An empty page, a piece of paper,
full of spaces, void of words
that well up from within my soul
that I would like to speak.

Can I find within my mind the words
to speak my will?
Or do the spaces of this page
say all that must be said?

I have no message, no words of wisdom
to aid in all life's paths;
all that I have, sole in possession,
is but an empty page

void of spaces, full of words.

Dear Jim,

As of late you have been less than satisfactory in our relationship. You’ve denied me my daily bread, found me unworthy of water, and on top of all that, you’ve taken the objects of my love and twisted the to your own graven image. Please refrain immediately lest I put you back on the pills.

Sincerely,
Aaron

Life is cheap
don't spend it all in one place.

When I was young I had a dream
that I made friends with a whirlwind:
I sat on its eye and went for a ride,
observing its destruction.

I asked the whirlwind on our ride,
"why carve a path where all you go?"
And then the whirlwind said to me,
"now, friend, it's not that simple."

"You see, my winds are dear to me,
my rain more of the same
but what, dear boy, I cannot stand
is who took more away."

"When man arrived they'd flame and land
and I possessed the skies and seas
but as man learned the boons I held
that flame burned in their bellies."

"Their greed controlled them, seeking more
and more was not enough;
all the earth they'd claimed as theirs
and they set the earth aflame."

"Man had the earth but not the seas
and skies had still remained with me
then when my boons were lost to them
they switched to different tactics."

"They poisoned all my skies and seas,
coal smoke black and oil slicked surf,
and now this wind and rain remain
as spirits of my skies and seas."

"So my rampage is revenge
to those who killed my skies and seas,"
and with those words the whirlwind silenced
proceeding on their rampage.

I pondered this for quite some time,
"so why, then, take me for this ride
if all you show is death to mine
for what mine did so long in past;

what words are left for me?"

"Because," the whirlwind said to me,
"unless you speak no one will see
that this destruction is in grief
for mine who died in vain."

"So go! Tell all of what I've said!
Fight for the rain, my rain and wind,
so one day skies and seas return
with life held to their bosoms."

Technology mimics life, it's true!
The way our internet acts as mycelia
and criss cross our world invisibly there;
how cars with drivers are bodies with souls
that pass each other along their great journeys;
and factories dividing labor are the organs of our bodies
individual and working all in union
allowing us to be alive.

Set aside time
to feel your body's nervous internet
criss crossing stimuli to certain destinations
and the red blood cars with oxygen souls
and organic factories

and set aside some time to thank them.

New life takes root in ashes of the old
and older soil assists all life in their survival,
the soil having seen generations birth and
thrive then die
only to return as aid to the soil's assistance
as it has and always will endure.

Life will wither past its fleur
but soil remains forever more
holding space for life.

It seems to me that
the whole love thy neighbor thing's
gone out the window

It's been proven, humans are life and animals as well
and doesn't Mother Nature have Her instincts too?
Our pulse aligns with Her and, too, the mountains
which through centuries slither crests along
the landscape we went and claimed as our own.
But still she has Her skies and seas, though tainted
with our fleets of rock and steel sinking aimless into.

And where are we in all this? Situated on a rock, Her earth
for a time flowing over and now the tide's receding to our sidewalks.
We blew holes into Her mountains for them and they didn't tickle;
oil was spilled into Her seas and smoke into Her skies;
She's into fight or flight and She's not going anywhere,
are we?

Treading a boardwalk with my lover
built above waters, calm yet obscure;
for what may live within those depths
and hungers for a bite?

We walk to a missing section of path,
a plummet to the waters below
and further on, across the gap,
the walk proceeds as was.

I jump toward the other side:
I miss and fall, a splash.
A spider, big and black as pitch,
I see beneath the boardwalk.

The fear sets in, I cannot swim
but my lover helps me up and out:
I jump again and again I miss
and fall back to the water.

Now my clothes are drenched and weighed
and so starts my descent:
I see the monsters whose home, the sea,
and fear sets in again.

A movement, splash, into the water;
someone to save my life?
I surge myself towards the surface
but fall back to the gloom.

The air is spent from in my lungs,
my lights are quickly fading.
But suddenly an arm extends
and wraps around my torso.

My savior carries and heaves me to land,
water escapes my lungs in cough
and when I meet my savior's eyes
then who's to find?

Myself.

Kathunk:
the sweet nothing that you whisper into my ear;
the unexpected gentle reminder to slow down and look around.
I never saw you coming
but I can't help but look back on what seemed to be
a split second reunion of two stagnant entities barreling through the universe.
Will our paths cross again? Who's to say?
But I know that by the time I find a moment to return to where you reside
the gaping hole in your soul will be filled
and I will be left wondering what could have been.

Sometimes when I'm up late
and sleep's weight weighs downward on my eyelids
I focus on unspace and chase with my eyes
the ember fitted neatly between *******.

sometimes I sit there and think
of all the problems in the world
and weigh them on my eyelids
and they don't weigh nearly as much as sleep.

I have dreams that I'm in a zoo
watching a lion with a human *****
being stroked by two woman, clad in nothing
and I have to escape the maintenance men
who don't know I'm there.
I hope those women know what they're getting into.

I like to think they do,
stroking the lion's ***** in plain sight
of the maintenance men coming down the road in a red jeep;
sometimes I think they have no idea.

sometimes the weight of sleep weighs so heavy on my eyes
that I dream of a perfect world
where the lion is vanquished and submissive
and the lion is pleasing those women with ecstasy
but sometimes I stay awake to see that the world is not that simple.

An epicenter sparks, begins to dance
and a radius around reacts in turn.
Land and dirt is shaken loose
and sways in their reaction.
Tectons rock and split and smash:
pits and mountain ranges form
and there, the dancer, moving grooves
bathes in their creation.

Kings will rise to rule,
empires recede to ashes,
but hearts will endure.

Happy are those who
wash themselves in the waters
of time that soothe the

embers of empires.