On the 27th

“No,” called the miser,
“I will not have the Spanish
Mast crumble my dock!”

But no stewards heard him
On the stalwart old thing
From his office on shore,
And I’m not sure if he knew
That the ship was speeding
Toward the dock already,
And would crash into the planks,
Making a mess of the lot of things.

“I don’t care,” cried the miser,
“If it is centuries old or more! I will
Keep control of this port come
Rain, hell, hair, or nightmare steam!”

Bricks

Bricks tumble steadily down,
With such destructive force,

When children climb such lofty towers
And from their hands drop them forth!

But why climb and destroy at all
If you have a friend who's tall?

"Shortcuts, Darling!" They will say,
When they toss bricks from their friends,

"Have made things so much more attainable!"
"And what new ease in reaching out ends!"

Lilies

The lilies won’t bloom
Come spring, in our garden,
In their usual yellow,
Because I uprooted them,
To see the brown dirt,
And watch it crumble off
The roots, and see the divot,
Because the hole was good
To see, it was good hurting
Your flowerbed after you left,
Because you watched it so close,
And mothered it well, you had
A natural gift, a green thumb,
But you left them after all,
To rot away with me, but the spring
Won’t see them die, or grow either,
And maybe there’s justice in that,
Or some sense with you being gone.

At the Park

She sat up, bounding,
After some small thing,
I came calling, but she
Ran too well.

Perspiring,
I ran after, deciding,
She was fast, quickly rounding,
And realized how sweet
A dog I had, then laughing.

But poor small thing, bleeding,
And my sweetheart, eating,
And me giggling, elating,
But how sad
For the small thing, beyond saving.

A Rainy Day

In my navy, white-stripped, pajamas
I got up and closed the shutters,
Ignoring the deep purple rain clouds outside,
And then sat back in my hunter velvet chair

To pretend, as the gray-white dust swept over
The cool oak planks of the floor
(and I without socks or slippers!)
Like my tuxedo tomcat lumbering toward his food bowl
Refusing to ever lie on my lap,

That I wasn't an undressed emotional invalid
Avoiding leaving my cavernous house,
And not because of the nightmare palette sky,
And that I wasn't an infant needing you like a mother.

Pictures

These sepia storms of people
And grayscale maelstroms
Plaster little windows
Where portraits should be,

Or, preferably, poor renditions
To these pretentious poses
And vague impressions
Of what strangers present
And I am allowed to look at.

Dance Whispers

Spin into me
When I move
Your hips up
Against mine.

I'll lead you
Up until then,
But when you
Spin, I will let
Go of you and
The floor will
Be all yours,

Take it and shine
And be beautiful
So that everyone
May see how we
Dance so well. We
Will impress them
And be asked back

As long as
You rest when
You need to be
Against me
Again to dance
Again and finish
The rest of this
Sexy little number.

The Shaman

There’s something about
The shaman’s murder lust
That ruins him as Dionysus.

His wine is fine from the vine,
And his soul magic coils so serpentine,
But his killing leaves the fruit on the brine

And ruins that rubble he will cast with.
Making his body sweat and his breath quick,
He will choke the life from the atoning.

A dead confessor for another rain,
And another storm while others pray,
And all the while the shaman dances,

Drinking and softly speaking sweet arousal
While the blood chalice is passed around,
All of them gorging on the warm malice that they have found.

Ring Around the Daffodils

Please, ring around the daffodils
Til Heaven's scaffold collapses.
Let the sky walkers plummet down
Toward our lovely gardens,
Whispering of our onions and roses,
And we, yielding, gossiping on about
Galaxies, angels, and super novae;
Spilling our breath on the broken bits
Of golden gate and street way,
And laughing because the sky walkers envy us
And our platinum cookbooks
That retain readability in the daffodils
And the rest of the ling'ring mess.

She Frowned

She frowned
and let her eye lids
close over the top half
of her tortoiseshell
then black pupils.

Her lips pursed
and her head hung
low like she was
looking at my knees.

Then her eyes
went distant
and watered
while her fists
clinched tight.

I walked away
without turning
my back and
not apologizing.

New Suit

He moved slowly closer to the fire,
putting his bare hands over the flames,
and rubbed them together, grinding,
to try to get blood flowing back
there.

He looked at the other men,
sitting around the barrel and looking
mean with old beards and lost eyes
and the heavy smell of stale piss,
and looked down at his new gray suit
and long, black overcoat, and shiny
black shoes reflecting the orange flames.
He could barely see the argyle black and
gray socks his wife bought him last
Christmas.

It's all right that I'm here, right? He asked,
looking around at the piranhas and hyenas
and vampire bats.

You don't mind that I stopped for a
moment? I was just cold, you see...
He tried to explain, already back-
-pedaling back into the cold night.

Sit with Me

Sit with me,
Just for now.
Let the wind
Run the sky
And watch the
Gray clouds
Stand still
While it gets
Cooler and dark.

Sit with me,
Just for now.
Notice the chill
And where the
Sun might be
Behind the fog.
Then you can
Go on again
Just walking by.

I Don't Believe in Angels

I don't believe in angels
Because that would mean
That there is something
That god loves more
Than December mornings
Born from long, cold nights
Curled on a couch,
Covered in a blanket,
Watching her sleep,
And feeling so lucky.

And no god of mine
Would even think of loving
Anything more than that.

Bears

A bear eats salmon and shows that
Death for life’s sake is necessary.
But our own is hard to fathom;

We like to think that we know nature,
And that we can escape it, contrary
In our manners
With our ‘Sirs,’
And in our gentleness
With our ‘Madams,’

But we are bears,
Bloody and careless,
Simply waiting around to eat.

And we hunt down our meat,
Not waiting for it to jump
Out of the stream.

Taking a Nap

I fell asleep with a nervous stomach
And didn't dream at all.

I woke up hot, sweating,
My stomach still a knot,

And with a crook in my neck
That ached when I moved my head
To try to look to the right.

My breath tasted dead
And I was hungry for meat.

I should have stayed awake.

An Imcomplete Dream

You are running out of time!, She said,
And I laughed because She was right
And I was going to be late, but to what?
I was hardly able to tell in the haze
And I had always supposed since then
That She was a dream I had waken up from
Without ever being late or discouraged
But I know the truth and the consequences
Associated with denial. I was late to Her
And will never be able to forget that.
Oh! To have it an incomplete dream!

Arms of Now

I have no home
or place to call

my own

and those
sweet embracing

arms of Now


seem farther away



and to not want




me any nearer.

We Are Young

We are young
And looking for
A button to undo
In this post-modern
Petticoat of a farce.

We are shameless
Hussies without
Our genuine chastity
In this quagmire of
Relentless sarcasm.

We are young
And shameless
And I am just
Another silly
Jaded optimist.

The Yellow Pedals

The yellow pedals
With black splotches
Shriveled and folded down,
Browning and peeling back,
While the lighter flame
Pushed slowly toward
The pistol pollen pad
Closer to the middle
When we melted
That little flower.

The Garbage Truck

I left disappointed
From my room
And sauntered down
To the parking lot
With scraping steps
Against the pavement.

A lumb'ring roar
Lifted my eyes
And I saw
A garbage truck,
White and rusted,
Begin to do
Its early work
At 4:07
In the morning.

It had been
Seven minutes
Late that day.

The Campus Carnage

On campus, a bus hit a van
But the bus was big
And the van sporty:
There should have been
A good deal of carnage.
But there was no great wreckage,
And the only real damage
Was a dent on the back bumper
Of the van and a crowded street
With people laughing about
How nothing had happened.

New Black Jeep

A new black jeep
Smashed into a tree,
And the front end folded in
Toward the engine,
And the tree
Was only scraped,
Just a flesh wound,
But the driver
Might have died.

The Fireworks

The entire party gathered, stunned,
Hunkering together
In the white snow,
Gazing toward the colorful explosions
In the midnight black sky
(Stealing attention from the ghastly full moon
And drunken escapades of the socially sloppy)
None of them knowing if there should be fireworks,
But none of them caring why there were fireworks.

Blinds

I didn’t know how to pull the blinds down,
Because no one had taught me how.
And then, after I was shown,
I was so eager to pull them down
Or bunch them back up,
And show what I knew,
That I would volunteer to do either
If the need was ever there.

A Young Man at a Party

He stood brooding
over the laws
and his constriction within them,
holding himself between stiff arms,
like a hug,
letting the handle
of light yellow liquor
dangle from the first few fingers
on his left hand.
His right leg leaned to the left,
toward his uncentered hips,
and the left leg was leaned on,
but rigid in the skinny gray jeans
and tall, black canvas shoes,
the right one tapping quickly
in rhythm with his words.

