Art is a creature—built

from bones of failure, tied

with tendons of tireless days, wrapped

by fiber upon fiber of hopeful nights, filled

with blood of laughter and despair, pumped

by a heart in a beloved cage, neglected

at the behest of a brain—crawling

through a maze, trying

to stumble and walk

and run and jump

and fly and

land

oh to be a Supreme
being, sitting guilty
of nothing, judging
every person, place, & thing
from silence, quietly
whispering violence
door to door, hidden
above the highest floor,
behind words of deceased
"thoughtful" "men";
hallways full of rooms
full of nothing, never
an ounce of light, just
a din of soft shouts
beneath stolen silverware;
oh to be Supreme, being
judged by nothing, not
even a thing, not
even justice, not
even a Supreme being, not
seeing a person, nowhere,
never; oh, to be a Supreme
being is a nightmare
masquerading as a dream

Falling, eyes
Peeled, bawling
Down, rain
After rain, mud

Falling, feet
Caked, trawling
Down, mile
After mile, stone

Falling, shoulders
Sheared, hauling
Down, blade
After blade, blood

Falling, arms
Piled, crawling
Down, pound
After pound, bone

Falling, guts
Jammed, galling
Down, turn
After turn, waste

Falling, digits
Hacked, stalling
Down, class
After class, cache

Falling, crowns
Cracked, calling
Down, hope
After hope, haste

Falling, trunks
Burned, palling
Down, mass
After mass, ash

Falling, frames
Coiled, sprawling
Down, sec
After sec, gravity

Rising

psst, bet on the game
bet on the game
big bet, big win
come on, bet on the game
(got a problem with
betting on games?)
hey, bet on the game!
hurry up, bet on the game
you know you can
bet on the game
(if you have a problem
with betting on games—)
get in here, we're
betting on the game
betting on the game
(call this number
in case you're having
trouble) it's almost
over, bet on the game
bet on the game
the odds are good
just bet on the game
(we support you)
you can bet on it

we're dead
wrong--deadly
throngs, heading
for death--& long-
itude & latitude's
gone; hope to hope to
hope again; carried
on wind, waves; ferried
in mind; waves, long-
ing kind waves;
shall we find ways
to not be dead
wrong? are the days
too short or two longs
repeating too loudly?
too proudly? too cloudly?
but Earth sang songs long
ago; She sings again,
bellowing: you're deadly
wrong.

the architecture of truth falls flat
against the flourish of surrounding lies,
sparkling and glinting in the light,
drawing our gaze and jutting
their corners into compositions,
casting shadows across the truth below.

but the shoddy foundations of lies
are prone to failure and no matter
how fashionable or stylish,
time will reduce them to dust,
claiming those within their walls,
while the foundations of truth endure
time's assault like tardigrades
in the vacuum of space.

so the market of falsehoods grows,
ever eager
to keep the truth
from being bought
for as long
as possible--
let alone believed.

Wash your hands / Don't touch your face
Touch your face / Touch your face
Wash your hands / Don't touch your face / or face corona

(sing in the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down)

one above another
seeking power beyond
Mother, Father, God;
three of a kind
trolled into a full house
to douse the criers with
gaslighting and rhetoric:
"make America hectic";
painting the targets brightly
through the sights of terrorists
sowing blight in the name of
white, white, white
power, money, ***
insecure, bored, loathing--
guns, roaming
thoughts, looming large
online, in hot spots
traffic's booming,
grooming a genocide
that hides in
plain sight

the white race, paunched,
couched in lazy righteousness
steeped in knee-**** fright of us--
terrified by the sight of
our history of shamefulness
in every passing headline
and obit crossing the line
that makes the deadline,
day by deadly day
due to the arrogance of men
who refuse to even listen
to the obvious injustice
pouring since i don't know when--

our nation's deepest wound
forever reopened to bleed again
and again
and again
and again

a map of skulls and souls
reaped along routes of trade
a rat burrows into the demon's pen
of blissful greed and greed-
ing ignorance agreeing with
mindlessness, taken to com-
plying with heartlessness
shaved with soul-
lessness
into an empty machine--
a killing being
sentient of nothing but
blood battered faces and clean
of all graces--
a sweet decay of inhabitable spaces
do the animals care?
we decide for them
the discussion unheard, buried
in a coffin of laughing reproach
nailed shut, impaled
with ifs, ands, and buts,
but--
what if we didn't?

