As I **** this cigarette
my life go's up in smoke,
in clouds of gray and white
some day I'll die of stroke.

If only I would quit
this habit that I have,
my lungs would never rot
all cancerous and scabbed.

And though I know this all,
to my love I still return,
for nicotine I crave for nicotine I yearn.

Take this poem to heart,
and let thy cigarette go,
for dieing of lung cancer
is the slowest death I know.

A year--
how quickly has it passed
from last year's December
to this year's winter:
a mere return of snow and rains;
That, I wish I could say.
But the truth is;
it was the slowest of the slowest,
the most torturous ride.
Because this year
I've felt each minute ticking by,
each season changing
leaves falling and flowers coming.

Reveling in the not-too-glorious
glitter of unrequited love,
this year I've known suffering.

1975 Art Institute is tactic for Odysseus to put off dealing with real world also investigate range of visual techniques gay instructor fruitlessly endeavors to ****** him he enjoys several affairs with beautiful girls yet Bayli haunts him main building of school is connected behind Art Institute of Chicago Odysseus spends lots of time looking at paintings Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” Gustave Caillebotte’s “Paris Street Rainy Day” Ivan Albright’s “Portrait of Dorian Gray” Jackson *******’s “Greyed Rainbow” Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Black Cross New Mexico” Francis Bacon’s “Figure with Meat” Pablo Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” Balthus’s “Solitaire” Claude Monet’s “Stacks of Wheat” Paul Cezanne’s “The Bathers” Vincent Van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait” Edouard Manet’s “The Mocking of Christ” Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s “At the Moulin Rouge” Robert Rauschenberg’s “Photograph” Mary Cassatt’s “The Child’s Bath” Peter Blume’s “The Rock” Ed Paschke’s “Mid America” Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” Jasper John’s “Near the Lagoon” and John Singer Sargent James McNeill Whistler Diego Rivera Marsden Hartley Thomas Eakins Winslow Homer his 2nd year at Art Institute involves student teaching during day then at night working as waiter at Ivanhoe Restaurant and Theater gay managers teach him to make Caesar salad tableside and other flamboyant tasks wait staff are all gay men once more Odysseus experiences bias from homosexual regime he is assigned restaurant’s slowest sections it bothers him the way some gay men venomously condescend women and their bodies Odysseus loves women especially their bodies he thinks about how much easier his life would be if he was gay in 1976 the art world is managed by gay curators gay art dealers he wonders if he could be gay yet not realize it can a person be gay but not attracted to one’s own ***? Ivanhoe hires variety of night club acts one night he watches Tom Waits perform on piano in lounge Odysseus feels inspired in 1977 he graduates with teacher’s certification he considers all the sacrifices teachers make and humiliating salaries they put up with he does not want to teach candidly he feels he has nothing yet to teach teaching degree was Mom’s idea Odysseus wants to learn grow paint after Art Institute he flip-flops between styles his artwork suffers from too much schooling and scholastic practice it takes years to find his own voice he has tendency to be self-effacing put himself down often he will declare what do i know? i’m just a stupid painter one topic artists do not like talking about is their failures how much money they cost creation requires resource paint and canvas can be expensive how much money is spent on harebrained ideas that never pan out? most artists resort to cheap or used materials few can afford their dreams he gets job selling encyclopedias that job lasts about 5 weeks then he finds job selling posters at framing store on Broadway between Barry and Wellington Salvador Dali Escher Claude Monet prints are the rage his manager accuse him of lacking initiative being spacey after several months he gets laid off he finds job waiting tables during lunch shift at busy downtown restaurant other waiters are mostly old men from Europe they play cards with each other in between shifts teach Odysseus how to carry 6 hot plates on one arm and 2 in his other hand the job is hectic but money is good experience educates differently than books and college a university degree cannot teach what working in the real world confronts people learn most when they are nobodies he reads Sartre’s “Being And Nothingness” he wants to discover who he is by finding out who he is not often he rides bicycle along lakefront taking different routes sometimes following behind an anonymous bicyclist possibly to come across new way he does not know or to marvel at another person’s interest

