You say I smile to often
You say I don't know pain
Well, friend, if you knew my night time dreams
You wouldn't say it again

They say that us smilers are silly
That life is simply the loss and gain
But they don't know our secret
They think it's all trained

Here is the smilers secret
We walk through the dark tunnels of life just like you
But when you turn from the light at the end of the tunnel
We walk until the light is our point of view

And we never get tired of the light on our face
We never return to the dark
For who would want to walk in that tunnel
When you've seen the light of His heart?

I think that's part of your problem
You're afraid of what you don't know
I think that you've only known darkness
And that's all you think you can sow

Yes darkness still follows me sometimes
It's just a part of this life
But you chose to let light or dark lead you
Through the tunnels of strife

But please, don't follow the tunnel's dark paths
And next time the light shines in your eyes
Remember it's not pointing out your pain
It's helping you see past the lies

So walk through the light at your tunnel
And if you are able to
Remember to take some of that light
And take it to others, like I've done for you

Hello Poetry


Yearned.
Ached.
For so long, for a community,
That values the ineffable wonder
Of a wordsmith's creations, intended to
Repair himself and the world with bullets of
Verses.

And here you are.

Like/Dislike, matters not,
So long as we value each others work,
And the the heart echoes within
What the eyes read and the mouth whispers.

The array and disparity of your names,
A delight,
Each name a poem
In its own right.

So I resubmit a question for your consideration,
The answer is now known,
The answer is all of us.
May 2013
---------------------------------------------------------


­Who's Who In Poetry  



T'is a curious thing,
these verbal peddlers, tribal members,
famously well known to no one,
perhaps at best,
a kindred few, fellow-travelers.

Each a troop,
bloodied, purple hearted,
word-wounded,
anonymous unto each other,
yet all bonded intimates,
in solitary struggle united,
yet sea-parted by the very nature
of the solitude of composition.

All poets are Cain scar-marked,
purposed for everyone to see,
a warning to rabbled boors,
imagination suppressors!

World:

cherish these flawed ones,
gentle these frail but gritty,
the Lord has tasked them
to be prophets in one tongue untied,
undo the strife of Babel's division.

Poets!

Be the harpooners
of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody,
comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy
to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders
into crinkly eye-lined smilers.

With clinical observation,
dense and demanding,
make us laugh at
the comedy of our situation,
teach us our free-to-see peep show,
reveal, unseal us
with **** empathy!

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
tastes his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
and becomes one who was,
yet is,
because of you,
in poetry.
---------------
Postscript (1/25/17)

Even more true today, than four years ago.
Thank You.

"Be the harpooner of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody, comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders into crinkly eye-lined smilers."



l<>|

writ many years past, just another dusted off phrasing,
composed from life's lecture notes, collected by eyes tired
from the hazing,
eyes wearied by the addict-strong,
incessant observational needing,
of celebrating the loopy,
they who make this planet
capable of laughing at itself,
a helping habit for mutual survival...

should you spot a man ungainly wrought,
weighted down by a harpoon cross
cursed  'pon his Cain-marked back,
you need not move to the other side,
'tis only a make-believe poet,
with his recording device,
seizing your rhapsodies to rhyme,
his collected artifacts, your crinkly smiles,
his meat, his metier, his chosen career,
a comfort caresser of your illusions into
a shapely sculpture of words for you to keep,
a token of your now examined worth,
a celebration for the keeping...

He sat there, same table, most Sundays
If he came alone, he did not stay that way long
His corner table would fill, with nodders and smilers
People with pint glass recognition of all he'd done
His special tankard 'World's Strongest Man'; no year, for that would be cruel
I watched him as I grew, from colouring book infant to
The girl who stood a round for her father
Each year he shrunk a little, those
muscles softening to fat
And still they came and asked him to bend their metal pipes
And carry a man on each shoulder
One handed him a rope for his teeth, and
Asked if he would  tow away his junker, they
Laughed and bought him another round, mate, another pint
For the World's Strongest Man
He told me once, when I was 10 and curious,
The stories of his ink marks, the places
He had been and all the strange and wonderful things
He had lifted and bent and pulled and
Training with the Sumo, ice hole bathing with Inuit,
wrestling hobbled Russian bears, the lion that left 'see, this mark here'
A yawn when he'd placed his big, shaggy head
In the beast's mouth because
He too was a king
I asked him once, when I had grew
If he should have been
More like bamboo
Thin and reedy, bending in the wind
No substance to speak off, yet
With a strength belieing it's slender form
He told me, as the acolytes trudged past
In heavy boots and rough winter coats
'All I ever wanted was for someone else to take the weight, even for a moment, but now it's too late'
I smiled sadly, because I understood
Tested strength and how it withstood
And yet I felt his heart-deep sorrow
At looking back, not to tomorrow
I did not buy him another pint, I walked with him instead
Through the door he'd left a thousand times
To his taxi, usual driver, 'home, mate?'
Lean on me for now, I said. I'm stronger than I look.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
and that of the hurricane.
Tumult whispered white,
both Aeolian and corporeal,
strummed on strings of solemnity;
the ugly undertaker of buried roses
labeled as wary victims of feel-good graverobbers.
All bled emotions are this.
The Louvre's flashbulbed flecks;
the notes woven within coke lines of symphony;
fingerpainted twig-men crafted by bright-eyed smilers;
this juxtaposed disgrace.
All Beau Sancy in the roughest granite jewelry box
with graffiti scribbled laughing like urban Sanskrit .
"I am become death" dripped in blood through the keyhole
so it now mimics a cherry popped in microwaves
unlocking discomfort, yes,
and crimsoning the cocoon of the diamond.
Peep, Tom, at the glittering Godiva within
and watch her grow in the sacrifice of poetry,
for only in the presence of forsaking and death
and anguish and discomfort
and pain
can she grow to break the eggshell walls.
Tears cut canals in Time's beard
because he consigned the memory of the shattered horrendousness
to oblivion
instead of honoring their homage
and paying respect by dropping tulips and gunships
into their graves at noon's meridian.
Opal eyed reader,
you do not understand.
My eggshells conceal themselves
within individual hells
of purple prose,
more of a lavender in my eyes.
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I swallow the silence

