I sit silently,
in love,
as I always do
when I am such
perplexed

but never,
as I have found,
can I emerge from this
meditation
with grace
or obtain my goals
through my methods,
so recently dreamed
up

or, or, or,

we could say we’re sorry

or, or, or

we could go back to the place
we had our first day

or, or, or

we could just forget all this
and go back to the way things
were

or, or, or,

we forget everyone and
everything and run away
together!
and be in love again like
we were!

or, or, or,

we can…
we can…
we can…

no.
no,
we can’t.

don’t forgive me,
I didn’t ask for
that,
and don’t hate me,
because I didn’t ask
for that
either

the broken glass
is scattered every-
where

and we hop like
we know what
we’re doing

the gashes in our feet
are minor, to the pain
of showing it hurts

if you were to
look
upon me
now

you’d find
my door
so
open

my hands
are busied in
writing

my mind
upon my
door

if you were to
look
upon me
now

you’d find
no one
in my door
frame

but watch me write,
and watch me live,
and watch me exist
with my door open

watch me write
a poem about it

and watch those offenders,
those defilers,
those vagrants,
mock and defame me
like a criminal and
a god

and if you were
to look upon me
now

while the wind
rolls dust on my
doorstep

you would find me
all alone
listening to the sounds
of “you’re a loner”

if you were
to look upon
me now

you would see a man
silently answer

“yes, I am a loner,
yes, I know that quite
well,

but there’s
nothing
I can do
when I sit in my
room
and only the wind
will talk to
me”

not all that
shimmers
is gold
but
then again
not all things
shat are
****

once
destroyed,
by one incident
of poor self-
image,
the mind’s perception
of who we are
crumbles and
falters in the
wind

the pieces
zipping away
with the gusts,
we’re never quite
who we thought
we were

the face in the mirror
is not the face we
remember

the face other’s see
is not the same one
we see

it used to be
that this
was never a
problem

those terrible,
life-shattering
instances of
sudden and total
evaporation of
our mind’s images
and thoughts
often never
came

we could go our
whole lives
and never know
any better

so what happened?

the heart wants
what the heart
wants

I’ve learned
to accept this
but not how
to reason with
it

so my heart wants
what it wants
and
my minds thinks
as it should
in this body at war
with itself

the heart wants
what the heart
wants

I’ve learned
to accept this
but not how
to reason with
it

so my heart wants
what it wants
and
my minds thinks
as it should
in this body at war
with itself

green with life, the
sea rushes up against
shores where green
trees grow and green
men fight and green
skies are dismissed
as impossible and
the green time bring
thoughts of greed
but is really meant
to remind one of
when they were once
young, still learning
and exploring, and
their green shoots
stretched their trendily
arms out towards the
sun and their thin roots
spread out through the
soil and they knew
little of the world
except that it was blue
and green and red and
brown and all the good
colors we had yet to
define; that there was
still a whole lot of stuff
we didn’t know, most
especially how green
we were to our own
ignorance

50 people alive and
dying, their message
goes out as their final
breath and it says that
their lives were
meaningless but still
worth fighting for

silence
is such a perfect
torture

not quiet of others,
you see,
but of myself

to be able to hear,
to think,
to know

but be unable to answer,
to teach,
to speak

silence is such
a perfect torture,
for me,
the loud and
boisterous
one

to be trapped inside
my very own lips

to be filled with words
but be denied the voice

this is a
greater punishment
than any
prison

I suppose this is why
poesy is so important

it is my voice,
on the page

it is the monologue,
that I attempt to make
dialogue

it is who I am
and my way of
telling you
that

this silence
is such perfect torture
for me

it eats at me
without taking
any bites

it causes pain,
only because I
try to fight it

silence
is such a perfect
torture
for those who
exist
in their
words

and this silence,
could drive me to insanity,
forever left alone
with myself

if there is one thing
to be said of my poetry
it is that as much as
I understand that the
world is a ****** and
terrible place, it has
never stopped me from
doing what I want and
most definitely not kept
me from happiness

the master of the universe
woke up this morning and
looked out the window to
see a reflection of his smile
in the hills, roads, and stars

