Giving is tender, though taking turns embers
It keeps the fires burning
Plan for the weather, but guessing is better
Maybe that’s the lesson I’m learning

on a napkin
in the fold
out of nowhere
written bold

on a napkin
soaked in pen
lost in wonder
wander in

on a napkin
plans and schemes
draw on dreaming
simple things

on a napkin
cloth and fading
all is forward
all are waiting

on a napkin
lost and found
almost forgotten
written down

what if there is no backdrop
i mean it could all be the central story, right?
i've called weaker plotlines boring and stronger ones interesting
and now when i see the story stretched out
not only over the course of my life
but through the tapered and weaving lives
of circles and slopes
of color and dreary bland borders

i see

i am compelled

it fills me

i was an artist
you were perfect
now I'm a worker
and you're confused
and the mess is better than any straight line ever drawn

we write and dance,
we share so selfishly,
like everything is ours to give

the fretful fought for fated fetter

i can't exist
yet here i sit
pondering and wondrous

drums pound and clang
my heart the same
perceptible, still undertrained

i cannot lie
but always try
plunging over, horrified

so here no more
and there not for
pejorative excelsior

I've written less
to curb excess
predominant post-modernists

You are not the you you think you are
Huddled close behind the scars
Out and in and out again
Still mist and fog filled frailty thin

We are not the ones we claim to be
All boasted brash and broken free
Caged, released and caged again
Our chains have traded rust for skin

It's not the place it was before
Hope and hallowed winter worn
Back and forth and back again
It cannot be it's never been

I'm not the me my words portray
Subtle perched in sainted shame
Lost and found and lost again
Make believe still not pretend

Allow me to untangle
The truth and the fable
Only the one fully himself,
Who fully "is" can fully help
This state that finds
Us undermined
So in the throws
We hide our eyes
So out of sorts
Our thoughts unwind
And fill our minds
With wastes of time

But lost and found
Abstractly bound
Can come to mean
What's seen unseen
In place of finding
release the chase
Tune the rule
The walking race
I'm not the me
I'm something else
I know the one
who knows himself

I make heart songs;
kinda right/ maybe wrongs;
sudden dreams to sleep upon

I make colors speak,
sorta blue/ sorta greens;
canvas you can picture me

I make living books,
little sturdy/wordy shook;
a universe that won’t but should

I make deeper dive,
overhanded/about knee-high;
wading in I wonder why

I make no more,
something close/other or;
venture near to see what for

I make here now,
gentle whisper/wishing how;
Sown in secret hand to plow

I make volition work,
veiled intention/inches spurred; hidden for the listener

I make simple scary, unassuming/heavy air;
worry never soothed the wary

I make making do,
make on me/making you;
make until the makings through

i hate the gain of hate in me
your words are broke and breaking free
and is your sight so full of you
that you forgot you're breaking too

old napkins on a wooden desk
fear the future, brave the rest
and now a promise old and blurred
to live the truth of hope deferred

to hear the voice of purest gold
a world not young, a God not old
and in the seeking, lost and found
contrasting hallowed hollow ground

I have fought Apollyon,
Upon the dawn of longing on
Arose from strangle-holden focus,
Underfitted overloaded,
Boded stranger, strangely broken
And on the other side of struggle
After-hours aptly uttered
Words of triumph mixed with spittle
Sweat and blood and withered whittled
Will and bear of predilection
Heavy laden slighted vision
And yet regret no fatal blow
To fine and fell my fated foe
Called above so thrown below
Wicked wastes on wanting throne
Cursed and calloused cradled claw
First to hubris first to fall
I’ve hated battle; brutal beaten
But you the worse, Apol the ******
I cry high all hope and prayer
Yet unrespondent standing there
I’m reminded I was subject
I was slave no title subtext
Beyond your kingdom freedom came
I rushed to kinship out from Cain
And now destruction twice escaping
I cling to dreams until a waking
Fall, call me back and fight again
I courage up, I enter in
Clanging faith and sword to reason
You’ve hailed my battle, named my treason
Fought till sweat was mixed with blood
Not mine but thorned and vaunted hung
Just the strength to steady aim
And ****** upon thy gruesome frame
So praise now high the Highest song
My heart halts hexed Apollyon

