You worry about the harm one could do?
I'm worried about the harm being done.

You're worried to offer an inch?
I tell you, grab a hold of my arm!

I thought afar, yet never wandered.
Always saw that what I never watched.

For the distant blaze, I brought forth the horizon.
But, the landscapes turned to patchwork swatches all at once.

By Speare you drove your votives,
That which was a work of prose.
By reality, it was as an artist's pose
On a good kind of love.

For a lover is a writer,
Whether with ink & quill
Or lead & wood cylindrical.
For a lover is a writer,
Whether with chisel & stone
Or dynamite & the mountains.

Whether they write in constellations
Or draw in the sand on the beach,
Time it will take us.

For time, it shall take us.

But, in time,
Will there be that which is loving?

What say the scars unseen?

The deep peaks & valleys cut?
That which you etch
Without ever touching it?

You couldn't tell if I was crazy
If you were even any sane!
And you're not.
You couldn't tell if I was sane
If you weren't any crazier!
But you are!

Does it hurt your head to think?
Why, let it stop!
Does it hurt your chest to breathe?
Why, just quit it!

Soemone else can do that for you,
You can just take the credit!
For if the heart should ache
You're better off without it!

But serious-
The cloud tells the rain
What is & is not water.
Do the falling droplets care?
"What are these foreign definitions?"

The destination is the same,
Their own priorities remain,
And perspective is unchanged.

These strange properties,
Words themselves as elements
When strung together by sentence.
Is repentance within a reflection?
Redemption by sight through a drop of liquid?

What grippings within these pensions,
What potential within these tensions,
What whippings within these conventions.

By the accounts of every party attended,
What stern material has been cobbled.
Yet, poverty is worn stronger.
That which itself is as the weather,
I think it closer to trinkles
Than shine & twinkle.

What do the poor pour?
What do the bums toast?
What do the homeless shower?

A buddy of mine
Left really only notes.
Another was a rotten cheater.
I knew one that liked to play with guys,
Knew one that liked masks & needles.
Comes what? What goes? Who knows.

It can't be worse than before,
But that's not something you remember.
Of course, I mean, not someone you know.

How to get through to someone
Who simply won't talk to you‽
How to get through to someone
Who thinks they've already "gotten through‽"
How to get through to someone
Who really can't be bothered seeing‽
How to get through to someone
Who really isn't listening‽

What's 𝘮𝘺 name?

For most crave some recognition,
For most know of some loneliness.
It's better to have compassion,
Lest our rasher emotions ruin moment.
It's better to have patience,
Lest our hectic thoughts disrupt a companion.

Who are 𝘺𝘰𝘶?

For many can be very callous,
For many are much imbalanced.
It's better to care for one's self
Than to be hurt by another who only does.
It's better to love who you are
Than to find that you're with someone who does not.

Themselves. Others.

There once was a man from Tyrone
Who spent all his time all alone:
     It got on his nerves,
     And he wanted some curves,
So he Frankensteined a female clone.

In darkness, a church
of carved Baroque stone
catches me walking
unawares and alone.

Two stone hands reach out
from the church outer wall.
A gesture of blessing
or a prayer for us all

in stony carved silence
that echoes the voice
of a God we can’t hear,
who stays quiet — by choice?

Just when we need
to hear they’re right here,
they feel like a veiled cloud
that is more distant than near.

Still these outstretched hands
remind me of this:
Divine’s in the touch
of human hands’ godlike gift.

A-walking on a wormwood path
that’s paved by age’s cobblestones
on past a palace of distant past
in a Prussian park, a mind unthroned.

He walked, a shadow
through the foggy night,
his pulse beat faint and shallow
as the pale and fitful light.

In the lace of this quicksilver mist,
a fellow shade now walked along.
She emerged from dark, adrift
like him. They hummed the same black song.

In what had been a pitiless pit
of icy fog and stony walks,
she was there as if summoned by fate’s writ.
In whispers, she and he began to talk.

They shared their bleak
and tattered tales
to raise the wreck
of where they’d failed.

And as they talked
their once distant light
began to shine
out in that night.

Here in their pale of desolation,
two kindred shades touch shadowed hands
and in their touch found consolation
to rekindle light in benighted lands.

Two marble columns
hold up the high temple roof —
Lovers holding hands

Two-thirty a.m.,
cruising my hometown,
feeling despondent vibes
of failed industry
yet familiar comfort
of childhood haunts,
I belonged.

Out with buddy boy, childhood pal,
smoking Marlboro reds
in his high roller Cadillac, white,
smooth cruising, floating ride,
driving circles, squares
around our old neighborhood,
Nancy Sinatra serenading us,
“Sugartown” repeating on loud,

needing this carefree release of
pent up, wicked juju,
masqueraded well below
staged superfluous smiles

He was gambling
and losing all he had,
I was getting high
and losing my mind,

both of us back home
to escape these vices
our bad decisions catching up,
fools to addiction, we were dying.

Chuck Mangione, “Feels So Good”,
old recordings from dubbed mix tape,
open window, release of trapped skeletons,
inspiring belief in better days to come,.

Bygone music, rhythm and lyrics
offering alternatives to troubled  life,
and we dreamed of delicious days,
peace, freedom realized
destination in sight
almost there in Sugartown.