At lunch
she studies on the stairs
the ones hidden away
behind some double doors
in the back of the cafeteria

I got in there
to buy my soda
(the only machine that
sells cans is in there)
and I see her

she’s not pretty,
pudgy face,
hood on her head,
eyes wild
as I put my dollar in
and hit the button for
a diet coke

I see her there
everyday

my back is turned
but I feel her stare,
I feel the apprehension at me
entering her sanctum in the air

I contemplate a greeting,
but realize that’s too much.

so I whistle

whistle plain and clear

most would think it normal,
a small task to do while I wait for my drink,
but if one listened closely
and just happened to know the tune
they’d know what I whistled
to that friendless,
Muslim girl
was that
one day
she too
would be
loved

I have fallen silent
after speaking for so long
and finding the world
only staring back in confusion
and condemnation

there is a crusted-
over, nasty-
looking cut
on
my left
knee
from a bike
accident
I had the
other
day

both of my
big toes have
calluses that
size of quarters
on the
inside-back
parts
of
their
undersides

tiny sunburns
from where my
feet stuck
out of
the sand
decorate my left
and right
feet

my pale belly
and legs
seem ever whiter
in comparison
to my sunburnt and
darkening arms

there is somebody
out there who thinks
I am beautiful

how have stayed strong
all these years?

I can see my ugliness,
my scars, and my abrasions
just the same as everybody
else

they are there
they are morbid
and disgusting
they are who
I am and I act
as such

I know exactly why
and how people hate
me

yet

I’ve never faltered

in a hurricane or
the breeze

I am who I am
I say
and nothing more

still stories flutter,
rumors fly, and
I can’t help but
notice the stores
and tales that
circulate

I’m lucky someone
still finds time to look
at me straight

perhaps the strongest of men
are only left with the opportunity
to gain

quiet,
now.
the world
is
breathing.

let her have
her
air,
you've had
plenty for one
life.

quiet,
now.
let's listen
to nature's
breath
and
notice
how she
does not
wheeze.

you know what?
**** it, I’m going to be
happy

too often have I thought
that wasn’t for me
that I didn’t deserve it
that I would never deserve it
that all my failures could
never be repaid
and maybe that’s still
true but you know
what?

I don’t care anymore

tonight,
I am going to finish
with this chapter in my
life

I am going to write the final sentence,
think my  closing thoughts,
and close the book
of this life

yes new beginnings are an illusion
but for me,
this is a new beginning
for a new man
in a new world
living a new life

and even though midnight approaches
and I’m not quite done yet,
I finally have the will to complete it all,
to be done, to finish  up,
so that finally,
I may start
things over

again

it hurts
to move this
slow

where the demons catch up,
the doubts can shoot me down with
arrows of rusted truth,
and the fears
actually over run me and
begin to choke out my
sanity

it is painful
knowing what I can do
and what I can’t
do
and seeing myself die
in my third person perspective
of my logical
haven

so few get to see what I see now

so few know the pain

they are lucky

I doubt myself
but wonder
why

I think:
why do I think I will fail?

logos, nor ethos,
nor examination of the
past leads me to this
road and yet

I doubt myself
and wonder
why

I question myself
and ask questions like
what are you talking
about
what are your reasons
what is your purpose

but I do not answer,
I cannot answer,
the answers are locked
deep in tombs my conscious
does not even realize exist

they stand deep with my mind,
begging me to find them, open
their doors and release secrets
so that they may wither and
die in the sunlight

they doubt me,
asking
why

why not let us loose?
why do you ignore us?
why do you not find us
in the dark places you know
we are?
why are we alone?
why are we in the basement?
why are we starving for the
sight of ears and for the power
to destroy and/or create?
why are dying?

let us loose they say

my hand reaches the lock
but trembles in mid-air

I doubt myself
but wonder
why

can’t stop moving,
jittering,
twitching

no need
no need
no need

but I can’t
stop

moving,
jittering,
twitching.

we’re moving too slow!
I scream

come on
come on
come on

let’s go
let’s
go!

moving,
jittering,
twitching

hands,
feet
body

stop
stop
s­top

moving,
jittering,
twitching.

