cold pizza
orange soda
bright lights
dark room
big heart
empty feeling

In any case, with pains, I'll rise again
No one can soar downwards
I will handle curb of life
But I wish you were near me then,
Not beneath like a surpassed one

We can soar together, believe me
If you restore your reliance
Maybe not merely eye-to-eye
Maybe not merely hand in hand
It can be spirit to spirit
And can also be trust in trust

I want you to be soared with me
With your thoughts and deep choices
To higher than me like a wren *
I want you not like a talisman
I want you alive and like The Genius *  

It is possible where poets come from
And where philosophers inhabit
Where high humane dimensions lie
Dimensions of fathomless friendship

We can soar together, believe me
If you restore your reliance
Maybe not merely eye-to-eye
Maybe not merely hand in hand
It can be spirit to spirit
And can also be trust in trust

Tidal waves of noise crashing
A brief silence followed by another
The silences were short and abrupt
No matter what he did
The noise was too loud
Attempts to block it out only seemed to make it louder

He smiled at the peak of it all
   Inhale
      Exhale
This time was different
As the waves came crashing down
He no longer heard static
Instead he heard a symphony

You have a heart shaped freckle on your body.
You have a mouth shaped bruise on your neck.
You wear a certain type of sweatshirt on your birthday
as a precaution in case they were to check
if someone had given you a love bite  
sunken lips deep into your skin,
but dear lover, a lesson you have yet to learn-
leaving the heart shaped freckle on display was your sin.

The Eagle did land,
In the Israelites' hands,
The eagle was candid,
When Our Lord landed,
The brain game's the same,
Humans still play it the same,
Weapons of mass destruction,
Hell is obliteration,
We should aim high, Our Father
Would Peace on Earth rather,
Once upon a lifetime,
In an instant of rhyme,
The Eagle was candid,
When Our Lord landed!













,

We sat anxious and low
in your bedroom cupboard
beleaguered by hollow briefcases
and stifling musty winter clothes.

Holding our cigarettes like a crucifix
hunched over the ashtray
basking in the lonely timid light
you yanked into life
with the tug of a frail string.

I was ready to speak existentially
ready to be immortalized
by the blinding flash of the ancient pictor
black and white
candid but purposeful.

Locked into my eyes
lingering in their intensity
my artistic mystery.

I was suddenly pulled from my disillusionment
as my wishful banter was silenced
by your stern hush
preferring a whisper so your
parents didn't hear.

I watched you take a drag
like a glass of water
in the middle of the desert
so desperate, so agonizing.

I watched you shakily tap
tiny flakes of your soul
into the ashtray
your eyes distant, mournful.

It was irreversible;
my childlike fantasy
of aesthetic in the smoke
on my breath--

not from frigid temperatures
but adolescent guilty pleasures
coveted forbidden treasures--

to turn into the ashes
I watched my friend flick
routinely into the tray.

"This is not James Dean," I realized.
This is not somber-eyed bedecked
in worn leather jacket
leaning against a cool brick wall.

"Neither is this 'A Hard Day's Night.'"
This is not Ringo smiling amiably
shaking his head with cigarette
bouncing and dainty on his lips.

This is huddled in my best friend's
cramped cupboard
watching him surrender himself
to a caustic lord who scorches his life
away

in every drag that burns between
his cracking lips
in every ash flicked from
his shaking fingers.

I watched the smoke envelop his weary body
I watched the ashes eulogize his fading spirit
I watched him bid farewell with his tired eyes
I watched him disappear.