Raw irony laces its high-top shoes
and laughs at me with a cynical sneer.
Dark dances are in my head -
Others, so normal...all of them...not me.
Not me, never me, is not me.
Upon my back is a pack of sorrows.
Secret wishes are scars that run up and down
my arms from self-mutilation.
Taught not mercy or kindness,
yet they live within my being...sparing him.
I can no longer sing - he crushed my throat.
I hobble on a hip that will never heal.
Buddha says, “All life is suffering”.
The injuries are well-known friends
who come to visit; come to stay.
But the thoughts inside my head -
where no one can see...these worry me.
He left me nothing, not even my innocent
kindness, for I have killed him
a hundred times in my mind...will **** him
a hundred times a hundred -
and he will not be dead, but I will have
the stain on my humanity even after
I know he is well and truly dead.
I, the murderer of the heart.

Charade

“Stand behind me now,”
I tell the charcoal scarecrow.

Bony fingers tap, trying to refract me
into my darkest madness.

In the dusty silence, trying
to supplant me, is a madwoman.

They won’t know - I hide myself
within myself.

My Kabuki face stands in for me.
Ghost worms wind themselves around me,
trying to pull me from my cherished space.

Never let them see you are crazy -
or they will expect it all the time.

Island of Exile

In the sweet cool darkness
of my barren and lonely room,
Neil Diamond sings for me,
weaving silken beauty
from my gloom.
Cherished sanctuary
where the world
is an unwelcome stranger.
Wanting only peaceful fantasies
to caress me when day is done.
Living in a dream world
is not insane.
Reality is callous minds
who display only contempt
and empty hearts to
bully their way through another day.
Their is no kindness -
no one cares about more than
their place.
Puppets to the god of being “one”
they never look each other
in the face.
Not all their pills or pleadings
will make me walk out that door.
I will sit in my blessed aloneness
and plug my ears against their
meaningless roar.

Butterfly

A gray, decaying cocoon
lies snug up against
a Sunday plate-glass window.
All that can be seen
is the jeans-covered ****
of some homeless person.
Charity blankets never
cover everything at once.
At the edges
of the chrysalis is
a banner from some parade,
wrapped like a royal-blue
winding cloth.
What emerges as
the sun floats high, could
hardly be called a butterfly.
It is the old man who
sits, nodding, by a square
of cardboard, hand out for change.
His unfurled banner lies, catching
breezes nearby.
His old gray blanket bleeds
his stink into the street.
He waits for the hour
when he can can bind himself
to his bottle, squirming back
into his corner.