on gunmetal my heart beats,
the smoke is winter,
waves rippling across my cold body.
they've kept the coffin alone,
parched on a wooden block.
ropes tie down my ribcage,
my eyes are shredded in holocaust.
all i can do is move my lips,
to raise the coffin,
to end the numb,
and numb the ending.
my companion is nearby,
we collide on empty streets.
where fainter clouds whisper
to our souls.
do not hold back,
because i won't.

living life on paper sheets,
in between nights and days.
paper planes that'll never reach their destination.
phone calls that hang dry like raw art.
painted sculptures are a fantasy,
my sensory hands, are voluble,
in evening's breast.
the clock moans for tomorrow's ******,
and it's dull hums yesterday.
like raw art, on winter.
hanging dry, devoid of existence.
only citizen of the dead soul.

Sunlight beats in through the window
offensive and obscene.
I wonder what ungodly sound just awoke me,
was it only the alarm, or
was it the deafening sound of my conscious
that so disturbed me?
Upon waking, one has to ignore the weight of existence
Or drown in it's wake.
Sleep, running away from me, abandoning me,
Has led me here to this moment.
Rising out of bed, reborn from the night,
for the millionth time, and still
always questioning everything.
"What has my life brought me to,
that I must continue to wake for it,
and why is it more worthy than sleep?
Is participation in life truly necessary?
Why does each day bring with it the same
repetition I've always known?"
Sun rays never speak, never answer
The questions that morning brings.

i am talking about her, dressed in black silhouette, painted with montage,
i can feel her presence, rubbing across the tips of my tongue, salsa through my hair.
her jet black soul piercing into me, a rembrandt only time is seduced to.
i am talking about her, noir necklace, twelve beads, wild heart, fantasy that teases my seclusion.
i am talking about midnight, her winds  her flair, her grotesque, everytime i close my balcony door,
at 1am in the morning hoping the seduction ends and reality sets in on this papercup life.

The dough is molten at oven spring,
like a prayer to the historicity of things ..

Have we not imagined yesterdays
in the ritual of bread ? While our pasts

lay embezzled, on the tongues of men, the
sentiment of centuries colluded in germ,

echoing through heirloom remembrances
those floury philosophies of change.

While I stretch dough to gaze past
a windowpane, as far back as Khorasan ..

they were other names then, another
elasticity in time. Faith is a memory

of settled people in lands of milk and
honey, where every drought, every flood

spawns a new religion .. and the wheat,
always begs the same old question:

Are we there yet, in the fertile crescent
of opportunity ? The grains haven't changed

in their stolid countenance - long, subtle,
germy, cosseted. In the granaries of kings ..

they are willed by royal decree, never to die
in an eternal future and like humankind,

who score bread in the cuneiform of hearts,
grain is always thirsting to seed the land.

Absorbing Sun's caring embrace
and the water's life,
the trees mix them into oxygen for the man,
for he has planted the seeds
which marked their beginning — organisms vital for wildlife and shelter.

The man now receives their appreciation
with the maturing of the fruit.
To eat it is honoring its purpose and time,
for it grew only for you, as a gift.
Earth's hospitality was never meant for granted,
but be returned to the cycle.

It spins like our planet in space,
around a warm core and a cold shell.
Stars there align to the call of energy
designed to dance in gray,
and to portray protons and electrons
in a chemical reaction,
beginning of the first light — pressed lighter igniting candles.

The dragonfly
that perches on your finger,
on the wall, at the doorstep,
like still life human history,
on the page, close to the vines,
balancing atop that blue teacup,
fanning steam

as time slips, whistles, rips
like stitches twisted, which
unravelled, like a wish
you made last summer
when horses snickered, reined by
steel knights sweating and kissing
gloved hands, ladies laughing
over earl grey tea and shipped silk,
the dragonfly danced upon
melancholic waters

what is skulking in the moist darkness
must come forth and answer
how one equates infinite and none,
vain, like history, snow, and gold,
before sung poetry from the old —
to live one’s life for something, you say,
is to live one’s life alone for something

what is repeated,
wars and manipulation,
mutual destruction, human reproduction,
drilling and penetrating,
with rhythm and with force,
Is intrinsically obscene,
the mechanics ancient and ******,
beastly brutal and brutally simple –
the human wheel of time

dawn broke
over churning waters, a cycle of
chalky, foamed flowers grew and died,
quivering is the white fish washed ashore
twitching, pulsating, then stilled

the dragonfly, sensing death,
skitters away

when the last wear has withered
and the wardrobe echoes
cold memories of empty metal hangers
like falling rain
know you are not poor
undignified or old
rejoice! in the bareness of your porous skin
not hidden by the dead folds
of material—
your soul is a prism
splitting light into threads respun
by God;
every dawn you are rewoven
as the rays of a new sun

life is an equation.

not a simple y = mx + b curve

rather one with countless variables
leading to one solution with each combination

think about it.

what I call variables, philosophers would call free will
and albeit a select number of variables are within our control
hundreds of others are not

if you find yourself stuck
with a conclusion you deem incorrect
or a development you know can't be the answer
always remember that your input controls the output

change the variables within your control