I see your hand waver, now you're faced with a ghost,
not the raw, killer features that were nailed to a post.
Just an old, dying cowboy, trying hard to play host.
There's a chair if you've mercy, and a story...come close.

The liquor of youth lights a fire in you, son.
Puts that flame in your eyes and the heat in your lungs.
I wore that expression, before your thread was spun,  
so let me unload, you can shoot when I'm done.

Growing sore in my saddle as the nag became lame,  
I sold off my shooters, then re-mortgaged my name.
But tease out the creases, we're exactly the same;
two felons of fortune, wanting someone to blame.

See, I never got settled, didn't take me a wife.
Sailed a ship in a bottle, on the edge of a knife.
I put stock in misfortune and invested in strife,
took diminished returns, paid no interest to life.

But corralling cattle won't hold them for long,
they're born to roam free where they know they belong.
Soon the lipstick and whiskey begins to taste wrong,
as the backroom piano sighs its monotone song.

By a tangerine sunset I scraped off my boots
and considered an orchard as it set down its roots.
As a buzzing of insects idly nurtured its fruits,
I was deafened by silence. My own garden was mute.

So I clutched at the earth as I fell to the floor,
to ask for forgiveness, as you darkened my door.  
Seems redemption's eloped, like a gold digging *****.  
Just a name on a tombstone, for a few dollars more.

Quite an end would be fitting for a fool so innate,  
who has squandered his years until the hour is late.
Son, unholster your weapon and wipe off the slate,
I beg execution, swift vengeance,  But wait...

Did I catch my reflection as it fell from your face?
Like a hound in a heatwave, too tired to give chase?  
Son, the trail that you're riding is easy replaced.
You can stand in the sunlight, or come sit in my place.

We’re 6 roommates, on summer vacation before our sophomore year and we take turns planning our nights. Last night was Sunny’s choice so we found ourselves at “Sister Louisa's Church,” one of the fun gay bars in this little college town. We’ve been to 5 LGBTQ bars in the Atlanta area this summer and they’ve all been skittles.

This being a Lesbian bar, we all felt empowered to dress down, dance a few times, and just have some harmless fun. “Hmm.., Sunny said, wrinkling her nose, “I think queer or girly are better terms than lesbian. Lesbian seems to have a mascular take - like we want to be boys - and that’s not it at all.”
“I bow to your superior, informed, cultural finickiness,” Lisa noted.

WE dance a few times but Sunny never stops. One moment Sunny’s there, for a swig of her drink and the next, she’s twiring off with some attractive (30ish?) woman - it keeps happening. “We need to put an apple tracker on her.” Bili said, but when the songs ended she always came back to us.
“That womyn had more than two hands.” Sunny said, gulping on her drink and fixing her hair.

It was time to go, past time actually. We’re on a schedule these days. We spend our mornings playing disc golf or water-skiing and our afternoons studying. We’re trying to re-engage with college work in a gradual, 3 hour a day, low anxiety way.

Sunny (A molecular, cellular, and developmental biology major), Lisa and I (Molecular biophysics and biochemistry majors) are all on the pre-med track. Next year we’ll tackle physics together and we’re already grinding away on examples of the problem-sets we’ll see next semester. So far the shared stress has helped the next-level classes seem easier and more engaging.

I was the watchdog last night, sentenced to preventive sobriety, and tasked with corralling everyone when the time came to leave. “Fair warning!,” I said loudly, between songs, “reality is going to *****-stab you ladies in the back tomorrow morning.”
“I think you mean *****-SLAP,” Leong said, ever the aphorism police.
“Whatever it is, it’s going to hurt.” I amended. I’d been working (whining), stubbornly for half-an-hour to convince them to leave and finally, I said, “I’m texting Charles.”

OH, THEN the girls started gathering their things. “Ok, Yeah.., I see how it is.” I added, holding my phone like a grenade with the pin out.

The following morning Anna’s situationship broke up - by text - as if to add to the pain of her hangover. In situationships, it’s inevitable that one stakeholder will hope for more - but you have to paint it as casual, as no big deal. She’s pretending she doesn't care but anyone can see she’s been crying.

On the other side of the emotional universe - I’m riding-a-high - because Peter, on a facetime call, said he missed me - but it’s not just that - he seems more energetic, interested and actually romantic. I like us together. We’re choral (there’s no definable lead). I’m practically snoopy-dancing around the house.

From dawn until dusk, you are here,
Meandering images smiling sweetly,
Your words, a thousand-fold message,
Caress me inside, soothing my soul,
Bringing perpetual joy to my mind,
For you are all, my loving constant.

