"If I cannot bend the will of heaven,
I shall move hell."

Meadows of blood
are sluicing from my arm,

& courts of lithium
are bottled neatly.

This stream within me,
the red subliminal, latent,

needs beating back.
The noon sun kicks uselessly.

Something happened,
it had nothing to do with me,

it had nothing to do with
quiet cancerous woe,

nothing to do with the
underside of my mind.

I am quiet in the chair,
the blood-taker smiles at me

through alcohol bouquet,
compliments a yielding vein;

the blood pours and pours,
aching with subconscious.

I love the words that I read here
The ones that you leave spoken,
Your hopes and loves, doubts and fears,
The thoughts you write upon being awoken

Offering perspective,
Through a page, to see your reality,
Concocts a connection:
The power of empathy

Old, young, the chained and the free,
And especially the pariahs,
Whose words read to me
Like a personal Messiah’s

I read them from my bed,
Words of comfort, words of woe,
I suppose I could just leave it unsaid,
But I wanted to say hello.

My world was your love, the sun was your smile,
Now darkness has come and blackened my sky

In life I will find joy no more, green turned to gray forevermore
Death I’ll go looking for… to comfort my everlasting woe

A have a guardian angel of woe
Watching over me
He collects my due of sorrow
Pocketing it in black memory
Only when I have been too happy
Will then he a little share
Out of his enormous collection
A carefully measured handful spare
So I am never lost to sadness
Nor ever in happiness corrupt
Living a life in measured scales
Between the two, in his trust
Devoid of bliss, far from infinite joy
Safe from maddening grief and