Fade away flowers,
Just as my love has.
Do not return to grip me
In illusions, in delusions of love.

Brittle each leaf, each rotting bloom
Live for an eternity in this box;
Until the garbage heap consumes you
Just as my love has me.

Winter ended up six feet high and weighing down on us;
With a brief sun came the melt, which only hardened everything.
Now, in the continued thaw, we are washed away.
But spring drinks heartily to gain the roots of what is left;
And we happily give way to its hopefulness.

"I have never been content with being Amy*."
Her words break my heart because she is Amy.

She is killing herself in the loudest way possible.

Amy would sell her soul, she would sell yours, too.
Men fuel her habit of huffing her "duster".

Amy is not a *****.  She only sells her body.

We drove because we saw the top of the mountain covered with snow.
Our desire was to feel its beauty.  As we traveled up and up
The forest encapsulated us with its velvety-richness; and the sound,
My heart pounding and the cascading waterfalls, played the music of the Soul
In the forest.  On we drive up the narrow road until there is no coming down.

Try JW dot Org

Have you wondered about the meaning of life?
Is God to blame for our trouble and strife?
Do you have unanswered questions that make you sigh?
Do you ever wonder what happens when you die?

Yes - Life may trouble you
Bad news may trouble you
Questions trouble you as well they might.
If life troubles you - questions trouble you, try JW.org website.

Have you wondered; "Does God really care?"
“Does He listen when we pray - is He there?”
“Will war and suffering ever cease?”
“How can we find inner happiness and peace?”

Yes - Life may trouble you
Crime may trouble you
Questions trouble you as well they might.
If life troubles you - questions trouble you, try JW.org website.

The reasoning is clear - the answers are viable
They always adhere to God's word in the Bible

Yes - Life may trouble you
Doubt may trouble you
Questions trouble you as well they might.
If life troubles you - questions trouble you, try JW.org website.

Life may trouble you
Doubt may trouble you
So try JW.org website.

Try J W dot Org Website Try J W dot Org
Try J W dot Org Website Try J W dot Org
- Brendan Vincent Owens


Have you wondered about the meaning of life?
Is God to blame for our trouble and strife?
Do you have unanswered questions that make you sigh?
Do you ever wonder what happens when you die?

Yes - Life may trouble you
Bad news may trouble you
Questions trouble you as well they might.
If life troubles you - questions trouble you, try JW.org website.

Have you wondered; "Does God really care?"
“Does He listen when we pray - is He there?”
“Will war and suffering ever cease?”
“How can we find inner happiness and peace?”

Yes - Life may trouble you
Crime may trouble you
Questions trouble you as well they might.
If life troubles you - questions trouble you, try JW.org website.

The reasoning is clear - the answers are viable
They always adhere to God's word in the Bible

Yes - Life may trouble you
Doubt may trouble you
Questions trouble you as well they might.
If life troubles you - questions trouble you, try JW.org website.

Life may trouble you
Doubt may trouble you
So try JW.org website.

Try J W dot Org Website Try J W dot Org
Try J W dot Org Website Try J W dot Org
- Brendan Vincent Owens

You do not see the criminal.
You say to me,

"You only see stuff that fear allows me to show."
You are the tongue of mass ******.

What was the motive?
In another cell a complex code casts you the victim.

We tie our lips up in knots
In order not to name the truths we know.

"Tell me I am beautiful;
I feel the weight of every line,
crease, and wrinkle, just now.

Laying here in your arms
I could believe anything!"

She said.  Silence . . .her heart broke.
Suddenly a soft purring, snoring rose!
She snuggled and they both slept.

You shouldn't long for the past,
- They say
But, I long for it anyway

I close my eyes, drift away, not good
- They say
Not worried, I do it anyway.

I  see it is only normal, it's okay
- No matter what they say
So go ahead, just drift into times past

As long as you do not stay

Into mellow fields, all manner of beings go.
The bird to gather bug or seed,
The workers with their hoes;
And, maidens who gather stands of wheat
In dresses that are blown.

My apiary buzzes.  On the breeze, nectar is wafting
Like an elegant perfume no money could buy.
They are as tendrils of the same vine,
A symbiotic call and response.
Their mission lofty . . .
Life

Triumph over tragedy is not being dismembered by it.
But how to stop the bleeding?  That is the thing . . .