My companion, thoughts of you jostle,
Real-time memories holding sway, yes,
Corralling projected musings, taming,
Horned unicorn harnessing wild stallions,
Calming dreams, wayward ripples in time,
Cosseting us with complete and utter love.

Whole, unified spiritually, emotionally,
We become unconquerable, unassailable,
Our Aztalan utopia, home to our musings,
Deep stronghold, fastened by pure love,
I kiss your humble mind, sincere heart,
Forging a blended alloy of true happiness.

It was the Saturday before Halloween
And my friends were having a blowout.
For the first time in a long time I chose
To make an exception and go on out
Dressed up for the occasion that night
As Moses without the tablets, a mask,
And when I got there, nobody groaned
Instead, I got offered a hit on a flask.

So, I arrived at the party, not hopeful
That a good time would be had by all.
I wore my silly old man mask at first
And my long gold robe to cover it all.
No biggie, everyone was dressed up
In outrageous, fantasy forms of attire
There were princesses and knights.
I called one crowned fellow sire.

My friends were doing a wine tasting
In connection with the happy affair
So, I took them up on all of that
After doffing my mask full of long hair.
We joked and told each other tales
Of our activities at work and home.
Later, I found myself kissing with
A hot to trot, **** garden gnome.

Then my oldest buddy Dan said,
“Let’s take this to the Boulevard.
It was just five blocks to the south
So the walk won’t be that hard.”
Seeing the adventure in this
Nobody disagreed even a little
We took off in a clump of twenty
With me masked, close to the middle.

First was our friend, Allan the artist.
He’d constructed a seven foot ****.
He wore black pants and shoes
But the papier mache did the trick.
Second was the Darth Vader guy,
A lawyer in a fine rented outfit.
Behind him was Doctor Ucia Sickie
In scrub greens with ****** clots on it.

There was Raggedy Anne and Goofy
And a couple of Midnight Cowboys
And Dan was dressed quite normally
Because he was the outing’s decoy.
See, most of us were a bit drunk, and
Nobody had any dope on them then
As it was a touchy time about ***
In the days of Reagan, way back when.

Daniel didn’t care. Without telling a soul
He had whipped up Toklas brownies
And passed them to us, getting us ripped
Completely unknown to most of the townies.
Dan raised great window-box stuff, so I
Remembered, in two bites, from times before,
And soon I got that happy, toasty feeling
And my shyness was suddenly no more.

Of we went, twenty fools wide then
Wandering down the Avenue of Stars
Goggling at the crowd, the costumes,
The zinging lights and the hopping cars.
Everyone had beer bottles, not just us
Or wine bottles and were guzzling glad
About this happy, jam packed occasion
There was no way to be bored or sad.

The cholos were dancing their hydraulics
On cars that cost more than some homes,
And the sidewalks were all overflowing
With humans thick as laundry foam.
It wasn’t really walking, it was standing up
And letting the tide of people carry me
In a Mardi Gras atmosphere of loopy fun
That offered up nothing to worry me.

We went all the way to Fairfax, then we
Turned around and made our way back
A knotted mass of silly people gabbing
Like hamsters running on an invisible track.
Halfway down, at about Hudson street,
In front of me I heard something loud.
People were screaming with laughter
And gathered in an even tighter crowd.

The middle of a circle, with TV cameras,
Was Allan, the seven foot ****, corralling
A six foot, totally authentic Miss Piggy
And she was fending him off giggling.
He kept putting the huge head of his guise
Down toward her thighs, and the crowd
Applauded, hooted, whistled and laughed
And it seemed the Boulevard just howled.

It was on the news the next morning
As we all were sure it would have to be
But that night became a noteworthy one
For all of my friends, strangers and me.
You never know what will happen to you
When you let yourself be a bit more free.
You might end up in a Halloween Parade.
Well. At least that’s what happened to me.

