Love sank its teeth,
ravaged the other with claws
sharpened by a wheel of raging passion.
Feel outside its cage to taste
iron blood from a punctured lung;
war chants rung out in rain,
each piercing of what Love once loved
by its talons, lets maroon map its path
through trampled grass. The other crawls
in unknown vain, no hope remains.
One love scavenges the other.

Help! Help! The town is in peril!
Its beasts of burden are raw and feral.
They devour children with their hearts still thumping,
Parents are numb, stand by, and do nothing.

In the town square, the great council is hung,
Chaos, with its destructive war, has begun
By lighting the town’s clock tower on fire;
To serve as the town’s funeral pyre.

In the tower, people all tremble with fear
As fickle flames more fiercely move near.
With blurry eyes they unlatch the window’s clasp
And resign their fate away from the flames grasp.

From the flames, there is life
That’s filled with saltwater and strife.
From the air, we take our breaths
And choose the option of a quicker death.

I am a tree trying to
not waver with the wind.

Each leaf I lose eats away at me,
like their color they turned,
left me bare to the bitter winter wind.

The branches, thought sturdy, are broken by the storm;
it took away my connections to the world;
I thought they'd last, how could I be
such a fool? I'm more vulnerable now.

Looking for my saving grace, I search beneath the dirt
and find my faith in buried roots.
They ground me amidst the hurricane,
turns out they were what I needed,
not abandoning branches and fleeing leaves.

Creep inside the victim's pain
what did the abuser gain by
tearing her clothes and smacking her
across the cheek in a fit of raging lust?

Now she's nauseated and sore,
with a body both bruised and broken
all because he forced upon her a choice
between an immediate or a prolonged death,
the latter filled with self-loathing
and attempts to retake control
from the beast who thought only
of gratifying all pleasures
and left a shell in place
of a life once lived.

Love or lust is
The semantics of romantics.
There’s love in my heart and veins
For the two-braided blonde, with the off-color tooth
And the smile that somehow both
Gives me chills and soothes me.
I am the earth, my thoughts- the moon, and She is the sun:
The constant by which my time is measured.
In day I think of her, at night I dream of her.
I cordon off my thoughts of her
They lead to a loss of sanity.
The right dose, however, keeps the motor running,
The eye on the prize,
Puts me to sleep where the thoughts are good
And innocent, instead of the thoughts
Where I’m lying awake
In the dead of night
Thinking of the other options she must have;
Why she’d waste time on a **** up like me,
Who’s confined to this space and can’t escape,
Forced only to think, i.e.,
What got me here in the first place.
I want to leave
I need to get out
To tell her the feeling that courses through
Every inch of me- now, while the fear has abated,
Before cowardice comes back, and I think she has hated me
All along, and the smile was forced,
The laughter, pained
The sarcasm, disguising disgust instead of playfulness.
My body burns
With the desperation of a young man’s desire.
I have to get back to her
To put out the fire from the sun
Or at least tame it;
For she can keep me going
While I’m kept here, tucked away,
Or she could destroy me with
The thought of her each day.

A tortured heart, yet the body's whole,
the sin of tears my only clue
to awaken the caring tyrant within me,
who won't let me rest
till I know her tale.

A forlorn love, it is, perhaps?
Did he let you down gently
or tear apart your heart and soul,
and take a swipe at your outlook on life
as well?
Is it a venereal disease
from a former love?
Or perhaps it is
a family strife, that splits you open
like a dull knife?
Maybe its just your beaten mind
causing unkind thoughts, like mine.
I pray its not that
but I'd pluck every one,
and put them in with my own.

Regardless of what it may be
this I know to be true:
the next time that I will smile
will be when I see one
emanate from you.

Endure the day
Count hours between meals,
Minutes between carts careening past,
Seconds between shoes squeaking.
Keep the room dark to
Invite sparks of sleepiness.
Disparate thoughts run together, with only the theme
Of agony to join them:
The thought of the present situation-
Where I am.
Then the sun, She who is hidden from my view in this hell hole,
Outside these walls She’s free
And I’m trapped
And I can’t see Her!

If sight of Her cannot be
Relief could be found in the opposite;
Rest my head on the tear-catcher,
Block out the sound and
Bring the night into day.
Dreams of Her
Will have to suffice.

You hugged me once and said
that everything would be ok,
but I'm pretty ******* far from fine
as nothing calms my fragile mind.

Once upon a time we were
as thick as thieves in the dark of night;
now I must seem like a stranger to you,
a forgotten friend you know no longer.

