Poetry is like a *****
in its wobbly, dangly freeness
(This poems not the cleanest so stop reading if you're a little squeamish)

Some have it, some don't
some use it, some won't
some like it awkward with a twist at the end
like a shakespearean couplet but on the person it depends

for others its merely secondary
(oh but always necessary)
to the holder - their Mars or Venus
So, as god is my witness,
poetry is a *****

Mercies at  juxtapositional refinement
Abandoned constitutional confinement
Handshakes on the bridged ligaments

The sweet melodious serene dreams fleets
One after the other like peculiar inventions
The mellow scenes of frames realignments

Wonderful crafted words verses paradigm
Harmonic jazz awesomeness, decode freeness
Orchestral spontaneity drills pragmatic energy

Yet, as the gingered steams rise from the hot brew
The scented breeze of life vaticinates with a smile afar
Whispers of "no obligation, no expectations" reverbs..... on and on....on and on

You leave the dingy room 333 and walk
Out onto ***** honeycomb patterned carpet stretching
Down the infinite hall towards an open door
Where the housekeeper’s cart is parked
She emerges from behind the stacks of folded towels and ***** blankets
Body younger than it looks somehow she’s smiling in wrinkles of a sunken, toothless mouth
yet underneath the image is an original warmth untouched by a thousand years of junk
You say hello in passing and then onward down the steps covered with plastic
The ***** yellow carpet stains so worn they’ve become part of the design
A window overlooks a courtyard where junkies lay nodding in the sun
The girl at the front desk eyes you half suspicious as you slip out the door and into streets
of Denver where mountains loom in distant vistas obscured by skyscrapers
appearing as solemn watchers uncorrupted, beckoning some strange recognition
You remember your friend saying that the mountains play tricks, cast illusions
Stories of weary travelers confounded by the mountains, lost for days
Weather changing rapidly as buildings rising new construction in the city
You walk past the capital, past the U.S. mint, past the park where bums sleep or stare blankly
Openly with eyes dark as Moroccan hashish looking for a point of entry
A word you missed, a fumbled thought, a dropped coin
This will happen:
You will lock eyes with a man sitting on the cement, his hand gently resting
On an old rusted toolbox
He calls you over, more incantation than command
Says he’s got what you need
He opens up the box and calls you closer
Look
A box of uncut crystals shining in the high altitude
He smiles with a jagged and decayed knowing
You decline yet something insists you need these crystals
These stolen gypsy gems somehow imbued with meaning
Glittering in the sunlight in the park in the old worn out face like chewed leather
Glistening like the clear air rising up above the smell of **** and water seared meat and *****
You walk among the blind alleys where junkies shift and shuffle like shadows rearranging
They themselves part of the scenery, part of the alley backdrop and rattling train track sounds
You’re passing by and one calls out: “Don’t let ‘em tell ya I didn’t say live your life, son”
You look back and see a huddled shadow tying off beside a chain link fence
He’s looking right at you with perfect insect calm, features out of focus, dull and grey
You pass the scene in silence and feel the eyes of hunger casting subliminal fuzz down the alley
At midnight you will drink tequila in your room and hear the endless car noise of the city
While you sit smoking out the window staring at the brick wall and down into the alley below
Where windows of the hostel open up and your friend said once there was a woman
In the opposite room ******* and he took off all his clothes and they stood naked
Looking at one another from opposite windows but he never went across the hall to meet her
You will laugh and be amazed and get drunk
As the driving beat of car stereos, bass and hip-hop incantations rise up through the splintered window frame yellow like decay
You’ll sit out on the street corner smoking
A gigantic hash joint
Passing it back and forth
Denver’s finest
As you listen to the shrill harmony
Of the corner night club filled with glitter and women and alcohol all spilling out into the streets
& you will watch them all go running, howling, yelling, screaming, laughing, *******, and
spreading out like fireworks across a vast empty space
The cars that never end
Choked out exhaust and marijuana smoke twisting in the midnight air rising up untouchable where the mountain breezes cap the city
& penetrates the human circus all around you
You will disappear up the hostel steps returning
Higher than you’ve ever been before
Each step, each movement you are disappearing
Melting into the smoke-tinged plaster
Your pulse is in your footfalls there
Among the honeybees and hexagons
Your breath beat in rhythms of your skull
After an impossible moment
You arrive back at your room, 333
The demon door more unfamiliar
This will happen
You’ll go inside and lock the door
Knowing you have the fear
Raw and powerful
Pure animal chemical reaction
Every tissue and fiber now opposed
To the very situation, the very fact of existence, of
Immediate dislocation in space/time
Alien moments here in Colorado hostel room
Where junkies sit in vegetable stasis
Feeling nothing whatsoever
& there’s a needle hidden in the room somewhere
Your friend says not to worry man
& what did you expect anyway?
“Yeah it’s kind of a flophouse”
“Just throw it out the window”
You take a long deep breath and look
Into a mirror you see your form reflected
As your friend pulls out his friend, the trusty map
And there, emblazoned in ****** letters
Denver
The very words looks sinister
Denver
Written in ****** words of ******
You try to realize what you came here for
Not this
& breathing deeply you lay upon the bed
The too-thin mattress covered in plastic
& think of home
A lifetime & world of roads away
You seek to abandon all you know
And become attuned to the rhythmic engine of sound
You will become filled with desire and yet completely empty
Cockroach needle empty park wind howling distant peaks sculpted valleys
Self-reliant water smell pity bums like silent watchers in the night
Nature spreads her view of time in silent moments
Stillness in the room
In the spaces between sounds
In the fear of comfort separation
In the freeness of creation
In the wild faith of travel
In the foreign teachings
***** steps and office buildings
In the bars and libraries
In the hostel *******
In the wholly new experience
In the squalor of the uncontrollable
In the corridor passing like a phantom
In the stones and cactus flowers
In the romance of the body
Eager to pass through
Into this new dream
Tomorrow we are heading for the mountains

