"Cash, Grass or ***-No One Rides Free!"*
reads the bumper-sticker slapped on the ratty Harley.
Its black leather seat is cracked, tattered and torn,
the headlight is busted and there's no friggin' horn;
with mismatched saddlebags strapped to each side,
the panhead leaks like a sieve, but it's still quite a ride.

The gas-tank is dented, scratched and coated with muck,
the chrome no longer shines, but who gives a flyin' ****?
Its tires are bald, the spokes are all rusted to ****,
and the frame is off-kilter from a cage-driver'*****.

The biker just puffed the last hit from his pipe,
slammed down the rest of the J.D. from the bash last night;
then he hops on his hog, kicks the monster to start,
the muffler-pipes blast flames and roar like a ****.

Together they roll down the road like old pals,'
with nowhere to go, just obnoxious and loud:
the tombstone tail-light flashes bright red on this mess,
'though Cashless, Grassless and Assless, they couldn't care less!

In the driest times of my life.

When the days were young
and the skies were clear,
You stood at the midst
of grassless plains and soulless trails,
of footprints made by one
who had none at all
but his void of a heart.
Sick, depressed;
waiting for his demise,
his very own destruction.

but,

You were like rain pouring
to quench a desert's thirst.

You were like wind blowing
upon still and quiet pastures.

You were like fire burning,
consuming until nothing -
was none at all.

You were something.

until

Your winds blew harder
and Your sails grew wider;
until the shine in Your eyes
could be seen no more.

I grew weary,
tired of being a vessel so empty.

I could not run away,
because at every end —
and at every stop —

I would always find myself
wanting for more of You.

I may not be your destination,
but I know that You are mine.

I will always find myself
coming back to You.


The dreamer dreams
of nightmares too
of visions,  so clear
so bright and blue
But we always know
that dreams end too
too late to say that—

I Love You.

Mean Windows

Mean windows
Small light
Mean architect
Limited budget
& imagination
Half-light estate
Small curtains
Mean windows
Early dusk
No street-light
Glass broken
Doors boarded
Mean windows
Clint Eastwood eyes
Tagged & Flagged
Grassless
Concrete gardens
Brown and grey acres
Mean windows
Closed shops
Citizens Advice
Misery
With chips
And mean windows
With small curtains
Saving on glass
Costs light

Dimwitted cloves squashed before they developed four leaves.
Other foliage in the family constantly grieves.
Devoured and left sore
By a local herbivore

Cattle herded for the purpose of prolonged life
No more slaughtered at the point of a knife.
Living free in grassless fields
Farmland now hardly yields

Dietary concerns carefully balanced,
Finding you’re nutritionally challenged
Told its time to drop the meat
And pick up a steak made of beet.

People ask why do I love them
And I ponder how to answer…

My love for thee is a tree:
I know not why I grow here.
I know only I found what I needed
For my roots to go deep,
My leaves to bolster in radiance;
I drink and am filled.

But not only for me do I grow
For now the deer have shade
And bark to muse during grassless winter
And homes for squirrels to run about.

Like Elves I am to
those small creatures:
Near timeless, near immortal,
Tall and Slender, ever reaching.

Yet I too must fall,
For I shall grow weary
Of stretching to the sky, and
Digging into the Depths of the Earth.

To the very earth that nurtured me
I bequeath my wealth
e’er morn someday I shall go hollow
When my love has fulfilled me whole.

So I say to thee
When she ask of me
Why I love her so
‘I am the tree
And she thee
Earth and Sun
That let me grow.’

The rains came.
No matter.
The Irish kids with Hebrew names
still took to the lot behind the redbrick
apartments to play a close-quarters
game of baseball.
From home plate to first base
the distance was ten yards.
From first to second, fifteen.
Runners placed one hand
on a rusted iron pole, once
used as one half of a clothesline,
a makeshift third.
Their frequency of play
rendered the space between
bases grassless.
And in the rain on that September
day, the lines became sludge.
The muck claimed shoes
of earnest feet, badged the
legs of the best hitters.
Hey batta. Hey batta.
Thunder overhead and
all around.
A lean, blonde-haired
boy, all legs and arms,
got a piece of the ball
on his first pitch.
Upward into the clouds,
upward into the invisible.
He took first, started for
second.
The others kept waiting
for the ball to come back
down.