the new cues wear
old shoes that tear
so quick, but stick
like tar to faces,
tongue-tied by laces
pulled through lungs
that lie in vats
of acidic pride;
how far will they run?
how fast will they stride?
but the questions fall again
between gasps for oxygen
as carbon dioxide
and nitrogen
fill the void;
such are the old shoes,
always outlasting
their feet.

With that incredible brain in his skull,
he drags this country through the mud
like a child drags his blanket.
His enormous, mighty hands grasp
impetuously at his phone to plop out
****-like tweets to his army of bots.
That statuesque frame, upon which his ill-fitting
cheap suits drool down, stumbles around courses
in search of new ways to lie about his lies.
And his striking eyes, squint and squirrel away the truth,
deep in the soul of his heart, which is bigly, and grate (we know).
Oh, we know, Donald. We know. It’s hard to ignore
such an enormous heart as yours. So big indeed,
that this country needs to get out from under its weight
before the inevitable cardiac arrest. It’s a democratic test,
while the Feds investigate all the best people
hired to sell off this country’s assets
to net the richest more riches.

toys here,
get your toys here
but just don’t share
or you won’t be gettin’
no toys here
get your toys here
better than last year’s
but don’t criticize, otherwise
you won’t be gettin’
toys here
get your toys here
free to play
all night and day
but we gotta say
you’ll pay to play
or we’ll take away
your toys here
get your toys here
brand new in box
don’t mind the fox
just watchin’ all the
toys here
get your toys here
because our toys hear
everything you fear
but we won’t leer
as long as you
get your toys here
get your toys here

America, rollin’ its dice,
hurlin’ ‘nades on the ice.
what're we lookin’ for?
who’re we huntin’ for?
whether it’s a score to settle
or another lie to peddle
where do we go from here?
how ‘bout that future we held dear?
gone, done, buried, shunned.
eat crow, *****, retch, and—
run?
don’t run. can’t run.
these colors don’t run, I’ve heard.
though maybe they flow against
each other like water and
oil in a grating chemical fash-
ion that can’t be calculated
or be sufficiently integrated
like we dreamed they would.
and dream we do, for America
and her future, or so I hope,
given that each year that passes
leaves bruises and gashes
in that fabric, so fragile, I hear.
sad, wrong, and crooked;
Trump’s America.

Now grows,
absorbing excess saturation,
conforming nonplussed confirmations.

Now rises in a balloon
tied to our hearts—stretching,
brimming with the gloss of life.

Now rushes from the mountain
over the great falls, into the valley,
with or without us.

Life is love
or a lack thereof,
but more often both
flowing every which way,
but rarely the way
we wish it would.

right to the core of a problem
that refuses to be solved,
defying absolution like
time against our wishes
sending the whole **** plane
into a tailspin—
around and around and around
like the whirlwinds of history’s echo
channeled through muffled ears—
nowhere to go, no way to
think your way out of a past
that clings to your back, claws
digging and steadfast, digging
for answers, for resolution—
some kind of ablution,
so the everyday gnawing
may cease to be—might, perhaps
let us be present without
past tense.

Smoke seethes chest high
atop the cellar stairs
of a dingy corner pub
as the night’s end
rattles and races to the bottom
shattering aside
the steaming head of a man
whose wife drank enough
liquor that night to know
she had enough of his ****
to fill a grave.