Speaking all in tongues, I land
on the beach of a foreign shore.
where the sand came from the hourglass
that Kronos used to keep time.

Give punks the pearls of protection
work till the problem-children are solved
let abusers lose by the fate of election
hope that jokers will eventually evolve.

Dilute you wisdom with water
or pain will shoot through their heads.
Console the ones who are bothered
bring soft light to where they see red.

Turn the murky water to wine
and separate chaff from wheat
to hear the future strike its chimes
to rid the grimy past of sleet,
and move on forward to a greater time,
and taste honeysuckle, simple and sweet.

Let me purge my essence
since I can't purge my disgust
with myself; I cannot feel the connection
of my sisters and my brothers,
my parents and my lovers
are they ashamed of my existence,
or my proximity to themselves?

My mind pulled
in opposite directions
dim reflections of my mind
taint the sanity I once owned.
But what was my sanity ever worth
if anything at all?
Please just leave me to my poems,
the eye of this ******* tempest.

Let me purge my essence
since I can't purge my disgust
with myself; I cannot feel the connection
of my sisters and my brothers,
my parents and my lovers
are they ashamed of my existence,
or my proximity to themselves?

My mind pulled
in opposite directions
dim reflections of my mind
taint the sanity I once owned.
But what was my sanity ever worth
if anything at all?
Please just leave me to my poems,
the eye of this ******* tempest.

Didn’t get a good night’s sleep
not hungry
minimal communication on the ride over
force a smile to check in
sit in silence
get called in; say I’m doing well
reciprocate the question
nerves, thinking of only one thing
tears suppressed, fear rings in my ears
oppressed myself, he asks how
the meds have been working.
A deep breath
a shaky exhale
“Horrible, it’s been way worse
black thoughts are back
a plan is in place:
keppra, lexapro, flexeril, and alcohol
don’t know if it would work,
hoped. Spent all last night
crying in dim light, clinging
onto the evolutionary desperation of living.
send me somewhere
isolated from life.”

It’s in those hours that flicker between dusk and dawn,
those hours where but a few lone creatures
carry the emotional weight of the world,
that I find myself- with reckless abandon-
pursuing ******* and bards on a one way trip
toward hysteria and decay.
                                            I stand
at the crossroads where the devil purchased souls
back when they were worth something.
‘Cause now the devil has gotten too good;
souls aren’t worth anything if they’re not worth saving.
I shake in rage at how he throws us away,
the ones willing to sell ourselves to him
so we could grasp at the straws of immortality,
and revel in sin for the sake of something
that doesn't matter anymore,
and perhaps never did.

Pale red contours her frame
vivid red shames the sky,
the eyes of potential glorify her.
He puts his arm through hers,
patriarch guidance, she glides into the hall.
Eyes of innocence lock with eyes of dominance
mental math done to calculate their happiness
and their obedience.
Thousands of candles light the hall
all the decadence makes her nauseous:
the champagne, the oysters
the love, the lust.
So she runs around the hall, blowing out candles
dimming vision.
She's caught now
as their eyesight goes, letting them all see clearly;
true laughter and smiles ring.
But the blind caretaker
heard the commotion,
the thrilling emotion, and re-lit the candles.
The daze wears off
their "vision" returns to normalcy.
They slit her throat
and resume their dance.
The caretaker laughs.
Her bravery is forgotten.

I danced inside the eye of the storm
while winged beasts flew around me,
trying to get me off my game
to stay within the eye.
They beat their wings, in time
with the rotation of the storm,
as the earth stood still and
hell froze over as swine flew
into the twilight of our beings.

Take a step out of the room-
Its 5 a.m. – ****, time’s distorted.
Sit in the common area and chat with some
Restless detoxer; he talks about women,
How even the church girls are adulterous ******.
We laugh at our pains, there’s little else to do
And the alternative was already attempted,
So laugh we shall try.

Bruises heal in a day or two
But what use are smiles, a simple ruse?
A lump in my throat, I carry
These burdens in all I wrote, and now
As they fade, I wonder:
Will they return with anger, and under I go
Beneath the waves, where the sun is garbled
And its light only reaches so far down? The sound
Is drowned out by ringing, it pounds my head
Spots are red,
Am I slipping into patterns once more?
Is there a route to the surface?
Is there any way out?
Is there a place where I can freely breathe?

The battlefield fog’s denseness
Lightens at sunrise.
The moon’s light added unease and butterflies,
But the sun’s provides clarity;
I see the enemy’s positions:
Between the trees and in the bunkers, rifles are ready
To shred the regiment.
But the sun pick-pocketed their edge
And gave us a path to victory;
The fog is still there, but clear now.
.Will I advance to the objective
Or bow out in the bog of fear?