Crescendo rising to torture the orchestral lull
Broke backed break beats, hound the exhumed hull
Waltzing off with the sounds of silver
Revoked in half measures by a cold sweat shiver
……………………………………………………………………………………
The aft bowed to its keel,
Scorpion shaped contorted steel.
It’s crescent figure draped on the horizon
Lulled to sleep by the house paid siren.
……………………………………………………………………………………
Sloppy soaked balsa kicks back reverence through the feed
Cracks in crackling, evident of disintegration in the reed.
……………………………………………………………………………………
Poppy poked ventricles provoke elegance through need
Rats in shackling, petulant for the absolution required to concede
……………………………………………………………………………………
Unbuckling at middays light
Caustically aware of approaching night
Collective need provokes a search for a scout
No one wants to leave their stash in the middle of a drought
……………………………………………………………………………………
Crashed and burned on grassless shoals
A boat full of users without goals
Left to withdrawal on barren land,
Hollow shores of endless sand

In 1988 we moved to a very small town in South Texas.   It took us a while to get use to. My parents finally trusted my brother and I to venture out alone in this small town.  So here we go!  On our bikes we zipped down the dirt road and finally made it to a paved road.  The road was fresh with new asphalt and gravel. I could see bubbles of tar expand in the heat. They would pop as we would run over them.  We soon found ourselves at the town V.F.W building.  Behind it was a small lake.  My brother and I couldn't wait to explore all the new found trails.  One Saturday morning we took it upon ourselves to do just that. At the back of the lake was a small water fall! It was so full of wonder!  The water that fell formed a small clear pool below. A small clear stream ran slowly away from the pool.  We went further into the woods where the trails no longer guided us.  We discovered that this small lake was being fed by a creek that ran from the East side of town.  We could see the fish below the clear water creek. We then came upon a grassless area filled with dead leaves.  It reminded us of the fall in the youngest of summers.  The trees seem to block out most of the sunlight.  Only through the cracks in the dancing leaves would the sun dance under the shadow.  Most all the trees look the same.  All but one.  At the center of all shadow was a huge, thick, dark barked tree that seem to be the overseer of this place.  It was not very tall but rather very wide and thick.  It look like something out of a haunted forest.  It had very few leaves.  The leaves themselves seem to almost glow in the shadow.  We then saw strange animals that were not native to the area.  They all seem to disappear within the tree almost becoming a part of it.  We then hurried back home to show our Father what we had found.  The next day we took him out only to discover the tree was gone.  No sign of it whatsoever.  My brother and I swore to him that we had found it!  I am now a man myself and every now and again I venture out to that location.   I think one day I will see it again.

Red tongues lap at the black expanse above
With such a solemn viciousness the embers dance skyward
Tiny blazing bodies fleeing to the Heavens
From molten veins through charred crusts crumbling
Dark smoke glows before the sky stumbling plumes and intricate ballet spirals
Engulfing more and more the flames and smoke
Choking the blackened skeleton dancing through the beams like bones
The body of the house
The innards reduced to dust
The scene is captured in unblinking eyes, two great fire filled suns
A sombre popping sound emits past the roaring heat static
Expensive couch, cheap cushions, hours wasted choosing
Burning and shrivelling items that they had afforded so much time
Destroyed and gone forever
Singed leaves drift from their life giver’s arms and crackle into the inferno -
High above the scorched earth
A grassless ash pile growing slowly
The blaze radiates an orange glow over the surrounding domiciles
Visible from a far, the smoke more absolute than the night sky.

Without bricks, wood, plaster, concrete
Out alone – self ejected into the world
Heavy feet dragging across the street with light steps
Creaking beams collapsing behind the way wolves bay from the trees
And from the end of the street the flames appear blood red
As if terra firma had been lashed open
Arteries of molten fire
Festering scabs of ash
Torched from under the flesh of air casting coal colour veins
Further and further the slowly diminishing frame fades
And the streets open up to dark distant sentinels
Flanking the road and watching densely and unflinching  
There are flames in the night air
History burning with a bonfire smell
Sirens wailing a crescendo of blaring blue light to meet the hellish glow

What is it that the wail of our voice
has given us
in the stamp of days lurching forward
on the damp streets, eyes upon our feet,
omitting the faces
reflected in this glass grown in our hands
and thickened skies over the oceans clot
of war’s nectar, man’s squander,
while mountains give way to unconscious
machines; voices, wooden with a thick green-love?