truth is this life is too difficult for me the violence hatred turf wars tribalism laws judgments practices rules permits history i’m not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world i’m sorry am i repeating myself i apologize i’m not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world god please protect teach me strength courage fairness compassion wisdom love i’m not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world

buy divinity purchase devotion earn reward points own 4 bedroom loft with roof garden deck porch pool parking in paradise’s gated community pay for exclusive membership into sainthood become part of inner circle influence determine fate destiny of everything step up to the plate sign on the line immortalize yourself feel the privileges of eternal holiness i’m living inside a nightmare inside a nightmare inside a nightmare hello? i am dizzy in my own self-deceptions lost in my own self-deceptions alone in my own self-deceptions there was a time once but that time is gone there was a place once but that place has vanished there was a life once but that life is spent remember when things were different truth is i’m weak skittish anxious alienated paranoid scared to death pagan idiot stop

breath deeply push stale air out imagine kinder more respectful loving world please god do your stuff angels throw your weight around clean up this mess planets align stars shine ancient spirits raise your voices magic work there are words when spoken can change everything words rooted to spiritual nerves if voiced in  particular order secret passwords capable of setting off persuasions in the mind threads to the heart if a person can figure out which words what order tone of voice rate of pronunciation time of day then that person can summon powers of the supernatural Isis goddess of celestial sway of words whisper secret earth water fire air reveal your alchemy winter spring summer autumn teach about passages patterns sublime eastern western sun fickle moody moon unveil your heavenly equation north south east west  beat the drums blow winds show the path to healing path of the heart blood dirt hair *** bare the mystery of your trance dance the ghost dance sacred woman with ovaries cycles flow smell beautiful girl eyes sweetness strange awkward skinny scruffy boy great bear spirit bird jumping fish wise turtle where are you why is there no one to back me? jean paul sartre what was your last thought before you died? was it nausea? nothingness? or a wish?

the collar on my jacket is frayed
but I have clothes on my back

(just)

the packaging is white with green print
but I have food in my belly

(of sorts)

the soles talk and leak when I walk
but I have boots on my feet

(for now)

so I’m OK

(I suppose)

***** deep into the Smart Price ™ life
this man, his daughters, his son and his wife
where all their food comes at discounted price
expired meat and rationed heat
sweepings and fat wrapped in plastic

the walk was wholly unexpected, but it was easy
leaving the town where the forward leaning walkers
were the slowest thinking talkers steeped in sugary urgency,
and all the way we **** giltterballs and Skittles

ripe fruit unconfined to the width of fruit

frightfully absent-minded of it's metaphor

burgeoning with sweet to burst-

...’The slowest devastation of a perfect sphere.


Bloated in the sun

at the peak of yes

a trifle to a god; and everything He meant.

the raw sub conscience of Love Itself.


Forest olde and valley wide

heeps of time upon time in a bramble of lush

vast with green enough to burst

...the joyous vegetation of a perfect world.


Garrulous in the sun

at the peak of yes

a testament to god at His first attempt.

the sheerest genius of Love

Thyself.

I’ve been thinking about hands
a lot lately and how fingerprints are like
permanent, foreshadowing tree rings
etched onto our beings; I wonder if
the number of rings on my palms have any
correlation to the number of years I’ll live or
the number of years he’ll live or the number of
years that she lived. I’ve been thinking a lot about
        life lines        and        heart lines
and if there is any stock to be found in palmistry;
I wonder how my fate line got to be
so muddled with my luck line.  

I see my life the way a clairvoyant would:
in cut-up and choppy strips of film—
I should have seen the omens,
I should have read the smoke signals,
I should have recognized the cards.

