I never knew a dreary rook
whose trill is absent from my ear.
A crow ashamed of its black
that brushes wet paint to change its color.
A bird that builds nests from razors and plastic
who abandons forests for streets
and brothers for cold nights.

Perhaps it did not survive.
Perchance it dove into the ocean
to find eternity within its form.

A melancholy avian was not meant for this world,
for no other song is fit to fill the morning’s air.

A cold, dark desert begins
When a faint peach light saunters over the horizon
& climbs the sky,
Leaving darkness to shadows and graves.

The chaffed branches of bushels,
Barely lingering along the threshold of life,
Find solace in crawling growth
As the glow reaches dusty twigs,
Making them as networks of smoker bronchi.

Faded green cacti hold posture sharp,
As totems of harsh-landed culture,
Serving as solemn landmarks
In a flatland of mixed dust and rock,
They stand tall
All for a breath of young desert air.

While quiet hue spreads,
Passing each towering rock & mountain,
Even quivering lizards,
Waiting to be sunbaked,
Change to pink-yellow glow
& scarcely move
As the sun soars above
sizzling rigid scales,
Until the glowing horizon becomes a burning, lit land
Under a radiating Arizona sun.

An elk ran through the open field of snow,
She tired of lending time to shade
And yearned for the heat of a seductive glistening clearing,
To glide above the sparkling diamond sheets,
To cut through the crisp winter air.

Her cautions lingered in shade,
Too quiet for deserving notice,
As no mountain lion or wolf could take down this great best
Regardless, all the forested animals, large and small, watched this elk
Defy whatever instincts or rules nature upheld against the open.

As the elk reached full pace,
Her strides were so long but one thing stopped her
From taking flight was the powdered ground below,
She defied the familiar surface mid-step and began to climb,
But the sky and valley boomed with revolt,
Echoing thunder without lightning,
And the great elk collapsed to the cold snow below
With a ****** hole in her tender side,
Coated in specks of stinging white crystals.

In the elk’s last moments,
She noticed 3 men appear from the trees
Behind her foggy breath,
Boomsticks slung over their shoulders,
But without hate or anger or malice for the hunting men of sport,
The elk died, comfortable that air,
Floating above all she knew, embraced her.

Inhale and hold
The breath of this earth,
It carries another’s life to yours,
Holding what were once words deep in someone’s lungs,
Air traveling across mountains, oceans, cities,
Giving life to trees to people to trees,
Feel the essence of another,
Think about who had this breath last,
Exhale.

Her house was right on the bus 14 route,
The route that paces back and forth
between the university and general hospital.
This was perfect for us, start to finish.

Early on, when I went to her house,
I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest.
Other times, especially near the end,
I considered taking that Psyc course on Interpersonal Relations.

You walk with me parallel on the beach,
You in the water, the charge and retreat,
No fear of what isn’t in your control,
But it can move fast, swallow you whole,
I stay on dry land; I like what I know,
But you urge me in with your eye’s glow,
We walk slowly through the water at first,
Adjusting to the cold with shuttering bursts,
A saunter turns walk a walk turns dance,
We tango in the water hands holding hands.

The sun slightly bleaches wood buildings
For California heat burns mild,
But the cheer it brings to folk of this street
Makes it worth the hills burning wild.

Dressed like an old man
At a bar of a dulcet past,
To find thoughts of silk shirts and drinks
That make expensive nights last.

I walked along the bay shore
Lined with tiny shops and eateries,
To look through cracks between buildings
And see riches of wealthy free.

Each shop and wood wall café
That lined the bulbous-rocked beach
Has little more than caviar and wine
For the affluent that saunter the streets.

Edgar Poe likes to do some thinking,
Even more likes to go drinking,
Then he writes his stories,
People ask for more please,
But all you hear are bottles clinking.

Can I sit without
guilt and anxiety
if I take off this crown of thorns
and rid of it unto another?
Or must I stand?

When I was 9,
I stopped fearing the monster under my bed.
So he shrank down in size.

