I’ve dubbed my wastebasket the wishing well
Well I wish for nothing more than a dime of
creativity to hit me,  ripple across my wrinkles
Knocking some sense in,
sink beneath my pores
So swallow my codswallop wishing well
because this is another petty penny for you.

© Matthew Harlovic

I have a story to tell you
Please listen, I'll be concise
You see, my name is Love,
Love Poem to be precise

I was born beneath a shaking pen
Moved by a racing heart
The child of a lovesick boy,
whose love moved him to art

I have smudges from erasers
My corners have dog ears
In the valleys of my wrinkles,
are the stains of quiet tears

I may not look like much at all
but what you do not see
is that locked inside my margins and lines
is a love that was never set free

He trapped it here, between my lines
writing with heart and pen
then he crumpled me up, tossed me aside
and never looked at me again

But don't feel bad, it's happened before,
I am not alone in this world
for many a poem lies alone and unread
on a paper both crumpled and curled

So now you've heard me tell my tale
I pray that you ponder upon it
why aching hearts pour out their love
just to join in the wastebasket sonnet

Trash can, wastebasket;
the place we throw it all away.
Used tissues--soggy mascara, dried *****,
or the babies that would never be,
and the heaps of food waste, human waste.

Wasted human.

Why do we take ourselves and the people we used to love,
toss people and our person deep within a hole of shame,
darkness, misery, guilt, worry, frustration, fear?

If someone only said to you, or to me, when we dig deep
into the ground and find the place no one will find us
or them, the people we are burying--
if they only said,
"You are not trash."

Our emotions refuse to become refuse, the remains of
being unwanted, as we perceive ourselves to be.

But we is just me, and even though I can't hear the voice
I long to hear above my own, the sounds reverberate in my chest,
next to my heart, where I heard them last.

The last time we spoke your fingers did not reach for mine.
Your jeans did not rip in the same one spot.
The dog that I picked that you picked after you went back,
his tail wagging all the way on the ride back to his new home,
did not kiss my face and my eyes and ears like he loves to do.
Even though you didn't still love me, you did before,
now thrown hastily, yet decidedly in the trash can outside your door.

I dropped off the last remnant of your physical being,
an old rabbit-eared antennae.
I didn't, couldn't look in your trash can,
or stand in the driveway longer than was needed to drop and run
the hell away from crumbling gravel, a window newly aluminum foiled, and the motorcycle kept under surveillance at all times.

I hope he looked on his camera screen and saw walking,
talking, feeling, breathing human trash gliding
down the sidewalk, feet pattering into a jog.
The grass licked my feet and tangled in my toes on the way
to the one place my sighs could sink lower than my feet,
deep into the warm upholstery of my car seat, the grandma car,
the dented, imperfect, but mostly reliable car

away, far away, to a place where someone would look curiously,
pick up the trash, my trash, me, and say,
"It's beautiful."

I am the love killer,
I am murdering the music we thought so special,
that blazed between us, over and over.
I am murdering me, where I kneeled at your kiss.
I am pushing knives through the hands
that created two into one.
Our hands do not bleed at this,
they lie still in their dishonor.
I am taking the boats of our beds
and swamping them, letting them cough on the sea
and choke on it and go down into nothing.
I am stuffing your mouth with your
promises and watching
you ***** them out upon my face.
The Camp we directed?
I have gassed the campers.

Now I am alone with the dead,
flying off bridges,
hurling myself like a beer can into the wastebasket.
I am flying like a single red rose,
leaving a jet stream
of solitude
and yet I feel nothing,
though I fly and hurl,
my insides are empty
and my face is as blank as a wall.

Shall I call the funeral director?
He could put our two bodies into one pink casket,
those bodies from before,
and someone might send flowers,
and someone might come to mourn
and it would be in the obits,
and people would know that something died,
is no more, speaks no more, won't even
drive a car again and all of that.

When a life is over,
the one you were living for,
where do you go?

I'll work nights.
I'll dance in the city.
I'll wear red for a burning.
I'll look at the Charles very carefully,
weraing its long legs of neon.
And the cars will go by.
The cars will go by.
And there'll be no scream
from the lady in the red dress
dancing on her own Ellis Island,
who turns in circles,
dancing alone
as the cars go by.