For miles the white path leads
Silent, still, crisp air

Only a slight crunch beneath feet
Too cold to be damp

Come! We will walk
And feel the stillness of snow

The leaf, dried, wrinkled;
A life aging, it is mine.
Greening gone forever.

-The north winds whistling through the eaves
-Your gritty mumblings in deep sleep
-The rain hitting the bedroom window
-Blown derbies upon the panes

These things brew an ointment,
which I will rub into my soul for eternity.

Their music surely shaped my life
As I grew into adulthood.
She loves you, yea, yea, yea, while
We drifted in yellow submarines
Within psychedelic seas.
The split that ripped our hearts apart
Screamed that he was dead, but
I can still hear blackbirds
Singing in my head.

We climb the stars
Make honey in our hearts

Mad as a jackrabbit
We leap into dark holes

Walk among winged creatures
Quiver in our skins

And swear that we can fly
Feather-light on love alone

(In a letter to his wife,  Wallace Stevens, confided that writing was "absurd" as well as fulfilling.  What of reading the write?)
What makes you read on?  Exquisite words?  Or
Exquisite thoughts?  Ah, exquisite words forming
Exquisite thoughts.  At times so beauteous as to be
Painful!  Meter clipping along, tremulous tones trilling,
Making the reader thrill in the "Ah, yes!" moment.
Writing poetry is absurd, if you think about it.  
An absurdity bore of necessity.  
The reading, a veracious devouring
Of sustenance.  The substance of souls poured out.

You cannot straighten out a warped past
You can only choose the straight paths,
Which are now ahead of you.

Come here.  Look,
The grass is fading, and soon
The snowbirds will arrive.
Unmoved, they'll watch from afar
And, O, so shall I,
- trembling,
For fear that they may fly.

Things I have learned as I am aging:
I am still learning

Just as "we make our beds and have to lie in them",
So do we choose our bedfellows.  The locale of the bed
We end up in should be presently considered.

Should I sit around and think about
how miserable I will be tomorrow
or should I live this day more fully?

On the one hand, lamenting what
has not happened yet steals the life
from the moments of the day;

On the other hand,
there is something to be said for
advanced-planning!

I smell the sweet scent of pipe.  
In your quietness, the memory curls around my head
Like the smoke from one of your smoldering cigars.
Your hand, cigar still between *******,
Going up and into snow white hair, flickers
Briefly through my mind in the halo of smoke.
Then it is back to covering your intelligent face
With the latest newspaper, a barrier between
You and your world.

The stitches pull apart at the seams
Unless the words are undone
And you un-speak them;
Something that can never be.
We eat whole heartedly, parted,
On the barrier resentment has erected.

You fought like a madman,
For that last coke crumb

You scraped and scraped.
And, yes, desired the warmth

Spreading through your veins
Ah, your favorite longtime love.

You popped pills, did crank,
And drank and drank, and drank

But you washed it all down
With our tears.

The dank warm air stirs,
I hear sound echoing,

Moving towards me
Or am I moving towards it?

Dim light, tunnels of trees;
I am deep into the unfamiliar.

What is that sound
Vibrating through me?

Is it moving towards me,
Or am I moving into it?

An uneasiness moves
Up my body.  My blood

Is pumping, flushing me.
That sound engulfs me.

The echoes stir and I realize
It is my own heart.

The thing within itself, yet, without
The eating of its own flesh in mouth

The chewing until raw
- emotion all

I see you consume, be consumed

Stand near the cotton candy maker;
What a carnival atmosphere!

Sugar permeates the air we breathe;
The taste briefly lingers on the tongue.

Yet, the thing sweetly desired obtained
Becomes a sticky mess.

I am an expert on your culture.
After all, I have cable tv
With many channels to inform me.

I have earned the right, as any vulture,
To pick you apart at your weakest seam.
In darkest moments you'll get no reprieve.

I am justified in my judgements, you see.
For I have cable tv to teach me
All the narrow truths that I need.

The label read: Clarifying Shampoo
So I thought I'd give it a try.

Skeptical as I was
I lathered and I scrubbed,

But clarity never came.