science is tryin
but failin for lyin
fallin behind when
your "whats" let the "whys" in

wiser unwired
you couldn't explain why the white light is blinding
why the brain is a function but real thought's in the mind
real collapses
folds into quantum
falls back in your lap kids
beyond synapses,
trackin atlas lookin right at ya
take naps on your textbooks cause the answers are backwords
fold all the colors in half and get left building blackward
halfwits and hat tricks, half of the last wish

the speed of light is firstly faster than sound
but which came first the lost or the found
i've got an opinion, here i'll just jot it down

Called Otherland
From old green hills
Pray kept or creeping
Or keeping still
Oh so the worry
More so the ought
Tender and hurried
Also the knot
Away on skyline
Up close unwaiving
Flounced in the grey
Fraught from saying
Better to die me
Bitter the notion
Across Otherland
To answer oceans

Meet the Man Out Beyond the Tree Line


We are war with the past forgotten; war for concrete edges.
We cannot feel or fail the forest, though destined to battle there.

White and grit like bone
Lost and found like home
Product of the unproductive
Won't be led but shown

We are peace no comfort lasting, peace in simple soulless shells.
We’ll secure a sainted sentry, to survey on our sleeping will.

Grey washed filter screens
Centered in the in-between
Cityscaping soil scraping
Man in making broke machines

We are at the dawn and waking; dawning over tree line breaks.
We have rustled steel and wire, to sow fleshly frames in fertile days.

Here for us pretend pretenders
Here is this a simple ender

We who lose it never seek it
There is hidden here in secret

Wading, fading making sicker
There is time or something thicker

Utter thinly veiled from under
There is more to write I wonder

Only clutched with hands ungrasping
There is now most everlasting

Piercing hunger never settles
There is broth to stove and kettle

Winter washed and nestle warming
There is still a calm a'storming

Not as brittle, cleaner, crisper
There is heretofore a whisper

Error spent for our repentance
There is void dark intermittent

If so then what say all we after
There is all that words can gather

For us the inner interventions
There is only aforementioned

Just speaking is not enough...
Hoping against hope us not enough...
Never quitting is not enough...
Letting go is not enough...
Overcoming is not enough...
Love is not enough...
The future is not enough...
Triumph is not enough...
Wholeness is not enough...
Moving on is not enough...
Taking responsibility is not enough...
Going forward is not enough...
Every year we attempt, and plan, and plod our way through and all we ever do is not enough...
But you, you are enough.

The perfect taste of simple things,
rising in the heart
long before the mind begins its destructive ordering.
If we should feel small,
then in smallness let us be the greatest insignificance;
and by chance if ever we become a singularity in ourselves
surely we will expand and become the universe.

The shallow fear of simple things,
catching off guard all who wander on paths
stained by longing or painted stones and curiosity.
As though it were our fault
that fault cannot be levied against any one man’s chest and held there… austere, obscure and unyielding.

If only he could clench the guilt for us,
we might gather around and uphold his visage
and proclaim that all blame is forgotten
and now each heart could skip and run and fall and fly
without that weight of despair stringing down our hopeful souls.

The gentle nudge of simple things,
reminding each distraction that real answers and their questions
are always out beyond the solutions we settle into.
And here is the lull in our reason,
the cliff-side fence-post where we stop
to behold the expanse of sighted creation
knowing just beyond leaping is freedom.
We are not stars nor dust
but something shared in between.

The sated pleasure of simple things,
which end and begin out of order
then fade and appear in us just the same.

Ashamed ashamed, strayed, lost and afraid
Afraid of the stares and the look on my face, the sound of my voice and the shape of my frame

There was no name to call out, no one to turn to, no future to hope in, all bridges were burned through

Ashamed, in shame, shame was my prison
All I had was myself and the sinking suspicion
that I could never be enough /my future was written…

naked, afraid, exposed and alone… alone… so weak and alone
And then in the pit, in the dark, crying out,
A voice like a blanket covered my doubts
And for a brief second I could see through the clout --

A me without blemishes, apart from rejection,
as if nothing had wilted my frail fine perfection,
as children and home and soothing all comfort…
and then sinking back in, did I even belong here?

