don't know if I'm here
seeking some splendiferous
solace or just sleep

Pawing through
the dusty box
of memories,
well-covered now
with a thinning coat
of gray hair.
Rummaging,
setting aside years
better suited
for a Goodwill bin.
A few keepers;
but must pare down
the hoarding
and prepare
to travel
light.

Another
brave soul
capitulates; here be
dragons.
Everyone
faces their
greatest
horror
in good time,
just so long as they
keep on
living.
Many like myself will
not be deterred,
opting to embark upon a
pilgrimage of pain.
Questioning what
remains in my
soul
thickens and sets
up my
very blood
with
xanthan gum.
You're next, o
zealous one.

Was it something that I told her,
was it something that I said?
Cause it's only gotten colder;
you can skate upon the bed.

Though waves of heat rise from her,
timid hug is met with shove.
I'm only getting number
under covers than above.

When Spirit scrolls down to my line
on Life's finite spreadsheet,
may I've done much to bring a smile
before keystroke Delete.

from one who knows
the hours spent
honing a voice
to cut through a room
the days lived
seeing the unseeable
until the lyrics
bleed onto paper
and the sacred moment
when the masteries
and the mysteries
combine
to rend my soul
and salt my eyes.

What brings peace must first
break down resistance, comfort;
old habits die hard.

I find myself adrift upon a sea of faceless names
and nameless faces flowing
in a wave of information
that erodes and overloads my poor old mind.

Drift far enough and long enough the sea all looks the same;
the hard edge of horizon flat-lined
out before my sun-strained eyes
and not a port or harbor can I find.

I hope to throw my anchor down
upon some distant shore,
but I won't know till I get there
that I will not have to travel any more.

A mile or so to starboard there's a sailor lost as you;
another heading for the sunset
with a full wind hard abeam
and that's what folks mistakenly call free.

She's called six ways from Sunday and forever passing through.
There is no freedom to be had -
just set an open course for home
or some reasonable facsimile.

I hope to throw my anchor down
upon some distant shore,
but I won't know till I get there
that I will not have to travel any more.

Slender, sinuous
strand sending succor, support,
soothing struggling soul.

would you remember
if my hand traveled, nestled
down where we'd made love?

Conjunctions creak, the adverbs ache,
nouns bear more than they can take.
Verbs are screaming for Ben-Gay
while pronouns atrophy away.

Adjectives have lost their bite,
possessives just give up the fight.
The subject's upset, naught agrees,
which weakens metaphoric knees.

Contractions all together moan;
the objects better left alone.
Ah, life is at a frightful stage
when poets and their poems age.

I write in concrete;
find mystery in the real
and the everyday.

shall i mindless words
form into function, wander
forward without thought?

lead me on, then, muse
hushing unheeded warnings
of writer's folly

i who have no/thing
to cheer on, no one being
caring close enough

yet hundreds, thousands
read, call, respond and react
to fresh-cut poems

both sweet and pungent,
taste vaguely oriental, 
smell hints of five-spice

as american
as melting *** and quatrains,
common meter, rhymes

cheeseburger and fries,
routine, familiar and
to each their own taste

flavored by flowered
blossomed imaginations
of poets living

and dead, whose poems'
lovely bones breathe still haunting
my quiet spaces

and take tangential
leaps ricocheting into
inspired lunacy

skeleton crews man
poetic voyages, launch
flights of uncertain
direction, take reason to
illogical conclusions.

the shape changes
depending upon
perspective;
from the bottom,
an oak leaf,
from one side a butterfly,
from the other a fist.
they have pictures
in color and in sepia
which speak to them
with different interpretations.
one sees a scar,
one sees growth.
they all agree
     it's a part of me
     it doesn't belong to me
     it came from they don't know where.
it's been cut
it's been shot
it's been exposed to radiation
it's been poisoned
it will not die

aha!
rasputin lives in my right lung!

Who've tasted freedom
will have no appetite for
less; silence be ******.

