Do you remember the splinters
from the tanbark, your whole
body burned

At birth we are saplings;

absorbing and sponge-like;

anchored by flimsy roots.



Each developing child is a sliver,

a woodchip,

a branch.



We send our saplings to schools

to be stripped of their bark

and pounded into smooth identical geometrical shapes;

shapes incapable of stretches and growth.



These equations and grammaticals add shape,

not depth, so simple

simple enough to identify our souls

with a string of numbers and letters.



I was born a sapling,

born to stretch, twist,

reach for illumination; fueling the roots

from which I sprang.



Why do these axes

clad in their glasses

want to beat me into factory form?



We should be watered and nursed

until our trunks grow rings

incapable of calculation;



Teach me to grow toward the sun,

and not to become a fragrant product.



Teach me to drop fruits of wisdom

and throw flowers;

for apples can only drop

from fruitful trees.

How do you say things which
cannot remain unsaid?
They just can't be and yet
they will.

I'll glue on my brave face
with cryptic, shaded words
which gently peels away
like gold leaf
revealing woodchip.

They'll flicker and they'll fade
and be whisked away
like the ash of burnt
heirlooms
in a whirlwind.

Too precious to be touched,
(oh, unforgiving air)
too painful to be spoken
(your silent, unforgiving ears.)

They'll be lost
and so will you.

They found his head in the park this morning,
Samuel was decapitated like a king,
The trouble was that he was a fiend,
The best kind of **** you’ve ever seen,

The park where he played since his youth,
Wouldn’t have guessed it’s now his woodchip tomb,
It rolled off and plopped right there,
Everyone but the park rats were scared,

It was almost expected,
Not that surprising,
He lived off of stealing,
Must’ve ****** with the wrong guy,

When you look down the slide you can see,
The dent in the ground where Sammy’s head be,
Worlds collide and galaxies born,
At the same while,
Samuel’s head was torn,
From his body.

8/4/2015

"It's,like, the Jersey
theme song," he bubbles out
excitedly

conjuring up images of
driving through the parkway
Down the shore

where they'll say
"Hey, buddy! Whadayya think yer doin!"
Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night,

I wish they'd blow up my house, too
on the steps of a granite building called Clio
Princeton's lost its golden air as said before and

the Sourland crepuscule
of rock and woodchip
under my feet seems

to be just woodland landscape no
longer some powerful nature scene or something
i have friends, but they are in cities

looking through high still air i say
and declare the sourland scene dead the
vague Appalachian terrain the parkway by Princeton

i go to sleep.