It's something in the chemicals, it makes the "miss you's" come out when you're drunk. Really, we're all liquor store kisses --- things you can't tell your parents. My drink is a little too strong, making my lungs feel like their filled with wasps. I'm a mess, is that what you call it? When someone says "don't cry" but you cry harder. Everyone's talking all they want around me, but I'm not listening. Lies, lies, lies. But, the lies are only good when you're telling them. I need help, aka a wedding for all the things I've lost in my eighteen year old life. The morning vomits evening colors from hearing your name. Like I'm vomiting-out all the broken promises you ever made to me. Your eyes reminded me of the prettiest diamonds, what did mine remind you of? Loose change? I need to do laundry, but I'm too lazy. I'm living in a wastebasket of flashbacks. I'm driving home tonight, alone, not sobber. I won't grip my steering wheel tightly, I won't wear my seatbelt, I won't use my breaks. I'll remember the amount-less number of drinks I've drank, slightly. But, they were no mistakes. I'm good at pretending my life is in order, but clearly it's not. This isn't who I want to be anymore, I hate the remembrance of you. I think getting drunk will help, but that only makes the remembrance worse, and I keep thinking about our first kisses --- and how they tasted --- how they drained the color out of every living thing --- how ladybugs decided to make their homes in the palms of our hands --- how it wasn't hard to forget that we have an unbearable amount of seconds left on this planet.
(k.m.m)

I never understood “made in God’s image” until I saw her.
Anyone who’s seen her has higher expectations for what heaven looks like.

We’re both sensitive enough to know what love feels like,
and reasonable enough to know that it can be broken.

The first time you use a new toothbrush is nothing like the first time you kiss a girl,
But I still love them both.

Her laugh is a paradox; an outsider would think she either just said the cleverest thing ever or she wishes she could retract it faster than it was said.
Only I know it’s simply because it’s beautiful. It’s easily my favorite language.

I have considered wearing a wiretap so I could go back and listen to all of our conversations again. And I hope that it picked up her heartbeat. She told me, it’s beating exactly like life should sound like.

She offers to iron any wrinkled clothes. I don’t have any. But I have a wrinkled heart.
I thought it was made into origami but it’s just a wadded ball that missed the wastebasket.

The way she dances to hip-hop shows her versatility,
yet you can tell she doesn’t do this every day; but she still dances.

I’m almost too nervous to hug her - knowing it will have to end.
Whenever I let go, I feel like I made a mistake.

Her voice trails off into silence,
like an hourglass that’s trying to hold itself together.

I like that “click-clack” of her boots.
It lets me know I’m next to someone really going places.

She goes to the mini mart with me even when she doesn't want to get anything,
besides more time together.

The representative from Ohio
wipes his *** with Jose’s brown
palms after a bout of verbal defecation.
Luckily, Jose’s food truck houses

a small sink in the corner where
he can wash his hands in between
baskets of chorizo prepared
for rich politicians.

Sometimes Jose scrubs so hard dream flakes
rub off of his skin and he throws them
into the wastebasket to be picked
up by the sanitation workers who

eagerly jump like frogs in orange vests
into the waste of Americana. When
the Representative stops by for
a plate of carne asada, Jose’s

dream specks pepper the beef
and his salty sweat flavors
the inside of the burrito. He grills
the onions and green peppers with

a dash of minimum wage and
boils the rice in a mixture of blood
and pieces of his heritage.
He serves the meal in a white Styrofoam

tray and drizzles it with cheese flowing
from an open wound. The receipt is an unpaid
medical bill, the drink an icy reminder
of his future sipped through a straw.

The nightly news tells Jose
the Representative is bedridden
with a stomach infection. He
complains his insides feel like

a million ***** feet kicking the lining,
like unheard mouths with rows of
sharp teeth gnawing at the liver.
Jose to the tv: tonight we’re not starving.

the pages you wrote your letters on
ripped cleanly and easily
and for that,
I am grateful.

Baggie, tin foil, pizza box that entered much too soon before I had the chance to read the baking instructions.
Tissues, red bull cans, graded busy work that earned it's keep after a professor marked it with a big red "X."
Mummified tea bags drained of every last living drop, miniature candy bar  wrappers, a dumb drawing of a cow dressed as Spider-man.
Guitar strings, chewed gum, a news article about the house I burned down.
Love notes, crumpled paper cups, and a used band-aid.

How many of these old notebooks
have I thrown away?

