Never allowed to grow
Beyond ornamental,
Small perfect leaves
On small well pruned branches;
To please the eye
Of miniature torturers.


Cramped in a micro life,
Roots restrained
Within un-natural boundaries.
The promise of a tree
Never really fulfilled,
Beyond a whisper.


Fussed over relentlessly,
Like an O.C.D.
Perfect shape and form,
Trained from natural beauty,
To sit on a shelf
Hidden from reality.

City of eternal wonders
An empire built,
fallen, re-animated
alive and never broken.
There lay ruins
old and modern,
monuments of marble
stumbled on by hoofs
and carriages shrieking
on the cobbled streets
poisoned by uncultured
tourists.
But in the little streets
lay a calm
silence not many
can hear.
The beauty is underneath
hidden, not all will see.
It's heart keeps beating:
like fine wine,
it improves with time.

Never Forget the Past

I. On Rejection of History, Fallible Geniuses:

Do not seek present fault in past greatness
Condemning yesterday men with morrow crimes
The sift of time works in unfathomable wonder
Leaving only truth grains of real substance
Do not discard these foods for thoughts
For being misshapen and the occasional spots
For they were gold among ashes and dust
And the learnt, and healed is never without scars

II. On the Embellishing of Poetry

Don't dread or torment yourself if you fear
Your words aren't decorated enough
For one day only truth will remain
And truth never hides, but bares itself plain
If you dress your poetry overabundant, shimmer and gleam
It might just be overlooked, the soul underneath
And be discarded as earthly things
Obscured by the camouflage of timely beings

III. On the Timelessness of Simple Words

Gaze from below, the tomes of giant
How plainly they walk in the clouds
At most a dress or cling shimmering humbly
And never so full of jewels and gold lest they
Fall from the heavens
Bearing the weight of earthly greed.

Learn from your scars, lest you envy flesh unmarked.

years apart and here we are
breaking jigsaw pieces
in time they'll fit, the sun will burn its ridges, then the rain, timidly at first
puts out the flames and all at once
it pours
just as I have done
break apart and put yourself together all you want
this puzzle is missing
no peace

in the kitchen. I like to stir up trouble
like it was a famous sauce, and only I
know the ingredients. And they got
lost. So, I can’t duplicate what it was I put
in this dish. But I don’t care a fig! To me
it’s all child’s play.

I like to leave messes
in the closet. It looks as the backstage
of a cabaret. And there’s excitement and
confusion when the I throw back the doors
and look there on the floor at the colorful disarray.

I like to leave messes
in my love life. Spark a fire. I can’t live
the ordinary neat shelved life. I need to
add something new once in a while. Otherwise
it would be boring knowing everything’s
the same. I fancy change, in my love life anyway.