light littering a space in which i wish to sleep.
April-eyed chance, February-born desire,
failure spun by March.
fragrant trees on a campus weekend,
no one there to enjoy them.
walking slowly, and overestimating.
you can always count on reality to rush.
multiple copies of a book, only one in use.
truth rounded with the smog of manners,
where risk and restriction struggle.
foretaste of feelings on Wednesday,
and all too soon, your Thursday words
bleached with Friday morning.

i suppose death, too, is painful,
but then i remember
what it means
to sustain.

to know what you never will.

to know envy for the pages fluent
in the warmth of your fingers.
never knowing, what it must be like
to interrupt the coolness of your glasses
against the silent flame of your skin.
to know about the hidden avenues in your hair,
my hands have dreams about crossing.

i suppose knowing is painful,
as it is to know
these breaths i withdraw
to lock you
in my language:

they are all so terribly useless.

I'm working on having my first book of poetry published right now. It will have some of the poems I have posted here and a whole bunch more that will be exclusive to the book. If any of you are interested in purchasing it, feel free to message me here so you can get your hands on one of the first copies! It's looking like they're going to be about $10-$15 at the moment, but nothing is set in stone. Thanks to all of you supporting me here on hellopoetry.com, I honestly wouldn't have felt empowered enough to go through with this had I not had each and every one of your views, likes, comments, messages, and love. Also, thanks in advance to those of you who will be purchasing!!

Printer sits in space,
Someone hit print to much.
Copies of people spew out,
True people loose touch.

Put on your North Face,
Slip on your UGGs.
Flirt with every ******* person,
Make fun of what you call bugs.

Coolest kid right?
Makes fun of those he doesn't get.
Threatens with violent words,
He'll get his way I bet.

A copy of a copy,
Popular in a house of mirrors.
Showing feelings isn't cool,
Mock the pioneers.  

Hate those copies,
Want them erased.
I'll go and break the printer,
That produces them in space.

My life constitutes of
a dichotic shift as I
drift
between
a state of self-assuredness
and self loathing.

When I am assured
I am sure
that my eyes are a
golden brown,
my smile whitened and straightened
with perfectly painted lips.
My eyelashes curl upward
as I give you my most intriguing smirk,
inducing you into giving me
those copies for free
and saying "Ay girl"
as I cross the street.
My jeans hug my hourglass figure
like a girl from a video,
and the compliments find themselves
going my way.
My brain swells with
knowledge and an almost-eery insight
as I predict your admiration
and find myself compensating as to
not appear
ostentatious.
I hold myself with the highest regard and
refuse to let a man
make me feel inferior,
to judge me by my exterior because
I am superior to that
treatment.
My wit is quick and
you can bet I'll put a
Slick Rick in his
place if he is even fit to
keep up with my pace.

But then again
I look at him and see
him frowning at my
symmetrical, but overly round
face,
thinking that there might
be other ladies in this place
with a smaller frame,
with a flat stomach and
a tame sense of style,
not a fedora or Timberland boots or a beanie,
not someone who cackles when
she laughs
and talks even more loudly and
obnoxiously than she chuckles.
I'm not smooth enough to
keep your attention as
my obsession with Harry Potter accidentally
gets disclosed,
as I feel my skin-diseased cheeks
bleeding through their concealer and bronzer mask.
A law school degree sounds boring and
braggy as I grasp
at straws, at my only backup source of comfort,
as I attempt to woo you with my brain because
you clearly aren't into a size ten.
You glance out of the sides
of your eyes as you buy me a drink,
or you tell me you aren't
ready for a relationship
even though we've been
sleeping together for a year;
"it's just not you, it's me"
is what I finagle
as a girl named Hailey
posts a picture of you with
your arm around her size two
waist and top-heavey Double D's.
I let down all of my walls and
you forget my birthday,
and I stay devastated over you long
enough for you to
forget my name.

I'm two-in-one;
I'm confidently lacking in confidence and
disapprovingly disapprove of
anyone's opinion of me
but my
own.