The rattle is shaken and life becomes unfixed
Torrential rains cascades downwards on ancient bricks
These stunning moments have been rediscovered
In wonder all is flustered in awe as the state of silence honks
Love creeps out of tune in time, the unsureness of cold feet
The voice fades, the toned whispers continually erased
Stormed and soaked, stilled and stalked by a heart that stole my dream
Drenched in uncertainty, non-favouring multitudes won't let me be
These flutters flattens and deflated, I stroll and I will not run
The floating fun fares vanishes, the morning bird furnishes
The time capsule evaporated, unstripped and frozen

Ohh, how I wished to plant and harvest inspiration
Wake up with a renewed breath of air, the flowing river
Of the days when the gloom masked, I hated what life had become
How could humanity be so self centred and selfish?
I looked for silence and the banging never ceased
The masses rushed, never to let me be, they snatched my freedom
I inhaled the hope of the freeness and longed for the racing momentums

How so?
That over time the weather collapsed to coldness, the darkness marbled
A nag of the songbirds, as I escaped in the ****** ozone layer
A disconnect of the mind, body and soul; when I saw my spirit sail
A snail sailing on its own course and journey slowly but steady
Reflections and visions of the timeline of growth and fertility
A heart of one, the soul of all, the mind of many, a tongue in sums
The chandelier hanged on a ceiling, high, holding the flickering bulbs
A condense of energy, the modelled nature of a prognostic intervention
A laughter and synergy rests in the symphony of the unsung melodies

Oh baby –
We were doomed from day one.

Though we weren’t in the Jazz age,
and we weren’t in the modern age,
We were in the age of us.

Wings on my eyelashes,
A silky robe around my shoulders,
You wore a vest and a tee shirt—
Indulged in cowboy bohemia;
God, it was ****.

Oh baby, we thought we were unstoppable
We drank too much
Met new people by liquid courage
And found fearlessness suited us well.
We harnessed the trade winds
and went where we wanted.

Interest and innovation embedded in curiosity;
In art and newness and literature and truth.
Calling ******* like we saw it
We were entitled and young and free
No restraints
And hey, maybe that was the problem.