she didn’t want me to go
not again
not this time
lay with me she begged
and I’d smile
and say
but I have to
I have to
you know I do
and she would nod
in agreement
but then ask me to stay again
and I’d smile even bigger this time
and kiss her on her fragile lips
and feel in her breath
how badly she wanted me
to stay
and then I would stay
for another half hour
or so
and then I’d tell her
that I really needed to go
but I could tell that
she didn’t want me to go
ever again

never make a promise
never tell someone you
always will
never say you won’t
do it again
never look into their eyes
to make sure they know

never make a promise,
I promise you,
you’ll break it

because:
that’s what they’re for

promises

“for breaking
and destroying
and nothing
else”

as the instructions go/
learn from the label:

never make a promise
to your mother,
your brother,
your lover,
your co-worker

never commit to
stopping an addiction,
keeping up a love,
or being something
or not something
forever

never make a promise,
never ever
do.

there’s enough pain
in this world
for promises to
die out

so I beg of you

tell your children
tell your friends
tell your family
tell your church

never make a promise
most especially to

sixteen

that’s a big number

but it hasn’t hit me yet,
not fully,
I’ve had little bits of it
but that big realization,
like a whole ocean washing over me
all at once,
that,
that hasn’t gotten to
me

yet

for my birthday I got a new leather jacket

fits well
has a warm fuzzy inside
two stripes, brown and grey,
on the shoulder
and we (the gift-giver and I)
both agree
the black material
isn’t really
leather

I love it

so I wore it to school today
feeling like hot ****
the best new thing
since sliced bread

so I got there and nothing was
different

nobody noticed
not a word spoken
positive or negative
I was still just
Caleb
and they were still just
them

I hate it

now I’m home,
sixteen
with a new leather
jacket
that nobody even
noticed.

what to do?
what to do?
what to do?

I don’t have homework to do
no lines to memorize
no chores needing to be done

I’m just sitting here
alone with my jacket
and my new age

maybe I’ll read a book
or write some more poems
or go take a walk
or go talk to somebody new
or something

I feel it

I feel the tidal wave

it’s not here yet
but I feel it shake the ground
and I see it’s shadow block out the sun
but it won’t hit me
not yet

I have to know what it is first,
know what it means,
then it’ll sweep me away,
take me to a new level of persona
so far away from this one


and as I think on my day
and my new leather jacket

I think on how little anybody cared
and feel the splashing of water on
the back of my legs

sand,
filled to the brim with that,
or something else
so liquid
and yet with such
heft

my limbs move slowly
but power grows

they accelerate
move faster and faster
until they are beyond
my control

running,
I’m running and
going and jumping
and going past
all the things that
stopped me
before

then I hit it

the wall,
the boulder,
the object

and I am stopped

it’s not a slowing down
it’s not a loss of will

it’s a full, complete brake
and it leaves me undone

sand,
leaking out of every hole,
slowly building,
growing
into a pile immovable,
unchanging

it takes so much to start
and yet so much more to
start again

the ache
from too much
smiling
is as pleasurable
a pain one can
find

as you push on the
gas it’s like you’re
pumping the gas in-
to yourself

your veins burn like
fire and your heart
roars like a lion

the yellow light dares
you and you accept

it’s in that moment
that you remember
all that’s chasing
you

years of mistakes,
countless scarred
acquaintances, a life
of doubt and (all
told) failure

they’re all behind you
and you (almost) forgot

you take a drink
from your sixty-
three cent soda

do you taste that?
it’s regret

it’s that tightness in
the back of your throat
when you know you’ve
been found out

it’s doing something
despite knowing
better

the gas pedal can go no further,
this is your greatest regret of all

shadows are doors
to another realm

creatures look
in from them
their eyes
tainted with
desires
and
they plot for how
they will enter
our houses
and replace us
as we
slumber

these apparitions,
translucent except for their
perfectly formed eye slits,
cannot remember
their last sleep-filled
night