Let those who live in every land,
Let us break bread together.
Let freedom span both east and west;
Let us wander where we will.
Let hope and sorrow now unite,
Let the whole creation cry,
Let it be a dance we do.
Let Christmas come.
Let love continue long...
Let there be light.

leave me your moments spent
without thinking, staring into space
while on hold or waiting in line
for your slush of cold coffee

all that time pulsing away
from an opened artery
of your life

drop your minutes wasted
listening sort of
to the drivel of an almost friend
into the jar held below my sign
"starving for attention - please help"

leave me your moments spent
without thinking
of me:

i'll have all the time in the world

After the week-old magazines
and half-read books are scattered
face-down all through the flat...

after turning the radio on and off...

after leaving the guitar
in the corner
for the fourth time...

after jerking off to the face
of the black woman flirting
on the bus ride home...

after the anger
     and the fear
          and the courage
               and the grief...

after all the useless questions
and senseless answers...

after I stop doing and start writing...
after I stop writing and start living

I crawl back into my skin
and I am

after all...

alone.

Alone is after
the wind whirls the world
away from me,
and rattles empty branches
against the side
of my soul.

all of you
no more than
zeroes and ones
electronic bits
sharing flesh and bones.

...and so it begins,
rural against urban,
rich against poor,
change against established,
white against black,
privilege against opportunity,
proud boys against military,
prostitution against dictatorship,
both sides digging in
turning trenches to graves...

and so it never ended

a word
              whispers
                                another
a steady obbligato
pinging
on the window of my mind

a CRACK
of lightning
as charged particles of concept
are drawn up into ideas

and a trickle
becomes white water

every writer
finds a voice
that whispers
to them the clearest

Who is your word?

I drank to forget,
drank deep, long and hard for years,
forgetting nothing.

An artist does not
just throw color around;
an artist layers, mixes,
blends tint upon tint,
          shade upon shade,
aware of the need to create depth.

Life needs depth.  Without depth,
without layering soul upon soul,
your thoughts on mine,
          my feelings upon yours,
life has no color;

black upon white,
with touches of gray
for added monotony.

Funny how insomnia
and discomfort will
dredge a new room
into a safe harbor

My heart is filled with overwhelming peace
in spite of what the doctor's tests reveal;
a sense of love and caring will not cease.

For one whose life had been one of dis-ease,
where dreams died off, existence seemed unreal,
my heart is filled with overwhelming peace.

There's been no letting go, no caged release
of pent-up terror, prayers, nor appeals.
A sense of love and caring will not cease.

The demons fought for years have been appeased,
their hellish hounds no longer nip my heels.
My heart is filled with overwhelming peace.

Embraced by those whom I expected least;
misunderstandings cauterized and healed.
A sense of love and caring will not cease.

My chosen family, listen, if you please:
Concerned I am, but fear's not what I feel.
My heart is filled with overwhelming peace;
a sense of love and caring will not cease.

Aching whispers of
family memories, wishing
feelings were attached.

Appreciating
the cunning embrace and sharp
wit of an old foe.

I am an old man now whose time has passed,
the youthful heart of fire has long burnt out.
Pray that a needful message shared will last.

My generation grew on love and held on fast
to their ideals of change to come about.
I am an old man now whose time has passed.

The lessons born on voices from the past
ignored as if we never had been taught.
Pray that a needful message shared will last.

Where anger blooms in fire, stones are cast,
the looting steals all probity, no doubt.
I am an old man now whose time has passed.

My heart grows glad when people join en masse
to turn around what had once come to naught.
Pray that a needful message shared will last.

To those whose lifetimes have been heard at last:
a quiet word will win where fails a shout.
I am an old man now whose time has passed.
Pray that a needful message shared will last.

The boxes
which keep my blood clean
are stacked as tall as I,
a monument
in the spare room
to past battles.
Too many words,
too many thoughts
******* in the
hand-to-hand combat
with mortality.

No more.

What life I have
will not be defined
by an indeterminate end.

I live to write poems;
I will no longer die in them.

