting that they are, what?
Simple beings like myself,
who live and squat in simple huts.

My better part of sanity
says I'm right in thinking this,
but all my learning tells me thus:
that they are spiders! Let them rust.

Of all the friendly shrews I've met,
they've come and gone to my regret,
but by their pace I think I see,
their means of immortality.

Seems to be so long ago
that life was to be celebrated,
with ones that love you, and you they,
with the whole world looking on.

But passing by that etched frame,
where once warmth emanated from within,
now brings a bigger picture in,
one away from the easel.

For nature was not a place to stay,
to warm the hands and sleep the day,
and to carry on in no peculiar manner
is to mosey on another way.

I am lonely, and lonely, as a feeling,
seems to mean so much to me,
so long as it is pleasing.

I am lonely, as lonely as a friend,
who has lost his way among the meadows
where playmates were just a moment ago.

I am lonely, as one surrounded by dusk,
where all the little trees and things
now seem drear and blue.

How small an insect may appear
to a lump as large as me.
What if the whole world was an insect?
Would be I as small as me?

Then, would my life glide so fast
as a tiny ember's leap?
For things too small to grasp in hand
seem to me replete.

The most important thing to practice
when changing oneself
is simply, calmly, and kindly
starting again.

For all the things to dress up as,
one is prettiest when doomed,
let tragedy beautify,
and caution follow soon.

All my action to today
was to be looked at, how insane.
Like living all one's life at hame,
the soul gets tried, the soul's a slave.

The weaning oner is sad to see,
like an old friend, leaves it be:
all the world of soulful toil,
all the riches of simple soil.

How complicated it be to beg,
from door to door, for subsistence:
to become a dog of shame,
following in friendship's wake.

What if belief was vanity?
I would not write a word,
for if I knew a thing or two,
my meaning would be useless.

And if I write, I am vain...
vainglorious, for example;
but, yet, the courage to dress up,
starts in children everywhere.

Children are not holy,
and to that I bring the blame,
grind me up in the mill, I dare ye!
To which I can taste the sane.

The rivers start in mountains
and travel under roads
until they come to holding places
between here and the sun.

The sun starts way before us,
before then I don't know,
but travels onward after us,
to places as of yet unknown.

The places seem to move to me,
but to me place is here.
Places really don't make sense,
and to that I drink a beer.

Think lowly of me, dear child.
I was here before the end.
Poltergeists do not exist,
only friends and then the end.

I supplicate the breast
to flatten beneath the earth,
warmth is to me made,
though I don't understand.

On one hand...

Begging for forgiveness
is the best thing I can do,
for a heart is not the newest thing:
I weep and so can you.

Still I wonder how I lost,
though grief is swept away,
another world is all the same,
the risk is here adhered.

On the other..

Deeply do I slumber
within your numbing grasp,
feel without the antennae
the casual and the crass.

Experience has taught me
one should tremble yet,
my enemy's destroyer
is warming me just yet.

Oh vanity
Oh sanity
Sisters that I can't please
Tugging at both my arms
As if I were cavalier

Oh paucity
Oh raunchiness
I fatten upon a feast
Though shame and morning and mourning and frost
Wake me up too early

I wander under hour
watchful of demise
listless as the sunrise
fouled upon a set.

I watch for your demise
and ponder why do mine?
Would I ever knew ye,
Mine would sunder yet.

My affection,
Playful-
In grace and trust,
I long for thee
for my cruel truncheon.

Whose swinging ruse,
a lighting crack,
Brings swift joy-
     which hope employs.

But what cruelty,
what miserly soul,
Whose weak mind knowest
the bestest of thee!

You are my klutz,
my wonderful one,
take after me for a while,
then, leave me be.

You are my gentleness,
neared by this,
that lives after you
in returning bliss.

There's a season for this,
There's a season for that,
What would I miss
If I didn't have that?

Shadow of care-free joy
Harmony-
draw feet into earth,
Where sharp stones
in the pass,
Weather
by the softer side.

Fragments of blue
in an azure field,
an uncertainty conspired
by white folks,
green lanterns.

Exhale
conflagration,
contemplate,
reminisce.

Humor at the fold,
blues as the answer.
Feel sad,
wait a while-
answer when called.

Maybe the story is clear,
most well while you're here,
maybe there's something to say
while you're in for a stay.

Take up a chair at
the bottom of the stairs,
it was time
you owed him a visit-

and a story,
of your travels,
in the fall,

and a story,
shall unravel,
revels small.

He won't mind
your perpendicular phrases,
or the way your jaw adjusts.
It's not long for a visitor here,
not the way he elicits dust.
Not long for a visitor here,
your time on earth he trusts.

There may be something that depends on thee-
you hi-sprung holly which is dainty in the forest,
resting in your lawless ways a cudgel of berries.
Tease then, deny me, mammal inappropriate for your stock,
your bounty is more for the nimble of hock,
who have a stomach stranger to mine,
who needs't not pay me any mind.

Force here will do no good, no,
which confuses me by force of reason,
misleads me through whorls of rhyme.

I fell in love once,
it was confusing.
Perhaps to un-know!
Oh, how my names elude me.

Why do you not speak?
I ask the brush.
Your wild body hangs down.
Here, green arrow leaves,
here, a dead tree, surroundings clear,
and, here, five-pointed wild flowers
that are deep purple.

