They say
Words can leap off the page.
They say
Words can cut like a knife.

Come home from watching Lubovitch's dancers
Doing crazy eights upon the Joyce stage,
Rat-a-tat and seconds to bed tablet two-handed,
Some of thy words to keep, relish and visualize.
Tongue-taste delights, imagery dreamed, conceive'd!

Read four or five and I am
Crucified.

Anguish
Unrelenting - knocks planet Earth
Off its axis.
Star watching observatories call
NASA
"What's going on?"
But hey, they don't take the
Call
I don't make
Explaining soular word flares.

Anguish
Black and bold apropos.
Its asexual attendants,
Greet me, as I lay me down to sleep,
Souls inferno'd true confessions slap
Reality TV down to a pathetic joke.
Words, thorns without roses,
Bodies ready for extreme unction,
Punks puncturing peace with no punctuation,
Respite, none,
Spite, aplenty.

Google "sayings about words," thousands exist, pithy.
Amusing, insightful, but can't uncover any that relieve
Anguish,
the way needed now, for this crisis state.

Anguish.
Say it slow with your hands clasping your head,
The electric **** stabs connect your ears, but
Like water seeking release, head southbound to test the
Cavities of the heart's boundaries, probe for the
Satisfying silent ******* screaming weak spots.

Anguish.
Say it     r  e  a  l     slow,
feel the sounds of a summary of
Many other words, subsets of misery etc. etc.

The Aingsound,
Reminder of the dinging ringing stinking stingers,
Happy in their ***** work,
Here a hurt, there a hurt,
Everywhere a hurt hurt.

The shhh sound,
Is the bitter taste residue down sinister,
Ends in it,
No wash of the body or the mouth
Removes the endless shhh sound that is the exact
Opposite of a silencing hush.

I say,
I have words too.

Though I am not now,
Next to you,
You will hear my voice,
Out loud, out now, speaking
My words, recite or
Stop.

My words:

Feel just like those squeezing hugs parents
Give their kids when they are six seven and eight.
Hugs so tight the breath stops, but no minded,
For the message well received,
You are mine, my always, unencumbered,
Safely will this hugging touch see you through the night.

Foolish parents thinking those hugs unnecessary,
When children are "old," you know, like
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, when
Anguish
Needs defeating then, needs them hugs,
Now more than ever.

My words:

Are the arm unexpected slung fastball of simple affection,
Over and around a shoulder sent and spent,
A best friend's gesture that says, I know, I care.
A costless measure that measures in caring
What no precious metal could dare contend.

My words:

Are hands, a corps, a division of single soldiers,
Stroking thy cheek, caressing thy forehead,
Corpsmen coming for the wounded with comfort,
Antiseptic syringes, stretchers to take away
What needs taking away.

My words:

Are a neck architecturally designed to take your
Head, be a pillow resting place, your bird house to
Shelter or hide, as you need, see fit.
There is no rent charged,
Except for what I pay you in the coin of comfort.

My words:

Drum beating chest for your rest, each beat a
Message of connection, my beats purposed to
Remind you that thousands beats more yours,
So look up raise up refreshed head, to listen
For it's the song of steady, a reminder, a remainder,
So many much chances yet.

My words:

The drowning pools where anguish suffocates,
For it cannot breathe in a world of words of
Pure oxygen that resuscitate, filter, restore.
Each breath a clarification, each one  word speaking,
No more, no mas, done, enough,
Anguish
Extinguished, banished.

They say,
Words can leap off the page,
They say.

No, you try, you hear it, the voice clarion,
These new words that travel up thine arms
Holding until the until, no end demanded,
Awe and then some,
Some more,
Healing words, meant to be read back to me,
So I can rest knowing you've lesson-learned,
Homework done, cause it is your words speaking,
Out Loud!
My words,
Become words of yours,

Your words.

I stare at the stars
my soul ceases to exist.

I see it far away
my mind in celestial abyss

America is as rich as her poorest citizen, as healthy as her sickest, as educated as her most ignorant.

We are more concerned with goods than goodness.

May we be servants to all others and masters of ourselves.

If a man doesn't keep his word, he soon finds out he has a limited vocabulary.

The mountain is deeper than it is high.

Repentagon

If you are going to err, err on the side of generosity.

"Evil" is the word "live" twisted.

I open my heart so I may enter yours....

The poem is the sound, publication an echo. The sound is more important than the echo.

Are you shocked to find out that I'm human and therefore imperfect, or are you embarrassed to realize that you are the same...?