What is it that the wail of our voice
has given us,
that the march of a grassless plain
or an iceless crest cannot sign;
we gauge their descent like a killer,
set to be forgiven sins we’ll soon commit
as pointed fingers wag at the surging breach
leaning its majesty over the dampened sun.

Were we split or shaken by qualms and quarrels,
Quaked from boughs in bushels no longer cherished;
Were we rocked from resting upon our laurels,
Laureates perished,

Sense would part from substance, go unattended,
Try to sense itself, but not sensing ever;
Substance lacking sense would be left unmended,
Parted forever:

Blue apart from sky, for the air was looted;
Red not rock nor flame nor a beating bloodline;
Grassless green, the sod and the seed uprooted;
Light without sunshine;

Heat without the sun's heavy tide of summer;
Sweet without a tongue nor a licking lapping;
Beat without the blow of the drum, nor drummer
Steadily clapping.

Could you bear to tear our ownselves asunder?
Rather, let us bend at the laurel lightly,
Quiver little to strain not the bough whereunder
Fasten us tightly.

Why so many ignorant sheep
In this grassless land
Depression does not come cheap

It is not a joke or a tale
It is a fact that is uncontrollable
No matter how many
Meds or lonely whails
When all else fails
Don't you dare doubt my mental state
I do not fake
This burden
This demon
And don't you doubt
I've tried it all
And don't you compare
To those who didn't choose to fall
Because depression is out of your control
It takes ahold of your soul
Eats it's up and spits it out
I wouldn't lie about such a curse
Don't you dare look at me with doubt.

Before...

Before I knew you my hands were rocks and appendages, taped on by meaningless tendons that had never been cleansed by the limestone of your body or soothed by the balm you call skin or held by the soft feathers you call hands. Boring globs, my hands were, before I had caressed your milky world of a body, or slid my hand along your rollings hills and curves only to stop at your speckled cheek to feel your sunset of a face, blushing without absence and nuzzling into my own longing for more, your eyes meeting my own.

Before...

Before I knew you my tongue was a sand dune of sadness, wallowing in it's dampened hills waiting to emerge and meet your own in a luscious sandstorm of lust and beauty and dance until water need course its way along our throats and hydrate us allowing our tango to continue its way through an invisible dance-room, stepping to an unheard beat, lapping along your own red room and protruding its way out and onto the nape of your silky neck.

Before...

Before I knew you my eyes were meaningless pools of mud, glancing for miles along empty shores and welling with nonexistent tears that need not flow along coarse cheeks. These irises had never perceived beauty such as yours at this time, only stared into meaningless faces and seen the truth of my personal planet; empty and filled with nothing. They had only stared into cloudless skies and seen grassless dirt, of which they attempted to blend, to become one with an unnecessary hovel of which I called home. My eyes had never conceived the idea of pondering such beauty. Only when doing so did they grow in size, until bursting became preferable, exploding in a wave of passion that would spread throughout my entire body leaving me with a feeling of unmet longing.

Before...

Before I knew you my body was a slab of dirt, muddled by the world which I've walked, crying out to be held and loved. How it longed to be caressed and scratched upon the surface by claws of beauty and hands of birds, flying along my own skin and moving through my wondrous sky without hesitance. Only to plummet down and have us fall into each-others bodies, meeting and colliding in a ying-yang and circling in a whirlwind of which no one can stop and catch a breath, gasping for air only to be greeted by the loving hold of a mouth upon each own, and to continue this dance, silk upon silk, cleaning the dirt of a muddled slab and allowing me to feel pure in your holiness.

Before..

Before I knew you my heart was a drum that had never been smacked with wooden sticks, awoken by the sound of a snare that echoes endlessly, only to be heard by you. That echo remained un-followed, waiting to be played once more and create a rhythm of which to follow. A beat that had never been played upon a winding track, full of hurdles of which I would breathlessly jump to reach you. Allowing the blood to pump through my veins and reach the coursing river that I swim with great speeds to reach you. Following along the shore, and sinking in this red river to become aware of your divine existence.

