why do i write in lower case?
it is not because i want to be
like bukowski
or cummings
but because i am humble
and in reverence of language
i whisper in its church

poetry called back
said I knew
you couldn't stop
even for a few days -
but the real question is
are you unhinged enough
do you break rules
with enough fervor
to join the poetic tribe?

do words tumble
out of your lamp
and roll around the page
like dots of mercury
and then morph into
poignant crystals?

and do you walk
around the town
with bare feet
in a blatant shirt
asking spontaneous questions
about absurd things
of total strangers?

you should practice
living on these edges
because writing poems
means you break
the thermometer
of your soul
and your blood spills
into myriad rivulets
you cannot contain
with a million resevoirs
no, once you start
there's nothing
you can ever put back
the way it was

A pen is not a tool,
it is an instrument,
and it does not do for an instrument
to be cheap
or poorly made.
If I have a choice, it will be expensive
Ink, not gel.
God forbid a ballpoint Bic.
No.
It will be the kind of pen that makes you want to write,
even when you have no idea what it will be about;
Write,
not for the flow of thoughts to pen to paper,
but for pen to hand to brain,
the sensation of the tip smooth across white ****** paper
swimming up your arm.
Handwriting that is usual jerky
and of questionable legibility
morphing into a graceful scrawl

I would have the kind of pen that rips the words out of me,
if I had my choice.
The pen a bow, the paper a cello.
The notes pouring, spilling, becoming,
composer unsure of where they come from
but suspecting some deep, secret crevice inside them
only touchable by the finest instrument
that they can imagine.

A pen like the head of an infant
in your palm,
so soft and inexplicably right
that you want to hold forever,
because it feels like it belongs in your hand;
cradled plastic as pleasant as downy hair

And with such a pen I will write
and write,
at the start hardly aware
what these words will weave.
A portrait of an artist,
genius or insane?
And the ideas will unravel
until it becomes more than sensation,
the meaning bigger than paper and pen.
Finally, at last.

He knows he will never be smart enough

To do much more than lift heavy things

He is eighteen and struggles to read

And walks like the earth wants to stand him still

And always smiles Jagger lipped and crooked tooth

Regardless of the reason

He just likes to smile

And knowing all of this about himself doesn’t stop him from trying

Everything was born with the desire to be better

Haven’t you heard of squirrels trying to grow wings?

They can be seen gliding between trees with the hope of a true takeoff

Or birds that prayed to be human?

Birds that live as long as we do

And then they learned to speak

Or small brightly colored frogs that wanted to be as strong as giants

So they made their own skin poison

And other creatures learned to fear their beauty

He is afraid of his own reflection

Once threw a television through a window

While watching the reality show COPS

He watched a police officer be mean to a woman for no reason

I found him after the crash

Staring at the broken glass saying

“People aren’t supposed to do that to other people”

He knows he doesn’t know much

And is confused when everyone isn’t nice

He knows

You can keep a loaded gun and still trust everyone

If

Keep it in your heart

And

Use is to fire off adrenalin when you need to be fearless

He knows he is going to feel like a real man some day

Despite his everything

Nothing’s going to stop him from trying