Act One began on a waning crescent moon
and continued until its gluttonous belly
had swollen with light; I thought to
myself that craniums made of gallium
often melt the quickest, that blood filled
with plutonium often flows the slowest.  I would
have given my body up to the pathologist free of charge,
would have let him dig his hands into my entrails for
some sort of divination, some sort of revelation—
I was never told to beware the Ides of June
nor the Kalends of November.

Act Two began with the birth of Jack Frost
and has been continuing without intermission for
the past four celestial cycles; I thought to
myself that heart valves made of sodium polyacrylate
often love the most, that sinkholes disguised as
fingertips often feel the deepest.  He whispered
in my ear cliched words about not believing in
God, but how I made him feel blessed, and in
that moment I knew he was the oneiromantic being
that had been shadowing my dreams since 1996—
I guess you could say that, sometimes,
I believe in love.

There is an art to fortune-telling
there is an art to hands
there is an art to bones
there is an art to dreams, and over the years,
I have found them coinciding more often
than not.  In my sleep, in notebooks, in
irises, in mirrors, in poetry, in small little sighs.
I do not know if I believe in fate or destiny, in
God, in auras, or in the Blood Moon Prophecy,
but I do know that I believe in you.  I find myself writing
sappy verses and smelling your shirts and I do
not know if it is because I miss you or if it is because
I’m bored or if they’ve somehow
                       mergedintothesamething.  

I’ve been wondering a lot lately about
where you show up on my hands; about where
he showed up and where she showed up.  I want
to know which lines bisect and which lines fall
short; I want to know if the resemblance between
        mother        and         daughter
continues into that of my palm lines.  I want to know
if my life line matches hers and if my heart line
is even worth giving away—

find me in your crystal ball, make me
your sacrificed animal, look for my body
in the stars, and we will know that
        it was all made to be.

Who do you think you are?
You, the one with the prettiest of faces but the ugliest of hearts.

Who do you think you are?
You, the one with the brightest of eyes but the dullest of mind.

Who do you think you are?
You, the one with the quickest of tongue but the slowest of wit.

Who do you think you are?
You, the one fastest to judge but not acknowledge your own flaws

Who do you think you are?
You, the one with the smallest of knives but the biggest of smiles.

Who do you think you are?
You, the one with the twist of your knife at the back even as you're hugging.

Who do you think you are?
Nobody. That's who.

All-new
****** lands
(except for the natives)
dying to be properly deflowered and nailed and ******* and erroded
to make way for gun forts and gold mines
(they can be built!)
they're called Zale's and they love money
funny, not to all but to enough
call them crazy call them savage
but maybe they just love their homes
and don't own the kinds of weapons that make the loudest noise
but that **** the slowest and with least dignity.
Color-me a Cosmo girl
fit to be cover material, just look at my hair
look at Pocahontas, you know she was bald?
Hideous, un-English in every way
probably because she wasn't
but gotta give credite where credit is rejected, overdrawn
maybe never even earned just splurged and secreted
but wanna hear a secret?
The land belongs to nobody
not a soul not a body not a mind
they knew this but knew others were destroying it
that's why they were mad,
not because they were children who had their toys stolen
but because a living lifeless matter was being assaulted
catapulted into the future of steam engines and fried chicken
feathers blowing in the winds of convertables
they took scalps to maybe open the minds to the error of ways
not that one's head should be disassembled
but one can't seem so oblivious or wide eyed when shown the  facts
of obvious emotional response
but we are young
dinosaurs were old and we have time to forget.

You are the star that pierces darkest night
When new moon doesn’t rise or shine her light.
You are the melody that knits night’s sweetest songs,
The resting place my lonely heart belongs.
You are the star. You are the star.

You are the juicy peach plopped in hunger’s outstretched hand.
From the ocean of my tears, you are the sight of land.
You are a mountain stream rushing through Death Valley’s thirst.
You are the biggest, fastest, slowest, best and worst.
The very end of ends, and always, Absolutely, the first.