I dare not speak,
it answers,
for here is all I have,
I am here for no one to listen,
to be haphazard against the din.
When fire breaks out,
I am torched,
When the moonrock shines,
I hum inaudibly.
But by the time you have come and gone,
the delicate dance is right and wrong,
strong you are, like the water,
and I weather like rock,
you sing, you suffer.

By mirror I saw her as my own,
she sat undressed, pity slouched,
makeup putting on, then,
by ice we were separate,
man I alone in she,
riga mortis and she dies,
I say -
no! stay back!

as my throat holds,
I am left alone in blue,
black water besides
my earthen trail,
yet all I see is you.

Through winter's pale
and heart's formation
held the glass-eye prism,
which split the light
like morning dew,
handless icicles,
blood withdrew.

My maid,
a domestic woman,
stands in my doorway.
Her short fat legs
bend inward,
they are bruised.

My maid,
a domestic woman,
stands in my doorway
looking into my eyes,
she has brought groceries
for she cooks,
and she cooks so well
that I think of her children
who live in another country
who know her only by
white envelopes
filled with my cash.

At night,
I'll take my
socks off
and watch television,
then I look at
her and she is smiling
at her cellphone.

The ocean is sad,
her winds are
like a desert's
but about nothing.

At night on the beach,
the waves come
crawling in from
loneliness
as does the wind.

For a mote, I think
of how glad
I am
to greet them
after their journeys.

The ocean is so ugly,
so full of grayness
and despair,
were it not for
the sky that
stretches above,
the ocean would
not be worth seeing.

She fills my heart
with love
because of her space,
but the salty water
stings my eyes.

Knitting aught to begin with an endless string,
but the thread that runs through must be twisted and taught
for the yarnball naught,
and the sweater yearns
the fleeceless expression of companionship  sought.

Poems kept at home
for family doors, spouses and pets,
Western style houses,
brick on four sides,
wooden style window shutters
open to dry air.

There are always poems you'll never write,
never read,
never know,
the difference is the trodden path
between the ruined stones.

A ******* smell
from good food, eyes
look at pastries
shaped like eggs

On the bench,
slouch and close eyes
And talk to mom,
feel the fans

Look for ship
out iron windows, see
green ferry slow,
people gather now

The water
Pulls and rises out,
The floor bounces
wood ship over water

Black blood drools
From the bleeding rooster
The tip of its beak
Lets feelings become super.

Etched in blots
Eternally a stone
Mighty soundless arches
Held up by keystone.

"Well?" flap volumes
Attract a foolish stare
"Can you find within me-
A jagged set of stairs?"

Close the cover nigh
And think about the pen
A dusty fellow punkin' head
Speaks through the bleeding hen.

The sultan kept
A mad desert storm
Sealed away in his bottle
Upon a silken belt.

I bought it from him
For a soul and two pence
My right eye,
a good crossbow,
And a loyal eastern gent.

I fell upon a
merciless jungle
That was filled with
Bodiless masses,

And uncorked the storm
Upon the bird like faces
Then they were swept away.

Why, do you ask?
So I could rule a sandy kingdom.
How does it look?
Like an ocean filled with glass.

A bottle I keep around my waist...
Within it a sandy storm...

Happy hips of roses
Dance here in the wind,
as I watch them grow
In my cold garden
'Neath the back yard swing.

My old window
looks sadly out my house,
The frame is blue
And the wall is stone
With gutters that creak and faint.

My whole world
Is a land of waterfalls,
Though it's sad
And though she's sad
What a beautiful pastel of paints.

Golden salamanders
Run underneath my porch,
And yonder far
Where thunder heads roam
I swear I see a dove.

Dispose of them properly!
It might get caught
On the neck of some poor soul.

They are recyclable!
I prefer ones soft,
The ones polymers are made of.

Wear them loosely!
They aren't good for skin,
Besides these masks get sweaty.

You are the sunshine of my days.
Are you aware?
Of how significant you are?
The world spends days dazing into great space, whose volume would send a key clattering against itself!
So what's the point?
I'm glad you're reading this.
I'm glad to say: hey you!

Yeah you,
you're doing well,

don't doubt it for a second.

A poet is a wind child
who can only play with that favorite toy,
a crystal bead of sweat that
springs forth from the mind.

To accept another plaything
would be slumberous, shadowy surrender,
so poet: don't stray far from
the shade of an old Oak Tree.

For some sparrow hands which
are washed with clarity can unpen with a key,
A shy horse with a black coat
And a star upon his brow.

His muscles strong against
the dark night and pulsing roads and travelers not known,
his hooves will kick 'gainst the earth
for the reigns o' your own sweat.

It'll be a while now until
The day comes and with it your eyesight,
still wander on forth with a candlestick
as you do in infant fatigues.

There is family watching you
over the dimlit alleys of abandoned streets,
who await you willingly-
and for the ringing of horse bells.

"Great goodness," said the scarecrow
To the white tailed dear
As she sidled by with her belly full of labor.

"When the next season comes your
Load will lighten onto the earth
To be legged upon another mother."

The doe says, "yes, the girl is due
In the days where streams start trickling again.
I'll have her hop like I do, I'll have her know the joys of big leaps."

"But what will you," said the scarecrow, "do
In the coming days of august spent,
For this is not your first labor but might
Well be the last?"

And the doe said, "yes, sweet scarecrow,
She is mine as I am old, but with her
My youth will grow long enough
Until I return to the earth to
Mother her."

"Good," said the scarecrow through a smile. "I'll watch your kin grow as your shape does, and ask of her the same question when the same time comes. Your love is not short!"