His faded blue denim jacket
folded and wrinkled over his arms
as they slivered in their cradling,
and his soft looking green t-shirt
was too tight on his thin frame
to move very much,
but it hung a little long
and covered his large belt buckle
that I knew was silver metal from before,
and that it was on a vintage white belt.

His black hair looked best dry and messed,
but he had parted it, with mousse,
and was wearing black, winged glasses, too.

Autocorrect; this one is for you

my stubble itches

i scratch loudly
and wonder
why all my
mistakes
are fixed
before i notice
by the machine

its just curious

what if i want
them there
or just like to
correct them
myself

i scratch loudly
wanting to shave
and correct my
mistakes
and correct my
humanity
all at once stolen

and then i shaved

clever cliché

i am a clever cliché:
the moon at night,
and the color gray.

i am a clever cliché:
the moon at night,
and the color gray.

i am a clever cliché:
rhyming,
and transparent in every way.
but honestly,
this is just to mention,
that i am tired of this thing
that won't set me down,
and i don’t feel up
to discussing it creatively.

i am a clever cliché:
the moon at night,
and the color gray.

i am a clever cliché:
the moon at night,
and the color gray.

Fake Orange Feathers

Fake orange feathers
stick glued to
brown paper and
flutter at the
unglued tips by
the breeze of
my breath,

smelling to see if
the glue had dried
and able to tell
because it smells
dangerous when it
is wet.

The brown
construction
paper was dry
but still the dark,
once wet, spots
under where the fake
orange feathers stick
and stay because
the glue is dry.

It smells safe and
will stick now so
I can glue
down the fake
yellow feathers
to my brown
construction
paper turkey
too.

My Photos

I’d love to
Snap a photo,
But my camera
Is a pen.

In stead of
Using film, I
Use words to
See things, and
To capture them.

My memories
Are paper and
Will burn like
Cheap film, but

I quite prefer
The way that
I remember

A Problem

If it wasn’t a problem,
Then why would they call it
Wasted. Stoned. Bombed?

I Would

I would
Dance
For you
But
It is
No longer
Worth
My time.
Your smile
Does nothing
For me.

Blender

I made a promise
That I knew,
Honestly,
I’d never keep.
And it doesn’t matter
Because little girls
Will still ruin things
And pretend that their
Stereotypes of emotions
Are the first to ever
Have been felt.

Everyone is a person you sanctimonious sons of bitches. Everyone has a past, you are not so damn special to feel vulnerable or closed; that’s human life. Stop thinking you’re an artist because you can write words down, you asshole, you vis of talent, you damn hack.

But I will still try
Because I have nothing
But a hope to hang
Myself with. Oh, noose!
Hang softer, or just let me die.
The little girls are
Ruining it for everyone:
These pretend princesses
Who love nothing more
Than to snicker and connive
And roll in the mud
Of everything they ‘hate’
But ‘loving’ everything,
Not knowing what words
Actually mean, God damn it.
All in the veil of the arts, too!

Die and burn in Hell. When I am finally done wandering, I’ll meet you there. Pricks.

Toni Morrison, Fact, and Truth

Toni Morrison—who consistently proves with every new piece of her writing that I read why she is one of my favorite writers—talks of fact and truth in The Site of Memory. One complex sentence forms a stunning philosophy about the difference between fact and truth that I find particularly interesting. She writes: "Because facts can exist without intelligence, but truth cannot."

What I take this to demonstrate is the value that human consciousness gives to truth. Truth becomes more than just the factual accounts of what happens and moves into something more. The facts of any situation are merely bits of information lingering in the memory of time. But truth is an organizing of the facts with a value judgment attached. It is an appraisal of the information and a presentation of the lines with a stamp of approval; truth carries with it a specific human certificate of authenticity in regard to the fact that it has been processed and accepted by the human mind as actual. Many things that are not facts we take to be true: that love is good, justice is attainable, and that man is basically good. These are not pieces of information but are decisions. Facts are inherent, truth is decided and it is the human intelligence that Morrison mentions that makes this decision.

Roy the Bear

Once there was a bear
in a wood I found
That would have ate me
If I didn't shoot him
Square in the muzzle
with my rainbow buckshot:
Red, brown, black and
That bear died there
So I named him,
Not the hues I made;
Earthly, deathly, hollow,
but I called his cooling corpse
Roy G. Biv the bear.

American Male

I defined myself
In conflict.
I,
The American Male,
Being modern,
Have absolute
Nothing to conquer.
Yippee
Ki
Yay!
And I'll cry
In the dusty streets
After I run the
Grotesque dog away.

The Fountain

when i
walked by
the
fountain
it
turned off
and
i felt
like God.

Pretty Blue

Pretty Blue:
On the sky's back
The clouds ride
To the night's rack
Where the horizon
Orange torture ensues.
Hello lovely purples
Goodbye Pretty Blues.

Swamp

My nerves are all
mud bubbles, swamp
and gators. I'm in
the cattail long grass,
looking toward you,
and longing for the
predictable barrenness of
that stoic desert
where snakes have
no real place to hide.

I should be away
From your mysteries.

I should be in the desert.

Love Your Lace

Stop taking back your lace
Your sunshine faded lie,
Why did you leave me
Sulking in the whens in
My car in the cold?
I used to be hot
But your then and there
Ruined that, Like mine
Did to yours and
Icicles and antifreeze.
I have no reason to
Complain, move on, and
You bleed again to
Love me. Love me. Love me;
When you should close
Your eyes and forget?
Please, no.
I need your lace
Like girls and ponytails
In my hair,
Pathetic and apathetic
In this void without you.
Sweat and sleep while
I count sweet sheep
In this cold, laceless void
Without you.

Color Has Come

Prisms have risen
From all of the
Window glass

And all of the
Light pouring in
Becomes rainbows

And I miss
The purity of the
Clean, hot light.

Color has come
To devour the
Simplicity.

Still Ocean Smiles

Plastered porcelain smiles,
Broken and smashed against the floor,
Could never hold the ocean
Or hope to sway the shore.

Still, the salt water smiles
Against the grit of piling sand,
And all the porcelain pieces
Still fit in your hand

The Cold

The cold cauterizes
The dainty cigarette drags
dropped upon the disaster
Of a wasted evening:

To work, to read,
To speak, to know,
To dine in peace,
Alas! I smoke.

My whimsy withers
Back into bleeding scabs
As I gather my coal black coat
And meander back inside

To think, to sleep,
To nod, to blink,
To drift aloft,
Alas! I pause.

Because Men Die

Because man is not constructed of stone
He bleeds and cries, sorry and shamed.
The myths of strength, stoic power, and pride
Are all obliterated in soft defeat
By the crushing hand of unforgiving
Death; who brings his mortal perdition swift.
Living, as mortal as old Socrates,
I am prone to finite crumble and rot,
Though I may wish my organs platinum,
I am but a mailable piece of
God's gold, set to perish, disease, and die.
(My light dims so that Your Glory may shine.
I gladly give my forever away,
So that in Your good favor I may stay!)

The Blue Rocks

The blue rocks
at the bottom of
the bubbling tap water
of the fish tank

Are the same color
as the liquid pool
for the grass-green goo
in the silver lava lamp
and the top of the Sony
recordable compact disk,
outlined in silver,
in front of the keyboard.

But the silver on the CD
and the silver on the lava lamp
are not the same.

And there is no green on the CD.

Unsure Little Girls

Unsure little girls paint
Their sniveling faces,
Hoping to snag a
Few more of
Those little
Boys who
Will use
Them,
Spit them
Out, wasted
And broken;
Lost. Then on
To the next unsure
Little girl, already soft.

Because God is in My Sonnets

It
Is not
So much
That I
Believe,

But more
That I
Un-
-derstand

And love
To learn
Despite
Myself,

So please
Do not
Be so
Confused

As
To think
I think
Like you.

Lost

Having lost Paradise, I do lament
Letting the flow cast from these mournful eyes
Then. And wishing these dark burning lakes dry,
I curse these flaming embers suff'ring me.
But my sad liquefactions ash low heat
On my smoldering face, off'ring not ease
But rather build more massive that great heat,
Riding my memories away from Life.
The only cooling, dainty as it is:
The thought of God Almighty and His pow'r
To hold me in His Grace once more; perfect,
And away from this fallen char of sin.
I wait, and so I burn, for Him to see
That there is something worth saving in me.

On Discovering Robert Hayden

I find it hard for myself to describe why I was particularly moved by the words of Robert Hayden. My capture began in the headnote about him and the stanza included there at the end. There is something, a mysterious something that I cannot describe, about the voice and tone in his poems that makes me feel as though I am There. His writing puts me in exactly the place he wants me and it refuses to let me move until the poem is over and the message received.