(they were once you,
you must understand)

they are the over-stressed,
the over-achieving,
the well-known,
the famous

they are our heroes,
our role models,
our kings
and
fathers

they are the ones
we look up to

(and despise)

those we want to be
those we can’t admit to liking
those we take for granted and
ignore
those we call names and
bully constantly
those we cannot face alone but
who we sneer at in groups

the nerds,
the geeks,
the leaders,
the counselors,
the presidents,
the cops,
the valedictorians

we hate them
for we are not
them

the trend of our lives hurts
the deeper with dig down

but we would not dare let them take us

let them come through their doors,
take our covers and beds,
sleep, eat, *****,
let them have our lives in exchange for theirs

we would never do that

we know better

we light up our drugs,
**** in jars because the bars
don’t let us in anymore,
eat from garbage cans,
date ****** and pay pimps,
**** our brothers just to buy
*******

it’s the life for us you see

to **** up and
not give a ****

and it’s good

so the shadow doors can slam themselves
and the blood shot eyes can close shut

we’re going to bed alone tonight
and that’s perfectly fine with us

maybe
it’s the image
of an eternal skyline
painted on the night
sky of some hazy
city,
or maybe,
it’s the picture
of a silent wood
freshly lain
with
new snow
or maybe even,
it’s the memory,
of holding hands with
somebody you truly love
and then looking
in their eyes
and screaming everything
they mean to you
without a
sound

maybe it’s one of those things
maybe that’s why I never lose
faith

maybe it’s just who I am,
a kid so lost in the sense that it all
makes that I refuse to see the little
problems that come up;
maybe it’s how I was raised,
as a thinker, not a fighter,
who has decided to take
up combat lessons any-
ways;
maybe it’s how everything is,
that I can live my life so peacefully
in the chaos that everyone else seems
to experience.

maybe that’s why
after all this time
I haven’t given up
I haven’t said “**** it”
and jumped in front of a train
like I’ve dreamed about so
many times,

maybe that’s it

maybe

goodnight, you beautiful world,
you beautiful corruption
of a once beautiful thing

goodnight, you beautiful thing,
with tears in my eyes
that should only come
from anger, I say good-
night to the world I let
descend into something
I cannot bare to face

at night
before the night has come
when, in bed, I wait
for the sandman’s call
the gears of my mind
turn, lurching from inactivity
and whirl about
sending steam and smoke
everywhere
and my head will hurt
with visions of the future
seeming abysmal
if only for me
for others are happy,
successful, even famous!
but for me,
I am alone,
angry, and forgotten.

this is the nightmare
that returns to me every night
making me pray
that I will not wake up
that I shall die in that dream
that reality should be something better
than that hazy vision

in the morning
when I wake up
from a long night’s battling
with my deepest and best-kept fears
I feel the poison of doubt
draining out of me
into a puddle there
on the floor

and days
and months
and years
and centuries
I refused to clean up that puddle
and each morning it grows larger
always sicklier than before
yet still I do not grab the mop
or vacuum

during the day
I try not to get left alone
that mind
that creates those nightmares
still lurks behind my eyes

it seeks blood,
my blood,
in the form of insanity
because even it knows
that it’s mirages aren’t real
but it knows it can drive me to them
if I am weak enough
and he can convince
me

I want to close my eyes
and wake up sixty years
in the future

I will be ninty-five,
aging,
decaying,
but I will be
happy

I will be able to look out at
my children,
my wife,
hell, probably even
my dog
and smile with the memories
they’ll given me over the
years

but as I close my eyes,
for the final time,
drifting into the sleep
I should never awake from,
I will emerge from my rest
a fifteen year-old boy
having only a hazy recollection
of the happiness
that awaits me
one day

higher still than even the enlightened

I am not great
I am not grand

but I am memorable

too weird to forget
yet nobody truly knows
what I am

I walk with a confidence
that’s almost unsettling

I talk with a manner that
is both noble and lowly

I am not wise
I am not knowledgeable

but I am seeing

all-seeing,
almost,
it would
seem

through the shields people put up
through the veils the fearful extend

you may think nobody knows
but I know

and if I reach out
in my weird and
inexplicable way
you will never
forget

I cannot be reach though
I cannot be touched

not by you
not by him
not by her
not by me

yet I know the touch of others
and as I sit down here,
so grand in my non-grandeur,
I wish people would come
and force themselves on me
and teach me that magical connection
I so readily give them

if knowing everything
is key

having nothing left to learn
is the fastest way to
enlightenment

with the steam raising off the
darkened roadways after hours
upon hours of quietly violent
rain, there is a peace in driving
alone with yourself, observing
only the night

with no end in sight, we can
only drive alone, hoping that
somehow, the morning will
come, bringing with it a change
in the weather and somebody
to listen to the radio with

death came to visit
today

and now he sits,
smoking a cigarette,
in a chair
on the other side
of the room

he did not say
why,
simply barging into
the room
saying

hey
hey man
how ya doing
care for a
smoke?

he didn’t say much
after that so I went
on with things

read a magazine,
paid some bills,
made a sandwich and
ate it

still he sat,
just smoking and
smoking,
occasionally
asking me:

you sure you don’t
want one man?

I was sure
and after the fourth
or fifth time he
asked me if I wanted
to go somewhere


“a little noise will do us
good man”

“this place is quiet as
death”

I realized slowly he didn’t
mean for us to return if we
left

as I write this
he’s still over

smoking and smoking
and smoking

I weigh my options
as the sun sets once
again

noise!
noise!
noise!

so much NOISE!

the music plays, my
hands clap too loudly
for the room, even the
sun seems to have
this blanketing static
creeping into my
brain

even as I make it all go away
my mind screams inside of my skull

my hands move fast
just trying to get the noise out
but the tapping of the keys
is just more noise
making me
even more
insane!

noise!
noise!
noise!

so much NOISE!

where is the quiet when you need it?
where is  depression when your veins
pump with adrenaline?
where is the fairness?
where is the justice?

there’s only one question I can answer,
and that’s where the ****** noise is from!

let’s read
ancient tombs
naked
in the afternoon
sun

happy laughs
and witty
comebacks
meant for no
one
at all
will
flow freely
into the warm summer
air
and jump
into the minds
of our smiling
eyes

we are
not aroused
by the bodies, ****,
in front of us
and yet
the love
in between
both
is hotter
than the lust
of a thousand
petty
romances

you pick the camera up,
an old
and nostalgic
thing,
and I change little
when you tell me to
smile
and the shutter
clicks open and
shut

we’ll find
that picture again
later
old and wrinkly
these days
cold
with the wraith
of years

I am smiling
there
and I can’t see
you
but you’re
there
more so than I
am
and
we’ll remember
for once
the warm
youth that at one time
meant something

and some wonder, why I am amazed
when I look up at the night sky and
see a blackness that extends far beyond
what we can ever reach, and even farther
beyond what I can possibly imagine.

some wonder, why it can bring me to tears
when I think of all that we can and will do
and still see so many, never even beginning.

it’s no mystery, why I am amazed,
at all that is and all that can be, and
do not wonder why I stare at the night,
frozen in awe at the beauty of it all.

look out the window
the air is full of tiny
wings

the wonder is in your
eyes but the mystery
is in your head

the noon-bugs make
the outside world a
hazy shadow

the window separates
you for better or worse

my earliest memory…
was of playing with my first
set of legos, tinkering with
each brick, putting in the way
it should be, according to some
abstract and incalculable
method

things were so simple
then

everything fit together
so perfect

now I look forward to
a broken world

the former owners saying,
“it’s your problem now,
kid!”

I’ve waited so many years
for nothing
and
everything

all anyone can ever say is
“it’ll get better later”
or
“it’s for your future”
or
“tough luck, kid”

well **** that

you don’t have to wait to enjoy life
why wait till your old
when everything is dull
and you can’t do half
of what you once could

the only virtue we teach the children is waiting
and it has confused them and made them think
there’s nothing else to life

some cope by saying “**** the system”
and run down the dead-end to self-destruction

others never deal with it
going their whole lives
unhappy and unfulfilled
and thinking the whole
time that that’s the only
way things could be

but I say to you
that is not the way!

do not consume yourself
because you’ve never been allowed to

do not hold yourself back
because you’ve never thought you couldn’t

the whole world is out there somewhere
and that whole, wide, wonderful,
wild world is calling to you and
saying

“come!
come and get me!
I have everything you’ve ever wanted!
and if you’re smart,
you can have it all!
no strings
attached!”