One cannot impose what's right;  one can only evoke it.

The Second Coming will be the coming to the realization that each of us is sacred, that all things are divine.

The only thing our country recycles well is pain.

Take the high road. There's less traffic up there.

It is easier to find a publisher than to find your heart.

To save Earth, you have to planet.

Beliefs expressed anonymously are coward's clothes.

Out on a limbo.

Racism is one of the worst forms of mental illness.

We used to just waste human lives. Now we turn lives into human waste.

Someone once asked me, "Do you have a hobby?" I thought for a moment, then replied, "Yes, I do. I collect beauty--beautiful music, beautiful art, beautiful memories...."

Labels are for ketchup bottles.

In our nation's capital, we have more probes than probity.

An avalanche, a mountain's revanche.

All people live downstream.

The greatest rage is when you scream, you cannot hear the scream.

Adobe abode

NRA or NEA?

Danger has anger in it, tragedy rage.

The sound of a siren has become our national anthem.

Do not confuse your pain with your worth.

Knowledge is finite, wisdom infinite.

Wealth is not worth.

A paradox is paradoxically not paradoxical.

Love is my religion, and my politics, too.

I am crazy with clarity.

War has no warranties.

THE GOOD NEWS:  Our next world war will be our last.
THE BAD NEWS:  It will last only 10 minutes.

Know truth by untruth.

The deciding vote cast is the bullet fired by the assassin.

Less commerce, more mercy.

Things cling.

You don't need a policeman or a teacher or a priest to teach you right from wrong. You only need to have been loved.

When love is your currency, all else is counterfeit.

Those who remain silent in a democracy are complicit in its destruction.

I have 8 billion friends on Earth. It's just that I haven't met them all yet.

I saved a billion dollars today. I didn't buy a Caribbean island.

Do you want Peace on Earth or would you rather just own a huge piece of it?

How many friends does a person need?  Only one, her- or himself.

We have many religions on Earth, all believing in the same God, but calling the same God different names.

The only way to become a traitor is to cease to be true to yourself.

I will die for anyone, but will never **** anyone.

The only thing worse than a despot is the people willing to brook him.

Don't tell me your title. Bring me your heart.

There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.

It is never the wrong time to do the right thing.

A politician makes calculated decisions, a leader moral ones.

Noble instead of global.

All works are autobiographical.

Lincoln used a little to say a lot. Most use a lot to say nothing.

Most are familiar with the epigram "Ties that bind." Despots's favorite is "Lies that blind."

Power should empower, not oppress.

Ideals are ideas with an "l" on the end. The "l" stands for love.

What does it matter that our flags are waving if our spirits are flagging?

What good is it to receive a medal if we have no chest to pin it on?

All wars are internecine.

In war, censorship is the first amendment of the 1st Amendment.

The CIA has the freedom to warship as it pleases.

The cannon of ethics.

Victory without honor is not triumph, but turpitude.

I am a racist, a human racist.

We are made taut by what we are taught.

It is easier to study novels than ourselves. It is easier to write essays than to assay our own worth.

Self-acceptance is the synthesis of all that is strong and weak in us. These alloys become allies, forming a better, more durable, more flexible mettle.

Rebearth

Poetry is like the ocean wind:  It blows only for those sails that are open.

Avoid a void.

We are all in treatment. It's just that some of us are treated better than others.

Most affluent people think the common good is a mutual fund.

Onership

Pretension, smugness, fatuity:  even high society has its richuals.

Some like heavy-metal music. I like precious-metal music:  Beethoven, Bach, Mozart.

A square is a neurotic circle.

Meanness is smallness.

Let your love be a moral poultice.

Allude to yourself.

Be all you can be:  Be yourself.

We are ordained when sunlight touches our brow.

I have an infinity with God.

Soular energy.

Light is the ultimate luxury.

If I were truly your superior, I would sit beneath you.

We are tied together not in knots, but in a tapestry.

It is not right to profit from another's misery.

You cannot hoard love.

Utopia is those streets paved with kindness.

Will is the intent to allow.

More enduring than fame is flame.

If a man were a tree, fame would be his branches, greatness his roots.

All great men have met before.

Unfortunately, the relationship between parents and their children are junk bonds.

To be a perfect human being is to be imperfect.

Who among us has not hurt?

The shame and stigma belong to those who remain ignorant and fearful of, and therefore bigoted against, those who have the courage to seek the help they need to help themselves.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS