I want more from this life than the same old patterns.
I'm sick of this drive for success and acknowledgment.
In the end, it doesn't even matter.

I want to feel the earth beneath my feet.
I want to discover all there is.
I want more.

All your words, slowly ******* me in.
Convincing my soul to die.
I give into your lies, that success is the basis of life.
My soul will never die, however.
I will always want more.

Creativity is like an ambrosia,
Which artists **** sweetly from the fingers of the muse.
A drop at a time is all we're given,
Because it is the most lethal of all drugs.

To be without it creates a void,
Somewhere--we're not sure exactly,
But we feel it.

There is a golden goblet within the mind of every creator,
And it sits waiting to be filled with creativity,
So we can once again pick up our brushes, our chisels,
Our pencils and pens,
And longingly wait for that sweet drop of ambrosia.

Lumbago awakened me in tears
of pain and fear of intensifying
acuteness, worsening condition
compelling mind to impose

therapeutical distraction,
persuading fantasy to create
spontaneous cuttings of pictures,
papers, magazines, old national

geographic dreams scopelessly selected
waiting on ideas to sparkle a theme
from coffee, cigarettes and analgesics.
Human evolution standing behind bars,

as I ponder on the meaning not
of the artwork but its making,
for I have no walls to hang
the sticky assemblage and haven’t

had them for a while. Used to clothes
in suitcases, books on other people’s
shelves, memories in shoeboxes,
the essence of my being in a body.

Oh walls! So longed for by humanity
urging to *****, building distance one
brick at the time, compartmentalising
individuals looking for pseudo shelter

under roofs, spurious safety behind
ramparts, four to enclose shame
for their actions, inconsiderate
behaviour of the willingly blind.

Yet what if there weren’t any walls?

People unable to neglect the sorrow
of their neighbours for they’re standing,
just by them, no drawing the curtains
no locking the doors, no closing

the gates. People inhabiting open
landscapes, bonded by necessity to engage
in living together, for unity is strength.
No wonder why our kind is so fragile today.

Blue, the color of the skies,
Blue, the color of the ocean,
Blue, the color of tranquility,
Blue, the color of creativity,
Oh, infinite Blue, I was looking for you
Oh, infinite Blue, where are you when i need you
Oh, infinite Blue, color my white canvas
Oh, infinite Blue, to keep away my black heart
That's why I love you, my colored pen Blue

the phone rings
and as always i recoil
my body not set to the ups and downs
of volume,
far more comfortable in the silence
and open space

i think of the x-acto knife at home
how it will shred through the layers of
paper like tissue

tissue like
skin
like tears
like my *******
like the soft space between my thighs

a collage though, put together and patched-up
perhaps i've forgotten those envied bits
long gone are the nights of lovers lying soundless
the room filled with the scent of lust
my tongue and mouth dry, lips cracked from kissing

a drawer full of clippings all ready and i'll glue
color and light, texture and contrast mean almost everything
maybe, mostly, wantonly
withdrawn and blindly i imagine the outline
the way the picture will move and i will be seen

a microscopic view at best, even from over there
turned away and forgotten, like the art of long ago
she once flew higher and faster
skies ahead shouting for her to catch up
days like raindrops splashing on the darkened blacktop
now it's more swamp below than land
footing uncertain and pain inflicted
hands ingrained, lashings she deserves

how to come so far and yet be stuck so violently to the web
spun around and around
blood dripping and draining
and the flies circle,
they wait aware of the unraveling of the fleshy pieces
wanting only the remains

she is a sinner, she repents
but the crime, what of it an whose crime is it really
does she walk with these painful heels or flutter off
reminded that time will heal what space has not already
years of distance and she becomes less human
less herself
less anyone
less

Poets are bipolar--
musicians, OCD.
I wonder if we’d have much art
without insanity?
Coleridge smoked *****,
Poe preferred whisky.
If not for their addictions
would we have their poetry?
Blake had manic visions;
Hemingway was suicidal.
The heights and depths of their emotions
meant their minds were never idle.
Garcia tripped on acid;
Iommi did *******.
Would they have played such blissful notes
if they weren’t a bit insane?
Yes, we must treat the ill,
we want them with us still--
but if we lost all craziness
there’d  be genius that we’d miss.