think of all the people you've ever met,
and all the conversations that have ever left an impact on you.
think of all the thoughts that those words prompted in you,
and all the actions they led to,
which went and touched more people than you can count.
innumerable words and thoughts,
little cosmic representations of the
souls of people touching us
every.single.day.
your life is forever and inexplicably interconnected with a million others.

too many poems
too many poets
describing the
same **** feelings
and yet
throughout the centuries
none of us
have ever found
the right words

My mentor spoke to me of two rivals,
Once, they had been friends in some distant past.
But the years have eaten their love and made grudges manifest.
|The two shattered into broken glass

To my wise master I asked only one,
One question... In all my range.
One question I asked:
“What changed?”

In the outskirts, at the home of my daughter
Where you can stare at the stars or passing cars
None more brighter than the other,
We share memories of my grandmother.
In the photographs, she looks so much younger.
Not frail, but a fighter, lover and saintly|

To me, she asks plainly,
One question, and one question only.
Sifting through the ages of years past:
“What Changed?”

At the kitchen table, feeling inadequate,
My lover screaming and frustrated,
I recall memories when we had been intimate.
Times when movement was made for desire and not duty
|A calendar of nights left in confused abstinence

I interrupt.
She delays rage.
I beg,
“What Changed?”

_

In the last few hours of night
The dawn reaches me at last.
I had locked moments-
Literal seconds of time as the truth.
But it was always changing
In flux and morphing.
Turning into something new
Just for a moment, and then on again
“What Changed?”
Everything.
Always.

She wanders,
guided by her lost soul.
She spills arts,
coming from her pure heart;
She writes words no one can understand,
yet she speaks it like it was kept in her mind
for so long, just waiting for someone to find it.
She is a masterpiece of her own,
but she has a heart of stone.

Josiah Jack
never uttered a sound
when they dragged him away
from the scene.
when his poor body
was eventually found,
the treatment endured,
had been mean.

With no tongue in his head
they had left him for dead.

With a month
on his back,
he did indeed
contemplate.
Only sin
“he was black”
hence forth
this weary state.

They attacked in the night,
hooded and white.

All in all
he was
lucky
to be
breathing at all,
all because
he was plucky,
all because
he stood tall.

A ***** they said
should lower his head.

Were they hooded
for fear?
Were they hooded
in shame?
Most likely,
once covered,
they could hide
of their name.

If things were so right,
why hide out of sight?

Bravery isn't
a word for the ****,
Cowards,
this word comes to mind.
Bravery comes
when there's only one man,
not one
with ten more stood behind.

I will strike in a pack
with someone watching my back.

Their plan
was to ****,
this man
Josiah Jack.
Perhaps they
get a thrill
when someone
cannot fight back.

They get real loud
when they join with the crowd.

Josiah
knew well
that if he
raised a hand
his kin folk
would feel hell
from this
unruly band.

So he did not fight
but gave in to his plight.

They think
they were hidden
beneath that
white hood,
Josiah's hearing
is sound
and his
memory is good.

So when things are forgot,
he will take of his lot.

That's exactly
what happened,
as they lay
in their bed.
The flames hurled
with fury
the sky
filled with red.

This man barbequed them like fish on a rack
and no one put it down to Josiah Jack.