coming out of a nightmare

rising from the depths

reaching your fingers from the darkwater

pulled to safety

introduction to air.

I am a dark crystal in sunlight

i don't shine when i should

only for the grotesque figures

on their gentle moonlit float.

No beauty

no solace

leaving only space to gasp in the badness

bleed it out new

crisp, farm fresh, warm daisies, jello from the mold, dresses that twirl in the wind - goodness

without the victims knowing

passing all from grip to grin

I eat the darkness

i drink the cold

i birth the light

and let it wander

into the mason jars of small smilers

giant eyes on little faces

pinkies up to the sky

teacups full of imagination

leave you sitting on the porch

years later

trying to relive it all-

And then for you

I swallow the silence.

stick a smiley on it
and everyone understands
that language :)

Girl
Do I appreciate all the gratitude
and comments i receive from others...
but i have a huge fear of becoming to rapped up in it
and latching on to that for home sake
but ya know there are people out there who love me, who can learn to accept me, and who just are ******* awesome and who ******* just do....
girl....
there's nothing that you have to do anymore
there are people out there for you
so don't go searching for stoners, "hipsters", or smilers
because you feel like you fit in with them
cuz you don't
your your own person
you revel in you're uniqueness
you fit in with your heart
and you'll find people just like that
not just weird clothes, all black wearers, who smoke ****, and ya know gypsy sorta people
....i mean you have a lot in common with them
but they do not define you
its not a group that you belong to
you can float in space peacefully
counting your stars
with your cats and photos of miley cyrus
you're fine...
and until you find people who can appreciate that...
you'll be fine...

Leary, dreamy, worn and faint
The saint sat stone-faced and speechless
Flat like unchurched waters
Brought back, brutally attacked and unattached
Flash of lightning rippled through his forehead, malnourished and overwhelmed

Emotions untamed became abridged
Then fringed and kept away for later days

Blank, without consent
Like the Watchman's Shadow

He peers, intently, precisely, maticulously
From his cell window,
High upon a stoney tower
Fixed upon the free, the wide smilers and radiant-eyed, Weeping bitterly until his own eyes wax dry
Alone and aloof, with questioning in mind;
Why?
For rather would he die!

Yet he has already begun
Slowly, pitifully, and sacredly
For it clicks with him as he finds himself again with the only company he has known

So greeting his old familiar freind,
He thanks him for his enduring faithfulness
Bowing in reverent respect
And again paying his ode
To the Watchman's Shadow

I’m not comfortable in my skin. It’s either too loose or too tight,
Depending upon the daily elements. I want one that fits me like a glove.

Would that there were a place to get a custom skin replacement.
I would want one like armor but striated with gilding for decoration.

I would insist on a warning system. A bell or flash or protruding daggers.
I want my replacement skin to protect me from all outside forces.

No connivers, no joy takers, no evil eyes, no snake smilers, no horse thieves,
No acrid pontificators, no mouth breathers, no pulpit screamers, no handsy Uncle Bobs

My new skin would be removable for those rare occasions when I want the world
To enter me, to delight me, to show me the way, to love me, and to keep me.

There are lovers and there are haters.

There are frowners and than there are smilers.

There is the genius and there are not so bright.

Except, who are we to say who is what?

There are believers and there are doubters.

There are saints and then there are sinners.

Their creators and there are inventors.

Only a few can describe the difference.

I could go on with there are of the world.

Cause there is tomorrow to continue this.