530

You cannot put a Fire out—
A Thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a Fan—
Upon the slowest Night—

You cannot fold a Flood—
And put it in a Drawer—
Because the Winds would find it out—
And tell your Cedar Floor—

There are six ways to die on my table top

There are four ways to get lost in my cupboard

There are seven men drowning in my bottom drawer

There’s a coma above the ceiling fan

and an incinerator under my covers


Under the bed is a mouse trap

In the sink is a death trap

In the gap between the walls

is the most appalling noise

and my radio produces

only the frantic breaths of fitness breeders


The tortured hide under my pillow

(though they belong in my ears)

The glass in the window is made

of the slowest distorting tears

(I never produced them)


The carpet covers my blood

My clothes are covered in sod

The wallpaper hides my dreams

and my dreams have spilled at the seams

I collect masks that are the person I hid

Where do I sit ?

The door is a lid

The room is too warm

Enclosed

An expanding balloon

Sitting in my skyscraper
Watching the world burn
Just sitting here, untouched
On the flaming globe I earned

I sit back in my skyscraper
Pull the blinds and shut my eyes
I think of what is left
In the world that I despise

Oh, yes! The flames are coming
Reaching far and wide
And they're faster and they're hotter
Than your mail-order bride
Oh, yes! The flames are coming
Taller than you'd think
And they'll burn you to a golden crisp
Before you've time to blink

High up in my skyscraper
I know the outcome’s wrong
And it never would’ve come to this
If the world all got along

I know I’ve earned this skyscraper
Because it’s the slowest death
Yes, I’ve earned the prolonged agony
And I’ll wait for my last breath

Oh, yes! The flames are coming
Reaching far and wide
And they're faster and they're hotter
Than your mail-order bride
Oh, yes! The flames are coming
Taller than you'd think
And they'll burn you to a golden crisp
Before you've time to blink

Sitting in my skyscraper
Watching as I burn
I sit here as I’m touched
By the flaming death I’ve earned

The flames consume my skyscraper
I’m falling from the skies
And I’m all that is left
In the world that I despise

Oh, yes! The flames are coming
Reaching far and wide
And they're faster and they're hotter
Than your mail-order bride
Oh, yes! The flames are coming
Taller than you'd think
And they'll burn you to a golden crisp
Before you've time to blink

Quantify

We will ease into this twisted or rebellious look at what experts say is the top trend
For 2012 this quantifying was first done in ancient abbeys but they did it on the front end you were
Told how long to meditate, pray, copy older manuscripts but now technology is going to do it at the end
And it is called the quantified self a top magazine that writes about these things says there are already
Three big hitters geared and going already their data bases are going to record practically every human
Action then it will give you a read out numerically where you can strategies a perfect day even the writer
Knows how much he wrote last year how much the better writers wrote and with less words they
Received better results on hits or they will tell you how many steps how many calories they have a
Sleep machine that will use Doppler radar and it will tell you when you’re in deep sleep track your sleep
Cycle show when it is best to get up yes it has all positives cut down on wasted expenditure of energy
Come out ahead for the day in less time but it will mean you have to be self driven I never respond well
To the whip I don’t care who’s holding it and if they have sleep machines not far behind will be intimacy
Meters all of a sudden the geeks and nerds will be gods the woman turns on the **** his eyes light up
Like a plane ready to taxi and his bow tie will start to twirl like a propeller but listen to two regular guys
Man I can’t take it I use to beg like a dog now she smiles real big then she takes the only key turns the
Lousy thing on turns the **** to the slowest point you can’t even ride a bike at that speed you just fall
Over you think you have it bad my wife almost twist the **** off I feel like a greyhound at the track but
I’m the only one in the pack that knows the rabbit isn’t real who wants to chase a sock on mechanized
Rod you go twenty five it goes twenty six well you know who is going to have a career resurgence Kirk
Douglass all of this whooped up speed nonsense all he will have to do on screen is ride down the street
Top down doing ten miles an hour hey Kirk you’re my hero the one per centers will scream what’s with
That ole **** the new rebel will be the day dreamer standing idle watching a cloud pass slowly over head
I can just see all the animals going bald from the stress some jack rabbit wanting them to eat faster sleep
Less forget the flees one guy said he tried to shoot himself but the ammo is so out dated and slow he
Kept missing his head Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn will not only be classics but new best sellers and all a
Painter will to paint is a bare foot kid with a straw hat and a fishing pole they will sell like hot cakes to
Frazzled out over achievers we had a New Yorker move into our Midwestern town and take a job at the local
Factory that’s the way it will be he looked like he was on video tape being fast forwarded and we were
On regular speed and when he talked it was like the old LP records when you put it on the wrong speed
He was talking a mile a minute and sounded like Alvin the chipmunk where we were on the slow speed
And we fell in a vat of molasses turtles that talk my final word I miss the good old day