I stopped commenting on airy internet objects long ago
lest it be a needed praise of some starving artists’ work
or in response to a worded response of my own work

It’s just such a waste of time to tell a million view band
they “rock” or they “****”
All I will incite is defenders or refuters of my claim
who are just as petty as me

As an immature high schooler, that’s just what I wanted
The modern version of my dead grandfathers
with their white shirts, blue jeans, and duck *** hair
Driving from the city to hick school dances
just to pick fights

I once typed lines of **** talk on Elvis videos from the 1970s
just to see what would happen
- Nothing much
My grandfathers are dead and no one’s left to defend The King
I’m not so tough, but I felt scrappy then just the same

Now, with my lowly little job
my first world laptop and my glasses
Sipping coffee and mellowed out
I read some comments to see what people feel
about an article on my generation
How we’re more corporate than ever
bamboozled by a guise of fake uniqueness

Sure, I agree with the critique in the article
if you can even call it an article
People get paid for three lines of an opinion,
sometimes a link, and then the real entertainment's in the comments
Where can I get in line for this ******* job?
Not the commentors, their labor’s free
I mean the three lines guy, it sounds too easy

“Don’t ya get it yet, son”
My grandad chuckles
“His job’s just corralling all those comments,
inciting easy debate,
and getting advertising clicks”

He shook his head
went up through the roof
and his twenty-year-old jeans
ended in a wispy swirl
But I couldn't help noticing
they were name brand

Lisa and I had been watching some boys strut about, as they played soccer, in their little shorts, in the freezing cold. It’s an old animal story.

The game ended, or it was intermission and about twenty guys came streaming into the cafeteria, their cleats sounding like a hundred keyboards clacking all at once.

They were laughing, joking and pushing each other around with rowdy, coiled, unexpended kinetic energy. They were scoping-out the area too, almost subconsciously, like their bronze man ancestors surveying the grassy savannas for threat.

As they strolled in, Lisa and I exchanged looks. Eye-contact can be its own form of complicated language. “Welcome to the monkey-house” we thought, rolling our eyes.

I recognized one of the guys, from a shared chemistry class. He’s tall, slim and lanky, with chin length blonde hair tucked behind his ears and a bit of ****** stubble. Ethan, Adam? I couldn’t remember.

“One’s coming over,” Lisa said, turning a little away and sipping her coffee.
“Morning!” he said, with his winning smile. “What'd you think of that test?” He said, putting one hand in his pocket like a model and making the most disarming eye contact.
“Hard,” I said, with a shrug, Lisa was giving him an appraising look from behind her blonde curtain of hair.
“Aww, come on,” he said, with an aw-shucks grin that looked like something from a Brad Pitt movie. When was the last time I saw Peter - my hypothalamus seemed to ask me with an electric tingle.

There’s something rickety and flexible about resolutions, they melt, like ice cream in the right heat - like the warmth of a look, or the thermal rush of a provocative thought. Impure thoughts are like excited molecules, they bubble, and mine were suddenly on the edge of boiling. I hadn’t expected it, I didn’t trust it, but I liked it. I reached out for my coffee and looked down as I felt myself blush.

Our conversation had lasted long enough to draw the curious attention of a couple of the other guys who came to jostle and crowd Ethan-Adam’s game. “Woah!” one of them said, looking at Lisa. “When you walk in a building, do the sprinklers go off?” The other newbie laughed. Lisa waved the complement away, unsmiling, like an annoying and meaningless buzz.

“All right, all right,” Ethan-Adam said, with a grimacing grin, turning and corralling the other two guys away from the table with outstretched arms. “See ya,” he said, looking back over his shoulder with a “sorry about that,” nod.

“Who was THAT?” Lisa asked, almost admiringly.
“I’m not sure,” I said, trying to remember the rollcall, “Ethan.. Adam.. one of those.”

Our nights of assessing God,
With our heads conjoined to the windowpanes,
Our thoughts permeating throughout the glass.
Two lukewarm coffees embellished the windowsill,
The synthesis of our cognition and entwined fingers,
The soft touch of shoulders leaning upon each other,
Brought forth beatific vision, we saw God;
His blemished flesh, the formation of his bones.

It began,
His vertebral column, intangible lights, the Aurora Borealis.
His archaic vertebrae, stained in ethereal fluorescence;
The curvature, swirling, as the Deity writhes in euphoria,
A childish game,
Our God, content in the night.

His hands, formed from the dust of Bethlehem,
Grains of sand corralling to form flesh upon the detritus of Rome.
His Holy land, The Vatican; Structures of marble and stone,
Merely his cupped hands,
As his disciples' feet caress his palms.

His organs; The planets in orbit;
His heart, our sun.
The rays of light that adorn our skin,
Merely the palpitations of a hidden pulsating heart.
his divinity,  subject of uncertainty in the petulant eyes of his children
walking in Terra Incognita.

His skin, Lo, to the stars;
Our hands yearned to touch the celestial freckles,
outstretched to feel the fibres of God;
And like our limbs, so did God outstretch,
his flesh, but space; suffusing within the translucent contours of the cosmos.