Don’t I deserve the shame, oh shame, ashamed and unworthy
So I ran to an alter and threw my heart to mercy,
I was weeping, no wailing for freedom from hurting

But I couldn’t go back to a self with no savior,
no salve to soothe burdens or soften my anger

Then LIGHT, then form, then heart bursting rapture,
"No shame, no shame," you bellowed in laughter
And you came, you were love, it was you chasing… after...after… me?

Racked with guilt for the waste and the dirt on my skin,
you embraced me, unlocked me, invited me in

Calling life from death your words fashioned a new me,
crystal, and jasper, light dancing right through me …
No shame for my children, unashamed in my eyes
[--- twirling and buzzing unashamed but why…]

what gain is there where I had been?
What trade could fair my sorrowed sin –
more than this world, its passions and pleasure,
you lifted me to the truest of treasures

And now with the key to free dark hearts from prison
I rush back to Canaan and to find that which is hidden…
Where ear has not heard and eye has not glanced,
You shine light near the broken to give them a chance

And I, with your eyes, now see my true worth,
to sing of our lovesong renewing the Earth

Now stares cannot stop me, or whispers faze,
I am one who has captured heaven’s gaze

I invite all from shame out from Cain and the curse,
to be washed by the sight of he who loved first

We are his prizes, his treasure, and frame,
oh how he loves the shamed, lost and afraid

i found a little little lot
a little lofty lingered thought
a little more a little shot
a little less if less is not

i guess a little little more
could hope the little lessens for
and learned a lighter little score

I might get little in return
but little gained is little earned

a little better
a little less
a little
little
little
mess

Who pushes and prods
Who spares the rods
Who dreamed up the ageless
That created the gods

Who tempted at first
Who blessed and then cursed
Who prayed to the ageless
Turning better to worse

Who tried but tied last
Who never looked back
Who shattered the ageless
Then fell through the cracks

Who can't but still hopes
Who narrowed the scope
Who questioned the ageless
Till dreaming awoke

Who knows what to do
Who'll follow this through
Who called to the ageless...
The ageless calls you

...
I am less and sentimental
Beginning strong and thinly gentle
I’ve kissed your scars, your knees, your dimples
You fed me full; a fine utensil

I’m nothing more than interested
We’ve danced and fallen fully crested
Raised the babies wrenched and reckless
Fought to failure better bested

I am older, slower, pacing
For you all catching’s in the chasing
So run and slip and end embracing
We love in pen with no erasing

I am carefree castle building
Laid the floors and traced the ceilings
Kingdom come, thy done be willing
Our little deaths brought many healing

I am fixed in longing after
Found all my calling gazing at her
Dreamed of onyx, pearl and jasper
All pale in lives so set in laughter

I am, with you, all conceited
Our hearts entangled undefeated
Whispered, screamed, washed, repeated
We made all of love, and all was needed

So set to say string up and sway
Surrender, sweet surrender
Tripping, timid teasing in it
Tender, oh so tender
For first forgetting flicker fretting
Forever ever neverender

the wonder we witness when water pours
over the head and into the soul
we seek the holy and purest of joys
the youth of wisdom the ages of fools
stand and witness the cleansing refrain
wash over our eyes and into the heart
the rush of spring distilled into liquid
where form and fullness awaken the day

I just wanna tell simple love stories and play a guitar
I gotta sow up the future to suture the scars

It's not obvious, at least not to us
It's not expected either, we never learned to sing or play guitars, or even attempt to be simple... and that's how the future really happens. That's how the skin grows rough to cover the wound.

i drew her as i knew her, smiling in the hall
she found me lightly lounging, we flirted through the fall
we danced and laughed and sang and crashed before and after all

i Sought her at an alter, with tears at freedom's call
she teased my ease, oh gentle please, our larger started small
her hands in mine our knees entwined, and sheets against the wall

