That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must have also the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.
There is a melody born of melody,
Which melts the world into a sea.
Toil could never compass it,
Art its height could never hit,
It came never out of wit,
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
Which drives me mad with sweet desire,
What boots it? what the soldier's mail,
Unless he conquer and prevail?
What all the goods thy pride which lift,
If thou pine for another's gift?
Alas! that one is born in blight,
Victim of perpetual slight;—
When thou lookest in his face,
Thy heart saith, Brother! go thy ways!
None shall ask thee what thou doest,
Or care a rush for what thou knowest,
Or listen when thou repliest,
Or remember where thou liest,
Or how thy supper is sodden,—
And another is born
To make the sun forgotten.
Surely he carries a talisman
Under his tongue;
Broad are his shoulders, and strong,
And his eye is scornful,
Threatening, and young.
I hold it of little matter,
Whether your jewel be of pure water,
A rose diamond or a white,—
But whether it dazzle me with light.
I care not how you are drest,
In the coarsest, or in the best,
Nor whether your name is base or brave,
Nor tor the fashion of your behavior,—
But whether you charm me,
Bid my bread feed, and my fire warm me,
And dress up nature in your favor.
One thing is forever good,
That one thing is success,—
Dear to the Eumenides,
And to all the heavenly brood.
Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,
Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.

A pretty blonde researcher
was observing, from a “blind”,
some Silverback Gorillas-
among the final of their kind.

The senior of the silverbacks,
his back turned towards the” blind”,
was communicating with his troop
with gestures much like sign.

“She who is observing us
is a member of that tribe
who fell from grace with Heaven
and was banished far and wide.”

“They were banished from this Eden,
and confounded in their speech.
They then made war upon each other
and have never once known peace”

“Observe, in them, their arrogance,
they think themselves evolved,
Yet they are apes that practice war
and ****** their own kind”

“A gorilla child knows not but love
and tenderness in kind.
Where there is many a human child
left neglected on the vine.”

From elsewhere in the Jungle came
the shouts of evil men.
Poachers of the coarsest sort
with Silverbacks in mind.

“Disperse my sons and daughters.
It’s time to flee and hide
from those who seek our hides and meat
to sanctuary, hie.”

The silverback then beat his chest
and, to buy the others time,
charged against those evil men
and, for his children, died.

Time passed before the searchers
came upon the blind
where the murdered Dian Fossey lay
where the Silverback had died.

Poachers want no witnesses
to their  theft of meat and hide
They left with her the severed hands
of one not kin but kind.

I stood flat-footed upon an eroding hill

Here the sweet peas, on tip-toe for a fight
With wing of coarsest black o'er delicate night
And spiteful fingers grasping at all beauty
To bind us all in deeds unworthy

Oh, toxic wind and fertile rain
Disperse the fragrance of this pain
In healing gardens root a seed
Sprout the bliss we sorely need

This tiny pulse of life we hold
Thrives in soil tilled with love
And tender vines create a bower
Of sweet pea tended, brought to flower


I stand bare foot on an erupting volcanic mount

Here the sweet peas, on tip toe for a flight
With wing of justice verity o’er delicate sight
And nails that compassionately snowball serenity
To bind us all with concord and altruism

Oh, acidic rain share the tears
Wash thy tainted eye-sight
Then crux us in the high-yield land
As we germinate to heaven’s height

The seed so robust and fertile
A shell encased with human forms
The greenness of reflected sextile
Oh Sweet pea, our mirrored storm



Inspired by a stanza from Keats' poem:

I stood tip-toe upon a little hill

Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight:
With wing of gentle flush o’er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings."

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

The gentle lines of the coarsest neck
Where the vitals fall in line,
Where breath is held so restlessly,
The first sip of chilly wine.

The shaky fingertips that graze,
Calloused, but seeking gospel
Leaving me covered in the words of
Your author and your novel.

Knobby knees that knock when
Worry scurries through your blood.
That hallow place behind
Where no one thinks to touch.

The portion of your foot that feels
The extremity of the ground.
How fast you're going will always tell
How long you stick around.

(Our souls are where we find them.)

