Grow up, they said
but even as I did
I lost some child like wonder

Now. All I could ever want
Is to grow back down.

You take pictures of books you'll never read
write words you'll never truly know
and speak ideas taken from people that did.

But it's so common
and you're not the only one doing it
it's a whole spectrum of people
creating nothing
but consuming everything.

They may be just words,
but those words belong to someone
and without the person
they act without purpose--
repeatable, but with no meaning.

So few take what they have
to mold reality into new creations
that eventually the consuming will be consumed.
Leaving only an echo of what used to be
the cacophony of life--
it will become a mass of sounds
unrecognizable to the words we used to know.

I was a better love poet
When we were dating
The anxiety to be exactly
what you're looking for
stimulated all my hibernating
thoughts
Now a good lover
But a skeptical writer

Anticipation would stir
my imagination
Now blank with a pen
To every word chain
To every verse
To every unfolding stanza
There was magic and rhythm
This translated into intimacy

But I have got a plan
I'm going to take my mind
on excursion
Do bungee jumping
so I seize an out of body moment
I'm taking on a travelling job
To miss you so much
so often
For all that love
For all the nostalgia
To burst into a word montage

There's something about the poets

That leaves them wakeful

At midnight... and thereafter.


Perhaps it's because the blackness

Speaks like artful despair

Pitch dark

With just enough silvery input

From the stars

To perhaps stir up some inspiration.


Perhaps it's the romantics' glimmer of hope

As they hold their drooping eyes open

Wishing for the constellations

To write their stories for them.


Perhaps it's that those who feel alone

Fall in love with the moon

And her solitary beauty

So they search for ways to sing her praises

Before going off to cast their own light.


Perhaps these are some of the reasons why

Poets retire late

And rise later

Drawing funny looks

From the disciplined.


Perhaps it's not quite crazy --

In fact, it's quite normal

When you zoom in on a world full of wordsmiths

Churning out art beneath a blanket of dark.

Because sleep is not our muse --

Night herself is.

I went away, but it wasn't for play
Certainly, though, it didn't show,
the strenuousness--
head wrapped in gauze and cement at once.
And your bed is your grave
like a mummy entombed.
No sleep is ever enough
because it's too late.
But compared to the rest of the world,
it's your sun-infusing life pod.
As Earth's energy grows
stalks to the sky in nature, emerald green
and in the city, tin men and women wound
with a key
tight to within an inch of their lives
to build pillars of silver and glass,
equal parts plaintive and proud.
The atmosphere and ants proceed
as they would
while I cannot be worshipful, as I should,
to this planet we've been given.
My tributes were never tangible--
whispy as they're twisting to, I fear,
be ephemeral.
So why does a pen or keyboard taps
feel like a moral stand?
They say the Devil's playthings are idle hands
but in reality, my corpse hands
cannot volunteer to any definitive ends.
Though sin of sloth, I'll have to admit.