How many times have I told myself
that I’m not worth putting down on
paper,

that hell,

I’m hardly worth putting down?

I keep picking them up,

99¢ at any good pharmacy.

$1.25 at an office supply store.

No matter where I get the pulp from,
it’s medicine.

Any time I doubt it,
pitching them
is fever.

Tylenol won’t work,
only ink.

*

- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017

It was orange -
spherical symphony of segments
I liked to
             cut
up,
      peel off the skin,
lick the surface
while you
       stared
and
       shouted
and
       clapped your hands

and called it Art.

We both devoured it
anyhow.

I spat the seeds into the air,
you waited for  
                         gravity
to catch them in
your wastebasket.

I noticed the sour
before-taste
    dripped into
sweet
    -bitter
so our fiction of
pulp
melted on the
tongue
into facts of juice
running down our chins
until we were
           hollow-hungry
no more.

Facts like
frightening
words -
you may decide which.

It was orange
      like
the globe
     of irrational truths
some people pray to.

Dropped out of a tree
       into our mouths
but we bit into
everything
       but
nothing.

It was orange.

a voracious wrath vanishes
varnishes stick to all wounds
in the womb we vent the room

repel the wasps that wait on
the inner side of the window
for the light to toast them

the bulb is a wastebasket
with light stuck in it

Oh dear, she said
there comes a time
when all things
they cease to shine,
and looking up at frail moon's fade
she lost her way
she lost her way
ever toward an inner light
ever toward  a mundane night
you cannot ask for want of asking
ever toward the soils crashing

oh dear, she said
there comes a time
when all your dreams
will lose their rhyme

and so on past
the child at play
and past the girl
on bridal day
an further past
the humming hag
until she reached the grave at last

oh dear, she said
there comes a time
when all things, they cease to shine
and looking up a frail moon's fade
she lost her way
she lost her way

The sun shines upon Earth, and upon me.
It looks down on me, from blue skies of hope.
It says "Why do you destroy yourself in this way?
Why do you pollute yourself, and myself, and my Earth when you can be protecting us?"
"Because," I say, looking up at the white clouds of smoke, slowly drifting towards the sun, from my lungs,
"Life is too long, and too painful."
The sun sighs, as black dots begin to appear around the sun.
"Life is just long enough, my friend. You have all the time you need to find love, happiness, and yourself.
You have just enough time to do all of this, and then die.
There is no reason to be upset, no reason to harm.
Recite the three virtues as was told to you, by myself, by all around you."
"Eternity, happiness, true self, and purity. These describe the true nature of Buddha's life and of my life and of the life on all around me."
The sun smiles as I put out my cigarette, in a wastebasket.
"Good, my friend. Do you feel better now? Do you wish to recite them again?"
"No, my friend. Thank you, you are a true source of guidance when myself is lost."

small irregular steps, like
a little kid top-toeing towards
a cookie jar, his jar
a lonely lady
buried in her latest ‘good read’
behind her now, his hands
eclipse light, ‘guess who’
‘*******’ she moans. his fat ***
teeter-totters on the chairs face,
his eyes catch her shut book,
denoting a ****** title, laughing
he jokes about windmill dunking
it in the tableside wastebasket
scoffing as she claws at the book,
before 180 dunking it in her bag,
which resembles a shelter for some
petty, puny & pathetic dog

she bibble babbles blah blah,
his eyes entranced on her chest
hoping the slightest bump will
blast her ***** through her blouse
like an airbag. distracted
by bowels, he debates cutting
cheese. gas leaks through a forest
of *** hair. overpriced coffee odors
mask the lingering stench as it floats
like a boat through espresso &
cappuccino airways; docking
my attention to a tech boy blinded
by his desktop. to infatuated to notice
the pair of blushing blue eyes blessing him
from a corner table. an old man
at his starboard laughs as he clings to his cane
like it’s the decaying hand
of his deceased wife.

