Yesterday, a cloud burst in mythologies
and the rain fidgeted over the retreat

of a tidal pantheon; deities swept away
by a current, and we stood awhile, watching

the moon elbow out the dusk. Breathing
is burdensome when cars float on water

and corpses leak out of cavernous
basements. Every tablet, etched, in the cold

heart of building code was read again
and then again. It wasn't enough to blame

Aeolian whim or the raging riposte of Apollo,
now that we had marvelled away Gaia's

ozone skirt. Her amnion always leaked
in folkloric floods each time she birthed

a parable. She once asked Noah to build
an ark so he could ride her waves

and we scrape the sky to impale her
in shards where her womb is soft and yielding,

as we sour the air and burn the water and strip
her of her emerald sigh and melt her hills

and silt her wetlands. Mostly it was the asphalt
plastering her yearning that calcified her veins

and arteries, as she died slowly under our feet.
We could hardly fathom her sorrow for the tears

rolled off her torso like an oil slick
and rode far into the subway for sewers.

Nighttime is perilous
pestilential predators lurk
evisceration entropy envelopes everything
wounds are collected like keys to doors leading underground
and I can hear a jingling in my pocket
so I denounce the nighttime
unlocking the door to a home
where one can sleep at night.

But once I go outside in tomorrow’s morning
the sunlight shines into my soul, cooking my sutured skin
along with the keys I’ve collected
burning through my clothes
and into my body
flies can smell subcutaneous sizzling a mile away
they yearn to feast, buzzing all around me
crawling through my insides
multiplying
while vultures fly laps around me from above.

So I throw a nocturnal drape over the tumultuous foothills
and begin imparting my basement keys onto others
an imposing locksmith
a charitable safecracker
Johnny Applekeys
prowling with pouncing predators
masking my petulant bitterness with false wisdom
my edgy perception of maturity tells me to be jaded
hey, that’s just the way it is
I call myself an honest realist
a self ordained keymaster
I wear my key ring proudly
and distribute keys to those around me.

Stuck between persistent motion and paralysis
my key chains start swinging like pendulums
dancing like an opposing militia
like my eyes once I start getting nervous
waiting for the receipts to my exchanges
reflecting how I’m living in the red
and the debt I owe others
I can only pay in keys leading nowhere.

I try to convince them that the doors I unlock lead to riches
but we all know they’re paths to the hell from whence I came
my words are for myself
like the hell I man the ferry for
selling keys to scary doors
used as lifeboats in my shipwreck life
surviving off of other people’s strife.

The keys are overflowing from my makeshift pit
they poke into my veins like needles from the past
suffocating me like a rat in an hourglass, buried in sand
I imagine it’s the beach to the shore I can reach no more
unlike my swamp where I act as lifeguard
to a lagoon no man inhabits
I say “the water is fine, hop on in”
when I don’t even know how to swim
so even the trees think that I’m dim
when I hang my keys on their limbs.

Surviving night means eat or be eaten
yet my decisions effect daytime treatment
when scars put me behind bars
I inquire as to the depth of the dungeon
digging a subterranean home then diving deeper
finding company at the bottom with grim reapers
where the ostrich that flies is ostracized until it’s fossilized
so I sit in my estranged egg
not wanting to ever hatch
but no matter how much I beg
my keys unlock the latch.

there is a cage
inside this cage
there is a man
inside this man
there is his soul
inside his soul



ghosts are debatting
about the pros and cons
of darkness and light

Back to the beginning, back to the start,
And sitting under the moon looking up at the
Stars--Here and now is where I want to be.
Everyday I'm with you is amazing and
Memorable!
Everyday is a gift that I don't take for granted,
No one should and Life's too short
To not live in the moment. <3

There's a monster in the basement
In the shadows of the stairs.
There's a monster in the basement
And I'm sure he's covered in hair.

I have never seen him
But he smells like ***** socks.
His breath is just as stinky
And his skin is hard as rocks.

There's a monster in my closet
Behind my toys and all my books.
There's a monster in my closet
Daddy, take a look.

“There’s nothing in your closet,
Take a look for yourself,
Just clothes hanging from a hanger
And some books upon a shelf.”

There’s a monster under my bed
In the darkness behind my shoes
There’s a monster under my bed
I can hear him as he moves.

“There’s nothing there, it’s getting late
Sweet dreams, sleep tight, good night.
You don’t need to be afraid,
I won’t turn out the lights.”

There's a monster here beside me
Turns out he's just scared too
Of thunderstorms and dark, dark rooms
And even me and you.

5/19/19