No sleep leaves
Him sleep deprived,
He hides beneath
His drooping eyes,
And comes home to dwell
Within the silence of the night.

Before spreading across the bed,
He places his patched jacket
Above the ground, on a hook,
To hang, suspended for the flipside.
A glance at the clock tells him it’s three,
Plus a quarter turn to the right.

It’s always before dreams, it seems,
That he feels the need to pull
Out pen and paper, to write.
Very soon, he knows,
It will be bright.
And lights will shine in,
To wake him up, again.

Sometimes, though,
He likes to pretend,
That there isn’t an end,
To this nocturne world.

So while he…
His, mind dances along the moon,
With a little more wandering,
His thoughts seem in tune,

To a jazzy
Twilight atmosphere,
And he hears -
The quiet orchestra
Of his thoughts,
Amidst the dark.

For a short time,
He’s moaning with Mingus, absorbing Etta.
At last, his sleep has come along,
As he dips into the Milky Way
Until his thoughts are gone.

Restless nights.
Shuffle my deck,
I don’t like my hand.
Where is my queen of hearts?
This game is lonesome,
And I’m tired of
Playing by myself.

We want answers,
And we want them now.

Generations scrolling down together, receiving
Informal lessons from sometimes qualified strangers,
Impulsively living, giving status updates,
Proudly showing the world pictures
Of all the places we’ve been -
Twittering to gain followers, digitally devoted,
But consistently losing the edge,
Heading back to Starbucks to refill.

Welcome to the 21st century,
Where life spills into the abstract,
And we consume with the click of a button.
You’re only a copy-and-paste away
From a satisfactory translation,
A GPS away from your next location,
One computer screen freeze
Away from total frustration.

Just ask a teacher, they know exactly
Where the future lies, somewhere
Between a child’s wandering eyes
And flippant commercials, there is
Utterly, complete concentration.

What’s the solution?
More time preparing
For entrance exams?
Creating more diverse
Lesson plans?
Either way, students will
Still quote Spongebob
And call you a square.

A distrust of details…
Ample amounts of reporting,
And eroding authority;
More freeze-thaw cycles,
Upswells, dead zones. Early signs
Wash up onto the shore, as the
Earth’s core continues to warm.
Hurricanes play mercilessly with
Uninsured lives, and earthquakes
Evolve from tickles to fissures.
Snow disappears from
Whole mountainsides.
The floodgates HAVE opened, temperatures ARE
Rising; Perception is always partial
but there’s plenty of evidence, regardless -

When we start to question the record-keepers
And legislators, those omitting parts of history;
People who willingly walk into the sun, selfishly
Sidestep the natural order and equilibrium of all things,
Exactly where does that journey end?

I think, somewhere around the place
Where we start to forge our own histories,
Or indifference begins.

War bots modeled after x-box controls,
from the high to the low, maintaining.
Apocalypse Now, Captain please,
a pale face knotted, one last swig of Jim Bean.

Revolution is live, no cutting these scenes,
everybody plays soldier, till the bullets
start to scream. And Death hums by, shrieking
ancient lullabies, two blinks of an eye, while
Cerberus snarls, “Don’t you know the smell
of warm gunpowder perfume?” If not, son,
You’ll know it all too soon.”

Hold your breath as it floats up your nose. No slipping here -
By nightfall, this valley’s grove will be flooded with other throes.
Excuse the rows of strangely contorted bodies that lie, resting,
and the bloated brown-streaked limbs, homeless, getting more
lost amidst the bellowing desert sand. Enjoy the silence of
the boom, the momentary reprieve from green noise,
******* up the sinking cries, an empty vacuum.

Watch for the ambushers, too – waiting by the roadside;
As familiar grins with tattered teeth flicker fake smiles,
and land mines sparkle under feet, fireworks on the fourth of July.

Que sera, sera.

Aloft, suspended thoughts fall.

Should I let all rest, so easily?
Ruminations of her memory
Whisper quietly to me.

Soft as though a gentle breeze,
And still she brings me to my knees.
I wish I could ride this zephyr home,
But she rests for nobody.

Consistently erratic,
Her signal’s often static.
I tweak the receivers to get the picture,
Remaining non-pragmatic.

She lives present for a moment,
Then she’s gone for eternity.
Sparking up my strongest affections,
Smothering them delicately.

Should I stay and drift this love supreme,
And further stretch my bluest dream?
Or let rationality reign alone,
And spit me upon the sea?

A bedrock, and a mountain stream.
A summit, and the soothing breeze.
A quiet forest where I can climb
Between dark clusters of trees,
And think about eternity -
This is what you mean to me.

What a puzzle, this infinity
That passes between souls.

Still, I remember.
I remember, because I choose to -
And as I eat sweet cake,
I think of you.

You, the dome above my thoughts,
The palace that quarters my soul,
Adorns my armor with robes.

I pray, every day that our roots
Won’t be touched by the cold,
And that I may keep the privilege
Of your company until we are old,
Because you are a reflection -

Now, I watch every step that I take,
Each excuse that I make.
You are my mirror.