I hold her getting older, and savor memories
she thinly cleansed me, ever in me hidden by the trees
we lie, and die, and wake alive, rustled in the leaves

I see her as i need her, so many years between
She fell to me a melody, we sauntered off to dream
Raise, and laze, and winter grey till all that's left is we

Mother Goose in Athens Greece
Plato plucks the underneath
Many mostly disagree
More if by a few degrees
Two empty bottles make belief
We haven't learned to light or leave

A stream and pool, a gentle rain,
The smell of soaking wooded dirt
The feel of slowly cooling air in misty Summer as the gravel crunches beneath the weight of all the hopes and dreams of right now.
A distant call to wonder, a closer call to wander and a hill that hides a long walk back before the night claims victory
Mossy ponds, trails crossing trails and barbed wire blockades that shield from neighborly attack
The low call of bullfrogs and the bickering of birds, all dazzeling and swirling into a great sky of lightly dripping treetops

This beautful force of green and brown and rust and blue and quiet stillness and nature's obedience is everything that will ever matter as far as anyone can tell.

Subtlety was not his strong suit
So he strutted naked into battle...

We mourned him for a day or two,
Until the news gave us something less difficult to process.

Caper paper thank me later
Finish just a crime or two
Rhymer diner just on timer
Ears are perking let em brew
Smirker lurker sheer tear jerker
Not knowing what or how to do

I stopped reading dostoyevsky today
the blackness of hope
clapping for the crowd's sake
I just can't seperate the world that may be
from the world that can't be

I think I'll try some lighter subjects
perhaps some sci-fi or maybe short stories
the lump in my soul is probably benign
I'll have my shrink check it out
then again, maybe that's just the multi-verse
escaping through barely breathable cracks
(where did i put that key again?)

I tried to sleep it off last night
I woke in the wrong century
who knows what will happen in the morning
what steps lead to emergence
from the world that is

Shame, a blur of red and orange, smudging the canvas
Lost, a jagged line, twisting and turning
Afraid, a swirl of blue and black, consuming the frame

Stares, a splash of yellow, piercing the darkness
Voice, a stroke of purple, trembling and raw
Frame, a smear of green, contorted and broken

No name, a drip of pink, fading into the background
No future, a smudge of brown, dull and uninviting
All bridges, a streak of white, burned and crumbling

Shame, a prison, enclosing the soul in a cage of color
Guilt, a shadow, creeping in and consuming the light
Freedom, a burst of gold, shining and radiant

Love, a flood of color, washing away the shame and the guilt
Hope, a beacon, shining and guiding the way

Layers, lifted veiled or gifted, I abide the climbing frame
Greyer, jilted hope is stilted, by and by a rhyming came
Player, plenty a pen/a penny, all the riches richly choose
Mayor, mention golden pension, sit alone and saintly lose

Ladder, leading homely pleading, up and down and back again
Fatter, fated over waited, on the table glass of gin
Gladder, giver heart a liver, all inside for outer sheen
Patter, pity light the city, gritty ****** call it clean

Cover, clotted twicely blotted, white-out for a paper new
Lover, linger point the finger, saying them and meaning you
Hover, heated mother pleaded, visit just for one more day
Subtle, suited aptly rooted, unassuming still the change

With voices crowding and noise you may sit alone
allow the stillness to creep in through the halls and corridors of an almost never present awareness.

Here there is little more to consider
Feel time
Perceive space...
but know nothing,
only to find that this is the fullness of every man.

who weaves the steer
who knows and goes who lesser fears

we want, we war we heretofore
we hope and hold and lastly more

who weeps, who wails who undertails
who rises full then falters hail

we feign and fold we winter old
we wait and whisper fools for gold

Who hears, who sees? not you, not me
we wake and wander here to sea

At first, at first, far better than worse
You are my companions
at twilights burst, contract, converse...
--the universe expanded

I've only quoted misquotations
Overstated consternations
We are each a cosmic notion
We are breached on beached like oceans
We are constant, never settled
Ever honest, oddly nestled
Curled in fetal fraught positions
Fatal fallen thought magicians

