To my friends
who can write
fresh-smelling
bouquets of words
with splendid color,
I offer my envy.
Mine are the blunt, stunted words,
rooted in the cracks
in pavement,
or forcing their way
to light around
overbearing rocks.
Some useful
in their own way,
edible or flavorful,
some with a
pedestrian beauty,
but few that one
would bring home in a bunch
with a box of candy.
More appropriate
in a grimy, young fist
crumpled in love,
destined to be vased
in a water glass
by a doting mother,
or shredded petal by petal
for the sake of soothsaying...
he loves me, he loves me not.

your version of love is an algorithm more basic than take-aways. you're allowed to take as much as you give and you still get a solid number. a real result. but i don't work in binaries and black-and-whites.

love is my negative number and the missing letter to my typewriter i can't find no matter which dusty beasts i search through. it's the bruise on the heel of my palm as i collide with secrets -- swiping hands beneath your sofa searching for my missing key.  

love is your receipt.
here's what you bought, here's what it cost.

i'll register bankruptcy instead. take my seven years and start over instead of being your negative number and unknown variable. a declined credit card stamped on your list of positive transactions.

you are my new york.

i long to rest within your skyscraper heart
but the stairs are too difficult to climb.

yearning
and distant
and nonetheless unattainable.

an enigma,
a dream,
a space within my concrete chest
flooded with sparkling sewer water.

you are too much,
and i am too little.

you veins pulse with light
but i don't know how much longer
i can pay the electric bill.

i can't get close without changing.

i cannot float down the river
swim through your chest
and end up sitting on the sidewalk.

i try and i look up
but at the top of your skyscraper heart,
i am in a cloud
and i cannot see the ground
nor feel the pulse of headlights and movement.

we are unrealistic.
my arms outstretched
but in vain

i cannot be what you need.

millions live within you,
and i am one.

Walking in the midnight garden of lost hopes and dreams

I inhale the scents of not all it seems

It's here the Dedpoet speaks to me

He tells me things I didn't know

As away I go

further into the realm of enchanted dreams

Here, past, present, future, hold no sway.

Blindly I place one step in front of the other

Pathways are a long time gone.

All the while I hear his voice

Omnipresent, pure, urging me forward

Breath holds in my chest

Unwilling to escape,

Again I hear that voice

Leading me to clarity

Where at last I breathe

Rejoice

Child of mine please know

All things have a season

All things have a time

If stars can fall, then crash and burn

Humans fight and fail to learn

Then time has nought to teach

The blind will never learn to see

And the deaf will fail to hear

Even mighty rivers run dry

And seas can also die

Today

my heart stopped beating

But time has taught me this...

Love is where you find it

Follow joy wherever you can

Hope can spring eternal

Fellowship remains in man