He said "just friends, good friends."
and i nodded in agreement,
even though i felt the fire spark
in my chest long ago.
They all warned me about you,
and i didn't listen.
How was i suppose to
push the feelings away
when all i can think about was
the traces of your hands all
over me
and the warm feeling i got
when you kissed my shoulders.
It was nearly impossible,
but maybe i should've learned my lesson
when i saw you talking to her
pushed up against the wall
in the middle of a party
at three in the morning.
Maybe i should've learned when you
told me you couldn't possibly
have feelings for anyone,
but told me a few weeks later
she was the one that sparked the fire
in your chest.
You would always choose me second.
I think this is the slowest and most
painful way of killing yourself.
But i shouldn't care,
because he always said
just friends,
even when he got too drunk
and decided he wanted to
be in love for the night.

I’ve been searching for
what I didn’t get.
As a kid,
would talk to strangers
with no fear.
Teachers couldn’t get me
to stop talking.

No one can get
close enough.
I always want to be closer.
Is that enmeshment
or love?

In high school,
I found people like me.
At 18,
I always had people to call,
so I would never have to be
alone at night.
Maybe it wasn’t
real friendship,
but it was better than nothing.

As a kid,
being alone in the house
felt like death.
Still,
without attention,
I feel like I’m dying.
If I don’t get love
when I need it,
I must be unlovable.
What’s the point of living
without love?

Lack of love
is the slowest way to die.

She moved away when I turned 9.
She's the best drummer I've ever met.
He used to sing Ocean Avenue when we walked to class.
He said that no one could keep secrets quite like me.
He told me to learn how to say no.

It didn't seem as important as it does now.


She was half my height but had twice the heart.
She was the nicest friend I ever had.
He'd wake up at four in the morning to go running.
He read a lot of books and never spoke to me.  
He wasn't quite the fastest swimmer on the team.

I wasn't quite the slowest.

She likes shelves and the color red.
She hates sloths.
He is the fastest swimmer I knew, but I'd never seen him swim.
He told me that he liked my haircut when I hadn't cut my hair.
He told me I owed him four years.

I don't owe them anything.

among milkweeds and thistles,
on rocks and scraps of metal that tear our clothes,
in a mock lacking more than ivy,
but plenty of barbed wire,
the game is clean. unadulterated.
the slowest five seconds
birthed via a fundamentally sound
thing of beauty.
hands back, the other way.
ah the sweet spot.
we conjure trajectory: wind, speed. geometry.
run away!

You were not raised in violence.
When you were eight, a boy told you that you were weak.
You never thought of yourself in that way before that moment.

You were strong.
Not as strong as your older brothers, but strong enough to throw the ball back and push them when they were mean to you.

You were fast.
Though not as fast as your brothers,
who had longer legs and better lungs,
who stretched ahead, but always looked back,
who never teased you for being lesser.

When the boy at the park told you that he bet you couldn't throw a punch,
you slugged him as hard as you could in his stomach.
He laughed.
You blinked back frustrated tears and hit him harder, faster.
Your friends pulled you away, and you all promised never to tell your mothers.