I sometimes hold it half a sin
  To put in words the grief I feel;
  For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
  A use in measured language lies;
  The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
  Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
  But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

Yet if some voice that man could trust
  Should murmur from the narrow house,
  'The cheeks drop in; the body bows;
Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:'

Might I not say? 'Yet even here,
  But for one hour, O Love, I strive
  To keep so sweet a thing alive:'
But I should turn mine ears and hear

The moanings of the homeless sea,
  The sound of streams that swift or slow
  Draw down AEonian hills, and sow
The dust of continents to be;

And Love would answer with a sigh,
  'The sound of that forgetful shore
  Will change my sweetness more and more,
Half-dead to know that I shall die.'

O me, what profits it to put
  And idle case? If Death were seen
  At first as Death, Love had not been,
Or been in narrowest working shut,

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods,
  Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape
  Had bruised the herb and crush'd the grape,
And bask'd and batten'd in the woods.

Lonely? Or just alone,
Confusion is built into my skin
As I let my mind be consumed by the details.
Escape? Or just retreating
To the two items of clothing on my bed.
One so white it hurts my eyes, its angelic nature reflecting you.
The other so dark it echoes his scent that lingers.

I will find the coarsest brush and use it to scrub off the skin he touched as a punishment for returning.
I’ll whisper words of cruelty as my mind is no defender,
merely a perpetrator in building this wall around me.
A wall designed to suffocate,
To rip the breath from my lungs despite it possibly being the last.
There is no escape from this so I'm retreating, I suppose,
wall fully in tow.
To obsess over things I could have, should have and would have done
Had this wall not been a prevention.

I once asked you to spill your deepest secrets
At a time when fatigue was about to take hold.
If only I had known then that I was your surreptitious troubling.
I could have fixed it with my should have dones and would have dones
The same ones that I obsess over to this very day, this very night,
A whispered apology in the only medium I know how:
Pretty words, coming from within that ground me to you
When the space around me doesn’t feel real
And I’m hell bent on self-destruction.
When I wish to wrench the skin from my bones and I’m forced to acknowledge that
It is my fault; I am the one who acted this way.
So next time, I’ll remind myself not to project onto others
For I am the one to blame.

Hung by aching twine,
She rests in silence.
Shadowed eyes sinking into leather skin,
Like craters dredged into stone.
Born from the trembling fingers
Of a withering spirit,
Colors bleeding deep into a tortured canvass,
With brushstrokes harsher still
Than the coarsest grains of blackened sand
Or the whetted edge of a spiteful blade.

With malice and fervor
She studies the room.
The magnetic draw of her malignant form
Capturing the pensive gaze
Of every visitor in her domain.
What began with timid laughs
Of misguided reassurance
Turns into anxious peering
Over quivering shoulders,
For a hesitant view.
Just one subtle check
To rid the feeling
The feeling that someone is watching.
Watching with wicked intentions.
Repeating a desperate mantra
"It is just all in my head”
Repeating a desperate mantra
“It is just all in my head”

She asked me what I was living for
And I gave her this confession

In this realm of population
In the sanctum that is living
This world only exist in
The spaces that demand it
Beings who's lives surround
Boundaries required to sustain
Thoughts and queries somehow persist
Against the grain
Pain and longing don't exist outside the brain
Its in this environment, a hostile place

We come face to face with the tantamount lack of grace
Perfection has no enemies because it has no face to hate
Emptiness is something to which each of us relate
Its all enveloped in the great cold distance

Developed in the river swiftly grinding our roots away
Drab and lifeless as a surprising softness sickening and meaningless
Blending together with the coarsest feathers to create the bed on which we lay
In lieu of living organs, please send your deepest thanks

And we both looked down into the grave
A connection in contrast to
The depth of recession all around us

And the ending's always the same
Each and every host finds themselves in a less than stellar place
Every spectacle and spec of plot laden hero
Is slowly digested

Among the monstrosities and grotesque scenery
Something else can take shape
And grow metaphysically
Fake though it may be in the face
Of such bleak uncertainty

Electricity

With coarsest sackecloth cloath my naked soule;
     Construct for me a throne of ashes blacke;
Place on my lying lipps a liuing coal;
     Cast me asea inside a sackcloth sacke;
I am a rocke of great offence, a rocke
As stonie-hearted as a stvmbling blocke.

Not any man hath greater loue than this,
     That hee should for his friend laye downe his life;
But I betray'd my friend without a kisse
     And stabb'd into his backe a butter knife;
And hee who loues his life his life shall lose,
And I, by louing life, my death did chuse.