Those Winter Sundays holds the notion so beautifully that a father does things unthanked, not because he would want the glory for the thing having been done, but simply because the thing needed to be done. That is the very definition of being a responsible man.

Middle Passage is a journey, an epic in meaning and range if not length. The absolute terror of slave ships, and the entire slave trade, is lamented beautifully. The shear inhumanity of the times is portrayed, but from different voices and even an ironic perspective when the traders speak. The poem pushes you into different eyes and you, as the reader, are driftwood in the sea of observation and horror where Hayden is Poseidon.

This window I have been given I am grateful for, and I will seek out more of his work to hear more of his voice.

My Gift

Do I have that which God doth need in me,
And can I sow a smile upon the sky?
Is this one life wholly enough to give
With prayer and piety as a vessel?
Lovely is grace, homaging him for me,
As His forgiveness moves to perfect me.
But is my love a satisfying meal
For His great hunger, need, and good cause?
I make my Faith a flower then, for Him,
And bundle all my ready tools in rose.
The hope that it may please must keep my mind
While I prune my thorns and bide my short time.
With all my Boon, given by He above,
My loyalty: offered to earn his love.

Pizza Pie Will Make Me Fat

Where can I find a piece of pizza pie
That won’t flop when I try to hold it up,
So that my mouth might give a little bite,
And leave me filled as though I’ve had enough?
Does that soft meal consider itself real,
Or does my tongue thirst for a fantasy?
Does this cheese covered treat entail a meal,
Or is a pizza pie not fit to eat?
Should I digest this morsel of good food,
Knowing as it may seem that I do,
That it should treat my stomach so uncouth,
And leave me doubled over as a fool?
But I will eat, let the obese now show,
For I will eat and eat and so will grow!

My Aphasia

You are my aphasia.
I live and die on you.
You are my depression,
My ecstasy,
You are the black in me,
You are the best in me.

I need your skin, I feel your truth,
I live to be a part of you.

You are my treachery,
You are the words in me.

You are the stereotypes of my thoughts,
I live and die on you,
You are my aphasia.

A Standard Issue

Emotion, shall we agree, is a standard issue
Made of the most feathery, breakable tissue,
(And man, dusty from eternity, knows the misuse)
But still kneads out an identity: an absurd masseuse.

But as it floats and shatters humbly away,
(And man, being moldable, bends to its sway)
Made, are we, to feel and so then turn gray;
Emotion is the blood pouring from life's wide splay.

Mr. Rainer

Mr. Rainer ran very slowly, after he had been hit by a car, to the hospital. He would have gone faster, the emergency of the situation all but ensured that, but his new, grotesque limp was an insurmountable impediment. The car had clipped his calves fro behind while Mr. Rainer was pausing in the street in the crosswalk to pick up one of his quarters.

He always carried four quarters in his left pant pocket. There was something about the jingling of the change while he walked that had always made Mr. Rainer smile. He would also, occasionally, reach his hand into his left pant pocket and rattle the four quarters manually if the automation of walking provided an insufficient metallic din. So was the happy quirk of Mr. Rainer.

The day Mr. Rainer was hit by the car was wet. It was not raining, but had been, so the city street was soggy but, owing to the moisture, pleasantly uncrowded. Mr. Rainer was about town, between obligations, before he had to run to the hospital. The car was speeding and, more than likely, had ran a traffic light. Such is usually the case in similar instances. No doubt the driver did not see Mr. Rainer in time to throw on his breaks; the suddenly sleek, wet road would not allow for quick stops. So, when Mr. Rainer stopped in the crosswalk to bend down and grab one of his quarters which had fallen out of his pocket—he was rattling them quite hard but mindless to the fact—he had no knowledge of his impending disfigurement.

Mr. Rainer's back was facing the car. He heard the squeal of the black rubber on the gray, wet gravel and stood in attention. He had time to move his head back over his left should just to see the hood and grill of the car move into his legs. The grill clipped both calves but the left leg was the most affected. Mr. Rainer's lower left leg was pushed away from his body very quickly, as if he was trying to kick an approaching ball, but the upper half of his leg, from about the knee on, did not follow. Mr. Rainer heard the knee buckle and quickly became sick to his, up until that point, stolid stomach. The right leg made an unnatural jerk but nothing had obviously snapped or buckled, and Mr. Rainer had faith that it, unlike the left leg, remained unmangled. After the initial blow, Mr. Rainer's body slumped onto the hood of the car and panic slowly started to rise in Mr. Rainer.

As a small child growing up in the pleasantly nondescript suburban area of town, Mr. Rainer was taught never to make a spectacle of himself. His mother would refuse him anything he would cry over wanting, and this taught Mr. Rainer to never want anything too strongly. It also forced into him an admirable humility and served to calm his tumultuous nerves in times of emergency. A necessary result of this particular combination of rearing philosophies was that Mr. Rainer utterly refused to make a nuisance of himself. Some of his more critical peers complained that it seemed Mr. Rainer held himself above his company, but this was simply not the case; Mr. Rainer loved his fellow man and had a distinct, aloof kindness about him. Mr. Rainer just did not see the point in indulging upon the kindness of a host and forcing him or her to waste his or her hospitality and resources when it was not, in fact, needed. This is why Mr. Rainer refused a ride from his deformer to the hospital after his leg had been ruined.

The driver of the guilty car was very kind and courteous, obviously concerned past his obligation in the matter and generally well wishing for the man he had just broken. But Mr. Rainer would have none of it and, after he was able to tear himself from the damp, dark hood of the driver's car, made it all but clear, in as a calm and civil manner possible in his growing panic, that a ride would not be necessary. The hospital, as Mr. Rainer hurriedly but fully, pointed out was only several blocks away, and, on the bone and muscle of the good leg, Mr. Rainer could make it there very easily. The driver still persisted, but Mr. Rainer was beginning to grow light headed from stamping on his one good leg and gentle rattling along the moist road with the other in the small, pacing steps he was taking.

The police, who had been called from a nearby telephone booth by a witness and typically good Samaritan, were making their way to the crosswalk where Mr. Rainer's quarter lingered, heads up, waiting ever so patiently to be returned to the company of its three permanent companions. Mr. Rainer heard the sirens first, but in his pacing and continued dealings with the driver of the awful car, was able, somehow, to ignore them while he persisted in his attempts to politely, but assuredly, make his own way to the hospital which remained only several blocks away. When Mr. Rainer noticed the swirling lights beginning to reflect from the damped things and puddles around him, he decided to quickly thank the driver for everything (he was, honestly, a gentleman of the first class) and make his way rather rashly to the hospital before the police would stop him. There was no reason, thought Mr. Rainer, to waste all the resources of an ambulance, and all the to-do of a barrage of police questioning, just to get him to a hospital over an exploded lower left leg.

Mr. Rainer hobbled his way over to where his orphaned quarter still sat and quickly gobbled it into the warmth of his pocket with the other three. When the quarter hit the bottom of the pocket, and consequently the other three quarters, it made a familiar and calming ding, and Mr. Rainer, in his current near-panic, displayed the hint of a smile. It was always so pleasant to hear them rattle about in that certain way that they did. He would have smiled fully but he did not think the onlookers who had gathered would quite understand why a man in his state would be smiling. Besides, thought Mr. Rainer, it was a personal matter (the jingling of the quarters) and it is best to keep the quiet joys in life to yourself, especially when you need them the most. But, noticing the shockingly bright streams of blood eagerly gushing into his left shoe from the carnage of what was left of his lower left leg—and noticing the police cars creeping slowly to the scene from farther up the now crowded road—Mr. Rainer decided to hop to, and began to run, as best as he could with his horrifying aliment, those several blocks toward the hospital.

That Old Game

Forgive awkward glances and failed attempts to impress you.
Ignore the poorly placed jokes
And off hand remarks to the others in the room.
So beautiful and polite to smile back
To such a ramble of things, such a mess; but a happy one.
But a reserved one, not at all the same as in the natural state.
Better for the inspiration and calmness
And all of the fresh air of clarity;
Better because of the smiles and the new journey—if only imagined.
Even if the tightly woven ball of yarn it has all become
Finds no reason in the end, or does not unwind in time to knit,
The distraction is wonderful, and a new game to concentrate on
Is such a welcome novelty and what if there is something behind it?
So shy, so unlike me; I hurry to learn to learn the rules.

Validity in Doubting Doubt (or any other created thought.)

