my mind, my mind
is afire with artful
creations of words
and my heart is aflutter
with the anticipation
of usefullness,
the idea of mutual perception,
the hope of any modicum
of reminiscence,
the wish of forgiveness,
the happy distrust of memory

I have been to the reef,
I saw the fish,
I have been to the bridge,
I saw the manta ray
flying, I have been in the field,
and seen the people dying,
I’ve seen the clever
outsmart the hurting,
and politicians reverting
to unspecified claims,
hurling blames,
I’ve seen miners emerge,
their faces black,
the looks on their faces,
slack, witnessed the surge
of the incoming wave,
held a brave man, beaten,
overcome with surrender,
I remember it all, and yet,
I hold out to you a promise
I cannot keep, but keep
on hoping, that somehow
someday, all this will cease
and there will be a pause,
the promise of peace.

The birds that stick around
don’t sing much
in winter, I mean,
what is there to sing
about? They are cold
and probably envy
their migrating friends;
I hang with them,
through the winter,
give them seed and suet,
fatness to keep them warm,
but tonight, the birds
are singing again, and
the robins are back,
so, I guess it is
time to shout;
The birds will sing
and I will shout,
I will let my
happiness out.
let it be a song

A lone sailor,
wistfully making his way
to the coast of Venezuela
to visit his ailing mother,
his sail in taters
from a vagrant wind,
his small engine
belching smoke
and overheating,
looked up and saw
the sky fall;
space debris
splashed all around him;
he crossed himself
and wondered.

Do I need to escape
to realms of wonder?
I have been impregnated
with the banal existence
of assumed reality
for too long,
and my mind grows
restive

there are things you were counting on,
out there, weren't there,
things you thought that you knew,
things that were not there,
are not there, never were there,
things that just would not do,
so you turn up the volume,
invent you some things,
things that you'd like to be true
and you conjure, and pause,
and give cause to the clause
that says anything goes; it is true

You may ask yourself, ‘why is there carpet in the bathroom,’ but it will only be a detail in the description of where you are. The bigger question is why? Did you come here for solace and not find it? Were you anticipating a differentiation from your drab routine? Well, you got that, but there are things you weren’t counting on, aren’t there?