What I love about music is its flow
What I hate about traffic is the stillness
What I love about trees is their stature
What I hate about crowds is the suffocation
What I love about movies is the ending
What I hate about time is AN ending
What I love about movement is the freeness
What I hate about walls is division
What I love about you is who you are
What I hate about silence is it’s confusion
What I love about rain is the freshness it brings
What I hate about destruction is the aftermath
What I love about horses is their soft inquisitive noses
What I hate about ignorance is ignorance
What I love about love is its safety
What I hate about travel is the distance
What I love about fresh sheets is the crispness
What I hate about wet jeans is the smell
What I love about meal times is the sharing
What I hate about taking is the selfishness
What I love about dogs is their unconditional love

The sky is beautiful tonight
Lavender, salmon, and pink like blushing when someone says they love you
But it's already gone
No one will ever see the colors I just saw
And I feel like blushing
Embarrassed due to long standing aversions to sincerity
5:26 PM

From where I sit at my desk at the gym
The sky is 2 different creatures
On one side
A blood orange backlight is cut and cracked by black naked trees
On the other side
The clouds shift and bubble like fresh squeezed blackberry soda
4 guys from the basketball team practice their 3 point shots
5:51 PM

I am just one of millions,
Seemingly identical from afar,
Crisp and uniform, like a freshly pressed shirt,
Up close I am different,
One petal less, one petal more, perhaps a different shade of white.
We blanket the earth, swaying together in the breeze. An ocean of white ripples,
Individually we crash against one another, just as waves do against a jagged cliff,
Pushed! Shoved, in the same direction by the unforgiving and relentless wind.

You gaze upon us, browsing like a happy shopper,
Your shadow blocks the light; engulfing me like a hungry toddler,
Aware of the inevitable I brace myself, praying that I am not next
Preying that in your eyes I am unworthy of your attention,
But then you do it, you swoop down,
Plucking me from my roots. Cutting my ties to this earth.
Slowly I am examined,
He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not,
This tortuous game of chance induced by boredom strips me of myself!
Then its over, you have been amused and now I am left bare,
Laying on the dirt; left to slowly decay while you run off,
Looking for your next victim.

I remember the lights going off in the brains of young poets.
Deep in the dank streets of New York or Columbia college.

When the blues and twos would come and round up
The beatniks snapping to the howl of a homosexual mind.

When the generational attitudes of those too old to know,
Control the ****** acts of “violence”, or
The deepening scars of our philosophies.

When the urbanization of historical prowess leads to
Gentrified gypsies of the diamond deserts and endless skyways

When the great in the country isn’t good enough
For the red hats and spray tanned millionaires.

When the stocks of corporate dragons burn down
The attempts of upstart knights and online kingdoms.

When the politicians of old become the scapegoats
For the ironically gerontocratic few.

When the female few who dared couldn’t find their lost primaries
Or control the lifeblood leaking out of the Strait of Hormuz.  

When the powerful and powerless fought in-between
The dejected and all too often ignored.

When the powered halogen lights flooded prison yards of
Wrongly convicted and murderously in need of help.

When the San Francisco clubs lit up with muzzle flash
And the dancers lay weeping in their blood.

When the schools became places to duck and cover
Or learn to trip a friend when running from a gun.

When parkland high became a manufacturing ground
For casings, tears, and candlelight vigils.

When the American dream came combo packaged
And supersized with obesity and unemployment.

When the education of the youth became about
The profit margin in a spreadsheet full of debt.

When the sun sets in the smoke filled horizons
And sleepless rest settles on the western front.

Neutrality / n.

absence of decided views, expressions, or strong feelings

"I am in all sorts of neutrality."

vast and impressive views saturate your existence
day to day they alter, shift and evolve
with open eyes, you will see
with eyes shut, you will feel
with emotion, you will desire
fill your cup with the sights unfolding before you

Brian Hill - 2020 # 253

Am I even visible,
I see no view coming
Is this a glitch
Or just how it is, it is.

Suddenly there is a jump,
but there are numbers reading
This place is forever changing
Am I vain to keep a track of count
But there is no count
and then suddenly there it is
But it is static now.

It seems everything is fine from outside,
I get no notification for the poem I sent out
I do not know, should I even post it?

The people I follow,
I don't see them on my homepage
Their works are available,
but not simply accessible.

What features come, what goes
update us about
I am curious.

Maybe
it is just me,
am I invisible to all?

We only see what we want to see.
We only hear what we want to hear.
We only do what we want to do.
Why?