In sweet water
we fish and swim
When we are finished
We give it back
To Pachamama
This music is good
And hunger is our attitude
Diagonal winds
Further our stories
Hundreds of copies
Are made each day
Before we've awakened
Cities taste like fried rice
And we wait on lines
For cokes and coffees
Relativity tries to explain
What it can't deny
That we are unstable and often high
You are gullible like the night sky
As single women
Drift along your incision
It's a mission to not hunt them all at once
Juggle the waterfall and pay for her dinner
Gifts are abundant
And some are seeking you too
Kindred spirits kindle our fire
As tired hands hug their mother
Love is burning with desire
Cool down and we can begin to dig
Listen to the sounds that are far away
Beyond your mansions
Into the woods
We drove for days
And still no one
Understood our need for silence
And sometimes our dramas
We were in need of laughter
So i attached a pair
Of jumper cables
To the inside of your pajamas

If they made Holy Scriptures out of our deeds
How many would we put on display for everyone to read?
When Bani Israel was frozen in time
within divine words,
they did not know
they would become timeless lessons
for generations to come.
Not the liar when he told his last lie,
nor the careless while laughing at the cow,
not even the pious while he raised his staff.
Yet today, we read their stories
With heedless hearts ,
forgetting that we too will be written
in pages heavier than stones
on scales worth more than mountains of gold.
So, why do we pretend that our time is infinite?
As though tic tocs were nothing but melodious beats
synchronized to our pulse.

wal Asr
And by time
Innal Insana la fikhusr
Verily mankind is at loss

How can we not think of yesterday as an effigy,
And tomorrow’s uncertainty as a form of art?
We are artists.
And when our hair strands start to reflect the silver moonlight
When our eyes start telling century old stories
When our joints start pleading with time
Will we then finally ask ourselves:
What will there be left of us?
Originals,
or mere copies?

It creeps into my room again,
filling me with fear.
I wish it would just go away
and let me be happy here.
The air inside turns icy cold,
sends shivers down my spine.
It comes in every morning,
All my darkest fears combined.
I reach out a hand to touch it
Just to check it's real.
It tries to smile and I try too
But all my happiness it steals.
It copies every move I make
Mocking me with glee.
I step back and I realise
The thing I'm staring at is me.

I see everyone as bright-white in beauty
whereas in the shadows you shall find me.

Uncorking the wine to keep myself busy,
replacing blood-sugar, feeling dizzy.

I paint the cave with fruit juices and poppies,
intersecting patterns, carbon copies.

There is comfort to be found in lonely breath,
to contemplate life, the absence of death.

Some nights. I see your blue eyes in my sleep. Not nightmare, yet not good sleep. Staring deep into my soul. Caressing dreams in and out, like a ramblin man singing the blues. I cannot awake with you there. My mind, my soul takes the torture in some masochistic fashion. I cannot look away for it is all our fault. You are dead, an eternal child. Never to know the woe of this world, and yet never to know the love of a woman, the love of  life. I'm sorry there was nothing we could do, we tried we tried we tried. Looking straight into my eyes with yours, I saw myself in the grey blue as life faded. I saw my future my past and my present. Those eyes almost perfect copies of my own. I write this to you as amends as apology. I will never forget that day, I will never forget your eyes. I will never forget your death.

Gone are the glorious Greeks of old,
  Glorious in mien and mind;
Their bones are mingled with the mould,
  Their dust is on the wind;
The forms they hewed from living stone
Survive the waste of years, alone,
And, scattered with their ashes, show
What greatness perished long ago.

Yet fresh the myrtles there--the springs
  Gush brightly as of yore;
Flowers blossom from the dust of kings,
  As many an age before.
There nature moulds as nobly now,
As e'er of old, the human brow;
And copies still the martial form
That braved Plataea's battle storm.

Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek
  Their heaven in Hellas' skies:
Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek,
  Her sunshine lit thine eyes;
Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains
Heard by old poets, and thy veins
Swell with the blood of demigods,
That slumber in thy country's sods.

Now is thy nation free--though late--
  Thy elder brethren broke--
Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight,
  The intolerable yoke.
And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see
Her youth renewed in such as thee:
A shoot of that old vine that made
The nations silent in its shade.

There is a multiplier deep inside
an identifier that confides in me
and divides,I see
by the actions of gene therapy.

It analyses,criticises,alters and devises new ways of splitting out my days into a hundred thousand newer kind of ways to break my heart.