Letter to the Letter K:
To my favorite letter,

You are incredible. Present in the coarsest and most uncommon of words, you confound me. Your asymmetry is balanced by your astonishing performances. How I envy you, striking Letter K...

Letter to the Letter B:
To the letter that most irritates me,

You are infuriating. You are not soft enough to be considered delicate, yet not hard enough to be considered harsh. You include your self in words beautiful and bulky, bold and benign, never making up your mind. You are frustrating, Letter B...

Age, who needs it,
Rage, who feeds it,
Sage, wisdom or
seasoning which is it,
Cage, who has the key?

My mind is still sharp, have we met,
I'm blind, can you agree with me yet,
I am so far behind, I think; you bet,
I am leading the pack.
Life is a grind, espresso or coarsest?

I drink coffee, started when I was thirty-nine,
I don't smoke, I guess I'll (hack)be mighty fine
I starting working out again, to slow the decline,
I would stand up for what's right, if'n I had a spine,
At the end of the day, I will lay and read as I recline...zzzz

Ye are the salt of the earth; . . . (Matthew 5:13)


Preservative or pickler in the brine,
To render flora, fauna for our good,
Or season, that the flavor ever should
Appeal to palate, coarsest fare refine.
That drawing, drying halite from the mine,
Which whitens pasture, threatens livelihood,
Keeps calling out for only That which could
Begin to slake, assuage its arid shine.
And what but Water satiates our thirst?
The salty food that makes us crave the cup,
That bone-dry want for quenching from Above
Just proves the pow’r that salt had from the first
To drive us toward the Life that fills us up--
And plunge our thirsty souls into His Love.



. . . but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him
shall never thirst;
but the water that I shall give him
shall be in him a well of water
springing up into
everlasting life.  (John 4:14)

Foreboding femurs lit bright
But individuality, Emus, on high sit alone
Dabbles for paths even pre classified, remain erudite
Thinking nothing of hapless senseless power
I've done this place a plate, a platter
But to deviate no pound to flesh, I ensue

There's a force of principle, as an admirer, bright
Then a self is less than one should consider
The first place is last, their undone, considered
That facts have some gold arbitrary and emulation
The coarsest flagrant ornation self reflection before the contrite
Am, we, though, of, them, I.... seriously faulty and a plight

The trained mind is but a strafing cordial
Thoughts arrive infinite and confused yet too strong and free
Together neither a chivalrous nor sauntering loom
This one  may never confess, a disease, nor anyone can, the doom
As perhaps a lesson with no defined regressions we fight
The distance of shores, the conformity breaks, sanity within sight

Thinking we're alone knowing justice may betray. also a crime
The winky wily prowess of our city and its core
The theories and files so thorough and devoid of cheers
Should we? Crevice in the evil abyss, astral light
No following the  heat, no cold for sealing the semi grievous
It all can't be done severely, all are still, yet astride the immediate

Rummage and water wasted principle's kiss
Chains to the pain and best of fortunes synthesis
Didn't know myself before this now however avid distance

Find the heart amongst the thickest weeds
The gnarliest, coarsest most jagged rocks.
Find the heart and, darling, plant all it’s seeds
For its love can unlock the tightest of locks.

Find the heart amidst the choppiest seas
The sways, the depths and plunderous tide.
Find the heart and, darling, remember please
To trust in it completely and always confide.

Find the heart laying in a sweltering heat
In the most baron, deserted, deadened land.
Find the heart and, darling, feel its soft beat
Know this; there’s nothing the heart can’t withstand.

Got all my stuff –
Bag, books, packed lunch all on hand.
Weather forecast foretells a day all too rough –
A menacing match for the coarsest Sahara sand.

The day would be over soon
After Dot was done scolding and whining in her mean old frock.
I daydreamed looking at the sick white moon
When my thoughts were interrupted by a knock.

“It’s too hot,” the hideously-toothed creature declared.
“Children, pack up your books and go to the pool.”
“Yay!” all screamed but, just as I had feared,
I never packed my costume – **** fool.

Boys and girls now frolicking in the water,
I stood alone afresh on life’s sidelines.
***** these nuns and these imbeciles’ laughter!
It is not their miserable rules that my life defines.

Fully-uniformed, I
Ran,
Leaped,
Splashed … aah, the joy!

Kids laughed, nuns spanked.
In the end, it is only my courage that I thanked.