You were not raised in violence, but you want to know why there are boys who are beaten and kicked,
when the bullies don't raise a hand to you.
You want to know why the others are less than you.

You are twelve, and you fall in love with a girl.
Even though you think you are one.
You tell her in whispers that you might be a boy, and she says she'll love you either way.

You break up a month later.
You're not sure you ever loved her.

You are thirteen, and you date the girl again.
You have short hair now,
refuse to have it long because it feels Wrong.
You quit the soccer team because for the first time,
you're the slowest one on the team,
and your breath comes out in wheezing gasps.
You are afraid of what this means.
The doctors tell you it's asthma.

You are still thirteen, when you tell your parents you've been a boy this whole time and are very sorry for not telling them sooner.
Your mom says she supports you,
but she still won't let you change your name legally or start hormones you need.
You wonder if she really loves you.

Your ma is proud of you,
but you knew she would understand.
She wants your mom to understand.
They fight through you, and you want it to stop.

It has only been a month, and you meet a new girl.
Her hair is red as the fire you build to keep warm on cool summer nights.
You think she's the most beautiful person you've ever seen.
She tells you she loves you.
You love her.

You want to run away from home,
your mom is too much to deal with and you want to go away.
But you don't.
You think you hate your mother, and you tell her so.
She cries.
You regret it.
You didn't mean it.

You were not raised in violence, but in September you try to take your life.
You wonder for months why you faked and acted like you were fine, conning your way out of the hospital before they could help you.

It's November now, almost December, and you need new shoes.
Your feet are too small and your features too soft and the clerk thinks you're a girl.
You tell Sarah how much you hate this,
and she tells you that you're too sensitive and should be happy that at least she doesn't know what it's like to hate everything about yourself,
to cry yourself to sleep every night,
because your body is wrong and you want out of it.

You feel betrayed.
You break up with her that night.
You cry a lot.
She apologizes.
She begs for you to take her back.
You cry.
You refuse.
She tells you that she's the best thing that will ever happen to you.
That no one will love you like she did.
She's right, people don't love the same way.
You block her number anyways.

You were not raised in violence, but you want so badly to be in some now.
You look for fights everywhere you go,
and curse yourself for never finding the opportunities.

You hear about Mike Brown and Tamir Rice and Eric Garner,
and you want justice so badly it burns under your skin.
Your mother won't let you go to protests.
You sit at home and wonder how you never realized you grew up in violence all along.

You were raised in violence, but shielded from it.
You remember a crazed homeless man insisting that your ma was a man in drag.
You remember realizing that your mother steered you away from the homeless on the sidewalks out of disgust, rather than rational fear.
You remember that day with the boy in the park.

You were raised in violence and you are not afraid to face it,
but your mother still is.

You were raised in violence.
You shout your differences as loudly as you can.
A war cry.
A dare.
You hope someone will realize you were never better than those boys who came home from school with bruises and black eyes.
They never do.
You don't know why.

-J.M.

God waited for Abraham's arm to be actually starting down, the biceps fully tensed.

Nothing short would do; in extremity, we learn what's true.

With a good job, a good marriage, a fine son, I had everything one could expect.  
And yet there was a lingering dissatisfaction; a malaise.
It seemed, deep down, that I didn't really feel or believe in anything.

.........                                             ­                                 
On Saturday morning, August 11, 1990, my three-year-old son and I rounded the corner at the south end of the block where we live.  We were out for a walk.  (He had been born through in-vitro fertilization, everything else had failed -- including several previous in-vitro attempts.)  He was riding his tricycle -- it's amazing how fast a three-year-old can go on a tricycle with big wheels. . . .  The house next to the corner had tall bushes growing right out to the sidewalk.  As we passed the house, my son speeded up.  My attention was diverted to men working across the street trimming trees.  Their chainsaws drowned out the sound of a car backing out of the driveway next to the house with the bushes.  The car was moving slowly and I can see in the slowest of slow motion -- I screamed, but I'm not sure just when (there's no sound track to this movie) -- the car backing into the left handlebar of the tricycle, tilting it over to the right, my son breaking his fall with his right hand.   (As low to the ground as he and the tricycle were, they could not be visible in the driver's rearview mirror at this point.)  And, then, the car stopping.  Did the car stop because of my scream?  Or had the old man driving the car seen my son at the last second before he disappeared behind the car?
.......