The problem with freeness
Is running and running and running
Until you forget what you’re running towards
And instead find
You’re actually running from.

Oh baby-
We were doomed from day one
We just didn’t know it yet.
I’m just too tired to run anymore.

I could have been like Zelda.
Tired from the facade,
Strong and petrified at the same time,
Finding distractions in every part of life
That made me forget we weren’t as free as we thought we were.

God, Baby—
Didn’t you know we were doomed
From the very first day we met?
I suppose I should thank you:
Thanks for breaking my heart;
You saved me from breaking my own.

I could have been like Zelda.

Glazed faces running fearless in the harvest forest
The brush of the rising crops tingles on the skin
We drop down lying head to head
Following planes with our fingers in the sky.

Your reflection inside mimics my stance outside
Where the smoke from my cigarette
Turns into clouds above my head
Masking the light from the full moon that shines elusively bright.

Distance is crawling between us
Stealing our monumental past
It pollutes our freeness in speech.
Sorrow cant be fixed by ice cream
A day off where i let my mind indulge in far away dreams.

Your voice that was sweet music
Is now NOISE.
I close the bathroom door and wish we were in a book of prose
Where we play faces and turn into toys of mad creation.

Confounded by the notion-
tough calls made by high hitters
holy rollers
pushing perps towards methods
needles and thread
heart of lead
logs split the stems of the reasons,
sob stories, trust issues
daddy problems
it's all the same
to some
the proletariat
guilty and prestigious
what a winning combo
lacked freeness, full of this knowledge
can't write worth a ****
**** poor,
not anymore
since passion was absorbed
a dried up, muddy ******
spring is coming! spring is coming!
One if by land
you if by me.

one day, I'll sit
and explain
each and every line
I'll weave a tale
of every heretical thought
that crossed my mind
I'll describe the emotions
that clawed their way
through my chest
Alien like
and came to rest
upon a page
sage like
in its green(ness)
Exhalting in its freeness

Yes, one day I will explain
and until that day
read what you can
take what interpretation
that gets you though
the gelatinous mass
that is Life
One day, I'll explain
until then
let's pretend
we got through this
together.....

A chronic disharmony
clutching at the skull inside my flesh and the stomach unfurling in a perfect illusionary storm

sometimes i would wonder if i would see them in the street or what they would say about me and gasp in pain as the tyrants who lived in my belly chuckled at the residual aftershocks from an event that passed , at the height of it's rule , just over a year ago.

slowly with each breath i breathe i bring myself to a place of still resourcefulness
to react to that situation in a way that does not impale my sense of self nor rob me of my right to be
and that is my freeness
that only I can bestow unto me.

I. nope.



II.
long-windedness verbosity
diffuseness prolixity
wordiness rambli­ng
circuity discursiveness
redundancy tautology
tediousness verbi­age
verboseness length
longevity permanence
garrulity windiness
v­olubility circumlocution
expansiveness babbling
periphrasis gushi­ng
blathering protractedness
waffling lengthiness
iteration repet­ition
prating prattling
jabbering digressiveness
dreariness tediu­m
deadliness wandering
repetitiousness repetitiveness
pleonasm co­nvolution
logorrhoea boringness
maundering superfluity
duplicatio­n tiresomeness
monotony reiteration
gabbiness informality
mouthin­ess diffusion
logorrhea wordage
blah-blah dryness
dullness boredo­m
sameness loquaciousness
talkativeness loquacity
freeness orotun­dity
roundaboutness breadth
gobbledegook gassiness
wittering mult­iloquence
perissology big mouth
gift of the gab garrulousness
staleness tallness

What I love about music is its flow
What I hate about traffic is the stillness
What I love about trees is their stature
What I hate about crowds is the suffocation
What I love about movies is the ending
What I hate about time is AN ending
What I love about movement is the freeness
What I hate about walls is division
What I love about you is who you are
What I hate about silence is it’s confusion
What I love about rain is the freshness it brings
What I hate about destruction is the aftermath
What I love about horses is their soft inquisitive noses
What I hate about ignorance is ignorance
What I love about love is its safety
What I hate about travel is the distance
What I love about fresh sheets is the crispness
What I hate about wet jeans is the smell
What I love about meal times is the sharing
What I hate about taking is the selfishness
What I love about dogs is their unconditional love