[9: 15 p.m.]

for some reason, my ribs ache when i think of you

they feel incomplete like gaps in between teeth

empty spaces where a heart should keep pumping  

then i imagine you next to me and it skips a beat

or maybe two



[10:32 p.m.]

normally it's the chase that gets me most thrilled

i heard once that lions sometimes hunted for the hell of it

but i can't seem to find heaven tangled in these phone lines

it is better to back down before i get myself wounded

or even worse



[10:49 p.m.]

tear stains seem more permanent than ebony ink

so i wrote you a song on the tip of my eyelashes

but you couldn't remember how to read the music

a few violin strings and promises were broken

in the process



[11:56 p.m.]

they say drinking hot tea creates the same effect

as physical closeness, the touch of human warmth

i settled for coffee and the heat of a texas summer

but it wasn't the same feeling as when you held me

in my dream



[12:11 a.m.]

there are so many wasted nights in the wastebasket

of poetry written about love and loss and anger

and not enough about the indescribable feeling

of staying up at night just to hear your voice

for an hour



[12:47 a.m.]

there was a time when i got sick at the sound of laughter

sunshine gave me a never-ending, piercing migraine

i stared into the dark and screamed profanities into my pillow

because i wished i could be content alone and without you

for one second



[1:21 a.m.]

someone once told me i have the memory of an elephant

but i forgot to tell you that you give  me  the strangest euphoria  

like eating gas station sushi on long trips to my hometown

or wearing mismatched socks underneath my favorite shoes

and autumn nights



[2:13 a.m.]**

sometimes we focus too heavily on the tiny details

to realize that if we step back for a second, we will see

a beautiful masterpiece right in front of  us instead of

mistakes under the guise of "amateur brushstrokes"

and "just friends"



[3:30 a.m.]

there are times where i can't distinguish

between tachycardia and a broken heart

but i do know that i love you in some way

and if i never told you that before now

well I'm sorry

I have spent so much of my life trying to limit myself and say:
"This is who I am, I feel like myself"
But so much time trying to define myself to one feeling
was the biggest waste of anything I've ever had
and it had to be life that i was wasting, didn't it?
and I have wasted so much
like toilet paper
or my liver
or food
or space...
but my biggest regret is wasting my life
my time that is ever so short and precious
And I threw it away like the last piece of pizza no one thought they wanted
but I did want it
i do want it
I have realized so early in my life
that who I am is not one definition
and I cannot draw my own boundaries
Unless I am drawing them with a white crayon
on white paper
I am so many people and so many different feelings
in my realization
I am taking that pizza out of the wastebasket
(it's called that for a reason)
and I'm brushing off the dirt of years thrown away
And I'm going to eat my pizza.
Savoring every bite to the last bit of crust.

as i sat cross legged in my dorm room,
the dawn lazily waking,
hugging my solid metal wastebasket
emptying the contents of my bad decisions
into its yawning mouth
lurching forward with each violent reminder
of every feeble drowning
of every bitter memory
i realized

only squares have trashcans with holes in them.

Those magnificent sunsets, riveting
to the bone.
I walked into the prairie,
and felt like the cool wind on a Saturday night.
I can see the old rusted behemoth.
It sits, lost in the wastebasket of oblivion.
Tall whisky willows, tower in front, their boughs
blocking it's menacing complexion.
A hummingbird approached me.
The shuttering of the old clock in the truck,
fell to a lonesome silence.

A very long, a very rough day I've had
  Explaining a dark visitor & frozen pizza
   ....no celebrating with food today

Why? What's up?
Ahhhh honey, he came to take her today

  Who came? For whom?
Doesn't really matter

You mean I don't know her? Or him?
No, you don't
Know her, or him...yet, I mean
& I doubt you're gonna meet either
one of them, for a very long time

Oh, now I'm just confused.
why do you say it doesn't matter?
Well some things are just gonna
*happen anyway ya know?
this one will intrude regardless
    ~ a divine intervention~
seriously, doesn't care about my feelings
or anyone's for that matter
came 7 months back, took him too

Oh yeah, that's right, go on...
you mean kismit?

I mean, he was her true love
I know, I could see it in her eyes
~heard the loudest sound I've ever heard~ she said,
~the most painful sound of goodbye~

(my version, or vision if you will)
came in the flash of a bullet
sent in a river of crimson blood sacrifice
brought on the tongue
of old man winter
rushing in on that frozen white water
escaping, again... onto  the kitchen floor

Slow down, I remember,
poetic but so dramatic,
that is very unfortunate...
(a well-meaning understatement)
    Nobody would have said
    that about Romeo and Juliet
as I, feeling a tad bit patronized
& followed by an obligatory hug,
then a peck on the forehead
~well meaning again of course ~

I heard all the stories
we visited in the hospital
just this past July, right before the 4th

Gotta love a sense of humor...
         (more kidding?)