Rain-slicked reflections of
the sun's last offerings
disperse within the por-
ous asphalt, inducing

a faint chorus of tire-
spun splashes fading-in
and out behind impa-
tient honks, like waves against

a cargo ship announc-
ing itself to the docks,
"I have arrived! I have
arrived!" The workers, their

jackets waxing iri-
descent limes and oranges,
wave in the freight, crane up
the containers and shout

down the lines through the bay
mist inscribed by currents
of blustering winds, top-
lit by a swarm of head-

lamps, crane lights and high beams
careening through the in-
dustrial din of space,
ensuring no foot fal-

ters and no hand misses
a hold, and the cargo
slowly, but surely, moves
on toward its final des-

tination, and like great
migrations of butter-
flies, birds and whales, that place
is always home, sweet home.

imagine all the cells that form to
join in your sensation
all the stars that blew your bits together
for proper procreation
being born with every breath and
reaching death through exhalation--
i simply can't exist without you
nor you without i,
and of this we can be sure that
(though the sureness of my i
obscures the many in us all[
mere words to ***** for thoughts we cope with]
)it will rumble beneath
and explode at the surface
to delayed surprise of just reprise
(mistaking inflation as progress)
that libations of dogmas won't change a thing:
when you look at the fibers in the fabric of being
(spun finely by spiders invisibly swift)
and if our knowledge were but a fly
we'd see ourselves trapped by its infinite web,
both victim to its trap and servant to its host
(though this is the nature of matters sticking close[
especially light years away])
just as the lattice of language roots deep
inside double-helix libraries unimaginably tall
filled with books authored by curious protons,
excited electrons and fleeting photons,
composed of sentences by snarky quarks and gluons
lying in -eate groups with unseen companions
(read between the lines) working in union
to fashion a sum greater than summation could do--
an alchemical-calculus of fractal fluidity,
finding contexts for novelty to sing songs
like Earth (though just a planet in other eyes)
to give conscious rise within the cosmic playground
embodied by us, but not encompassed by us;
rather extended through us
as curiosity mirrored.

understand
make it stand
let it in
grasp it tight
find the heart of the light
give it water for more
hear it beat and sweet
release the flow throughout
seeping doubt
squelched in blackened drought
listened under moonlit ponds
broken by lingering clouds
shrinking
growing
morphing
exploding shrapnel hits
the streets in domino lines of
clings, clanks
against pavement
green with feeling
tentacles outstretched
grabbing downpour
more griping
a wiping the slate clean
a new approach to a one way road
sweeping away the swept under
forgotten
the last day, a cleansing
sweaters donned for greater betterness
less impressiveness, bored aggressiveness
regressing
to under intelligence, minor importance
broken vases line the halls
flowers gasp soaking last remains
crying death
its toll rising infinite forms
everywhere
everyday
every
second
this moment
emptiness
misery’s hand clenched tight
suffocating life, energy bound
and wound so small and tight
bound to explode any moment
epiphany epiphany
epiphany
ephemeral projected instance
prism hemmed answers
nullifying yourself

the traffic’s wet with oil
while the drivers sweat and broil
and ACs blast at least as loud as
stereos, pulsing to beat the heat

and the sun does all it can
to oblige a gift of all it’s got
and all we’ve got to say is,
“it’s hotter’n hell out here”

when all we’ve ever known
is all the sun has ever shown,
somehow eclipsed by our universal
lust; the wish to reach stars

we’ve never felt but have always seen
squinting at us from aeons ago.

phe
nom
e
no
logic
al phe

nom
e
no
logic
al phe nom

e
no
logic
al phe nom e

no
logic
al phe nom e no
logic
al phe nom e no logic

al phe nom e no logic al

Time is of the sentence, while
verbs reveal their intents
for adjective nouns (pro or no
comment) quickly in vents
meant for air, but coarseness
courses through upturned grates  
shredding of courses into no ways

to go from here to home,
awaiting infinitely fine moments
caressed along necks of silken
skin within the wear of stretched out
glances left lingering still
in compassionate ponds rippling
soft warm smiles lazily by
the melting cares of the world
golden in luxuriously wrapped light
playing across the surface & through-

out into emerald encrusted irises
to cast love's shadow over
swamps of fear gurgling neuro-
toxic diatribes against plu-
perfect pasts & future
imprefects presented in a case to
Your Honor's (the jury) out of bounds
dissolved with ear ration-
al solutions mixed & stirred
thoroughly throughout,
without spilling too
much.