Atrocities, pain and loss watered down by the last iced libation tossed.
Sun-brightened poolside I testify my own shames and glossed-over accomplishments.
Stranger danger no longer a social cost.
In that moment, my essence is captivated by a pair of hazel green sparkled soul-catchers,
a fleeting glance,
an alluring stranger...Her soul says I look familiar and took a chance.
It has to be in this moment,
She calls to explore me,
but still has walls to ignore me, before I know the depth of this moment...an angel falls before me.
This unfathomable deep breath of chance,
she waves to shore me,
a hand to keep me soft from loss that has me off.
She looks past my conditions.
Lips betwixt, hips bewitched, this mysterious mistress in my time by the sea.
She, like a siren, calms me,
gently calls me witness the start of a new day.
Her freeness bonds to me,
I can't stay away.
Freckles on every inch,
her long lines, auburn waves and soft smile,
struggling to touch as much of us together as can be done during a clutch and clinch.
My heart's guards throw down their arms and abandon their post.
I am left with all the things I want to say about how I feel and who you are and what matters most.
This shall not be and does not come to pass.
We stay up too late and drink to much.
Our hearts are silenced by the coast.
We know so well who we are,
and can see we will not break our own hearts to make it last.
Like two wildly different cut jigsaw pieces,
we fit together well,
but from them, the big picture of the puzzle,
still too hard to tell.
We don't believe the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus exist, but that amazing first touch, dance and kiss was and did, none the less.
During this leeward part when the storm dropped,
my heart pressed against your heart, time stopped...
flew the sparks before the dark.
We left our marks, but in the end,
a pin drop and a bag full of question marks.
Because our lives, our hearts and our experience are so tightly rolled up into an abyss,
life has taught us we hit far, far less than we miss.
You never truly define what you think about me or how you feel.
And looking back, perhaps not me to thee.
I do know it was quality time,
was real time spent,
you were present...
I am still driven by your scent.
I only hope, for now, you smile a lot,
the time we spent is not forgot,
and all that was captured between us, remains caught.
For me, it was all that comes attached to 10,000 freckles, 4 softly-scented curves, two emerald-gemed soulcatchers, one spontaneous smile and a sunrise…
For me, that's a lot.

By R. Craig David-Copyright 2017

its funny how we are in the same city now, yet I feel the farthest I have ever felt. we drift our separate ways with the constant hum of traffic and the rising heat. something between us is unsettling, the friction stings and my body grows empty and gray when I leave your sight. But when the grayness passes and my time of being unacknowledged and mistreated is over. I know the freeness of before and with each pedal on the sidewalk and the bumps in the pavement, I grow stronger. the cuts you've left inside my walls begin to heal and the palm trees stand tall against the California sunset.

Two beds making an L shape.
The shape we'd made.
The LOVE of you.
Two rugs making a V shape.
The shape we'd made
The VISION of you.
Two covers making a C Shape.
The shape we'd made.
The CLOSENESS of you.

One window making an F space.
The shape you've made.
The FREENESS of you.
One sky making a B shape.
The shape you've made.
The BEAUTY of you.
One heaven making an A shape.
The shape you've made.
The ANGEL of you.

No thoughts making an E space.
The shape I've made.
The ENERGY of you.
No mirrors making a G space.
The shape I've made.
The GHOST of you.
No dreams making an M space.
The shape I've made.
The MEMORY of you.