But that was before...

When I knew you we met in the middle and discussed our love through gorgeous pervasive actions that spread through our fingertips and creeped inside of us all the way to our hearts, leaving us boiling inside; cooking with anticipation; waiting for the continuance of such splendid actions. Our love is divine and flies like a dove amongst the godless stars who know no bounds, only knowledgeable of endless flame such as our own; burning brightly in our minds, firing of receptors, telling us to cling to the shirt and fabric of this love and never release. Advising us to search for the pool of our love and drown in it, never to return for air, and to find solace in the sand at the bottom of this well that grows ever deeper with our every encounter. Warning us to never emerge, and to endlessly baptize our minds amongst the audacious ocean of our hearts.

Before I knew you, I loved you. Now that I love you; I do.
There is no before. There is only more.

I want to leave this
dreary cruel world behind.
Day by day
giving up another part
of its monuments.
Already I have lost its moon
Tonight the stars will fade one by one.
No more the pure white of its soul
as snow falls over meadow and dell.
Its purple blazed hills
in the desert distance
will fade into grassless plains.
For the world has given up on me
It has taken my mother and father
My brother and sister even my lover.
I now give it myself
Cell by cell of my body
It takes them in silence.
Like the scattered leaves
From an autumn tree
In the wind.
Leaving only a skeleton
of its summer beauty.
I now lie looking at the fading sky
As the world takes yet
another part of me.
Flowing its late autumn
sunshine nuzzling at my neck
with its tender warmth.
As if to try to make things
right between us.

Whilst across the timeless seas to the bottom of the planet, incessant rain, snow and thrashing wind has rendered pugged cow paddocks, grassless.

Stored woodpiles, depleted due to wood fires burning continuously in hearths across the nation.

Small children, woolied up running for the morning school bus, white chilly faces and pink flushed cheeks.

Surf pounds the black sand dunes with foam flying in the gale, the marram grass howls and seagulls, flying in tortured formation, shriek their mutual rage.

Midwinter is upon us.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

It has been many a week,
And void of the love I am sure you seek
Yet, I hadn’t the heart to visit,
Foolish am I! Leaving you alone,
It is I who must atone
And that is what I am here to do,
To tell you that my heart is true.
Aftermath of your discontent, wondering where the love went,
I never meant to upset and that leads me to this crushing regret.
I had fallen from grace
While I made the mistake of giving you space.
My desire for you,
It simply grew and grew and grew,
It has been many a week
And I am here to give you the love you seek.
Red rose! One of those you wanted all those months ago,
From watching your silly show,
Never knowing where you would disappear,
Fighting this sickening fear,
That you were to leave me.
If only you could see,
I simply wanted to show you my love which I know you need,
You would not take my lead.
Though I took time to think,
Allowing my feelings to sink
Marinate in a reflective state.
I thought of your warm smile and dazzling colors you put on your lips,
Those long amusing trips,
The wine that you would drink in small sips
All for not.
The sea of change and discontent already opening,
Shown in your quiet sighs,
Nightly lies which I finally caught with my own eyes,
I am sure that you are wondering why it was my heart and not voice thundering.
The nightly lie was becoming less and less sly,
I knew another had caught your eye,
I gave all the love I could. All that one should.
Yet you did as you would.
I took matters into my own hands,
Forming plan after plan,
How to take care of the problem
To permanently solve them.
Which I did successfully,
Given that I am standing on frozen grassless earth,
Placing a bright red rose, the one from the shows,
Underneath your gray stone,
Bearing an eternity alone.

I am every sort of storm turning
half of every raindrop destroyed
on impact with the puddles
that reflect the forsaken clouds.

Piles of mud,
some are lost cities that children stopped playing with,
where the cars are still over turned
and the wind cements them in place.
Imprisoned.

Others are just mud, sinking and leaving,
just mounds of soil ****** as imperfect patches
of grassless lawn that have, too, gone away.

Oh, how I wish I wasn't alone.

The grass always seem greener on the other side
Almost losing sight of this side
Forgetting that it wasn't as green as this previously
And this is also greener if observed from another side

I'm confident that one day
The brown leaves will disappear
And the grassless area will sprout again
Above all
The key is to be grateful even before this day