Doubt in the mind of the created is created by the mind that creates both the first mind and the doubt itself. There is no actual doubt. The reader sees 'doubt' and knows doubt but does not doubt. Only the created mind doubts. But lingering on the doubt I doubt the created mind. Does it think or feel? I doubt it. Can it even actually doubt if there is no doubt created outside of the created mind's doubt? If there is no doubt to create doubt in the created mind that doubts then there is no doubt and we doubt the created mind altogether.

Characters characterize that charter that chats to the creator and the reader of the created. They are not actual people with actual character. They are words on paper. But they are much more. The created are creators themselves. Or at least the words used to create the created are creators. The words submerge images in the reader's mind. Signifiers, symbols, and hullabaloo. The charter is the disconnect. The characters and their actions are all created but do not create. The words behind them create in the reader's mind. The created have no mind outside of the reader's mind. I doubt the mind of the creator minds that it does not matter to the reader. Or at least I doubt it should.

Barthes killed the author, and I threw roses on the grave and laughed. Birth is pretty and creates. Birth has creators and the created. The birth of the reader comes at the cost of the denial of truth in the created. The truth is the reader. The reader is the creator, but the reader did not create the created. The creator created the created. But remember, the doubt in the created mind of the created is not actual unless the mind of the reader contains the mind of the created and the reader can create doubt in the created's mind that the reader created.

Betty Bourgeois Rap

Straight out of 229 I'm coming
It's the Blount Beauty Princess
All guitars strumming

Strike up the band cause the ma'am is here
With a fresh bit a truth to fill your ear.

Now in a rap game dominated by brothers
It's nice to have a sister as more than a lover.

Don't act like you don't know how it is you be
Don't act like I can't feel your eyes humping on me.

You seemed to be memorized by amazing chest
But I'm more than a fly pair of beautiful breast

But I don't need a man hovering on side
Offering to let me up into his broke ass ride

Cause I'm a lady with right fine taste
I'll take who'll provide, no matter the race,
As long as you got some abs and a pretty face
Then might get a chance to try my grace.

Now, I wear work boots like the defest of thugs
It's Timberlands, Sketchers, or, my favorite, Lugs
But when it comes to smoke, it's only heady nugs.
I can roll them finer than oriental rugs.

Dank Heady Karma was my maiden name
Now I'm married to the danger up in the rap game.
My first name's Betty like Oh My God
Sir name of Bourgeois for the proletariat's fall.

Yes I'm a girl but I'm shocking you all
With my own bank account like a rich Barbie doll
But I got a better point so let me begin
Unlike that Barbie bitch, I don't need a Ken.

And while I might be dirty, never call me a ho
Just a strong woman and suckas gots to know.
I know what I want, so I run the run the show
They can't stand aside then suckas gots to go.

When it comes to my bills you know I can pay them
Cause I get on the mic and just straight slay them
I'm not a Saint and I can't save them
I'm a gangstress so I guess I just play them

No you can't drive, but yes you will buy
My movie ticket if we're taking my ride.
You can pick up dinner and yes we're eating nice,
I know you can afford more than water and rice.

If you want to chill then don't try to lie
I think I'm worth more than broke pick-up line
No I won't dance and don't buy me a drink
And next time ensure that your breath don't stink.

I Forget My Poetry

Know that these wand'ring words of mine are true
And that I forget my poetry, all in lieu,
When I mention through clinched passion, red in hue,
That lust is killing me, and living is fucking you.

Nights Like These

I am as rude as you see me
And self-centered, the rumors are true.
And I will not share right now.
No. Not with you.

It is not that I do not like you,
I do not know you,

But right now
Nothing about me
Is for you,
Thank you.
I’m quite through
With my rant now.

I thought you’d think it lovely.
I’m not sharing with you,
But I’d still like you to love me.

Wishing for Eternity

I pushed my own envelope yesterday
wishing for eternity
and I still didn’t learn anything:
I spat on the cement
hoping it would stick
and stay forever.

But Time won’t allow
something as mundane as saliva
to stain its sparkling,
sanctimonious surface.

To make that plane opaque
I would have to do nothing
short of murder.

For Whom Is Pictured

I’d like to know your depth
And what it is you’re feeling.
I’d like to know your thoughts
And what you think of me.

I’d like to see your eyes
And have them give you away.
I’d like to hear your sounds
And know if they were fake.

I’d like to hold your hand
And to feel it tremble.
I’d like to hold you close enough
That I could feel you crumble.

I’d like to smell your breath
And know the spark of its taste.
I’d like to fall asleep
Knowing you were still awake.

I’d like to know you at all,
The light will always flicker.
I’d like the light to steady
So I could see your picture.

On A Popular Transformation

Please, don’t look at me with those drunk eyes
And ask me to kiss those stained lips.
Your lovely lure is gone someplace; it hides
While you pretend yourself with ignorant quips.

I will not hold you, reeking, below me
Nor think you any quicker or untightened.
But I will not wade through, sinking, your show. See,
I have better ways betters ways to let a night end.

You lie in your present state,
What you present is not yourself.
You lie and I resent, I hate,
That you ferment and need my help.

Eggs

I stayed in the milky silk of the bed sheets,
Wrapped daintily around my morning dreams,
While you sent breakfast smells in after me.
They lifted and roused with no snooze
And I soon found you baking, breaking eggs
And discarding the failed shells into the trash
In favor of the creamy spring and golden pearl inside.

And I thought, smelling your damped, showered hair,
And coiling myself around your busy baker’s arms,
That you were like an egg:

Everyone sees your shell, but you give me your yoke.
And I eat it and am better for it. But this is now,
And it took me so long to crack that shell,
I thought I should never really taste you.

Even now I confuse you for your name.
I confuse you for your character.
I confuse you scrambled for your shell.

But then I smell you while you make my breakfast,
And I smile into your eyes while I eat it, satisfied,
And I know that I have broken through
And I can love you,

Because there is us and something only we have;
Each other, our druthers, our eggs.

Stability

Children need mothers, not frivolity.
You are not a martyr in any reality.
This is not friendship, stop trying to cure the malady.
Leave the black hole of the caring abyss separately.
Let them drown in their own irresponsibility.

In apathy there is clarity.

I will never ask you to take care of me.
I am not what I am, nor ever will be,
I am something other than human: you will see
That the quiet, nothing universe is full of beauty,
And that there is weakness in pretended unity.

God was a myth you told for purity,
Relieve yourself of that false remedy
And enjoy the static, self-reliant gaiety
In the hollowness of life and its fragility.

This is the recipe for my system of stability.

And You Go

To keep you alive
I want you inside me
See what's behind my eyes.

Become a phoenix
Burn through and mean it
Ash so you may belong.

Return that char to
The place it belongs to:
Place it inside my mouth.

I know you're dying
Please stop your crying
We haven't forgotten yet.

Just hold yourself straight
Dine on your flame's fate
Let's make this candle fly.

And you're still the one

And it's almost done

And you go,
and you go,
and you go.

Morbid October

October is a bloated corpse
Still feasting on the river water,
Dragging at its surface, and bobbing
With an inhuman blue-green tint.

In November the body is found
And December has it buried,
But murderous September is cunning
And leaves the body waiting for Autumn.

There is no need for cannon folly
Nor weeping tears of lament,
Let the body rattle on toward
The year's end and a bed of cement.

I Am a Horrible Friend

If I could remember the
Last time you lost me
I might not be so apt
To wander into your
Cavernous glances again.

That recharge you pretend,
Your sunshine regeneration,
Is but a lie, and I break every time.

Stay that concept for me,
Let me scrounge around in
These shadows daydreaming
That there is perfect someplace.

Let me pretend not to be so
Pathetic and perhaps I'll learn
To let this pipedream down
The drain, finally and forever.

But only by ignoring it.

I am a horrible friend.

After Reading R. S.

three a m bites my eyes from the clock face
and i wince at the time

she will saunter in
jubilant and reeking
later

she is my home

i will be a runaway
i swear to god
i will run away

but i have to wait
first until shes here
then i will burn this house down

and i will devour the ashes
sharing them with the clock
sharing them with four a m
if it is at all hungry

To God

How dare You rip us from Your bosom,
Stealing away Our perfection!
And we, as pawns, created for nothing
But mechanical love, You smiling,
Sanctimonious enough to leave
A hint of autonomy, but with the consequences,
Your expectations are obvious.

But We were One and We were Perfect,
Now we are here, alone and waiting,
Until You decide to have us again,
But still separate, still subjects,
In Your created kingdom.
Let not the peasants be the King again.

You are a self made tyrant, an idol
Created by and for Yourself.
Our lives, our misery is but a game
And You have named Your kingdom the prize.

Are we such fools as to have forgotten
That The King's crown was once our own?
Before gardens, before falling,
We, Together, were eternity:
Infinite in Our vagueness.