Adding to the adding of, subtractions minus then because I age
it vents its rage and goes quite mad the copies that it makes are bad,not up to standard,randomly it sequences,imitations of my DNA.
and in these clones of which it does not seem to care,
I am somewhere falsified
in there
more imitations,creating limitations in which I find that I am locked.

These pistols of my life were loaded,cocked before I was born
and cannot be torn from me by hocus pocus or intervention surgery.

There will be,
me and me and me and me forever copied I will be that which I'm not,
another dot
Spot the differences?
I can
as I turn into a copy of a copy of a man.

Do you recall?
The last drop of alcohol
Was it satisfying at all?
A brawl descends from the fistfights in the bar
It will never last, cause in the end
One brawl replaces, copies and pretends
Show it all again

The fruit of desire
The wine of fire
With a drop of blood
Sacrifice enough
And see the green pale mist
Under the moonlight
Ceremonial twist from the ignorantly blessed
Close your legs they all want your ***
First place in a shallow contest

Drink the water of purity
As clear as it has ever been
Watch the ****** up world we’re livin’ in
Earth is the dominion of man
Man is a prison of satan
Soldiers walk from land to land
Death takes soldiers - walk hand in hand
No light till you get through the gate
Earth will never confine your soul

Blonde hair
Blue eyes
Whispered I love yous
Such a stupid cliché
High school love
Is there really such a thing
He loves me, he loves me not???
Redundancy is what I hear
Such a stupid game that our hearts play
A victim of the lovers game
Images of a wedding day
White dress and roses
Another stupid cliché
A honeymoon most likely in the city of romance where there will be wine and gental kisses
The stupidity of the notion is astonishing
Two souls claiming love
The brunnete and the blonde
The perfect couple
Cliché, cliché, cliché
A repeating cliché
Its funny how its playing out
Unoriginal copies of past lovers
Im his cliché
And he is mine
Recreating memories of what society finds acceptable
None the less vows probably used a thousand times
I take him as mine in better and worse, sickness and health, richer and poorer till death do us part
Just another cliché
It's nothing more then a elaborate facades to prove the love of two hearts
Humor me with something more then a cliché

Deep in the desert where no one can see
Is a laboratory named "Area 143."
Like Area 51, it runs government tests
But not about aliens (though that's a good guess).

These facilities created, over the years,
A watch that would stop when your soulmate was near.
From your moment of birth, it would start to count down
To the exact moment when your soulmate was found.

For a while it worked, and all was well.
But a rise in divorce rang the warning bell.
For the watch could not predict that you'd love your mate,
Just someone that you could potentially date.

The CEO of Area 143
Tore his beard out and yelled, "This cannot be!"
He recalled all the watches and then packed them away
To a secret location, where they hide to this day.

But he did not know that other watchmakers
Had stolen the plans for these botched "soul-maters"
Today these copies are still for sale
Some think they do work, from school to jail.

So if you ever meet someone and you see your watch stop
You might have purchased one of these matchmaking flops.

I believe happiness lives in Blood.
Whether our own, or that of others is the question.
I remember when I first realized it;
You were the reason I was unhappy.
The shattered vase recognizing the hammer that destroyed it.
The broken heart spotting the surgeon who haphazardly carved it from its home.

I remember realizing that my happiness was stolen and by none other than you,
And that if I wanted to be happy once again, I had to free my happiness from your blood.
But what's the fun in ******, when it's so easily accomplished?

I decided to destroy you.
To make you regret being born just as I had;
To make you taste the saltiness of your own sweat and tears
As you sat in a pile of ash you once called your beloved and cherished sanctuary
Was my idea of "salvation".

I dismantled you, and your family's life.
I disrupted the dismal peace you all so boringly accepted as your lives
And by stirring the waters, I brought out the worst in all.
The pestilence grew within your home
And quickly leaped from your family
Onto mine.

Suddenly, the plan backfired.
You steered into the chasm of life that I spent years mapping,
And all I had to do was whisper in your ear and sew doubt into your skull.

And yet,
This backfire;
This single moment of social dissonance,
Reshaped the earth we both stood on.
The dark corners I once knew became twisted and corrupt copies.
My mind became a new place to explore and learn about.