I learned instantly with the terrible weight of that tire inches from my son's head, that I wanted with a giant, horrible wanting for this boy to grow up healthy and to have children of his own who would, in turn, have children of their own, and that having my wife hate me for losing him would be unbearable.

All the unfairnesses I had suffered in life -- ALL of them --
instantly became meaningless. Everything was clear.
This is what I wanted; this is what I believed.

I may have been the slowest child
to ever run in track and field
I was a foodie even then
with not the fastest set of wheels.

I still have the medal that I won
for finishing in second place.
awarded to our relay team
In a two team relay race

I was the anchor(aptly named)
they could have called me 'ball and chain'
The other three were none to spry
We were well matched those three and I.

By the time the baton reached my hand
My competitor neared the promised land
I set out full steam(for me)
as he crossed the line to victory.

I gamely tried to speed in haste
for what I knew was second place
and I was genuinely surprised
when they gave medals to us guys.

I never after won a race
nor finished either show or place.
I prize the medal that I got.
If I was a horse, they'd have me shot.

She that begs a little boon
  (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!)
Little gets--and nothing, soon.
  (No, no, no!  No, no, no!)
She that calls for costly things
Priceless finds her offerings--
What's impossible to kings?
  (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!)

Kings are shaped as other men.
  (Step and turn! Step and turn!)
Ask what none may ask again.
  (Will you learn?  Will you learn?)
Lovers whine, and kisses pall,
Jewels tarnish, kingdoms fall--
Death's the rarest prize of all!
  (Step and turn! Step and turn!)

Veils are woven to be dropped.
  (One, two, three! One, two, three!)
Aging eyes are slowest stopped.
  (Quietly! Quietly!)
She whose body's young and cool
Has no need of dancing-school--
Scratch a king and find a fool!
  (One, two, three! One, two, three!)

When you drown in
an endless ocean of whisky,
you'll miss the taste of life's waters
  as your mind floats above the
ravaging tide of addiction
  and you constantly begging
for the flow to calm

You'll realize that the slowest of recovery
   is better than the fastest one who can chug


Someone out there is either dying for alcohol
or dying from an alcohol addiction,

I won't judge you
on what your heart is looking for
but the drink that's been on your hand
for too long
ain't Jesus in a bottle

It will pass.

In a world full of pretension
Secrecy and bad intention
The most fulfilling
Is to have finally found yourself
Somewhere
Within a person
When words don't crumble
Where sentences never stumble
We'll be the loudest click
Most fascinating wit
Slowest kiss
And hardest fall

There are days when tired eyes are not enough to wake the moon
There are nights that have chosen to stay
This Morning, This morning, is a good reason to believe in angels
Angels are, of course, a good reason to sleep
Love is an animal
Home is a distant shore your toes are buried in
Home is an accent that no one can hear
Sea shells around ear lobes bring dreams to ear drums
Fall

Fall

Slide

Scraped knees

Scars are chapter headers in a novel no one bought but everyone owns
Bodies are either the slowest way to heaven
Or the fastest way to hell
And regardless of the answer, elbows, are funny little things
Like toe knuckles
Like breakable hearts  
Life is a Red Flyer wagon full of little pieces broken heart
Duct Tape
Super glue
A broken high heel
The hilt of a wooden sword
The rind of six oranges
And the fingerprints of a very angry lady with too much weight on her toes
It bounces over the cracks in the sidewalks and across the train tracks
Life is waiting for everything to bounce just right
As it should
As it will
As it was going to anyway