But You ruined that,
And I will never forgive you.

A First Kiss

It will happen,
the coupling of anticipation and anxiety,
Wanting and waiting,
Helixed together in your hormones,
Utterly quivering and distorting you.

Her lips will open,
The soft comfort crashes as a wave,
The tumult is spared, now lives the feeling,
It is too good to recreate,
It is too good not to at least try.

Scatter-proof squabbles and crumbled newspaper
Filled the empty desk, dirtying the thought process.
Creativity was blanked, no writer worked there,
Only a lazy observer with an appetite for disorder.
Oh the woe he could inspire without a moving pen.

The Turn

When do my dreams make their turn,
Falling from noble to vain?
Should my selfish ambition be a gift
For a fierce love or forlorn friendship?

When does caring coincide
With that spark in my mirror’s eye?
Does “I” every die in order to better me?
Or am I damned to individuality for eternity?

(Old School) Tree

Turnable though the roots may be,
Malleable to the point of change and fro,
Nothing taken away from wisdom’s tree
Could ever hope to end its grow.

Talking

Greetings:
Dutifully,
The pursed lips crumble,
Mumbling, deaf and dumbing,
Generally beguiling
From what pleasure they come from.
A flash of red, moistened and well bred.
A devil to learn but an angel to teach,
Fire to the touch with curses to bleach.

My Delusion World

My delusion world,
Constant uncertainty,
Withers to trap me
In a prison of the senses.

If I look past the burning
Of eyes, ears…thoughts…
I am left with freedom
And the blissful Kingdom therein.

Glory to the brevity
And praise to the end,
Life is not meant to linger
But rather to be lived.

The Squirrel

If the spastic squirrel
ever honestly knew
what it wanted,
then all the wasted
jerks and fear and energy
it uses only for
circling around the point,
would be put to
such efficient use.
If only he could decide,
and the options weighed.

Breaking it Down

You could tell him anything
And those secrets were safe.
But you were in love with manipulating him
And lying to his face.

The games, the toying,
How coy of a girl to ruin
A boy, a hero,
The one she calls her own.

And while you dangle carrots
Of friendship and what it should mean,
He realizes how distorted
All of this folly must seem.

Thoughts

The one thing that I have wanted,
A past; a foundation,
Is now the one thing that haunts me,
Bickering at my trust
And using me; and soiling me.

Perhaps the clean slate
That I once carried
And was so afraid of
Is now what I should embrace?

Back to the cocoon,
Back to isolation,
Back to safety.

Liars

They cripple their lips to better their lies
But spoil their smiles at the same time.
Their sorry lines are compromised
By the time spent constructing them.

Why lament a broken fool
When they break themselves so easily,
Trapping their integrity on a hook of lies,
And baiting murky damnation with each affront?

The Perks of being Jealous

You disrespect the clouds with every whimsical word dropped.
The verbiage you profane with the slick of your tongue stops,
But only when actual conformation of a formal request has been made,
Even after political requisition for spoiled dictionaries are saved…

You still,

Find ridiculous amounts of room to bloom silly soliloquies
I’m speaking copious amount of space to fill with what shatters from your face

But still,

No matter the effort I subscribe
I’m stuck losing after my effort has died
And your lyrical well is so far from being dry,
Crucify your heart and stick needles in your eyes.

Holla,

I never wanted to externally implode like this
I disappointedly present the perks of being jealous
Paint me green and ring me across the cattle guard
The fall is so hard when you’ve lost the status of God

A Sort of Prison

She opens the room with her presence.

She shocks me into place
Frozen on a broken sofa,
Smeared into the dirty plaid
As a part of the pattern now.

This room has become a prison.

She shines like the freedom
I wish I had to touch her,
To hold her,
To do anything at all.

My Things

Once I labeled my room
I knew where everything was,
and no one would come in
and disrupt my things,
because I had placed them
exactly in the right spot.

I would know
if they had been touched
or moved
or altered in the slightest.

I miss the old trust,
but I will not be had again.

These are my things
and I love them.

Your Fire

Your passion is a fire
And, angered, you love to burn.

I’ve been scorched and lived
But have never killed that dynamic sting,
The sharp tingle both vengeful and majestic,
That your sordid heat berates with.

But I’ve lit your fire,
And have the char breath to prove,
That your romance can be a great pyre, too.

Chants

The chants we designed will echo on
Long after the breathy energy
And time spent designing them is gone.

So, while we still have our voices,
Let the walls ring around us
And for once uplift ourselves,

And the freedom we’ve brought
Will hover more triumphant
Than our lingering words ever could.

To Make Them

I excitedly tremble with feast thoughts in mind
Of a future I may own in another now.
Distinguished ancient names long-labeled on street signs
Guide me steadfastly to where my fortunes grow,

And I bound loftily knowing I have designed it all;
The blueprints for my piece of mind were forged,
Steadily and consistently, in the dream locks of today.
The future fire of smiles is stricken in current strides.

I go on, knowingly, to make them.

Getting Them Away

I have finally found the answer
To common cold romancer,
The slightly sketch second chancer
With standards lower than a blitzed bouncer
You just love the awkward away
Give it up and make their day
Sympathize while they terrorize
Appease and get pleased, play that game,
Be a sport, own you name,
You’ll never be bothered again
If you throw your halo away.

Sanctimony

Out the window the thoughts unfurl,
Traveling to someplace appreciated.
The eyes of onlookers ignore,
Just as their ears would.

Revolutions are daydreams seeking an audience,
Capture the beauty of dissent like a disease and spread it.
There is peace in happiness and happiness in subversion,
At least the lies of the disenchanted would have us believe this.

I rather like my compliance and there is comfort in my silence.
I am a hammer. I am a screw. At least I am needed.
I need no spotlights for my intelligence, if it is even there,
I allow my thoughts to unfurl, ignored, away from me,
Modern dissension is sanctimony.

Your Corner, You're Mine

You,
Crumpling in a corner with your head hung,
Beautiful,
Snuggling yourself and finding comfort
In sniffing lingering detergent and its softness
On your warm cocoon clothes.
Soon you’ll stop tearing up
And your moisture-worn eyes will need the support
Of your thick-rimmed burgundy glasses.
Stand up and come here out of that corner.
I love you.

Some House

Tangled swirls of phone cord gather in the way
As I leave the doorway of the kitchen for the
Stale, luring glow of the television that
Is on the back wall beside the rust brick fireplace
On the opposite side of the room as the white
Leather love-seat with the stain, small hole, and wrinkles
On the nearest wall in the darkish living room.

Youth

Tired Parthenons would crumble,
Slowly spreading their ancient dust
Onto the timeless holdings surrounding,
If ever our youth could escape us.

The age of the immortals would show,
And those glowering wisemen,
With their crackled skin and dusted breath
Would blush at our exuberance.

We could be royalty in the annuls of eternity,
Living as though we could never die,
Knowing only our own joy; our own hearty novelty,
From forever until the dew of our age would dry.

Blah

Disease infected now perfected carpel tunnel of the mind
I can’t seem to get these bright spots to shine.
While I rove in these bleakest of nightmares
I giggle to myself thinking someone would care.
Alone, alone, the only way to find peace,
Relaxation is selfish when home is in reach.
Where are these frontal lobe bombs dropping from?
I can tell that something wicked this way comes.
Come forth and break these chains of mine,
Another friend not to care about, I’ll give no mind.
I need that outer space, Gemini, Jedi mind trick kind,
Because these shadows get deeper and darker all the time.
My goodness dribbles while I cauterize,
I’m as sinister as what is behind John Waters’s eyes.
My goodness dribbles while I cauterize,
I’m as sinister as what is behind John Waters’s eyes.

Looking for Home

I know that technically it’s good
I’m doing everything that I know I should.

Every line I write has a message, at least a meaning
And my poems are starting to display a political leaning,

But I still fell that there’s a lot more to gain
Rhymes are fun but being unfulfilled always leads to refrain.

Do I keep going on my new direction,
Or heal my sprit from its obvious infection?

Time will tell if I majestically start soul spilling
Or if my writing is just a way of time killing,

But for now my nimble finger keep typing
Even if I can’t locate a cause to start sniping.

Maybe someday what I feel will make it into a poem.

But right now my heart’s too busy looking for its home

Let Love Rebuild This

Civil actioneers fill the streets with their Sanskrit tattoos
Telling riot officers that they’re just looking for some truth
Under the derbies and rubbles some answers have to swelter
Because the power structure has carefully crafted this shelter

Refrain from the defiling and let love rebuild this

Nothing is wrong with saying the government is wrong
As long as something is done to allow the sun to prolong
A littler glimmer of hope, a sunbeam, can make smiles stream
While the dark clouds of propaganda leave a teary dream

Refrain from the defiling and let love rebuild this

What happened to that happy place where folks could gather to embrace?
What happened to promises of prosperity and purity in peace?
Did the modern warrior lose his attention span?
Or was there something else left to be broken by his hand?