I just wish the last image to bless my genesis
Had been of you
Swinging gracefully, and peacefully
From your neck.

the censorship meme
alive inside me as a child:
some books were worth the mention of--
war and **** were not.

untimely at a pennsylvanian writers' club
where fear lodged quiet smile-halves
in talking clouds and farmyard metaphor,
to weekly bray the corner of an antique movie-house

newcomers weren't to share their work
we three were welcomed as an audience at best
we passed the others' writers' chapter-copies on
on which i scribbled notes of praise
on notes of theme-entwining anti-argument
and **** zests of vast significance:
notes of floral yearning, meadowed love--
iron skies and ahistoric dreams--
off and on archaic themes
of which we weren't to share

I lived my half dictionary life before I could
comprehend compulsory compromises.
Collectors arise, disguises and devices beeping,
chastising my blindness.

Gather geography from Afghanistan and Myanmar
graciously growing gold gilded gift horses,
gleefully gloating about floating far away.
My hoof beats above concrete match my heart’s defeat
across borders and mountains
embroidering cardboard cut-outs
calling deserts, decorating front covers.
Exhaling handcrafted letters for my missing half,
half demanding highest caliber commanders and half commanding completion.

Jade jays joyfully lay arrays of bouquets
fragile flowers decay faraway
in jawbones and jail cells.
Begging farewells in a hotel’s lobby
began my hobby,
early morning coffee and carbon copies
concurringly cocky around his dead body.
Gang ciphers for cartels are
Christmas bells hissing at collars,
half dollars embellishing bar crawlers
godfathers hollering at car haulers.

Atrocities across cities attack,
attachable atrophies audibly ambush arthritic anthologies.
Anomalies begin apologies between apostrophes,
advancing autonomy arousing ancient animosities.
All eluding Antarctica,
giant frozen crests, multi-coloured ice
hidden in my illustrations
anxious for my distant half.

Friday cassettes and cigarettes
deliberately making bets following “M”.
Breaking bindings and finding “beta” in alphabet,
may feasibly end in debt.

What caused you to write a book and have it published?
Thankfully, I’ve enjoyed a career in IT (Information technology) for over 25+ years. However, I’ve been downsized out of a job four times – the last time in 2005, I was unemployed for nine months. During that time, I looked at over 19,000+ companies to find one job. With more jobs in my field being outsourced to lower wage earners overseas, I decided I needed an exit strategy from the corporate world to launch a more stable career and income.


2. How long have you been writing?
I started officially writing poetry in January 2001; it was a natural progression from working on my website. I started my website (Bunganut Lake Online) back in 1999; as I added content over the years, I started writing short stories about fishing, followed by haikus about fishing and Nature; then I started writing senryus about traffic (see honku.org) and later about God.


3. How long did it take to finish your book?
I spent about 13 months to write the manuscript of my current book; once I initiated the book making process with my publisher (BookSurge), I had the final product in hand in 3.5 months.


4. What is the name of your book and what is it about?
The name of my book is “Reaching Towards His Unbounded Glory”; the ISBN numbers are: 1-4196-5051-3 & 978-1419650512. It is a book of poetry, geared to inspire people to develop or strengthen a relationship with God.


5. Do you want to write more books and have them published?
Definitely; I have four completed and unpublished manuscripts; in addition, I have five other manuscripts started. All of these writings are poetry.


6. Who or What was your inspiration when writing your book?
Jehovah is my inspiration; He’s always been my Source, Redeemer and strength; most of my life, I’ve blessed to attended Church and receive Salvation in my youth.


7. What is your favorite author and book?
After the Bible (KJV), my favorite book is: How to Rule the World: a Handbook for the Aspiring Dictator by Andre De Guillaume. (It’s a humorous look at people and their desire for power.) Most of my reading is technical stuff from sources such as PC Magazine, so I don’t have a favorite author (in the traditional sense). There are number of poetry writers that I do enjoy [who are too numerous to mention, such as PDK (AllPoetry) and Gershon Hepner (Poem Hunter)].


8. What is the best thing about writing?
The best aspect of writing is the freedom of expression and the power to choose words, conveying ideas and concepts that bolster one’s imagination.