He climbed up my bed
and crawled in an ear
now he lives within me
renamed ‘things I fear’.

Though callused and bruised they are,
My bare feet gently graze
Silk leaves of grass,
As foot by foot
Takes stride by stride
& gingerly brushes over every blade.

I’m no preaching bishop,
Nor crying martyr,
But I pray
The joy of walking barefoot
On a lively green horizon
Is never forgot.

I loved you once,
it feels like a lifetime ago,
but I did love you
at one point or another.
Don’t forget that.

A metal frog swimming through the icy water
Words without a story
Something lighthearted
Cliché
A comet
Frank Sinatra in the background
Metaphysical relationships
Bouncing on a comet
A kettle steaming
Sarcastic bombs and sunsets
Sneaking off to drink
Future video games and bro love
Clerical errors and burnt memories
Funny people subtract lingerie
Maybe limbo
Sometimes tragedy.

Have you ever asked yourself
“Which parts of me are original?”
and then
not been able to give an answer?

Planes roar above,
Cars burn through streets,
Fridges and Heaters hum through
us.

When you’re addicted to
Metal & Concrete,
silence is a privilege.

it’s the roar
of airplanes,
littering the sky,
that silences
a bird's song.

As i stood
under the moon’s and stars’ and planets’ light,
i checked my watch,
but felt distant from
the time of day,
or time at all.
For i connected to these outlying rocks
not as lights in the skies,
but distant eternities
outlasting i.

If hell is engulfed in fire
as bright as the sun,
And heaven is lit
by a divine light,
Then I shall die with sunglasses.

Never have I seen a sunset in reverse,
Light returning from the west horizon,
The world resurrected.
The sun striving for life just a little longer
The universe allowing another chance at that day
To make it count,
To make it worth recurring,
Then again,
I’ve never seen a sunrise.

I have no camera
to capture a moment worth memory.
I do not fathom notes of symphonies,
nor can I serenade you with songs unsung.
I have no spices for a delicate meal
or recipes to make food dance on your tongue.
I possess no fabric for fashions to come,
and I am not chiseled in style of Grecian gods
in order to show another’s cloth.
I offer neither paint to spread on any canvas
nor pastels for paper’s surface.
I cannot act as a different person,
Or write you a play that may induce ovation.
I have no story in my head,
waiting to be ink on a page
or scenes in a movie.
I only have my ill-favored voice to be heard
And these words to be read.

A far crying blues interrupts the silent night
in the downtown slums,
It pierces again, and again,
Changing pitch and tone
But never changing,
lesser or greater,
In patient wistfulness.

Strangers,
Spraining ankles on broken sidewalks,
Hear the distant outcry of brass
& snap fingers as they saunter
between dim streetlights,
Realizing city’s sorrows are shared
among found sorrowful.

If you follow the calls of dimming nostalgia,
Over rooftops and antennas,
The lone trumpeter is found,
Leaning on a rusted fire escape
Among higher floors of worn apartments
& thick grey clouds of industry
In cathartic meditation
His cheeks puff and blow,
Reminding neighbors
There’s good out in the world
& there’s bad,

But in the oblivious dark of night,
The roar of a trumpet can make peace
within the burnt hearts of cities
To fend both good and bad off
So only memories may linger,
& remain until swollen cheeks tire
for passion of night ceases
unto another day.

My feet take me across mountains and streets,
But what if there is nowhere I wish to go?
My hands obtain desire,
But what if I want nothing more?

My mouth declares and consumes,
But what if there is nothing left to say
and my thirst quenched?
My ears listen to what is said,
But what if I need not from those who speak?

My skin unifies my being,
But what if I wish to come undone?
Must I bear that which is not sought after,
Or will they detach themselves?

The other day at the zoo,
i stood in front of the lions’ den,
taking pity upon a
Life in a cage.

Then a lion stood
from the shade of a eucalyptus tree
and approached me with
Pride in his walk.
The king of animals looked
in my eyes and said
“Someday, I will free you.”

