Such a fine affair indeed.
Anyone can see,
that hidden in the grays and white
there is a shining light.
You are a form to be treasured
and I am pretty sure
that if the camera could give you words.
It would whisper

"I love you more than I can picture."

With their indifference
lack of patience
and hostility
they scream at me,

“Go back to sleep
you black sheep.
We do not care
about the struggles
of all you others.
We do not regard
your pain as true
Or even equal to
our own.

Go back to sleep
and take the scraps.
Unless we decide
to take those back
trimming your thin skin
and adding to our fat.

Go back to sleep black sheep.
You are not allowed to leave.
We get to keep
you trapped in our greed
while we take what you need.
Just stay asleep
working and dying
while we are
high life flying.
Go to sleep…..

Wait wake up.
Another other
is coming for your stuff.
Vote for us.

Good little sheep,
now go back to sleep
to work and die for me.

I am but the gentlest of men
that weeps for that
which is beyond my control
that which harrows my soul
running it over and ripping it
to tragic and tiny bits.

You would be hard press
to find others who express
such gentleness
and shortly you will see
the last of it in me
as I either writhe in new found rage
or wither and fade away in tearful pain.

More often than not
I am the bird that
the walls of the aviary forgot,
left behind to rot
as I swallow the nectar of
a handful of broken flowers.

I am stalled.
Fatigue
enfeebles me,
and I believe
I will lose
the ability
to perceive
and achieve
the full potential
of my inspiration.
  
There is a slight pain
from eyestrain.
Thus, I complain
in such a mundane way
about how my eyeballs
sound like sponges
when I rub them.

The winter is not normal.
A spectral fog fills the horizon
making all dreams of
what lies beyond
seem exotic.
Meanwhile
skeletal trees,
whose leaves
have been reaped
with time’s sharp sickle,
sleep silently
unyielding
to any breezes
just a part of
the season’s
sick cycle
of birth and decay,

My eyes still strain
in a light pain,
but at least the fatigue
did not prevent me
from writing again.

There are many things
I long to live and see.
Till, death makes
a dark caricature of me

let love slip in
behind the onyx eyes
pass the lips of love
too young to bloom
as I fall so fast
and leave this room
far too soon
before I felt
her loving boon.

For she is but fifteen
reading me
posthumously,
longing
like I did
when I was her age
for an artist
of older days.

Let fame come to
pay deeper dues
for the time I spent
was creatively used.

Let those amused
be elevated to
and if my death
is all that stands
between
the longevity
of my poetry,
then send me to
an early grave.