Trying to find myself
A lifetime of effort
With no beginning
And no End
Going down one-way streets
The wrong way
Ending up in dead-ends
Long times of searching
With nothing to show

I know the ‘what’, but not the ‘who’
The ‘what’ is easy
The ‘who’ unfathomable
The mirror tells the outer story
The dreams maybe the inner
What do my actions and reactions
Tell about who I am?
Are my moods, my happiness, and sadness
Linked to my essence, the ‘who’?

Will I know only for sure
After I die, when I am just soul?
Are the answers in this other dimension
Never to be known in physical life?
Why do I need to know ‘who’ I am?
Is it not enough to know ‘what’ I am?
Would I live my life differently
If I knew ‘who’ I am?
I guess I will never know

Weighed down by the chains of his past
His future beckoning to him from the sea
He contemplated, but hesitated to jump in
Not knowing if he would sink or float

I grab the empty bottles
Put the glasses into the sink
Pick up my ***** underwear
Empty the overflowing ashtray
Open the window wide
To renew the air in the room
Where last night
We had talked, and smoked
Finished all the bottles
Of my cheap red wine

I straighten the pillows
On the old ***** couch
Where last night
We had fumbled around
Drunkenly but eager
Laughing about our inability
To **** properly
Too drunk to get it up
Too befuddled
To know better

I broom the floor
Where last night
We had danced
All naked
Holding on to
Each other
Listening to music
We did not understand
To love songs
We did not believe in

I am cleaning up
The mess
That is my life

Looking absentmindedly
Into the swirling water
Hearing without listening
The plitcher, platcher
Following with empty eyes
The leaf flowing unpredictably
He thought about his life
Or rather, absence of life

He stretched out beside the brook
Looked up through the trees
Into an ocean of flickering light
And marveled at the beauty of the stars
Calling him to get up and dance
But with a heavy and empty heart
He turned away from their beauty
Back into his dark mind

There should be a 911 line for
Broken hearts and broken minds
A shelter for people like me
The homeless of the heart
A church to welcome lost souls
Wandering through agony and pity
But I guess this place right here
Is as good as it gets

Finding the warmth, comfort and food
It so desperately craved
The baby snuggled up to the breast
Completely at peace, blissfully unaware of
And not caring at all about the world
Making me realize that those moments
Must have been the highlights of my life
Where absolute need met complete fulfillment
Memories now resting dormant and unremembered
Locked away within my deep inner self
Unconscious recognition that made me who I am
Never to be experienced again

A landscape as far as the mind could range
Devastated, black, void of color or life
He had walked for days without change
Through a world of conflict and strife

With tired steps he kept moving along
When he passed a large blackened stone
Inside a small crack something seemed to be wrong
Something that stopped him and jarred him to the bone

In the middle of that little crack
Grew a tiny bright yellow flower
A yellow light surrounded by black
An image of unimaginable power

It called out to him ‘do not despair’
Even though it may look bleak
For if you open your heart and honestly care
you will always find what it is you seek

Your warm soft leg
Brushing mine
Full lips slightly open
Snoring quietly
Black hair fanned
Out across the
Pillow
Face relaxed
Smooth skin
Innocent
******* rising and falling
Rhythmically
******* poking
Against t-shirt
****
Looking at you
Feeling love
Seeing beauty
Taking a snapshot
For my heart
To remember
During hard times
Sometime
In the future
This incredible
Totally awesome
Sleeping beauty

Elephants trampling the young corn
With clouds as indifferent bystanders
My tears soaking new growth
That will never reach maturity
While the Universe watches

A double rainbow born of tears
Fades into the mountain
Leaving a vacuum of hopelessness
Over a sea of forgotten promises
While the Universe watches

Rose bushes ****** the children
With thorns made of recycled war heads
And laments float precariously
On anger filled dead rivers
While the Universe watches

Prayers are lost in icy snowstorms
Hope is nestling with long dead dinosaurs
Happiness morphing into empty darkness
With love pulled like **** from the ground
The Universe had finally turned away

If figuring out who we are
Is giving us sorrow and pain
Maybe we should raise the bar
And fully engage our brain

Ascertain what we have got
To elucidate who we are not!