An old salt sits alone at end of dock,
to watch the ships home safely from the sea.
Not that his weather-beaten lips would ever talk
of voyages his mind takes, odysseys
the younger sailor he once was signed on,
where friendships sailed into romantic ports
of call.  Now safely berthed, he casts a fond
remembrance back on battling violent storms,
a roller-coaster ride on cresting waves
of lust and anger.  Something near a smile
will almost crease one side of sun-scorched face;
a glimpse of paradise sails 'cross the miles.
Young sirens beckon, call him to his past;
he'll walk home safely, lashed unto the mast.

Spirit, please plug her
in the Celestial Charger;
I've drained her again.

Understand that
you lost your husband
a couple years back
to heart surgery
and breast cancer.
His ghost has been
wandering in and out
of your life since;
must have been a 
real pain
to see him sitting
vacant
next to you on the couch
in the empty seat
you left for him.
Just curious...
if you could have him back
after all this time,
would you take him?

Hello Poetry's
existential dilemma;
should I Like myself?

not everyone needs
a lever and a place to stand
to move their world; some
need only a listener
to reflect their words to them.

the next great poet
walks among us

without a halo
or unearthly glow

she might post daily
or he might write in bursts

they might be ringing
up your groceries,
or making your
non-fat double decaf
latte with splenda
(smiling to themselves
and saying "why bother"
under their breath)

mostly they stand
bodies distracted
by making a living

and watch

so their poet's eye
can record life
in a way that
makes some sense
to their souls

I have a gift for you; okay, it's no
big deal. It's just a little something you
might want to have around when feeling low,
when life's just thirty different shades of blue.
Afraid the present banged around a bit
while I was on the way to meet you here.
Two corners rounded off; they look like ****,
the huge dent in between came very near
to breaking what I wanted most to give.
Be careful of the other pointed end;
it's sharp, and I'd be devastated if
my battered treasure hurt a trusted friend.
Reciprocation's needless, I don't mind;
you haven't got the heart to give in kind.

America the Beautiful is broken
into variations, reassembled
at fifteen, while your friends played ball, tumbled
after grounders.  Met her, vows were spoken,
children came, a job to feed and shelter.
Insurance, managed risk made up your days
while music filled your nights and underlaid
a counterpoint of art and home.  She felt your
dualistic muse; the age-old tale
of starving artist held no taste for you.
Forty years of working every breath
until the night your muse's heart would fail.
You lived for years with your worst fear come true,
for you had starved your artist to his death.

Though not in pain, I
ache for the times not far past
when I ached for you.

First of all,
do not say there is
no instruction manual.
There is no single,
definitive one;
but there are
a myriad of choices.
It may take years
to find the one that
makes any sense at all.
Next, understand
that the parts you begin with
will not resemble
the finished product in the least.
As you proceed,
tab A will rarely
if ever
fit neatly into slot B.
Adjustments and approximations
are your best friends.
Remember that there are
always resources available;
friends will be willing
to lend a hand,
and customer service lines
for expanded knowledge
depend upon the manual chosen.
Finally...
work with the full knowledge
beforehand that
you will be the last to know
when you are done.

I must not yet be ready to love,
because in every woman's face
that tears me out of time
I feel no gift, no grace;
just loss
                  and ever lonelier.

a tender shoot once felt the sun
beneath its snowy comforter
and dared to peek a tendril out

the promise of an afternoon
and sun's love on its eager face
bespoke a need for nourishment

despite mistrust of fickle wind
with wolf of winter prowling still
the stripling brazenly rose up

and winter gratefully stopped by
to drape a coat of ice upon
the startled stalk who sought the sun

who hadn't time for warm caress
in early February dusk

When people learn how
not to hate in the name of
love, Spirit breathes free.

the world is out to
get me so long as I take
it personally;
no one does anything to
me; it happens around me.

Discovered a new
"poet", Diksha Patel, a
master plagiarist.

I'll be back when I
have a greater dream than to
live another day.

there was a time
we broke the bones
of each other's poems
and savored marrow
explored what made them breathe
sought out
warm arterial pulses
examined the hearts
to find the essence of their lives

it was vital to us
in the truest sense of the word

life today is too cheap
to waste that much time