nobody whose who’s
****** bleeding nothing’s
lost or found amongst
swing swung sounds
and rebound where
nowheres echo off violence’s
clamoring dictum: to each’s own
silent stammering victim  

no bits limit the need to share
no stars emit light without due glare
no atom resists the urge to fuse
no one exists alone to choose

yesterday isn’t tomorrow’s
friend forever, yet
if not, one today might wonder
when rain wasn’t
more than lightning’s thunder?

Truth? a lewd's you
in known certain terms:
whether veins, when drowned
hawks a gin (loomin’)
a shin splinters as
mines bore on; why ‘ol
car bonfires grow tired
of a pack o’ lips’ wisp ring,
“Hydra Djinn—
Sine diem purgare nox.”
Redeem and weep
in tents, faces & phrases
met a fizz[i call]y
drunk in jest id bouts
wrested liver's tried & tested [buy con-
testant after contest-
ant] where West lids gaze
in two, the joy of the flame
hungry's gasping for air
[nothing's becoming] bright
berthed of ash-end tombs
lit up in the night.

why can't I just
it's just that
I'm sick and tired of
if I could only
the problem is
I don't know why but
I can't believe
but that's what I mean
I hate it when
it's annoying how
I can only imagine
if only there was
but it's like
isn't it funny how
now see that's
I mean obviously
it's just ridiculous
there's just so many
I really do think, that, you know
it's just one of those things where it's like
see, no matter what
I can't ******* stand it

You either know me, or you don’t.
I’m your best friend, and worst enemy.
I’m bought, sold (new and old),
sought, found, and tossed around.
I get twisted and turned,
mimicked and gimmicked.
I lead you here, I lead you there,
I lead you just about anywhere.
I whisper in your ear, and boom across the sky,
feeding off echoes, savoring my cry.
I’m overlooked and undercooked—
raw as sushi just unhooked.
I’m encrypted and coded into complex clues,
hidden in books and the daily news.
I’m hacked, chewed, shredded and burned,
analyzed and synthesized at every turn.
I’m stronger than ever and growing each day,
collecting, connecting, and creating the way.
Information’s the name, and if life’s a game,
then I’m one slick player with zero shame.

Success & Excess,
the double-headed goliath
atop the mountain drinking wine
laughed with all the slop-eating swine
at the ant-sized pilgrims
crafting their shrine.

But soon the mountain cracked
under the lives spent toiling
over construction & protection
of their collective prison--
the bitter stench of cynicism
wafted freely through its halls
& prisoners prayed for the crumbling
to bring them fresh air.

The mountain did crumble, success
& excess met pilgrims in fate
as the trumpets of creation harmonized
with the oboes of destruction
to wring out a nocturne
for the newly born babes.

Cynicism dissipated
& their souls grew
stronger, their will followed
& filled the void of Excess with
imagination to create
the world again.

Success, the wounded foe,
was forced to strut around town--
pilgrims & prisoners
laughed and poked, yet
at the nucleus,
Success whispered: "nothing can stop me."

Side-swept and caught
bereft in the dust colonies
of my memories.
Can’t cough for the life of me,
the air claws at my lungs
to escape—You’re imprisoned.

No windows in this basement,
its cries for light
cackling through its foundation.
Even the bulb you replaced
popped & burned as
black as your pupils.

Is that rain outside?
I might’ve asked you—but
these walls don’t care.
Concrete, born from water,
now lifeless and impervious
to its drum.

Still searching for the box
you gave me, that mocks
from the center—no doubt the core—
trapped and tangled in this
cardboard monument
of human waste.