To be told we were made in the image of God, is to be deceived;
Our childish conjecturing, truly a theorem to be displaced,
Our augmented minds, illuminated;
An aureole behind our heads,
We became biblical as we touched lips by the mantelpiece.

collateral damage
Broken ,
i look at the shards of mirror
A lifetime shattered into instances
laden in heartbreak of broken memories
bloodstained fingerprints
walk in vain across the surface
In futility
desperate attempts to mend a broken heart,
But stabbed again, by the edges of infidelity
Slicing ridges , reminders  , of those painful memories
Corralling the few wonderful ones
each splinter of glass,
holds yet another series of events , in the story of a lifetime
Unable to mend
Just like this broken heart
collateral damage , to another broken past " on the mend "
For that's all a broken heart is ,
is little pieces of " reflections " that still " cut you " whenever your soul reaches out to touch ....

~

What is it that always brings
my thoughts back to you,
which seems a strange thing to ask
because they never seem to leave
regardless of what I might see
during the many hours
of my day

Open or closed eyes,
heat of the moment
or laid back and relaxed,
it is you that I am always
thinking about

Traffic jams stacked
with blowing horns,
exhaust fumes
and frustrated fist shakes
or slow drives on country roads,
windows down
on a cool spring day
with the radio playing

Long check out lines
at the super market
corralling crying children
(close to the candy)
fighting over the best seat
in the shopping cart
or a quick in and out
at a convenience store
for a cold six pack
and a bag of chips

Work, (need I say more)
which requires a certain
amount of concentration,
attending meetings and
going over spread sheets
or a day off piddling
around the workshop
building or fixing something
that doesn't really need to be
built or fixed

No matter what occupies my day
it is always you who occupies my mind
So, what is it that always brings
my thoughts back to you…
well, I guess my thoughts of you
would have to leave once in a while
for me to figure that one out

Corralling my senses,
Rolling slot machines,
Softly purring words that disintegrate into empty promises,
Forget it, I'll end up smoking alone anyway.

Know your worth, what you stand for
Even what you sit for,
My *** hurts from the concrete stoop you left me on
Just a pack of cigarettes?

It's the final word,
Finally focusing,
What brought me here in the first place.

Love lost, love gained, love dropped
For the bright lights of a Vegas skyline

"No", to answer your question

"We can't be friends."

The new one is a nurse,
Ironic really.

you tell yourself to
get out, just go
buy a beer, walk
around, but these
people still look
lifeless and you
end up having to
chaperone a field
trip to the local
dance bar,
corralling drunk
adults into corners
realizing that these
people have no
agenda other than
to touch you or
fight, what a
silly notion
to believe that
it would be any other
way--worst of all,
April is there,
probably March,
June and July, too.

People tell me that things will get better
to trust my gut and hum my songs.
But to waste goes all I've tried and done
left in deep dark drains and pitiful pits.

I envision my endeavours in magical colours
that seems so mundane, that haven't been
discovered.
And writing my dreams on a bland blank sheet
it feels so incomplete.

I cross my heart and swear
I swear
that the pieces I create shall be priceless and
timeless.
And that whatever lays in the far-fetched future
will only be sparkles and glitter-full glory.

With the rackety clack of a Newton's cradle
I live on in envy of what I have created.
My eyes are shut
so I can see
a myopic view of me.

Like Icarus who fell so far
my ambitions fly close to the sun.
The Phantom whose love was stolen
away
left trapped in a Box 5.


I drive myself to my greater potential
Like Jason and his Argonauts.
The insanity of such greatness is flattering
and absolutely morale flattening.

I keep my thoughts in stasis
pulling them
apart and piecing them back
the creativity of lego pieces
infinite

Corralling my inspirations
like Noah on his Ark.
The warnings given days too early
and now I hold naught

but the night hallucinations that
keep me going
and the sun in the dusk sky

M
My ugly M: two lonely
crescent wings touching the sun,
an  Icarus mounting up,
than melting into the whirl;
the waterfall between mountains;
caterpillars kissing like
moths fluttering to the light.

OY
O- a strawberry, orange
just ripe for a thumb to squish;
a lasso, not a noose;
a good herd dog corralling
Y- to M to A; my tongue;
or the necktie that makes the
suit of my name, my place here.

A
A- the tadpole in the marsh,
the eye searching for the nose,
the hurricane kissing land,
the alpha inside the all,
acknowledging the end
is not the start, nor circle,
but the tail seeking the future.