Refrain from the defiling and let love rebuild this

What happen to the course we all struggle?
Did the riot squads and beatings scare the people’s militia away?
Were raised fists and red stars put on the back burner for another day?

Happiness lurches onward to a place where ignorance is bliss
And I must confess I think I like it like this
Not knowing the reality of the human strife
Has let me ignore the wound in my back made by a knife

Refrain from the defiling and let love rebuild this

Flags, as always, and as they should, still wave
Because families are still proud to see patriotism draped over a child’s grave.
Pride is the ideal of what you wish you could be.
Change is the tool to mold it into what should be.

Refrain from the defiling and let love rebuild this

Listen to voices on the streets in the marches, even those who you refute
Only through dialogue can we reassemble a resemblance of our roots.
Apologize in your suits and ties for transgressions once committed,
Forget payments, acknowledgement is where the healing begins,
Never hide or shield your eyes from your brothers’ past sins.

Refrain from the defiling and let love rebuild this

With the current rules, nobody wins; we still preach love and practice hate
The pendulum swings both ways like the balanced art that is fate.
A smile and eye contact can go a long way to extend an olive branch
So set the doves free, spread your message, and receive carte blanche.

Refrain from the defiling and let love rebuild this

Nothing is more pathetic then the way we all forget it:
To the common cause is what we should all be sympathetic.
Ignore disagreements, selfishness, and childish trysts,
In the end all of our names wind up on the same list.

Refrain from the defiling and let love rebuild this.

Sad Girl Dances

Sad Girl dances
and Sad Girl sings
while silly boys whisper
about ripping her heart strings.
She hears the rumors
but never really runs,
because Sad Girl trusts them
not to leave her undone.
But they do
because they aren’t fully grown,
and leave Sad Girl sobbing,
angry,
and so painfully alone.
And those silly boys
laugh at her ruby shoes
while see screams,
at the top of her lungs,
that there’s no place like home.

Tired Bird Ramble

When the bird flew in from outside through the window I was shocked (at first because it was cold out side and the window really should have been closed but I like to sleep cold at night and waking up with the cool wind hitting your checks is pretty nice; but the bird should have migrated by now because it was bright and had a lot of colors and looked awkward against that pale gray sky. But my room matched with the morning with all the earth tones and not too vibrant neutral tones, I like them and am not flashy but the bird was so I thought it should leave my room plus it was screaming or squawking very loudly and I hated the sound and did not need to wake up with an alarm any more because the clock in me was much better.

I went ahead and rolled out of bed with my black pajamas and into my slippers and into my kitchen to get one of those pans my parents had sent me that food doesn’t stick too but if you wash them too much the black lining inside starts to flake off into your food and eventually it will stick and maybe make you sick. I had a whole set of them but She decided to take some when She left because I always let her do most of the cooking. She hated my hallway that ran from the kitchen, like I ran back to my room with the pot, because I like plain bare walls and she was always happy and smiling with pictures and colors and right then I decided she would like the bird and it needed to leave even more now, out into the cold.

I cornered the bird in the corner with the chair She picked out at the dime store that used to be old and molded but She saved it and recovered it and it was the brightest most colorful thing in my room so I kept it in the darkest corner and put all the things She left here in it and it made a good hamper sometimes too. The bird was under the chair but at least quiet now because I figured it wanted to be outside again and had realized it was stick with me as much as I was stuck with it. I learned about birds enough in school to know that the colorful ones were the males because they had to attract the females and make them love them. I threw the pot on the bird and it covered it and the bird moved a little because I was stealthy like She hated when I would sneak up on her and scare her for fun. The pot was scrapping on my bare hardwood floors, one time I had a rug but it got dirty and stained and I tried to beat it out once but all that dust got in my face and made me cough and She laughed at me so I decided just to throw it away and not have anymore rugs and be embarrassed anymore in front of Her.

I decided that to keep the bird in the pot and get it outside I would need some sort of bottom or else the bird would fall out of the pot and it was pretty and in my room so it might hit then floor and just break all over. My room wasn’t for pretty things. But if the bird busted all over my floor I would have to sweep up all the little shard of color and then I got the idea to use the broom in the closet as a bottom for the pot. I scooped up the bird in the pot with the broom and let it fly out from underneath out the window and into the sky which was grayer but that didn’t make sense because the sun was supposed to be rising but in the winter you never can really tell because of how gray the sky is and its even hard when it wants to snow and it did. I closed the window finally and couldn’t see my breath anymore when I sighed.

I thought to turn on the tv so I did and saw a news story about a handsome Asian man would walked in the snow for miles to save his daughters but died trying to get them help. His wife was American I think, he probably was too but he looked Asian and she was European and we always assume the European looking ones are from here first but his wife had bright read hair and I turned off the tv because so did She and the story made me even sadder because I would walk in the snow for Her to save our kids if she loved me enough to have them but she didn’t because I wasn’t colorful enough for Her. I guess it would be funny if I died in the plain white snow under a gray sky to save her then because it would be the opposite of what She loved but I would do it to save Her it is a shame now and then that she left but I cope because somewhere someone would walk in the snow for me and not need a word for every shade or a new color on every wall. I liked my plain colored room and bare hallway and simple kitchen and plain wood floors and light green is a fine color for thick bed sheets and a comforter. I climbed into bed satisfied with Her gone and happy about meeting that new one who didn’t exist yet but had to if there was hope. I fell back to sleep because I knew I had a couple of more hours until work or class or something I was falling asleep and couldn’t tell anymore.)

But that bird was so shocking that morning because it was the first time I thought about Her in a week and I was walking that lonely path to being over it so I decided when the summer came back to buy a bird just like it and let it go to see if it would come back. So far it has stayed gone like She has.

There

There’s a mirror in your eyes that let me know you can see me, so I must oblige that you stop pretending, that the mood in the room could lead you to believe otherwise.

I didn’t bring roses and I didn’t bring chocolate, but if I knew you wanted it, you know I would have bought it. I just brought myself and I’ll hope that I’m enough for now.

Lets sit and talk about all of our mistakes, the monsoons, tornadoes, and the earthquakes, and isn’t it great not having to feel fake around me?

If you would like I could hold you while you cry, I can be here to catch the tears off your eyes, and take your time because I want to see the sunrise.

I really am amazed by the way you don’t think you’re worth it, how you could not feel the magic of your heart beat, I’m so right, but you just think I’m just being sweat.

It Isn't Yet

I wasn’t expecting
fireworks,
And thank God, because
they’re not here.
I just came with a smile
and myself,
Hoping to peel back
some of the years.

I’ll shut myself in
to save us both,
The trouble of coping
with false hopes.
I’ll hide it again, but
I won’t go away,
I’m tired of dealing
with this that way.

And you know it’s right,
So I don’t mind at all.
Just know you can’t escape this,
And I might just stay after all.

Yes it burns,
but I turn to my pen.
After you it’s
my only friend.
I think you’re worth it,
all of this hurt
And before I die,
I will make this work.

So keep your heart free
from filling up
I’m not there now,
but I could be the top.
I don’t fit perfect,
so the story goes
But neither of us knows
what the future holds.

And you know it’s right,
So I don’t mind at all.
Just know you can’t escape this,
And I might just stay after all.

It isn’t yet
but it just might be
You’ll find that you’re
madly in love with me

Ice Cream!

Nothing is as saddening
As the missing ice cream
That was at once scattered
Atop the melt left in my bowl.

My spoon misses its cool caress
While it drapes its sterling arm away,
Feigning disgust in place of misery.

And now I’ll have to wash away
This whole depressing mess,
And still wrestle with the looming guilt
Of scooping it in the first place.

Another Vent

Your unity is a façade,
Stop this fake fraternity.
Your struggle is heart wrenching,
But hypocrisy will always poison you.

There is pride in individualism,
Each can only uplift themselves.
You are not your heroes,
And you disgust me in evoking them.
They had struggles,
They had hardships,
You have nothing.
You spoil your classifications.

And We Would Be Us

And we could joke about the future,
Smirking into the morning.
And afraid we might be right,
We hesitate to touch.
The nothing there,
The something there,
Might prove to be too much.

And we could have all we wanted,
Shrinking into our perfect places.
And afraid we might lose it all,
We hesitate to make anything.
The nothing here,
The something here,
Chokes me everynight.