9. What are some of your other hobbies?
I love spending time at the lake in Maine where I own a summer property – activities include swimming, fishing, campfires and working on my website; I also enjoy board games, such as backgammon, scrabble and others, as well as computer games (ranging from pinball to Wolfenstein).


10. What caused you to use BookSurge?
I looked at a number of publishers and was disappointed at their offerings and reputations. For me, BookSurge was chosen because they are owned by Amazon.com; in addition, they provided all services required for the bookmaking process. Although I spent a fair amount of money, to me it’s worth it. For now I’m tapped into a global economy with a quality product. No one wants to spend their hard-earned money on an inferior product – so I did what was best for me.


11. What would you tell others that wanted to become an author as well? What steps would they need to take to get started?
Now that I’m published, I find myself more than willing to share my experiences. The first step is to have a notebook or clipboard to store and write down thoughts and ideas. Second, one must identify what one has passion about; one’s writing must come across as sincere and knowledgeable; third is to produce the manuscript; once the manuscript is complete, then start the bookmaking process that is most affordable. Once the book is published, the real work (and reality) of selling comes into focus.


12. How does your family feel about you being an author?
Some family members are very proud and supportive, while others are still mute on the subject.


13. Do you have a website to promote your book?
My marketing plan employs the use of multiple websites; I’ve posted my writing on a number of poetry websites, such as AllPoetry, Poetry With Meaning, Poem Hunter and others; in addition, I have created a “lens” on Squidoo.com. At some, point, I’ll advertise on my own website. In the future, I would like to develop a personal website geared towards marketing my books.


14. Can people buy an autographed copy of your book if they wish to? If so how would they go about doing that?
Yes, people can purchased autographed copies; the best approach is via my “lens” on Squidoo.com; the link is: http://www.squidoo.com/book-isbn-1419650513/


15. Do you think in the near future that you may write and publish more books?
Yes, I am planning to publish more books of poetry.


16. Is it hard work being an author?
That depends on the goals one sets for himself; for example, if one’s desire is to earn a comfortable living from one’s writing, then yes it’s difficult. With the presence of the Internet and related technologies, it’s very easy to be published, but no guarantee to make money.


17. What are your dreams and Goals in life?
The ultimate goal is to become the Christian man as seen by God Himself; after that, I would like to assist others to publish their own books, continue work on my website and develop my own business software for the marina operator.


18. Could you tell us a little about your book and what caused you to want to write it?
My book is a personal expression of faith; The Word tells that we are “more than conquerors”; in a sense, I achieved that ideal since my humble book is “now available worldwide”.


19. Is your book non-fiction or fiction?
I would classify my poetry as non-fiction. To me, a relationship with Christ and having faith is real.


20. Could you tell use where we could get a copy of your book? What bookstores are carrying it and what online stores are carrying it?
None of the brick & mortar bookstores are carrying my title as yet. My book can be purchased via Amazon.com, Borders.com or from me directly via the Squidoo.com “lens” at: http://www.squidoo.com/book-isbn-1419650513/


21. What kind of promotional tools do you use to advertise your book?
I am using several promotional tools; my work has been submitted to two book contests; it is part of the Beijing International Book Fair (in China); I use the Internet and have set-up consignment arrangements with several businesses. I also have printed marketing materials, such as business cards, postcards and bookmarks.

I have a higher shelf a pinacle that
seems empty , barren,
one made of mahogany over the ones
holding copies of Shelley, now unbound,
stocked with mementos and keepsakes
made of pine but servicable
upholding my precious things
carefully sturdy ,
to the left , a tad dusty, leaning on the
copy of Michelangelo's David bookend,
is  "In Search of Lost Time" gathering,
well, dust , now,
next to, with my fingerprints
outlining the title ,
on a timeworn cover, leans,
"Tom Sawyer" ; I can see a cane pole
figuratively jutting out from
the shelf. Above on the second shelf from the top
sits a rock, just a plain river worn smooth
everyday rock, that to anyone else would be
nothing, but, to me it is more precious than gold of the same size.
I collect special things.
And the top mahogany shelf
is empty
reserved for only vivid
memories
of
Grandma  
of that girl long ago
of when my children arrived on this earth
of a smile
from all the women I have known
also, although, invisible
only worthy for that shiny shelf are the hearts and souls
of the best people ever.
And when you visit, think again, about an
ordinary smooth rock,
and an empty mahogany
shelf.
A rock or an empty shelf
can be more
than it seems.