An invisible barrier
Gives light from the natural world.
It keeps the flora and fauna away from workers,
But gives privilege to observe.

Leaves of green, orange, red sway
in trees waiting to be climbed,
Water makes wave after wave
in each lake and ocean wishing to be swum,
Flowers grow in fields that await to be enjoyed.

How I want to throw the chair that holds me,
Make this great barrier shatter and be no more,
Free the people with computers fused to their thighs.

Let them run in the fields,
Let them freeze in oceans,
Let them climb trees,
Let them be free.

And the chapped sun-baked tire
swung on the aged and frail rope attached to the most outright branch
of the sheltersome oak tree by the carved up picnic bench.
Children fought for such a throne on warm summer days,
Not many cared for clawing and snatching in attaining it,
But it was a necessary fight in those days.

Once they sat in their highest place and swung to the skies,
All they could see was the wind-ridden flow of treetops
rustling and swaying, creating nature’s static,
This why they fought,
This is why only the battered
and bruised cooled their cuts with forest breeze.

It broke one day,
after being a shelter in storming youth,
Charles Ferger snapped the rope
on a smooth swing to reach the sky.
They knew the clock was counting down
and no one could see how much time was left,
but they still hated Charles for being the one it broke on.
It wasn’t his fault, and they knew it,
but they had to blame someone.
No one ventured to it for the first few weeks,
The sight of it only reopened healing wounds.

At a certain point, years later, after the kids
had gone to high school, it was fixed.
No one knew who fixed it or when,
since the kids still went out there once in a while
to drink some nights and have campfires,
but they were glad it was fixed,
then news of the resurrection spread.

And on one MLK day,
no one remembers which,
they had a bonfire and swung as high as they could
to christen it back to its precious worn state once more,
fighting over it with the intentional caution they
used to use when wrestling for the uninhibited freedom
that in lay dormant in the crusty black tire swing.

There once was a boy who loved fire,
He kept matches in hand and sang in choir,
The church burned days after that,
Only matches they found inside a dead rat,
The boy went missing a few days later,
But no one cared, other worries were greater,
So the boy got away with less matches in hand,
Singing dogmatic songs of a fiery land.
One day in black sun a demon will come,
He’ll save us in the blaze hoheehohum

The next town he settled in was quite small,
But it had an orphanage where he could stall,
Living as an orphan was less than fun,
He dreamed of fires, up walls they’d run,
Nuns gave him chores like scrubbing floors,
But living this life was an absolute bore,
Weeks in he again found his little box of fire,
And snuck away at night as his heart desired.
One day in black sun a demon will come,
He’ll save us in the blaze hoheehohum

He started anew in a town called Old Haven,
Teenaged he was and very well-behaven,
He worked for a grocer, handling cash,
But one day, the store’s walls turned to ash,
No one suspected the teen and his matches,
Until he disappeared in a bat of your lashes,
He continued on, without a worry for the world,
Knowing eventually in fire it’d be hurled.
One day in black sun a demon will come,
He’ll save us in the blaze hoheehohum

Eventually he settled in a place with no fire,
Except in the first job where he was no liar,
A crematorium he settled to live,
Bodies he burns, then ashes he gives,
A match started every body-fueled flame,
A box in hand singing the devil finally came.
Then, one summer, the now-man threw himself in,
Mad with laughter, hell accepted him.
One day in black sun a demon will come,
He’ll save us in the blaze hoheehohum

When it is no longer necessary to dream,
When your heart gives out from affection received,
When every second together is perfect,
When the other is no longer a project,
When love is mentioned and you look at her,
When dull moments rarely occur,
When you think of the future and she is there,
When you still are loved with no hair,
When you forget what sadness is,
When you need no more practice,
When you always feel as if the world is new,
When not being with her eats away at you,
When you heart trips you with a slight shove,
That’s how you know you’ve fallen in love.

a rose,
enriched by the sun’s color,
casts off the tragedy of red,
to bring what is left
of nostalgic warmth.