Mocking bird singing through my window
Pecking at the seeds of my sweet smelling flowers
Hopping up the vines of the wall, He hums my mistake again
Tranquil rest of the leaves is taken by the wind of His wings
His freeness is my cage
Never able to feel His beauty fully
Only an empty glimpse
One day, He says I will show you
And you will be amazed
Doubting He’s even really here
I continue existing until He comes again in a little way
And I pause to see His trueness

8 years old
We're told "you're too young to unlearn how to smile and hate the world"

8 years from now on
You'll forget the art of care freeness
and little girls

So 6 young hearts
Kick start
And venture into
A labyrinth
Of question marks

Mischievous
Wide-eyed
We had nothing to hide
Our smiles were bonafide...

We dreamed of superpowers
Meteor showers
Climbing towers
Magic, meremaids
Flying ships
And finding home

In our unlock golden coffer
All we had was love to offer
A currency that once was just enough....
Guess we grew up

Theses days
We've ceased
To give
A frail and feeble ****
We've got new better plans

Crystal clear
Each year
Since June of 2010
We've grown cavalier
And bland

We used to dance in rainstorms
Fight our battles, win the whole world
We spoke in flames
And held hands while we burn

Now all we ever do is *****
Apathy, we mop it
With apologises  
I'm sorry's
I worry..... I worry,
We grew up

Things have changed
And minds have aged

We're so far in this infeasible maze

When did black and white decide
To propagate
Cause everything now seems so.... Gray

We've forgotten the beats of our own drums
We've lost touch in tunes we used to hum
We smell of sin

And no longer bubblegum
Our season is yet to come

We're houses with water stained walls
We're standing
But no longer tall
When did we stop having a ball, I don't recall
I don't re-call

Here... We are
So far
We've walked a lonely road
We're like nomads finding home

But some-where far inside
The 8 year old resides
Whispering "you'll be alright"

So let us live
Let live
Forgive and hope we don't
Fail the souls we used to know

Let's walk each other home
Little souls please don't let go
The unknown is ours to roam
Our little souls will walks us
Home

I have forgotten you.
The smell of the fresh, brisk, mornings.
The feelings when I saw your beauty.
I have forgotten the love, the hope.
Two years have past and I still miss you so.
Even though the feelings are gone I will never forget you.
Your magic as it grasped my heart.
Your freeness as it helped me live.
I miss the way you brought me joy, the way you made me smile.
I hope to soon meet you again.
So I can once more,
make these forgotten memories, reality.

My body language resembled it's own comfort.
It was not preached to me,
although she is attacked,
for those who can not connect with her usual.
Her comfort is a barrier,
created by unacceptance.

I see him,
unclean face, alcohol soothes over his lip.
Perfect symmetry.
With a stumble over his left foot,
his presence was affront my uneasiness.
He speaks a tale of how he reads me,
how he can discover me.
How each syllable spit off his tongue,
craves my body.
He states "my kind" are more appealing lacking voice,
with our legs a distance from another.

I am scolded.
I am scolded for my lack in ability.
They do not know,
I was never taught,
No one is.
One leg is demanded to lay over the other.
The curriculum reads it to be so.
"Your kind is in a lack of grace."

Someone close,
sits aside my quivering body.
Everyone seemed to express immense
freeness.
I was unaware of this comfort.
"Let your legs breathe for a change."

"My kind" is not righted to
the feelings of openness or security.
All for the positioning of the lower part of the body.
Open for a drunken hand to slip where
it mustn't reach,
Closed for the restoration of grace in a society.

My kind is a doorway to be used by the world.

the wind is hitting my face
my heart is beating so fast out of my chest
i’m trying to catch my breath
i have sweat running down my spine all the way down to my legs

the waves are splashing me
more water on my damp body
can’t tell what is sweat and what is salt water

but i’m running and i’m running
by the beach
listening to my favorite music
going along with the beat

tell me,
what else am i supposed to feel except for freeness?

Were you
afraid
at all

When your
feelings strayed
so far from
your solipsistic
logic?