She is Plain

She is plain
And unapologetically gorgeous.
Her hips sway,
And her voice is frustratingly nervous.
She is tall,
But her limbs sag simply and unknowingly.
She swims in a jasper twilight,
Trapped in her rose-tented optimism.

And I could only hold her
In the sweetest of daydreams.

The Wiseman

I seemed to have misplaced the context
Of our last conversation.
Where you sad and out of place,
Or lonely and full of doubt?

Was your problem worth healing,
Or deluded by whining?
Were you hurt and wanting,
Or broken and begging?

In this fog of remembering
Why it is you need me,
I am filled with sharp shock
By all that you require.

Green Vines

Green vines curled up the chipped white paint
Of the lattice work that walled
Your grandmother’s antique back porch.

They swooned into the diamonded-shaped spaces,
Some flowing outward and down toward the cement
And then out into the soft shade of the lighter green grass of the yard.

Other vines wrapped upward unto the higher holes
Where the diamonds had no tops near the upper edge of the lattice work.
I liked them; they had the best chance of escaping into
The pearl blue of the empty summer sky.

The Dirt Rain

The rain smelled stale,
And everything soaked
And dirty afterwards
Was no surprise to me.

I just miss the refresh
That used to come with.
But, I suppose, that’s done,
At least, now, for this storm.

This dirt rain has smeared
And splashed and splattered
Mud along the sidewalk,
And that sums the storm up.

It was all dry before,
But at least clean then.

For The Sad Boys

Strange as it seems,
There’s a girl in his dreams,
That will never, ever, love him.

He cries all night,
Wishing things were right,
And that she, might start to love him.

He lost who he was,
And hates all he does,
All because she, doesn’t love him.

But don’t blame her,
Love is a spur,
It’s not her fault that she, doesn’t love him.

And what to say,
To make his sadness go away,
Don’t remind that she, doesn’t love him

Let him drown or fall,
He’s been depressing us all,
Simply because she, doesn’t love him.

A Stagnate Mantra?

That hot breath heaves from your belly
Burning away the freshness of the morning.
You resent the dew in all its new innocence,
The birds chirp to mock you and drag you to another day.
The light melts your teary, slept eyes into consciousness
And you challenge yourself to make it one more round.

Live.
Forget the pathetic pity you’ll never receive.
And make yourself something.
Find some to believe, something to live for
Before no one cares if you do live anymore.

The mirror stares back uglier than before
And you snarl to make a point.
You are a hero in the night
But a villain while waking alone.
Today is the day that everything changes.
Today is the day that you remember to change.

What a Moment Can Do

We could crush tea leaves
Until we both crumbled under the weight
Of our blatant chemistry,
Or remained whisked away,
Miles away from each other in our imaginations
While a film flickers on the screen.

We could eat and discuss
What makes each other us,
You could call me pet names while we shopped
And compared quirky similarities,

Or I could take you dancing;
Spinning under my arm, I would drown you in charm.
You could be an associate, a lover, or a friend,
But I doubt I’ll ever even see you again.

2:00 AM

I throw on my mother’s sunglasses
So I can make a note for myself.
I won’t admit to needing anybody
But I could sure use the help.

Alone again and the glasses hide the glare,
I tried to write a little piece of something
But there’s nothing in the air.

Fires burn somewhere
So hot that you couldn’t touch,
But I’m stuck in my mother’s sunglasses
Trying to write something that won’t hurt much.

I need to know myself
And so I try to write it down,
I’m hard to capture on paper,
Even harder to describe in sound.

Here Again

I’ve been here before,
And not knowing what lures me back,
I know I’ll be here again.

So while I shatter the present
With shards of the past,
I’ll make no notes,
I’ll leave no maps

Because, if I fail again,
Like I’m bound to do,
I want to crumble back into the place,
Where all of this feels new.

I’ll make the same mistakes,
Because they seem like the right decisions,
Then blame myself for getting it wrong,
Ignoring the vicious cycle.

I’ve been here before,
And not knowing what lures me back,
I know I’ll be here again…

No More Flames

I fought the flames with all of my fury,
And remained uncharred after the fight.
But with nothing more to fight for,
I doubt if I shall ever see the flames again.

With victory am I overcome with weakness?
Having won, do I have nothing to win?
What is worthy of my bruises,
What deserves its name in my blood?

What more is there to want
Than the glory of having won?

Turning It Around

The sad heart is the most poetic and romantic,
Willing to think up a thousand remedies for its listless aliments,
But the pathetic sobbing and tears are self mourning.
So trapped is the tortured artist that the light at the end of the tunnel
Only serves to blind them, and shun away their smiles.

I’ll pass,
And write sturdily from a solid place
Where I am not afraid of a jubilee,
And if I am forgotten or never found
In spite of my upturned frown,
Then shame on me. Shame on me.

Your Eyes

I look at her eyes,
Those blue spheres sparkling
For some new stranger now,
And I remember when
They stared at me.

Once I held them
Captured and secured in my own
For what seemed like an eternity,
But her gentle gaze rests now
As just another memory.

Photographs are torture,
Her eyes are empty there;
No glossed rendering
Could ever hold her soaring soul,
And knowing this, I miss her all the more.

To ______, With Tongue in Cheek

I could flash my brilliance a thousand times,
Jovially flaunting my vanity,
But your muted smirks and deep eyes
Would still remain the only things to shine.

And though we tease and taunt,
Hinting at a hushed, future fun,
The present is lonely and long,
And your pictures leave me increasingly undone.

So I’ll humble myself, floundering, while I’m away,
Pacing my thoughts and rehearsing my speeches
For when I’ll find you again,
Refusing to be left with nothing to say.

Shall I work the courage to finally be a man,
To put down the petty flirting,
To follow through smiling glances,
To find your lips, and to take your hand?

Only the rest of my exile shall know
By what leaps and bounds my feelings will grow.

London Called

London called but I digressed,
I was in no mood to speak
And could hardly be considered dressed
For that momentous, glorious peak.

My voice would reflect my appearance
And I would sound sullen and sunken,
Void of my usual charisma and elegance,
In that state, I might have sounded drunken.

I decided to relate to a later date
So I might take time to clean up,
I would make to sure to look (and so sound) great
Before I again tried to sail over that mean hump.

Flames of Summer

For shame, the flames that burnt so high
In the midst of the party and its black eye,
Have begun to squelch and to yield;
The guests are bored and dead on their battlefield.

So, smoldering, the host raises a toast over head, then slows,
And begins to rile and beguile the still crowd into wonder.
But so it goes, for heroes and foes, in the fragile flames of summer.

A Sad Love Song

I can hear the echoes crashing
Over everything we’ve said.
Our filth bounces off the walls
So beautifully back into our heads.
You scream at me,
I shout at you,
The waves spread and destroy the room.
A wave of carnage,
Our wreckage of a catharsis,
And I’m in love with you.

So here we are,
Piecing back the rubble
And picking out the shrapnel,
But lovers know that for wounds;
You’re always going to have them.

I’m tired so I’ll let you fall
Away to your way back home.
I’ll bleed until I die
While I wither all alone.

The Valley

It’s slippery, this slope,
This tight rope hope,
Strung across the Valley
With no visible end.

The air lurches past,
A stumble, then a gasp,
And I have nearly fallen.

With my head down, resting,
Up roars the longing, protesting,
And the trench reaches toward me,
But I walk along untouched.

Balancing and advancing,
I am so afraid of falling.

Movers and Shakers

They would love it if we were to come,
Like a shot of whiskey on a tired tongue,
To warm their weary winter party.

We would taxi downtown toward their flat,
Your red dress blazing in the trap-night’s gray,
Yielding a bit of flare to the everyday.

All the while waiting to impress the crowd,
Such a guest, well dressed; the others wowed.

A Brief History of Beauty and a Plea to Her

All people were beautiful once, until we started to ask why,
Then the haze was new, since we learned to use our eyes.
Judges, self-righteously choosing standards, only served to separate.
When we were beautiful, we were together: a massive conglomerate.
But now, full of scorn, we backstab and chase lofty ideals
And are scared and shocked to find we’ve forgotten how to feel.

Ugly is word of serious connotation,
And is a weapon of sure destruction
When it’s used to further separation.

Beauty please come back, we can learn to hide
Those dastardly lies created in our eyes,
Just open the skies and rain a little fire down,
Burn us back into huddled masses
And bury the haze back in the death charred ground.

The Doomstone

The Doomstone spoke with such vicious clarity
From the pulpit we had built from pessimism.
And I hated every word spewed as it shaded my summer,
The bleak blackness it painted clotting the sun.

Why did our delusions create the Doomstone,
That mass of panic and grief, with reason supporting?
Wasn’t there hope for reprieve in skill or augmentation,
Something to quench the hunger for emptiness and void?