That  was the longest & the strangest
week of my life, hands down,
I seem to recall  we didn't know if I was going to make it either...
as some seemingly inaudible
thoughts come out

as you know, you can't hide your
feelings, or actions from me
     ... haunted I am.

Yes, I do... fortunately or unfortunately, kidding, just kidding... relax.
Insomniacs you ladies are,
well sometimes anyway.
I sleep like a baby.

A baby?....I don't know about that
Really?
Do you think I'm staying awake for my looks?
...feeling fingers toward tired eyes
Do you think
I'm not sleeping intentionally?
~Sarcastically said~
I've done everything, including stand
on my **** head
tried every wild remedy known to man

Sensible man to say that though,
seeing my face, turning
bright red  in confusion
not ill-tempered,
I'm feeling vexed and a bit perplexed

I guess, your gypsy heart sure is impossible to understand & I see you have a curse
suppose it could be worse,
the woes of an empath?
Those signs you see,
strange dreams, kind of  a mystery
messages you find,
my Grandmother died from that ya know?

Just a nod of my head following...

Anyway, let me get this straight
your friend, the one you met
in that nice  hospital
(Now, I know he must be kidding )
so, this dark visitor took her love first,
now you two are friends
and somehow he just took a friend
that you two have in common,
a sorta new friend?

Yeah that's right
Kinda

Well I'm still a little confused,
because I thought he committed suicide? What about her?

~A very deep breath following~
Suicide...ya know I hate that word
Like an overdosing of life
but reflected in a bad way
sounds kinda like you wanted to do it
I know in these particular situations
& circumstances
that wasn't the case

Maybe that's true sometimes

I believe, sometimes people just
can't understand, the  taking
or the leaving, they literally break inside
come unglued... apart at the seams
feel like they're going to jump
right out of  their skin
I listened to her tell his story
he said he didn't feel right
that morning
was the only thing,
was the only warning
from a flood
all those traumatic & dramatic
military memories
coming back
*back in full brilliant color
ONE FLASH of white light

From what did she go? Or him?
  I don't know
Being too nice?
  If that's the case
.....I'm a dead woman walking

Still an excuse?
For what?
What's in your hand?

This darlin'? Haha, very funny
   (more uncomfortable humor?)

well, a drink of wine
& blowing a little smoke,
trying to just breathe
ain't the worst thing I'm fearing

No? What is?

That  fancy dressed cloaked visitor
who'd ya think smarty-pants?
hoping he
...or she,   I really don't know
hoping that one, doesn't darken
our door anytime soon

Yeah hey there's no moon,
interesting, well...alright then,
better catch some zzzzz's, get some rest
I wouldn't worry you're not "that nice"
haha, just kidding -again I love you
last call, last offering of that "humor"

Followed by a much more
sincere hug, deep and long
a soft kiss on the cheek trying to take a tear as fingers clutch at a paint stained
t-shirt, grasping at a
picture of what love is.
Just Breathe, she tells herself

Must be one of those time jokes
I didn't have the time to laugh
sorry sweetness
Emmmm...& yeah, rest

as I am tipping that last bit, a swallow...
as I am sipping that last tiny morsel
of bittersweet summer wine,
lighting a joint,
and a candle in the darkness
blowin' smoke
stepping outside,
looking into the wild night
saved all for such an occasion...
& trying to catch a glimpse
of that lovely luminous lady

I don't know if it's going to come cuz
I'm sooooo **** nice
more than likely, just cuz
my paper heart, is so **** heavy
can't take the weight off
or the waiting
it's just so **** heavy
probably won't be able
to lift it up one day
stuck in that long sleeping bed ....eventually..
forever sleeping, forcing a stop by

No words follow now
just calm quietness, as the flame
dances and licks at the air
tasting freedom,
she moves like grace
filled with gratitude
living for the coming midnight
even the crickets are tight-lipped
as you are watching over us again

I bow my head and say a silent prayer
It's 11:11...that angel I see her flying
and she's no longer trying to explain to the world her decision to go, they couldn't know that she's no longer crying
in a crumpled ball of paper
in her wastebasket
releasing the ink into the atmosphere
so I can write it all down.
down,
                   d
                         o
                               w
                                    n
been down very different paths her & I
all hoping for the same thing, a heavenly ever after, forgiveness of our sins...