To the flames it’ll go,
******* from my lungs
the stale oxygen you left behind.
Fresh air nearly forgotten,
though out of reach,
just like your touch.

words are bones of the dead
exhumed by mind or God or worms
to serve as the razor’s edge
carving trenches along
tongues where words are hung on tips
of innocent cliffs above guilty shores
while dreams unravel their threads
to shed narratives even nightmares
fear to tread;
the labyrinth from ear to eerie
plunging fathoms beyond waves
into oceans without words
where context meets
space;meaning meets time
swirling currents


before your eyes

focusing your sight
into a thousand words
of blistering might illuminating
recesses with signs of life
clung fast to the boiling point
of excitement possessed by ecstasy
ebulliently freighting sweet air
to the surface
where the survey concludes
that pollution occludes all reasons
as to whether or not
the will might’ve brought
a word or two from
original thought.

you're the coffee to my cup
the stitch to my seam
you bring the down to my up
the I to my beam
you're the orange to my carrot
the beef to my stew
you're the fox to my ferret
your cages, my zoo
you're the moat to my castle
the saddle to my steed
your jester's my vassal
your virtue, my deed
you're the fly to my web
the venom to my sting
you turn my flow into ebb
my winters into spring
you're the syn to my thesis
the sun to my leaves
your puzzle holds my pieces
your wire binds my sieves
you're the hedges to my maze
the signal to my noise
your game racks up my plays
like a child collecting toys
you're the sheen to my mirror
the pixels to my screen
you make further feel nearer
than my feelers can glean
you're the ink to my pen
the feathers to my wings
you turn how into when
and whethers into rings
you're the valves to my heart
the fluid to my spine
you're laughing at my ****
(was that yours or mine?)
you're the hints to my clue
the hunch to my claim
you turn my false into true
and my wild, you tame
your splinters are my plank
your twist, my *****
you're the toothbrush to my shank
the red to my blue
you're in love with my hatred
you honor my shame
your church bears my cross
your tombstone, my name
you're waging my war
your shells fill my tanks
your rich, my poor
your spit, my thanks
you're more to my less
the vowels to my needs
you put the sure in my guess
the plea in my pleads
you're the soles to my feet
and the depths to my sea
but in case we don't meet
here's from you to me

yellow city, black sky
massive architecture, flickering liquid
glass oceans along
the cold canyons of San Francisco
wavering illusion upon reality
disfigured sideshow reflections
of disembodied achievement
trapped in themselves,
our selves
no longer nourished by the roots,
a hunger imposed upon the planet
like a suffocating blanket that people
pave over and **** on
until it's buried so deep
that even the heart has trouble breathing,
trouble beating out its rhythm;
a musical act of joy now stuttering
along like a gasping survivor
straggling across the ruins of Pompeii
crying out for what? help? no,
the end of suffering, a swift death
instead of the long parasitic drawl
that man so eagerly inflicts
upon the earth, himself
claiming the Kingdom
for the eternal barbarian, deep in the veins
coursing through the apparatus
which creaks beneath the weight of our guilt
and stultifies in the monstrosity of our ignorance,
yet it continues to run,
as if to see how far we'll go,
as if life were merely an experiment to see
how spectacularly
it could end

poetry is more than me
it's more than words
& more than rhyme
it's vaster than space
& faster than rhythm surfing
the waves of time
amplifying its
frequency with
each &
every
line
pointed by symbols (signs?)
clung to limestone precipices
like vines within concrete crevices
whispering screams of defiance
against ignorance's yokes,
again our arrogance jokes
about the insignificance of other folks
of the other ones
of them, those people, the absentminders
relentlessly fettered in golden
coats profaning their shine thusly true
so that the unnoticed may reflect upon the surface
as the caustics of thought refract through
the waters of spirit & soul
churned out of each & every mind
a field of poetics
lurking behind the edifice of structure
deified as functional perfection manifested
but utterly infested with ***** sheets
& replete with redundant repugnance
filtered by plumbing that dumbs **** down
to the basement level deep underground
where much is mumbled but little is said
aside from the storm a'brewin' overhead.