The rascal sets out for the tree
That holds a secret in its trunk
Which when axed out by his wiry body
Reveals the hopes that a departed friend sunk
Into the dream of getting the girl to notice him,
By throwing apples so rotten
Into a basket too thin.

The friend worked his bony fingers
Through endless days and nights,
While she spent her days with poets and singers
And in the dark dreamed of heavenly lights.
She didn’t understand the passions he consumed
The thing that drove him past the despair
So that his fruitless existence could bloom.

She pushed away from his ashy skin,
Towards the better man,
The friend still looking for the captain
Cried in solace, than silently ran,
Past the pine needles on the forest floor
Into the river of lost desires
Until the bubbles rose up no more.

Now the rascal continues his chopping
Away falls the bark as he hacks
Then he goes home with the sun’s dropping
And the next day, the bark is all back.
All his efforts are in vain
And he cries while laughing as he keeps going
Revealing a man who’s gone insane.

He goes on and on, till one day
He clutches at his breast
And under the tree his body will stay
While the vultures take care of the rest.

The rejuvenation of youth
left me when I was young.
I see only crackled, wrinkled skin
on the faces of me
and my imaginary Love;
predisposed to self-loathing,
we find solace in holding each other.
But what happens when
she's torn from my imagination
and leaves my body bent,
contorted to fit a shape
that's no longer there?

Birds with clipped wings outline her eyes
Her eye shadow is her divine disguise,
That hides the tears that overflow
They pitter-patter on her chest, as her heartbeat slows
Into silence; the violence of her red wine dress
A good merlot, alcohol makes her depressed.

To see her blurred mind in its state of undress
Is to watch genius itself infinitely regress
To the point of pictures that adorn cave walls.
She sees the light flicker in the hall
As synapses lapse and lost are the words
They’ve all gone rotten, solidified into curds.
Exhaustion provides a high in her mind
Though most of her thoughts are quite unkind.

She knows the danger of the man who enchants
Her, and makes her body obediently dance
To a greater demon, with his demonic hymn
He weakens her conscience, makes her integrity dim.

She pursues dusk at a New Orleans café
Surviving on French roast, and warm beignets
A stranger sweeps through the foggy air
Running his fingers through her brittle hair,
Devilishly trying to steal her resolve
Till her past is lost and her future’s dissolved
Like salt into a saturated ocean
Where despair is defined by a lack of motion.
Her notion of life is just the beauty of its rhythm
Its color diffracted by poetry’s prism;
Her head is filled with her loves and lusts
That killed her heart with a thousand cuts
To end the war before it could start
Her captain sailed her home with his outdated charts.

Cigarette butts are put out on her tongue
The smoke and ash remind her of when she was young,
How tobacco evaporates as cigarettes burn
And how pain is love’s method for making us learn,
The lesson of despair contained in every regret,
Best learned when she lets her feet get wet.
Her epiphanies’ are dormant in her single-minded brain
Footsteps catching echoes of the departed train
Leaving the station for some stable place
The mountains and sun conjoined at her face,
A pas de deux she devised at Swan Lake
A heavenly intervention done for God’s sake.

Her mind is warped and can’t recognize
That the warm promise contains the largest of lies.

Fluorescent lights destroyed her poet’s vision,
She recovered her strength at the holy mission
Only to give in and be hypnotized,
By the greatness that the priests prophesized.

The words seem clumsy in the day’s rough light
Their power comes from the isolation of her nights
To go under and not once come up for air
If she dies she’ll realize she has no heir
To look after her fortune of memories and tissues
When her heart shuts down from years of disuse
Because she put up bricks to keep heartbreak at bay
But it ended up keeping those she cares about away.

She’s losing the invincibility that comes with her age
Sacrificing her thoughts for what gets on the page;
But is it worth it in the end? She really hopes so
Otherwise her disguise will fly off when the wind blows
Too hard and fast for her suffering mind
She feels her body getting closer to death all the time.

She prays for a friend, so not to spend her nights alone crying
Indulging in self-loathing and truly despising
Herself. Her tears fall and splatter
Meanwhile her heart’s aching; it’s in tatters,
She puts on a smile to show nothing’s the matter
And hopes that next time it’ll be her heartache that’s shattered.