Sounds like suicide, I know
...but hey, they'll be plenty of resting
I hear,
and the endlessness....
long sleeping I fear,
when I'm gone just
another tragic ending to the day

Well alright
goodnight and I love you too
  my lovely little
  Angry Angels.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

It's not falling in love that scares me,
It's the falling out of it.
You know, the feeling that creeps up on you,
Like a tear in nyolon stockings, or an old knit sweater.
Not a big obnoxious ****, but a tiny run that eventually dismantles the entire garment,
Leaving it forlorn and impossible to wear.
Tossed aside in an old wastebasket, only to be taken out for reminicing.
We're destined for that kind of falling apart, I think.
I know it isn't fair, but it's inevitable,
And the more we try to avoid it,
The longer we pretend it doesn't exist,
The harsher it becomes, catching us off guard.
Slowly infesting the shadows of our doubts,
Until it takes over, leaving us naked
Face to face with the unwraveling truth:
Nothing that lasts is beautiful,
And nothing that's beautiful lasts.
For, every time "I love you" is uttered,
The fabric between us wears a little thinner,
Exposing our flesh to the unforgiving coldness of leaving.
Making us vulnerable in the worst kind of way.

there are moments with
you, and moreover, tiny
moments within moments,
and so forth, when it feels
impossible to be any closer
to you than the cigarette
between index and rebuttal.
[it should be saying a lot(but it's not)]
like on those southern nights
when honey stained our lips
and lives and judgment;
they showed up in the back
of a police car, armed with
a deadly arsenal of threats
as empty as the bottle of
whiskey in the corner.
they left, and we delivered,
before the state could sweep ash
away into the dustpan of a foster
home and furthermore into the
wastebasket or dumpster of the
so-called effectively efficient system.
we caught some air mixed in with
the paper souls betwixt index and
profane, and discussed past lusts
and loves and losses and the insanity
of the preceeding few days while the
accompanying ebb of breath and flow
of fire beat gently on our consciences.

the new year; i never thought i'd
make it here, *and neither did you.

The heart and the brain are at war

The beat goes to the synapses and makes them snap

The rubber band on the makeshift guitar

Plays a melody only the fingers understand.

The lips blow bubbles into the sky

Hoping they turn into balloons that cannot pop.

The candy store closes 3 hours too early

Because customers don’t want rotten teeth

But rotten hearts come from lack of childhood dreams

The apple core is thrown an inch from the wastebasket

The flies won’t devour it,

Because why consume what has already been consumed?

The consumers shop at flashy malls hoping to validate their originalities

With cookie cutter brand names.

The housewife in the kitchen bakes cookies without chips

Because chocolate can only appear when happiness is readily available

Her brain and heart at war, not over emotion, but rather out of obligation

When you left me, I shattered. Shattered like a broken mirror. Leaving me to stare into my own tear-stricken complexion. A reflection of a girl who used to be happy, bright eyed, cheerful. Now the only shine in my eyes are the tears you left me. Looking at me now, you'd think I was a totally different person. The person you made me to be. You took the love I so willingly gave you and crumpled it into wasted youth, tossing me into a wastebasket of every heart you've ever broken. Now, I'm one of them. A distant memory. An unimportant detail. Just another face in the crowd. And yet I STILL love you. And no amount of inconsolable tears will EVER change that.

with mouth wide open
it’s now ready
to spew in your face
the trash of life
it has long
swallowed

we were driving down the freeway
the air was humid in the 70s
and the cars in the opposite lane
looked like eyes trying
to tell me something
and if you were to swerve
i don't think I would stop you.

So we trudged through a field
of midnight grass
and the purple sky was
starless, the moon
barely had anything
to say
Neither did I
smoke billowing from the
slow suicide in my hand
I watched as it danced inside itself
casting a shadow over
the concrete ground
I want to
dance with you
tenderly as the
cancer danced with
the air.

And the wish flowers
populating the ground
were ghost memories
from my childhood so I
kicked them down and
watched as the burs
whisked away, telling
stories to their kin about how
they lived a worthy life
full of unfulfilled wishes

pool lights from your headlights
onto the white flowers
from the bush you almost ran over
I am so sorry
that you choose to throw away
love after love
I would know, you threw me away
just like
that time we
went to the poetry reading
you wrote in your
journal that you were happy I was here
I was happy too
you crumbled that page
and threw it in the
wastebasket.
So I crumbled my body
and threw myself
down the stairs.