The poem began thus:
(The poem thus began:
“The poem began thus:
‘Thus, the poem began:
“Thus began the poem.
”’”)‘Thus, the poem began:
“Thus began the poem.”’

Thus the poem began:

new sphere--you knew
it was here all along,
hung on the tip of every brain,
heart & tongue, but held back
by our capricious lungs
& blanched knuckles
clutching the nous fear
like clumps of salt tossed
across left shoulders of causeways
long since sheered into the sea;
the carrier of all songs sung
by souls all sizes, both old
& young--we knew.

when we breach
the full breadth of our understanding,
we'll understand
the full breadth of our ignorance.

sense the essence
audibly seen in the butterfly's
shimmering iridescence
flapping its wings
at hummingbird speeds
conducting tones
of concentric rings
emanating matter
& meanings of things
soaring through volumes
of decibel dimensions
embedded in grooves
of mass intentions
measured in tomes
of cultural moves
toward concrete walls
of gaseous oppression
sold in vials to
quell our depression
of what?

our souls don't fit
within their cubes, nor
diamonds, spheres,
pyramids or tubes--
they sink into love
like black holes in time:

with unstoppable force
toward all that's sublime.

reality television
doesn’t just sell a vision
it crawls & squirms like
disease-ridden worms
contracted through the eyes
to terrorize the temples
of self & hope, pushing us down
this precipitous ***** of
cannibalization feeding on
station after station & projecting
its virus to every nation
LOOK@ME
LOOK@ME

why?
what ever have you done
beyond sell your being to
the vultures circling the
stumbling corpse of dignity
cackling in the sunny waste
at our utter lack in taste
eroded by the steady stream
of soulless visions hellbent on
sowing never-ending divisions
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

but it’s never enough
because the machine is lubed
& cheap to boot, all the better
for the execs collecting loot
thus the only prescription
is to denounce this fiction
with the utmost conviction
and step back into
reality.

at a blistering pace
they fiddle with space
folding here to there
and then to now
and all we do is
wonder how

instead we should see
that time’s hands are we,
balled up in fists of idiocy
with knuckles bloodied
by history
pulling triggers and pins
to win shinies and loot,
never pointing to the
victims dying in soot

the fingers tease & unravel
the fibers and threads
woven from the start
when they should be
weaving a new living art

Heave and **
and pray all day
and you just might go
to the place we all love
but no one knows
(no guarantees, though)
because as you can see
you just might not be
the right kind of being—
even though you’ve got
lots of dough
(and maybe a plane)
you forgot your brain
and dropped your heart
(the most vital part)
because what you don’t see
or can’t bear to accept
is that heaven’s hiding
right inside your chest

a gnat, oh my!
what can I spy
hiding inside
this tiny fly?
an atom, or three!
sprawling effortlessly
into eyes & wings
that set it free
to bug the hell outta me—
a ton of flesh
to its molecular mesh,
but nonetheless,
this gnat & me
both orbit 'round
anatomy.

the ashes of ancient
alchemical martyrs glow
in the great tunnels
of Hadron, whizzing
faster than time
at the behest of man,
the measurer of all things
including whether things
are worth measuring or not

a sordid joke on the great minds
that sorted the mystery out
long before quantum physicists
crawled out from under
the church’s labyrinth
of insulting confabulations
and pillaged the fortunes of others
to build the great rings

shall we bow to the new God?
**** your experience, I’ll prove you wrong
He bellows from the podium built from
the finest endangered trees
and polished with the spit of
all who disagree, and yet

it’s truth in action
the 9mm’s omniscient song
sung across this suffering world:
***** with me, and you’ll discover the truth

spread the word
tongue by tongue
and lung by lung
from East to West:
we’ve failed our test
from pole to pole
so that the deepest shoal
of floundering fish
may find a way
toward becoming whole

a state of choice
at our fingertips
on the cusp of breath
let’s speak it quick
and mean it like death
because nothing matters
unless we deem it so
and there’s no magic like
the word
to let it flow