Bleak skies foretell of a coming rapture
where bloodless brutes break bones and crush
cartilage in their claws, in awe kids stand
frightened by the thought of the brutes' victims
bled out in the dirt by the temple's graveyard;
a swift death yields an indecorous burial.
Let the children yield to fate's fancies
as we all once did to our lord;
have heaven call for all the ******* and ******
and leave the good ones to the earth forevermore.

I woke up on my final day
With a cut on my finger;
It’s not enough to be invisibly damaged.

I felt the heat before the light
Out of sight, it oppresses me,
She depresses me, in the distance.

Count down the time till we dine,
The paper cups rattle as the
Manic guy babbles against the **** and Nazis.
A funny mind is rotting, as I begin my departure.

Picked up by parents, carry my things, say goodbye
To the light-hearted detoxers, ending their sleepless night;
They put me in a mood worth having.

Step out into the summer morning air
My hair tossed in the breeze, pale pink and light lilac coat the horizon.
Today, my smile rises with the sun.

Standing rigid in the temptress' dream,
Moses is bathed by ragged stone
in the fortress' light at the dawn
of his sacrifice.

She transfixes him with her whisper
and plants the seed of
a needy higher power,
to which she can attach
her sadistic, demonic thoughts
and give him pain
in the name of loyalty to
a nothingness holding its power
over him, like a wind without the chill.

Asked the same questions for the third time,
Answers no longer hold any meaning.
Dials turn, eyes glaze over and burn.
Could existence move any slower?
Close eyes, lie down
Try not to count seconds;
She’s there, “watching” me.
I’d have been better off lying, I think,
As I gyrate between boredom and misery.
This short note belies,
The hours of agony
Engaged in a torturous game.

They ***** themselves out to the masses;
where clicks are turned tricks, and interaction occurs
by artificial means. Masses surf
where all seek self-worth, and the ******
double-dip into the streams
of admiration and pity.

The pimps tell them their worth;
whether worthless or the rising sun
that they like to capture.
They scream at their ****** till they cry;
hidden bruises caused by hands, obfuscated
compared to the victim's.
The Land of the Web:
where ****** are their own pimps.

I can't physically comprehend
our reality; its space-time rhapsody,
the fourth dimension is abstract to our eyes
yet we can see it pass us by:
one long day or infinite moments,
we age the same,
gray comes to dominate us.

We forget how to walk
we forget how to talk
we forget how to hear
we forget how to fear,
numb to our end.

We forget how to worship what's above,
jaded from life's scars.

We forget how to love,
our cherished memories are lost.

We forget how to feel
but we lose immortality,
because we forget how to heal,
and we forget it all too soon.

Lily runs out towards the field
the night is cloudy with
the tears in her eyes.
Hector sits with crepuscular creatures
little hard pretzels catch in his throat.

Cicadas ****** the air around her
guzzling through foam
is all he knows.
When will the sun relieve the moon?
For her, too late; for him, too soon.

Lily darling, don't fall in with him
regret unfolds when it's too late.
Hector my son,
where'd you go wrong?
She tumbles down the waterfall.

A sweet crunch of frozen grass
the acrid taste of decaying ash
like gray snow, coming down
and airplane engines making horrid sounds.
The war worms its way into your weary heart
as you watch the children tearfully depart
toward save havens far from the train station.
God seems to smirk at his messy creation:
desperate babes cry as they're torn from their mothers
weeping sisters find little comfort in their stoic brothers,
who fight back tears to make absent dads proud.
The chugging trains are far too loud
for tender good-byes to be properly made;
children's innocence is too far gone to be saved.
The youngest of them have never not known fear
a dark world is that which they see most clear,
a bright world would burn their infantile eyes,
better to watch motionless as their universe dies.

One young girl will not see her father again,
she'll hear it soon, from the soft chirp of the wren.
For now she stands still and watches her world burn,
and asks her mother, "Do we ever really learn?"

Is it too late to go back
to when I declared with a whimper
what I should've kept silent
to release another day, so
I could act like a man:
cool, calm, and collected?

If so I'd wait till
you and I were eye to eye
to ask you out for a drink
that neither you nor I could buy.
Once seated I'd lay down my suit of hearts
in front of my queen;
let sweet dreams retire in the night
full of hopes, and solemn despair.
I'll wait to see if I'm your Erik or Raoul,
Christine I am a fool but,
what I wouldn't give...

I will wait till my patient death
to line your breath, and I
am even willing to be your late-night regret
discarded behind shadows the next day,
forgotten in the recesses of your mind's missteps.

I'd rather be your mistake
that you wish you'd never made,
than be a no one to you;
some weepy wimp in your wake.