Free will:
the beauty
to deliberately
decide a choice
and act
accordingly
-illusory-

But the
freeness is
difficulty and
desperation

Cross eyes in the moment and shackle the breath
Sleep is a cousin to death
Fall through the warm ice and float to the deep
Death is a cousin to sleep

Live moons in your promise and hope not to be woken
Eyes stuck with stories are eyes shut wide open
Crawl through the chasms, look up the fire fog
And grow through your mind, drink in deep of your grog

Don’t listen to voices that part with their weep
Death is a cousin to sleep
Their freeness will split you and make words of your breath
Sleep is a cousin to death

my dreams filled with you still haunt me.
they fill my night visions,
and eat up my freeness from thought about you.

Wintry wind

singing a song with coldness

kneading feelings

hides gently in a backpack

a small umbrella

cannot stop the scenery along the way

the smiling soil

the dancing grass

anxious sirens

are the concerto of time

life in a hurry

in a city

in between freeness and complication

a trace of calmness

is precious.

Getting out of bed is a feat some days
I just want to sleep some days
To get away. From the noise of the world

The guilt
The expectations
The intrusive memories of pain & blame that whisper loudly through my shame

The painstaking loudness is consuming and immense
It drains me of my lifeforce, my freeness, my subsistence

But I tread through the dark whirling water
I swim opposite the fierce tidal current, trying not to falter
If I let myself sink it will be too difficult to clear the heavy sandpapery water from my lungs

I see the light in brief gasps of red as I tread the voices in my head

Dysfunctional. Defective. Dead. like a battery
But I’m still Living. Operating. Performing.

Performing for most, a glimmer of a smile and a happy anecdote

But not all, not all of the Someones

I found the ones who breathe air into my tired lungs
The ones who offer me refuge on their lifeboats of truth
So that I may rest my weary body when I am too tired and it's too foggy

I heal, I recharge, I feel steady on their barge
Only then do I return to the waters
On my own
Maintaining
Building up
Becoming more resilient with each wave

As my foot slips off the edge,
I feel my body let go.

The initial panic
is met with a contrasting sense of calm.
A calmness that reminds me
why I stepped so close to the edge
in the first place.

Release— my soul, my mind, my body.
I am finally free,  and in this moment
I am weightless.

As I fly, I fall farther away
from the overwhelming madness
that consumes me.

With every gasp of hard air,
I am brought closer to a world
where my worries become peace.

Just as I close my eyes,
embracing the complete darkness,
the complete freeness,
I am moments away from meeting
I feel a sharp yank
that pulls me back up.

Reeling me in,
like a fish,
not wanting to be caught.

I did not ask to be saved.
I did not want to be saved.

My mind fills quickly with the madness
that was erased moments ago.

I feel the weight of my limbs and my troubles,
and I feel pain.

As I am lifted back onto the edge,
the calmness leaves me ,
and I am met with shocking anxiety
and sorrow.

I am bound yet again,
no longer free.

But they will say
that I am saved.

In this house we do not know flexibility,
Neither do we experience any real tranquility...

We turn down willing love that is given in freeness,
We get by pretending this is purely ingenius...

In this house we do not bow to any,
A disdained nod is more than plenty...

Solitary is the place we live,
Because it’s an inch we just won’t give...

Now arrived the hour of the crash before the fall,
Who now will be standing tall?

The realization of this preoccupation is all in the dysfunctional imagination,
Until too late do we not get the true interpretation...

If the abode of haughty pride is where you spend your  every day,
Remember please at the end the bill is hefty that you’ll have to pay...


J.I.F.

Proverbs 16:18,19
Pride is before a crash, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.  19 Better to be humble among the meek Than to share the spoil of the haughty.

You are too stingy with yourself my dear,
let me have a slice,at least two slices of you.
Let me savour you, allow me to salivate into your wholeness. Let me drool and lust into your experiences.
Your joys let me have a sip, your sorrows let me have a bit.
Your care freeness, entrust it into my strong hands.
Let me know what clogs you, chokes you and simmers you. Let me ride in your strength, and measure the depth of your sorrow.
Let me light the darkened soul candle and quiten your heart thunders,
Just let me in,
into your soul,
So that I can see the world through your eyes,
Taste the waters with your tongue, and know how roses smell to you.
Let me know how pain feels to your, and probably I will know why I misunderstand you