Train Sets were always the coolest gift
I mean, I never got one
but that's what the movies say

now I ride trains daily
monotonous jumble of
commute.work.commute. sleep.

a ******
   brains get swallowed whole without my morning Joe
but there was a time...

...there was a time when
I rode that Polar Express to bliss
        crazed off hot chocolate
   golden ticket in hand

then
I slipped on ice caps
instead of sleeping on beaches
dreaming up Mad Hatter candy mogels

then
Tom Hank's voice was the patter of reindeer
and magic was cast by wizards
   not scientists

A White Beard
wise as Gandolf & Dumbledore
   specked with canyons of God
would laugh jolly into a nation
        into a season
   into that dusting galaxy of a child's eye

that beard
   holy and revered
would laugh humanity into a rattled world

slipping down chimneys
it would leave propaganda of hope
in the form of trainsets

No, I never got one
     but I loved that beard
        and the silver bells on its sleigh

they are voiceless now
but I keep them for their shine
I miss those days
                 ...sometimes...
I think about them on my train rides
wishing I had a different destination

This gun to the temple of my dome
I am faced with a single question
Should I shoot?
Or let fly the words just uttered?
The mouth of the devil’s minion lies open
nagging
     and picking
picking
     and nagging
          at a lost cause - a deaf cause
And Yet
     it feels
          it angers
               it rages
no longer containable
     it erupts
no clip for a gun
only bullets of air
air of truth
                                                           ­                  and so
                                                              ­             I choose
                                                          ­        and before I think
                                                      TR­IGGER
a crescendo of cacophony

HATE

A tear falls. The truth escapes. A jaw drops.
she did it to herself
all those years of nonstop badgering
she did it to herself
all those years of hypocrisy and disrespect
she did it to herself
blood flows from her eyes for my pleasure
a stream of emotion dammed by emptiness

she did it to herself