Come one, come all
but it’s best if you’re tall
& don’t forget thin;
it’s how you slip in
to the nests & dens
of the biggest pens,
that write lines & checks
for plots of guns & ***,
no doubt, “the best”—
“and 3D too!”
they shout from the box
as the lines wind round
the corners & blocks
of cities & towns,
whose citizens murmur
with furrowed brows
about the gimmicks & tricks
used by mile-high cliques
‘til the projector squeals
& burns off the reels
from the latest dump of
Hollywood’s flicks.

Beyond the farms
of my troubled fears,
a path weaves through
icy slivers of bone,
glossed by Winter’s breath,
who sits enthroned
aside her onyx pond,
reflecting.

“The challenge you face is twofold:
confront me and confront yourself.”

A black jaguar saunters from
her ivory throne, holding
my gaze in the vice
of its assured indifference.

“That which you seek may not be found,
but earned.”

My dagger shakes,
frozen tightly in
my sweating palm.
The lush snow absorbs
the crush of my knees
as the jaguar closes.

“Your unearthed answer, clean of instinct or knowledge,
bids closer reflection.”

At arm’s length,
the jaguar stops.

“Change does not ride the wind,
for the wind has direction.”

The jaguar’s breath
warms my quivering lips,
and I exhale
my unbidden thoughts.
My eyes, still fixed in place,
are not aware
of my rising hand.

“To understand is to forgive,
and to forgive is to love.”

Her words chill the blood
pooling in my outstretched palm,
quivering closer to my host.
The ferric scent tickles its whiskers,
and the jaguar laps up my gift.

“Love, and you'll belong.”

I dream of drinking from the river
rushing its abundance of life
through soil beds rich
with unknowing purpose
to reach the sea & combine
with all rivers & make its long journey back
to the tops of mountains
feeding new life & making
the same journey
all over again.

This recycling of life
emanates & pours from every crack,
& every chirp of the cricket
brings a willful reassurance--a notching of time
in the constance of life.
I am here, we are here
& the world is waiting for us
to see its beauty within ourselves,
because I am that beauty & we are all that beauty
& everything we do paints the picture
with different colors, shapes & strokes
& an image of life on this planet
emerges from our collective brush.

What is this mystery
we desire & call
love?
We all seek it
knowing or not
if it's in our
hearts.
We're driven to ask
whether it exists
at all, giving us
the perspective to see
that nothing exists
without it.
You don't read this poem
without love's
****** embrace.
Its creative power
pours the essence
of being.
The affinity
chemicals express
for each other
is catalogued
& categorized
into processes
& methods, evidence
of a mind crying
for absolute understanding.
We love truth
not for its beauty
but for its simplicity,
which carries beauty
in its form.
Yet the simple truths
sting the most,
like fear's glance
or the reaper's lance.
Let's follow the simple
truth that love is
all there is (for
The Beatles weren't lying)
& there's no reason why
love & death aren't
one & the same.
Perhaps life is
an expression of love
for the finer things
& death is our love
for the endless.
One moment we grow
tired of nothing,
swayed by love's
desire to be known,
born into another
universal fling.

Asthmatic heart attack fits
in a powdered-sugar
hurricane blitz
swept the fertile landscape’s
curves & twists
before the mud of disgust
was caked hard as rust
on the buildings hoisted
out of soil’s distrust.

Tear them down echoed
the canyon walls
whose layers of prayers
crept the ivy higher
reaching toward the sun
where the liar can envy
what’s honestly done.

In a stream it was spoken
to rush upon ears with
the good grace to listen
like whales of our years
unburied, and twice re-lived;
under seas of reproach
for having nothin’ to give.