Watching a death can consume you
With each heaving breath.  Is this the last?
Where the death rattle that is said will come?
When will the peace, the angelic expression,
Spread across the pale tortured face?
I have seen it, and yet I watch and wonder,
When, when, when both our release?

Leaf upon leaf
Bursting green unfolds
Into bright sunshine
The tree waves

I tried to love someone else
But you were the love of my youth
Your love carried me into adulthood

You gave me your pain to carry
Late night on my blue princess phone
The darkness of your life and war poured out

I gathered it and tried to close the wound
Soothing you when you came to lie beside me
You had had enough of killing, enough warring

I wanted to give you beauty and love
Love enough to bury the skeletons
And to carry your seeds forward into life

Repeat with me:
I must go on;
I must not pause in the midst of the storm;
I must not waiver nor become immovable;
I must go out throughout to the dawn;
Until the light is bright on a brand new day
And I can see the clearest way  
I must step one foot at a time.
In this, I move forward.
Repeat with me:
This is the way my life moves forward!

(From an interview with a young woman who escaped from ISIS)
She is dead and wonders why
Her heart goes on beating.
But, she has been dead before.

She died each time she thought
About the eight year old girl *****
Then taken, a wife for ISIS.

"Take me!" she had pleaded.
Her body would be stronger.
Her mind already knew . . .

So, now, at only twenty,
She dies, again and again.
Yet, her heart and memory will not.

Knowing it is just a patience game
We sit, we play the game, we wait;
The honking geese, a gaggle,
Beneath a crest of the moon.
Frost and snow and the geese,
A distant fox is patient, too.

Drunk caresses, drunken skin,
Drinking in wanton pleasures;
Blood with fever drink on.

Voice island too far to hear-

Hands throw me down,
Take what is mine,  
Then stumble away.

Star lit sky,

out where the blue begins,
I'm feeling strong in the wings, again;

  And,
     I
       want
                to
                    fly.

Snakeskin,
Crawled into it and it felt good.
Real good.  Good enough to live in.
Forked tongue slips in and out;
Poison drips, fangs cannot be contained.

Eating all, choking on frogs, going for bigger prey
Until all is gone, gone, gone -
Lining up to pet the snake, feel the skin next to theirs
******* out brains to fill craniums with crap.
And the world has gone mad, bad, and sad.

On water I walk
The deck. Steady, the boat floats
Across glassy seas.

We do not have to agree.  
We truly can still remain friends.
Yet, if we really care for others,
We'll help to lift the fog
Which holds good minds down.
Corrupt is bad but corrupt and crazy
Is simply straight up insanity!
People, you are on the wrong street.
You seem to be on Insanity Street!
Take a walk down Reality Lane

cognition
conversation
wonder
brilliant shine
glitteringly white
transfigured
transfixed
conversion
startling light
resurrection

I have never looked at the world
From this angle before.

I have long sat and watched the world
But never have known

The things you've shown me, taught me
From the beauty of your throat.

I wish I were,
at this very moment,
at a coffee-bar-bookshop;
walking through the isles
in my tee-shirt and underwear,
sipping a triple shot latte,
eyeing books longingly,
fondling pages and
smelling ink;
my mouth pasty,
my hair wildly
riding my head,
-two in the freaking morning;-
it would feel good
to just sit at a little
table in the corner
and watch the lifeless,
the insomniacs, or shift workers
sipping coffee, staring blankly.

An old and frustrated flower-child asks,
"Where did the love go?"
Peace, love, dope . . .

Why just yesterday, it seems
We were romping through beautiful fields
And reading such lovely poetry.

Where did the love go?  I am asking.

"I am still listening" (not really, I only cued in on that phrase,
"Are you listening?")

Mama wants me to lodge something in my brain,
that much is clear.  But for the life of me, where would I put it?

If she only knew the vast Smithsonian within my head!
I always was a precocious child.

Let me be a river
To flow away from you

Let me be a cloud in the sky
And float away in the blue

Let me be a mouth
To open and scream

Let me be a Northern
Raging to the south

Let me be a night
Filled with sweet dreams

Let me be beauty
Where ugliness was

Let me be love

She has a head, which floats
Above her body. Large eyes
Open wide. Picasso,
He could very well have made her.