We all speak,

What has been told already,

In alphabets and words,

Yet claim ideas,

All jumbled and curved,

And somehow I believe, everything has already been heard.

Walking home from a local pub
The evening so quiet
With the distinct smell of magnolia
Lingering in the midnight air
I look up at the stars
Suddenly my thoughts are taken back in time
It seems like yesterday I think
Where did the time go
Those endless nights of excitement
We’d throw stones on a stranger’s roof
Dare to ring someone’s doorbell
Then run away as fast as lightning
We laughed so much our stomachs hurt
Now our muscles contract from stress
The needle had reached the end of the record
Lifted and returned to its holding place
The stereo light still burning when returning home
From an intoxicated night of pleasure and dance
Oh the bliss of ignorance and youth
Sometimes it’s better not to know
I continue to walk on
Suddenly I see a FOR SALE sign
Someone else’s dream has come to an end
Or perhaps it’s just begun
You never know how special the moment is until it’s past
The biggest regret is regret

Just one kiss,
But much more,
A moment of bliss,
The girl I adore.

Just every fear,
But nothing real,
No one will hear,
I don't know how to feel.

Can't you hear it?
Every day
can't you feel it?

would that I could
draw hundreds of pictures
in lieu of thousands of words,
jumbled.
lost,
without point, without bottom
chickens, cows, cats, macaques,
crowded classrooms
and hearts, spilling out in a thousand directions

Don't you hear it?
Don't you feel it?
Screams, vibrating the walls
the collective wave of something we walk by every day
--and don't ******* me about your progress--
Can't you hear it?

How can you not feel our body bruised,
thin-lined, square, red ditches pucker fields of flesh:
if wasted sweat were rain, we'd be fed.
Necks stiff, eyes low, teeth bleached and thin.
lips chapped.
Seizing from impulse but too dead to act

The world is shaking
crying, laughing, moving, screaming
waiting for death
praying for life
singing

Can't you hear it?

My mind emerges from the muck of dream
Sheen of crust and blurry view

In my mind you loom

In my dreams you sing your tune.

Step, clomp, foot, stomp

Off these laces
Pull these wagons
Heft these towers
Lay their power

Dream of vistas green and new
Untouched where?
there I see you

Log cabin of Linking Logs
Cobble our souls and roll them in stones
Heat our hearths and steam our schemes
Give us that leftover dream

But flags wave in every breeze
There is no land for my free

And that farm on the brook
I dream of maintenance
Will fall as quick
into this reapere

to pull the gift of life from dying soil
And play that I can have paradise
on earth

With iron ore
and sweat of toil

I will build a walled garden
to respect the rest
and tell myself

To keep dreaming.

They haven't gone yet,
they're still sitting there.
They're ready for someone
to lend them both ears.

They don't need solutions,
or ill-formed direction.
They just want a chance
for human connection.

So ask them a question,
let them be known
by a simple soft voice
on the end of a phone.

Give them your time,
listen with length,
affirm them by hearing
in silence with depth.

Give them permission
to break the taboo,
to voice the unspoken
to someone like you.