This place is a museum now; this great hall where my father stood.
Here he waited on line with all the rest. He waited for admission.
He was dressed in his best with a few dollars in his pocket,
and the address of his sister and her husband in New York.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My mother, Helen, was native, first generation born upon these shores.
My father was a laborer; the quarries and mines had made him strong.
His years in Scotland plus his native Irish brogue
was baffling at first  to those Ellis Island clerks.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My Dad found work building a bridge high above the waters reach.
He started out a near illiterate but slowly learned to read
From discarded copies of the New York Daily News.
He met my mom at an Irish dance.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

My mother’s voice was all New York; a dialect of English speech.
She loved her numbers, and clerked for Met Life, but she may have longed to teach.
Instead she sat with me in our small kitchen
Teaching me my numbers as our dinner was prepared.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

For those of you who have heard me speak
And found my own accent hard to place.
I am a little of old New York and a little of a fair green place.
My American voice is but the echoed music of my race.

There’s a lady in the harbor here who holds her torch aloft for all.

an urban afternoon of lunacy,
                             of no more teenage angst
                                              teenage violence
                                              took its place
where a no man's & madness motherland sleep
          a few blocks away

& everyone copies how to behave
                a copy
            of a copy
            of a copy

"..she tells the same old story to everyone that she knows.."

She writes to him in the hospice,
his widow-in-waiting.  A girl at her care home
brings her envelopes, colourful pens, sheets of paper in
pastel shades, and takes her missives to
Reception to go out with the mail.
She writes to him, keeping her messages short so
the nurses have time to read them to him, and because
he gets tired so quickly now.
She encloses copy photographs for the nurses to
show to him, pictures of their adventures together:
them in hiking boots and toting backpacks atop a
Saxon burial mound; picnicking and almost sunburnt
beside a vast lake reflecting a perfect, bygone blue sky
in its tranquil surface; on a sandy Welsh beach, building a
campfire from smooth, soft-grained, bone-pale driftwood; him
asleep on a train, his head resting on luggage
and hat pulled down over eyes.
In one communiqué she writes:
“I’m sorry you took the mountains with you.”
She means – she explains to the care home girl
who brings her stationery and takes her mail – that
when he moved to the hospice and she to the care home,
all the photos of their mountain holidays – the Vogelsberg,
the Dolomites, Monte Rosa, Chamonix – had been
packed up along with his possessions, and put in storage
by his family.  She sends him copies of
the only photos she has left.
And that is what she means, but not just that.
It’s been a long time since she stomped mud off of
hiking boots, or felt that gorgeous ache in her muscles
from a long, hard climb, or kissed in a cable-car,
or let the wind tan her face as she breathed
rarefied air.  Those summits seem very far away,
and the woman who once scaled them never could have dreamed
that life could become so flattened.

In some quiet room, a nurse shows him the photographs.  
A heart monitor describes
a craggy range of peaks and dips; each elevation, every ascent,
could be a terminal journey.  Soon, one surely will.
The nurse can’t tell if he hears her as she reads to him,
“I’m sorry you took the mountains with you.”

she's in my mind
only, ever
in my mind.  i am
a beast drinking blood
in cold shadows.  she's on the stairs towards the gods with gold-flake mirrors on fire.
i can't be soothed by their plasma flesh pixels anymore.
i can't be soothed by their carbon copies.
i will soon be below their real for good.
in need no more of the soft same semblance displayed on the shelves.
i swim in deep pools collecting aloneness on high. the
romantic disaster laughter is muted. these days i can't
help but feel, every now and then,
that death
is
a great kindness
in disguise,          but

not in the
way you
think.

one day
you will find our story
tucked inside of
rough drafts
and final copies
of my poems
i think you will
search for your name
and wonder which poems
are about you
ex love
there are poems
that will hold you tight
poems that are the answer
and poems that you will never know
is it you or a new love
and isn't that the beauty of prose
i am finally free
you will not always find the answer
i do not have to be the answer