When you feel lost;
Hopeless;
Disconnected from yourself
When self-belief and ambition slips through your fingers
Think of the young girl or boy you once were
The innocent, impressionable child with so much promise
He or she does not deserve the abuse you subject them to
They do not deserve to be downtrodden and picked apart by the very one who knows them best;
You

Somewhere along the way I lost that little girl
I forgot her on my journey to self-destruction
I abandoned the dreams she had and the motivation to bring them to life
I banished her from my mind and became focused on the empty shell I was building for myself
I grew absorbed with misery and self-pity
I forgot to nurture that girl so that she could save me from myself
So that she would remind me of what I owe her

Yet, someday she would again take the spotlight
And she would revel in her revival
She would strip away the years of neglected dreams and build them into a reality
Just as she would destroy the empty shell I built in her absence
She would reunite herself with those she loves and cease my loneliness;
Hell, cease her own loneliness and abandonment of herself
For she is worthy of everything she ever wanted
Every far-fetched desire and optimistic goal
She would remind me that I am not lost nor broken
Because she was with me all along
I just forgot to let her grow with me

Wouldn't it be crazy wonderful
To see in person some of
The most noted Wordsworth's
And personalities that
Hello Poetry has to offer?
August 15th would be good
Here in Clayhatchee Bamalama
In the south with nothing else to offer but the woods and cornstalks the peanut dust air.
It would be a festival. A face to face to finally meet the poets I admire and describe in my head by their words and their profile.
I'm about to start a gofundme page to make the wildest dreams come true. Imagine Eliot greeting you in person.
Its gonna be tie-dye only and sandals dress. (Weeds illegal here and the price high as hell, so bring your own)
Load up the vw van with all your poet friends.
Entrance fees waved to those
Bringing their own soap and toiletries. Oh, and beer....or ***....whisky....tequila.... Etc.

Have you ever wondered if this world is the actual
hell we live in and if we are being tested
by how well we deal?
We are living in a place where pain, suffering,
and then ultimately death are of everyday existence
I understand that perception is everything here
and this world is an illusion generated by our perception
I am not trying to be a downer but the more I live
in this world the more I see it as a nightmare
that some days I just want to wake up from

This is not coming from my religious beliefs and I am
not saying that I am not grateful for everything I do have
Compared to a lot of other people in this world I do not
have it so bad and I know this.  This is coming from
a thought process I have been trying to come to terms with

Is there a bright light at the end of this very dark tunnel?
Of course we all have different journey's to take to get us
to that tunnel but while we are here our paths do cross from
time to time and we all have some of the same pains
sufferings and even death to overcome

My point is this...
We are all living in this hell together
Let's get through this hell together
This thought has become a shining
Ray of light in this dark
Find some comfort in this
and
Perhaps there is hope for us all

We don’t dance here anymore.

We balance on wobbly stools
and order PBRs with whiskey backs,
sidestepping the looks we tend to give
each other in the mirror behind the bar.

Tonight is Christmas Eve again.
Again, tonight is Christmas Eve.

Reflected in a frosted window
framed by multicolored lights,
our waitress wears a miniskirt
and candy cane-striped tights.

Her laugh rings like the silver
bell of tomorrow’s hangover.

We are not the ones racking
another game of eight-ball
or feeding the jukebox or
tossing darts at the wall.

That’s not us, the hipster couple
exchanging sardonic repartee,
clever tattoos comingling as
they trade kisses in the corner.

Could that ever have been us?

Here is where we *****
it up and tamp it down.

Here is where we wait
for our future to finish
its careful unwrapping.

Here is where we say
thank you and drown,

tangled together in
ribbons of twilight.

how rare it is
in all our lost
wanderings
to walk a forked path
and know
beyond certainty
the way chosen
will change
the rest
of the journey

I was wrong about the rain
Robins are calling for it
Fragrance of honeysuckle and pine
have joined the ozone--
Priest in swirling raiments
dangling sensor on a chain
waving it in air before the altar

clink   clink   clink

Releasing smoke that bends the mind
before the monstrance of the sun
with storm surrounding
Clouds sift through the rays and rain
Bowing thrice--

clink   clink   clink

He waves it in the air before the altar
releasing smoke
into the high and holy
Inchoate murmurs
follow
incense hands
down
into the nave

woke the woman at 7:00am Sabbath morning to save my life for overnight,  my body had ripped ribbed crack’d apart,
no spider web sized stains but cracks of crater size on both legs heading up northwards, gut and muscle revealing, spreading,
renting apart my chest and head and forecasting that
my twin two’s, eyes ears arms and nostrils,
destined half to the east and half to the west,
leaving the leftovers for the basement temple altar furnace burning
for the divorce division so rapid, death’s relief nearby

begging her to hold me despite my body
unwashed and face three day unshaven,
my body stink-stanking stench decaying,
so parched my chords, my eyes my beseechers,
for a stammering pus yellowed whisper barely could I issue

if she held me tight perhaps
the spreadsheet cataloguing my cracks divisible
would cease expanding, halting my perishment inevitable

summoned surgeons three but were so excited to see my
own red sea splitting and my ultimatum of egyptian drowning fast approaching, spellbound and helpless, all they did
was take cell phone videos to show on the doctor **** channel for $12.99

and she said,

*holding you now too late, the man flesh-eating disease
can be defeated if you know the cause;
all night I hear you pace and tread the boundaries of our
tiny shelter, needing the resting that comes when you note the hour, the sign of writ and done, for all I hear is you
struggle-seeking to release the words disordered,
hurricane hail haunting the caverns of you,
depositories of misrouted, mis-sorted sounds and the thunderous cracking now is their sound of their desperation
at your failure to form them, all they seek is the wholeness of formation and are force fleeing your leaking containership
through the cracks of their desperation

I will pack your body in ice, lay upon it all day, melting the water
into every orifice new and old, hydraulic hydrating then sealing
the apertures and lead you to your own promised land,
to thy Jerusalem capitol, where you may sing new songs,
teaching the Kohanim and the Levites new prayers

promise you the sleep of exhaustion with the sounds of
Canon in D to soothe, and when the night-frights
have passed, will feed you with writing utensils,
to teach that inspiration comes even by daylight, even to you

your best dreams of dying will be your best writing schemes,
when you awake, the sky cracks of inspiration come unfiltered lean,
and for heaven’s sake, for our sake, for your words sake,
then, chest will freely open and fully formed, thy poems will emerge
content and complete

and when you hear them sing:

“And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had”^

you will knowingly, be laughing, unafraid