Whispers of clouds brought to life
From a child's observant hand,
Tied firmly with twine
To mine
Are puddles now,
Unfathomably deep and yet
Impenetrable,
As a windowpane in a lamplit room facing the glossy
Liquid tar of the night,

And sometimes I see the sky
And sometimes I believe I can see the bottom
And sometimes I see my own face staring back up at me,
Tinted grey,
Wrinkled by age or the tiny footsteps of waterbugs
That have found solace in the stagnant water,
And my eyes are glassy and unfocused
And my nose is crooked,
And I am tempted to take a tiny cup
And drink from that tepid pool
Dip by dip
Until the water has drained
And the bottom is no longer an elusive phantom
Masked by a pallid imitation
Of the life that breathes before it,
And the waterbugs and their skittering legs
Are all inside me
Where they bounce around in my warm skin
So I,
Too,
May remember how it feels to be alive,
But the dirt under my fingernails
And the husks peeling from my shoulders
And the tendril roots anchoring downward from my toes
Craft,
In their chthonic shelter -
A suffocating darkness of soil
That strips the eyes and lungs of their familiar needs -
Some lyric
That sings of a new desire
And an emanating warmth that reprimands my very body
For being so naïve,
To think that it
May whither away
Should the sun set on one Summer day's
Dusky glow
(So reminiscent of the afternoons
Where you would grip my fingers and guide me through
The ins and outs
Of ravenous caterpillar holes
Bitten into the leaves
Of the alder trees,
Never allowing me to forget
How you despised their aberrant bodies,
"Freaks of the natural world,"
And I would tell
To closed-off ears
Stories of transformation
And the butterfly that fed
On the ugliness of a fat insect
And turned it into romance)
So I abstain
From my brackish libation
And sit back,
With my dusty hand,
Burnt from the grip of the string,
Pressed to my parched throat,
My stale reflection retreating over the edge
Of the pond,
And,
From my new perch,
See,
The sliver of the Moon,
In her own reflection,
A promise,
Of the Sun that approaches on his handsome chariot,
And wait,
For the return of day
And,
A new face
To wash
Ashore in the tide.

myopic frames on a stern temple remind me that once he too wandered recklessly and felt ardent
empowered by time on his sleeve
there was nothing he couldn't conquer and nothing standing between the open air and breathing it in
i suppose the difference here is i grab the breath of air and hold it in my pocket for when i stop being so nervous

marshmallow heart
the road only goes one way and the streetlights hover and coil eternally, you can never meet the epilogue
a drive-thru drink in one hand while you feel your hair tangling into a mess of a beehive, the one that likes to unwind in soft tendrils on a weak pillow
heart racing for the constant fueling of a near empty tank telling you to go further this time, this time
time isn't yours


holding in a cough
i too have tried to drown waterbugs
my cheek pressed against the tiles of a kitchen floor, hand perched languidly as my fingers make circles in the tiny swamp i made in the middle of the room
but i forget laying there until i hear my own soul walk in with bare feet addressing the elephant in the room, the one that hasn't left since i was sick with bronchitis that winter years ago
and i want to tell her to come here, to come back inside myself so it doesn't feel so cold this season of frost but she brushes me off with the temperament of a child
"i don't exist, i never did" the words dawdle back and forth from her back molars to her incisors  
and i remember when i felt like i was dying when i hopped from one state to the next but realizing a little to late that if i were to go back my dread would jump on the back of my shoulders and force me to look it into it's shiny face and show me the mild nuisance of what it means to be alive
so my soul closes the door and i hear the keys rattle and i myself sink into the warm arms of someone i spent my entire life with

The silky water glides
Over a mirror of fish;
Cool like silver
Flirting with hot summer air,
Dancing with waterbugs
And kissing my fingertips
With a smile as blue as the sky