But those poor souls
aren't as solid as mine
and although you managed
to crack me
I inserted a gold plated
filling so I can
sparkle in sunlight
but they do not
have the strength
nor the wits to
do that.

Oh dear, she said
there comes a time
when all things
they cease to shine,
and looking up at frail moon's fade
she lost her way
she lost her way
ever toward an inner light
ever toward  a mundane night
you cannot ask for want of asking
ever toward the soils crashing

oh dear, she said
there comes a time
when all your dreams
will lose their rhyme

and so on past
the child at play
and past the girl
on bridal day
an further past
the humming hag
until she reached the grave at last

oh dear, she said
there comes a time
when all things, they cease to shine
and looking up a frail moon's fade
she lost her way
she lost her way

Aristotle,
You preached that
Logic is the basis of humanity.

I tried reason.
I penned a list:
"PROS—I will be happy (when he is around)
CONS—I will be miserable (when he is gone)
 
He is gone"

Aristotle,
Your logic is crumpled up
At the bottom of my wastebasket.

He says, "Is this a stool?"

Turn it upside down and it is a wastebasket
Now it's a drum

There are no concepts
It is what it does

Anything you can use it for is what it is
A stool can be all these other things as well

Buddhism does not define
If you believe that, you are stuck with an idea
And are clinging onto it for spiritual security

You have a great laugh Alan

There is nothing you can hold onto
So man let go!

If you're enlightened you're like a dumb man
Who has had a wonderful dream

Nirvana means blow out

If you hold your breathe you lose it
Breathe out and you get your breath back

The ultimate reality is Shunyata

You don't meed any gizmos to be in the know

Every teacher of Buddhism is a debunker
He or she does it out of compassion

The personification of crumpled paper
Bounding in and out of relevance
Back and forth from the wastebasket
To the pen

three days in row now
I've seen flowers in the trash
outside of her office
not old flowers
not dead flowers
not cleaning-out-my-valentine's-day-vase flowers
new flowers
blossoming flowers
roses and carnations
all vibrant reds and soft creams and ****** pinks
three days in a row now
each day a new bouquet
blooming from her wastebasket
on the floor outside her office door
adding floral notes to the remains
of her discarded lunch
making her garbage look like
it's gotten dressed up
to go on a date
at the dump
looking like a first-year art student's
commentary on still-life
or on the notion of "romance"
And I wonder
who hurt her
and how

The wind whispers softly

leaving shadows in my mind

Once in desperate fury she left

boundless debris behind

The withered holly berries like

an old man's weathered face

While the milk has spoiled

unfit for pudding cake

Winter roses from the garden

fall limp

a tarnished gold

The wastebasket full of things

I  never should have sold

I mean to leave this place

Put it far out of my mind

Yet, those shadows cling

to inner places wasting

all my time

I crush the roses flat

one by bleeding one



You never planned on coming back

to make this place our fun



The wind she's in a fury

pulling branches from the trees

This seems to be what's missing

And what those shadows need

I glance outside at winter

Sadness pulls the shadows back

It lets me hold last moments

To see what's left behind

No love, no cheer, no pudding cake

I must have lost my mind

I grab my coat and cap

And grind  holly into chime

I open the door to face the storm

Feeling strangely out of time

There you stand

staring straight at me

With shadows in your eyes

Charlie crumpled up the script
that his mother left him as a note on the banister;
an ode to matronly passive-aggression
scrawled in haphazard cursive
on the back of a Meijer receipt when she was drunk.

While conducting a routine bedroom sweep
for any arbitrary evidence
to convict her son, yet again,
as the eternal family scapegoat,
Marilyn was far from pleased
to find his final disregard
of her bankrupt maternal instinct
clouded by inherited alcoholism
wadded up in his wastebasket.

Jaded by plot conventions, dodging foreshadow,
we scrapped our narratives and hopped in his car.
Untethered by destination, we drove through the rain
in the last hours to waste of a Sunday night.
Stopped at an intersection in an unfamiliar town,
he turned to me with an expectant smile:

“Where to now?”

With no surrounding traffic to rush our decision,
I glanced in both directions.

“Let’s turn left.”
“Where’s that lead?”

I squinted in the dark.
*“Wherever the hell we’re going.”