T'was not a spirit,
T'was not a ghost.
There is no specter,
Which haunts my soul.
In a joyous world,
I and I alone,
Am the inspiration,
For each sad poem.

Blank pages
Scattered brain
Even greater scattered words
Slurry falls out of my skull, into my mouth
Like tumbled rocks
Schrödinger’s paragraphs
Both written and not
Until I decide to sit down
Pen in hand
Pencil in hand
Paper staring
Blankly
Eyes staring
Blankly
Scattered brain
Even greater scattered words
And thoughts

A fateful night,
I was restless,
Sleep fleeting my young eyes.
So I rose from bed,
And to my desk I sat.
My pen curled in my fingers,
I wrote.
I wrote of a girl,
Made of spare paper,
And discarded ink.
But never did I guess,
My writing would come true.
Yet come next morning before me lay,
A paper girl with inky eyes.

Here comes another
classic case of
writer's block.
**** soft,
I spew
across the
white pages.
Maybe age is
catching up
with me.
Time has been
a friend,
but I'm only as
good as my last poem.
I long for the days
when songs filled
my heart, where every
part of me smelled
the rain and the
wet dogs, and the
streets of Spain.
The pain was always
fodder, the joy, the sadness
the madness of love and
*** and passion.
The rancid anger and rage
became the words of
a sage when I broke
out the notebook.

Not tonight, though,
I will wait for the
******* and the blood
to simmer in
the red dot on the
white snow.
Patiently waiting for
the hemorrhaging of
the soul.

I am suicide,

entangled on the wrong line of conversation – 1-800-273-8255.
My existence crumbles, while my life is degrading; emotions
constantly rearranging, while death lingers, with due patience.
I am the impure linen stained with the tears of pain. I am the
cacophony of voices in my own brain, the picture of love, yet
my heart beats with a hollow rhythm, feeling so plain.

I am time,

as it twists and bends, mirroring the sharp twist of a knife by
my side. I am unkind to myself – hate myself in secret, but in
public I always smile so bright. My happiness is a reflection –
I am the moon, a distant memory, until you remember a
beautiful night.

I am poison,

the chlorine of sorrow, and so wasted in my wasteful tears.
Each breath is heavy with the weight of my fears, I am a grave
to bury my griefs. I am sometimes a religious person, with iffy
beliefs. I struggle to believe in myself, as often as I can believe
in others, while my dreams fade into monochrome colours.

My mind runs around wanting to die, yet I cling to the will
to create; on what I can write. To write is to stay alive!

I was helping my
son with his homework
the other day.
For one of his assignments,
he had to write a
public service announcement.
He has been visited
by the muse
at an early age.
His goal is to publish
his first book by the
time he's 18.

It got me thinking about
my life as a writer,
and the young formative
years.
As a boy, I had a
broad imagination,
and much time alone.
I remember coming
up with plot lines in
my head, and then
writing little adventure stories.
My dad was a drama
teacher.
He directed four or
five plays a year.
I grew up watching
the classic plays,
and developing a love
for literature.

In Junior high,
I saw the power
of my gift.
I wasn't a popular
kid; somewhat of a
loner.
But one day in
English class, I wrote
a story about a
*****-headed hamster,
with an underbite-like
a French bulldog.
The other kids loved it.
They listened and laughed,
and applauded.
Words became my
new best friend.

I grew and leaned on
writing through the
good times and the bad.
They were warmth
In the long winters,
and rain in
springtime.
Through the alcoholic
haze of much of
my adulthood,
writing kept me sane,
and it gave me
the will to keep
living when the
pain grew into
a beast of its own...

My son hands me
his paper and it's
brilliant--it warns people
about the dangers
of cyber hackers, by
portraying the average
person surfing the net
as a lamb walking along
in the grass,
thinking life is grand just being
a sheep, when along
comes the wolf that pounces and
devours.
He finishes with,
'Don't let this happen to you.
Protect your computer and files
with such and such software.'

He asked me if I thought
he could be a good writer.
I laughed and told him
that he already was.

Fantasy, the kind you dream,
_.
In a world where all comes true,
_.
Just like a story book,
_.
Floating, flying, hovering,
_.
Everything is good,
_.

we write our stories with unsteady hands,
our fingers stained in ink from all the errors,
a silent witness to our hopes and terrors,
it will remember when the world forgets.

and if we make it through to tell the tale,
our voice may linger, but the words will perish,
so we disclose all of our hopes and terrors,
be it in darkness or the light of day.

anonymous or public, foes or friends,
bound, bruised and battling your inner devils,
you'll see yourselves in our hopes and terrors,
preserved in stories, written by our hands.

Who decided it was crazy,
To capture yourself in a poem?
I must have missed that part,
When I read the rulebook you wrote.

The fact is I am a defacto poet,
So when I write poems that you read,
Don't slander me like you could do it better.
So hold your tongue,
Till it's your poem you read with it.