And yet we friends will fail and falter
Hail the rails or tread like water
Rising up from fashions forming
Passioned weathered sails a'storming
Stayed we gather boards and anchor
Shelter ores we share the danger
So on and on till last we shore
Fond in battle, forged in war
Forced to vision future wonder
--What are we expanding under

To each one sharing each is golden
Treasure daring, bond and bolden
Older still and wiser daring
Tied and spilled and error fairing
Pulled together stay the stronger
Stranger in and lost no longer
But long for hope and bow unbent
And sail eternal with us, with friends
and ending onward daylight bursts
--We are each a universe

You can't possibly still trust paper to guard the body from a million tiny shards of mirror reflecting bright lights over smooth skin just waiting to be seen and sin. Clinging glasses dripping with dark juice conjuring the queen of old French folklore, lost in the modern haze of digital distraction.

On second thought, this paper holds up surprisingly well, now imagine a field setting the perfect winter backdrop suddenly possum tails. You stumbled wants over nothing the rest must be the drinking. Now watch closely this brilliant band of sleepy foxes associating things connected loosely to similar but clearly different things.

You know what, maybe just cease being for a minute or check your text messages whatever comes naturally. Tommy turns then turned away luckily by the end of the week everyone will lose another lossless 7 days.

This is endless whiskered theater, grab a bucket of history and heave it at the last holdout for making better choices... Who but us would have thought mirrors and paper protecting our next best guesses.

Has the any wonder passed,
I only ask to fill the gaps
Give in any more or less,
I only hope and hope to guess
Something any holding on,
My only stars to wish upon
Float as any thoughtless care,
I only drift from here to there
Reason any we can gain,
I only rise to ease the rain

I ain't trying to fall,
I'm steady superceding
Heart drum beating, ear valves pleading ... Just a few more dangling feet

I ain't really tryin at all,
I'm far surpassing
Tailor tasking, burning passion pass the asking...
Just another soul complete

I ain't tryin to impress,
I left impressions
Kept em guessin', these are speaker teacher lessons
Just another then repeat

In soulish depth, in flame unending, flicker dance and gleam
It cracks and blackens, dancing ember,
Seeping, seeking, soaking dreams

In secret holding, dearly hoping love and lurking fear
Whisper, wilted, belted blisters.
Bursting, blatant, brilliance clear

In shining blindness. Least expecting guiding beacon purest flame
In the heat of truth and safety
Fiercest comfort, never tamed

The heat and brightness, the brilliant show
The shadows, the glass and the glow
Beauty and mystery, leave fast, come slow
The essence, the glass and the glow
Peace in darkness, still bursting hope
The resting, the glass and the glow
The fate unaccepting and courage yet told
The struggle, the glass and the glow
The deepest held, the shallow goes
The waters, the glass and the glow
Drown me now, and then I’ll know
The ending, the glass and the glow

I might search for the horseman's healer
He appears when the need is greatest
I lack nothing in the world surrounding... But I lack myself

I gave everything I could think to give, a future's full of expectation and a few random suggestions
I lack no bit of imagination... But I lack myself

I fill a home for her to return, it's not your everyday stray cat situation
I lack no meaningful level of comfort... But I lack myself

I clearly articulated three descending metaphors and the healer is yet to show
I lack nothing more than you, dear reader... But I lack myself

There was a man in my hometown,
whose fame never exceeded his station

He had discovered in the heart of desperate broken times
that distinct predisposition to attain glory apart from your opinion
His every day in the mundane created wonder in my heart that has lasted my life

He hid greatness and brilliance behind a thick mask of scruff and janitor's fatigues

I owe him almost everything.
His name was Clifford H. Banks.

Allow me to untangle
The truth and the fable
Only the one fully himself,
Who fully "is" can fully help
This state that finds
Us undermined
So in the throws
We hide our eyes
So out of sorts
Our thoughts unwind
And fill our minds
With wastes of time

But lost and found
Abstractly bound
Can come to mean
What's seen unseen
In place of finding
release the chase
Tune the rule
The walking race
I'm not the me
I'm something else
I know the one
who knows himself