aureate muscle of the
masculine dream, the
collective mind of many

it glows in the light
like a perfect bloom -
a grand yellow around
every young boy

i stand and watch it glow
with the dream laced
within me, but with
a shamed rose gold;

the stigma of men
is difference

In the time it took me to start over
I died by your side with closure
on my self-imposed solitude
from every soul in a fighting mood
with inherited axes to grind
in line
to use the men’s bathroom
during the last game,
immune to the toxic byproducts
of extended cab pick-up trucks
circling the drain of
made up
settling sentiment trickling
through the air connecting
you lungs with mine,
an irredeemable line
in the low tide sand
and
inescapable memory holes
fret the yet again brethren
sending their regards
while they take up arms
against mended fences
wrestling
with a cost,
the interest,
and late fees eternal
grown from the infernal
jest we let foment
into rent checks and
a stale hex
revealed next
to nothing
in a book I did not write
that you read all the same

Masculinity,

of all men, is just nothing --


of value in love.

Athena turned ’round her head
like a night owl on the sly
and looked up behind her
as gold Apollo crossed the sky,

riding with his four coursers’
flying gilded manes and hooves.
Their silver flanks and quarters
thunder across the earth’s blue roof.

The rhythm of their beat
stamps a lyric all their own,
blood coursing with the heat
of the sun-disk they all towed.

The she-god of the wise
observes this cloud-streaked scene,
the man-god shining out,
casting shadows ’round Athene.

Apollo’s path is sinking low
as the winter months advance.
The frost now blurs his glow
and bare forests fall into trance.

It’s in this creeping night
that Athena finds her time.
She draws her wisdom in twilight,
no need for blinding light up high.

For she shines not with a sun.
Instead she lights her own pathway.
By her craft and wits she’ll run
her own trail she blazed today.

useless knowledge
reflective ceiling
guys who park their bikes here  
never feel anything
i wish that were me
and i wish that were on me
the bike shed stares back
he’s not looking at me