Empty words pour over one another and we bath in it
I want to *****. Pinkies crossed, keep my own blood promise.
Clasp raised hands, you're just two ******* grand.
While the empty crowds and fake personalities go crazy in the stands,
And the non-imaginary friends rally to take a stand.
Judge me, judge them until you're at full self esteem
Shiny train wreck tracks, two tons more and full steam
Ahead, altered image in your head to fit the rhyme and time before we split
Apart into the tiniest of atoms, I wish you'd shatter and splatter already,
70% water and you're still pretty **** heavy,
Though if by mass or volume remains a mystery.
Open eyes, twisted spine, take your shoes, give you mine
The top of the pond is warm, but just wait until the dark fills the lake,
And the hopping waterbugs overtake and your body is no longer your own.
Queen, **** it, King, sit on my throne,
And look at the useless fruitfulness that I have grown.
Trust you as far as I could throw a stone and it landed among the seeds I'd sown,
Silver puddle reflects to me that the you I'd known has left me all alone.
Friendship without sun drowns us in a matter of hours
***** fertilizer and weeds choke out the flowers.
And all the while this ***** dreadful night
Can taste the lightness of our fright, and be remembered as the day,
That the privlaged beggers finally picked a fight.
*******, we used to care about one another
Though I won't say we've grown up or apart,
Our dimensions seem to have warped an awful lot.
It could be that this is art in the rambling, symbolic diary sense,
But let's have some common sense, no props to those
Who cheat and repeat, force the burden of meaning on the helpless seedling.
Abstract art and children separated by a mirrored glass wall to encourage real work
And here's to the curses written inside the bathroom stall,
Embraced and erased, then forgotten years later
Memories wiped without a trace, this human race
I'll bet you can win, but I still run faster
You tricky ******* set up traps along the track
Encouraged by the sadistic master.
Paper, tin and plaster;
Save the past so she remembers the tactless *******
That was presented as a present and in the present now presents
A trickier problem than he could devise if he had tried.
Perhaps he never lied, but looked at the fingers, little miss
Scarlet tips, tried to deny but the die is dyed with fine metallic mist.
Gleaming puppy-dog eyes pour remorse, of course,
But given another pure, white sheet
Would prove even more efficient in "accidental" deceit.
So row, so row, goes the lame claim that my words manage
To stay same in your brain, gain an image of the pain and strain.
No love, never then, never again.
Continue talking, and walking apart
I'm sorry, screamed. What's that you say?
Hate and love splatter tiny red dots on the scatter plot
Flash frame, freeze for a fraction, minds captivated by action
Divide and multiply the fractions and traction,
Keeping the same, grown apart, helplessly together,
Until, comparatively, even static falls apart.

Yes , "if not for you"
Then comes all the banter
All of the glory
That we so undeservingly
deserved

I once surprised a waterbug (actually a roach only tinier) on my kitchen counter . I grabbed a handy jar and lid and scraped the pest into the jar intent on its oblivion . I left it on the counter intending to starve it to death . After a week had gone by it's exoskeleton turned white . All movement had stopped but it was still alive . To me it appeared it was in a state of meditation , motionless as if contemplating the most cosmic questions imaginable . This went on for another week before I began to respect the dignity of this amazing insect . Then I felt compassion and regret over what I had done so I put a drop of water in the jar to see what would happen . At first the insect remained motionless then went over to the water but stopped right at the edge and to me it appeared to give thanks before drinking any . I thought that was strange so I put a piece of bread in to see what would happen next . The same thing again happened . At first nothing and then the approach and stop and again the appearance of grace before consuming . I was so impressed I let it go after it had had its fill . Then I realized we are waterbugs compared to God and we are put into a jar here on Earth and we are starved for the words of God (Ye shall not live by bread alone but by every word that commeth from the mouth of God) and finally we are to give thanks for everything we receive in exchange for love , grace , forgiveness and ultimately life .

On the best days, I can see:
Diamonds in the pavement,
Birds proudly singing, red-breasted and ***** in the trees.
I taste the beauty all around me slurping a juicy, lip-dripping peach
While waterfalls come tumbling down mountainside echoes rumbling
As we slip on soft rocks and wade
Into crystal running streams,
Where minnows glide and waterbugs slide
On the surface while
Wet rocks rest
In the sunlight sparkling.

On these days, I don't have to think
"If I want to be happy"...

I can just be.

And now,
The end.
The time has come.
Some will walk, & Some will run.
Sour rice and waterbugs.
We just ain't finished til we're done.
Walk along the golden? Sure!
Shop to shop,
           &
Store to store.
Searching for some cheap manure
We found some, but we kneed some more.
People walk, &
People talk
Too. One another, one's a lover,
But the other ******* isn't just my only brother, but my bassist, and my drummer.
Ha
Ha
Ha
**.

The waterbugs glide
Like her sky dive dreams
My middle bug flows with life