it did not rain today
and that is a surprise
because it rained
the last three days

especially yesterday
it rained really hard yesterday
a really douser
I had to drive in it
and ****
I would never
do that
again

but it did not rain today
and that’s a surprise
but I guess I didn’t have to drive
in it and that’s okay
that’s okay

I am reaching
the end of the longest
and most arduous chapter
of my young
life

I do not know how
it will end

perhaps in divinity
perhaps in destruction
perhaps in death

but I do know it is
fast approaching

I can hear it on the wind,
whispering,
that voice
that reminds me
when things aren’t going
as planned,
that things must
change,
that summer must turn
to fall,
fall to winter,
and the leaves must fall
and the trees grow
bare

I can see the storm brewing
as the first flakes of snow
float down and melt upon
the ground

the only thing to do is pull my coat closer,
bear my face against the piercing wind,
pray for a home ahead, forget all that I
worry, and remember all the good I know

the chapter ends in whiteness,
a static out of which anything
can emerge

the bomb siren
going off
makes my heart sink
and sends my mind into
panic

my eyes search for the nearest exit
my legs and arms scramble to the door
my ears are tortured by that wailing doom

the wind blows southward
I smell flowers on the breeze
skies are blue and cloudless
there in the distance I can see

I close my eyes then
waiting for…
just waiting.

seconds, minutes, hours,
days were all the same

breathes of animals mixed
with the sighs of the trees
and the world was silent
and blind and feelingless

so long
so long it felt
my eyes and ears and
body shut down waiting

that when it didn’t come
I was not the same man
I had died and yet not died

I cannot pick my heart back up
my mind is always jumping at
the slightest surprises
this will not go on

I just can't

I keep writing poems
because I don’t see any
reason not to and I guess
that maybe one day I’ll
start writing good ones
again

it’s not really likely but
it certainly could happen
so why not keep trying?

I feel like I use that logic
far too much now-a-days

it took looking down
at the reds and browns
of the canyon below
for me to notice
that I was walking
on a narrow and
thinning rope.

books of poetry sit
dusty on my shelf

written by Neruda,
Hughes,
and assorted
others

but another being
sits there
too

it is Bukowski

his seven or so books
in my ownership
slouched in the corner
singing drunken
tunes

so, yes,
this is another
poem about my
second father

but it’s less about him,
and more about the others,
those books of poesy
I could never finish

sure,
I’ll read the first
section,
maybe half
of them,
maybe all but
the last
little
bit,

but never the whole
book,
cover to
cover.

I don’t know why,
money down the
drain really,
and yet,
I don’t regret
it

maybe I’m not cultured,
slumming with henry
and his gang of profanity
and depression,
to appreciate how and
what
they’re writing

but when I go back,
after reading the poems
for a little bit before
bed,
I find that I can go to
sleep when I put down
the works of Longfellow
or Cummings.

but when I finally silence
Bukowski,
all I can do is write
until my hands bleed so
much it hurts,
or my mind works to exhaustion
while my body falls to
shambles

they’ve been calling
from Kentucky
a lot

maybe it’s because
my uncle is getting a divorce
or maybe
it’s because my dad
just had surgery
and they don’t know
that those aren’t
all that scary
back
in kentucky

I know when I got sick
they called and called
and sent blankets and bears
and when I went to visit
them afterwards they
hugged me very tightly
and seemed surprised
and relieved to see
me

guess we are all limited somehow

but they’re calling and calling
from Kentucky and maybe it’s
because of my uncle or maybe
it’s because of my dad or maybe
it’s because I have another surgery
in a little over a week

but I wish they would stop,
I can’t get any sleep

how often now does one let go?
to truly not care
to look the other way
and listen in the same
direction

I have given up many a time
knowing I have failed
or others have failed
me
or perhaps the cards
were drawn wrong
or
the bet just wasn’t
right

but whatever it is
I have always known
that failure is not
an option but cutting
loses is

I don’t want to fight
if there’s no way to
win

so I don’t fight

I don’t want to hurt
myself if someone’s
going to

so I go with someone
else

I don’t want to lose

so I quit

it’s backwards and strange
but it’s what I do

I give up
and enjoy

leaving looking back
for the weak and the
guilty