Where are the champions, uncloseted from delusions
And the faulty idealism that diverts ultimate reality?
Where is the stolid optimism, still true to the actual,
But positive enough to eventually conquer the Doomstone?

They cry every time they think of friends
And lost good times made in their social concrete.
I lamented while I feather flew
From fence to fence like a finch,
But second thoughts show I never cried when I left.
I cared, but I never cried.

I am comfortable here,
Keep what you can and go.
I’ll be fine anywhere,
And my next memory
Is the one I’ll wait for,
The one that waits
Is the one worth waiting for.

Why linger on things that are gone?
You can’t have it all anymore,
As much as that might hurt.

The Sweetest Things

The rosen mush of tomato innards
Rushed down from her pursed lips
And bloated cheek pockets,
Both working to keep the rest in.

I'd summoned a guttural emission:
Deep laughter that infected upward
Until her freshly filled mouth
Was distracted enough to oblige.

I have a forte for conjuring smiles
When we steal away in summer
To find a field full of ripe and ready
Plunder that we consume, always delighted.

In these moments I am satisfied
With the joys of Earth's providing heath
And a heart warmer than the rays that
Cast brazen glares into our young eyes;

Her laughter and our summers are
The sweetest things I ever hope to know.

Dancing Like Radicals

I danced like a radical
And assumed I was free.
I let the beat take hold
And the rhythm carry me,
Death to the awkwardness
When I danced in your arms;
Such a plush little girl
Wrapped in such strong arms.

I give you my motion
In exchange for your scent,
Now let our bodies mingle
And share every grinding bit,

Of this song's burning secrets while we
Scrape at the night, and then throw away
The primal thing we made…

Until, at least, the next song is played.

Lingering Lover

I scratched,
retching,
flinging flesh from my arm,
searching desperately
for that vein I knew contained you!

You would be out!
I would be free!

But now, only the mess
and no bloody little you
to throw out with iron stained dregs…

But, the satisfaction
Of knowing and understanding
You would never be out!
Or at least were never where
I could easily find you…

(Someday I will
finally bleed you
away from me!)

Computer Clock

Almost obsessively I check the computer clock
Homed in the right, lower corner of the screen.
I believe it, but check my cell phone time piece…
It agrees. I smile. All is right in the universe.

Powerless

Should I have mentioned
how soft sad your eyes looked
that evening, like you’d been scalded:
a small dog guilty of some human
transgression you didn’t understand yet?

You carried yourself like you were hurt,
but hiding it; you were hiding in yourself.
I could have found you, if I had asked,
but there was no hint that you wanted me to.

You smiled and chatted, but inside
you were a shadow, made larger
because the light behind you is bright
enough to remember, but far enough
away to remain unreachable.

You were not happy, and I,
quietly pushing you along,
was powerless to comment,
powerless to save you at all.

Venting from Frustration

I respect your opinions and will think you wise
But when I hold my theories or musings,
Know it's because I won't have them dragged
Through your unrefined mud of argumentation.

You're too analytical without the tools to analyze.
I understand you are articulate and have opinions,
But I am not impressed with this as the layman is,
It just makes you seem closed minded
Even in your half-promotion of inclusive ideologies.

Talking with you lately has made me tired
So I'll stop for a while to rest.
You disrespect my views and shrug me off
Like I was naive and undereducated.

I am a good friend,
I refuse to point out your disgusting
Arrogance and sanctimony.

You, skating

I noticed you skittering along the cold ice, impersonally,
Trying to find your own space to hide in
Even though saturated in the crowd, whirling around.
Your sad eyes tell the story that your sagging head confirms.
I asked if you should stay on the carpet, you declined
With all the fury of a Joan of Arc or doomed sailor
Facing the angry side of a perfect storm.

You know you are unnatural and awkward on skates,
You should have avoided the ice.
We could have stayed home, now I will have to nurse your pride.
Your stubbornness in the face of failure is beautiful though,
And you have such a vulpine way of being contrary to sense.

A Stranger

I am a stranger in the foreign student computer lab
And dissolve into the screen in front of me
For all the diligent studiers who'll never meet my eyes.

When I stand to leave they'll see through to the walls
And I'll be gone like an unwanted poltergeist,
Finally exercised for some semblance of peace
And a comfortable slice of familiarity.

Goodnight

You watch the clock,
Eye stalking 1 a.m.
like your cat would a shadow.

It sees a shadow crouching in the corner
And stresses back on its haunches.
Your cat stores violence and energy
In the spring ready quicks of its legs.
When the shadow darts the cat attacks,

Nothing dies and Tiger lounges, licking his paws,
Left with only the satisfaction of preparation.
His feral fix left fettered for now.

So you watch the clock and wait for the morning.
Counting your quirky little technicalities
More steadily than the slipping seconds.

You’ve waited and then celebrated,
Keeping me awake with you.
There is nothing different here at 1 a.m.
Your morning is dark and there are no birds.
There is just the still remembrance of yesterday
hiding in the air, begging to be called night,
And unnatural in the skin of tomorrow.

But you deny that and sleep all morning then,
Left with only the satisfaction of staying alive
Through the entirety of your night distinction.

Good morning,
(You make me say it,
But honestly, good night)
I love you,
(Yes, and Tiger too)
Sleep well.

Ocean Eyes

I challenge you in a thousand little ways,
I am the grains of sand hiding on your body
Or in the folds of your clothes after you leave the beach.

My favorite accost: staring into your eyes,
Seeing past that social gloss,
And getting to see into you;
The real you after the uncomfortable
Instant that tells your eyes to glance down,
Or to look away, because the combined force
Of both our gazes cannot be contained
Any longer in the moment.

The current of our energy is too strong
And the connection is gone with the tide.
I let the charm dangle in my blue ocean eyes
And dare you to do the same with me,
But I’ve had practice and am a harder
Oyster to pry; I suppose my pearl is worth it.

I Have Changed

The something else you needed
You could never describe,
And all that searching amounted to nothing.
What you did find you could not make fit.

I would give it all to you, now,
Had I found it,
But the chance is gone
And I would not know where to look.

You searched for so long but failed to find it,
So you faded back into obscurity.
It was the searching that had attracted me,
But failure is a put off so I left.

However, I would help you now,
And that means that I have changed.

Library Coffee

“All beverages must have a lid or top,”
The sign at the library reads,
But as long as I’m drinking,
I’ll read the sign thinking,
That coffee is still best uncropped.

The way the heat swirls,
In caffeine black curls,
Is only beaten in beauty
By the ghostly steam rising
From the bitter tasting whole;
Always surprising when the cup is full.

How, then, sinful should it sound
To cover that art when books are around,
And every thought is in need of inspiration?
Using white plastic lids soundly forbids
The experience of that visual sensation,
And libraries ought not to house such hostility.

On Your Birthday

Your teeth will grind against each other
like your inadvisably high heels do
on the sidewalk as we stroll down Second Ave.
(or is it Second Street?),
to the Bistro to meet with friends and family.

You will be nervous
and will flicker just as frightened
as the candle flames reaching for the safety
of the ceiling from our table.

Your spirit wobbles like the chairs with uneven legs.
Why do you falter every time I gather love for you?

You tie your hair back, out of your face,
like it was the first time I could glimpse
your forehead, and I forget
if you are even trying to impress me anymore.

I would ask you to dance if I knew that you did,
but you never dance; not with people around.
I’ll ask later, at home, with the shades drawn,
and when you are in a pair of my old sweatpants,
my discarded gym couture.

You will be in a thin cotton tank top
asking if we have any ice cream.
We do, but I’ll only scoop it after
we dance, because we have all of your
favorite records and all night, too.

Questions on Weakness

When is it acceptable to admit a weakness? We strive to be such stolid columns that any sign of decay, the ebb of cracks on our polished marbled surface, can send even the most solidly constructed of our numbers into despair. When that abstract standard of normal is broken how long should a victim wait before admitting they are not perfect? Which still is the harder admission, the admission to self or the admission to those around you who have potentially help proliferate the weakness? Why are quirks even called weakness? Do they not define person and individuality? Are we not all collections of varying weaknesses? Why is it important for everyone to be strong? Is not strength a comparative quality? Can I, in my perceived weakness and rife with society's deemed flaws, provide the strong with a postulate of what to avoid? In my acceptance of my weakness do I not make more room for the strong? Do I not inherently submit to be conquered?

Silence

Silence shatters sound as shamelessly as the relation reversed,
but more powerfully;
silence soaks the life from sound completely.
Chatter's broken neck lies as limp as the ripped hope for discourse
In the piled awkward of silence's hidden corners.

Eye contact is glamorous but so cursed
when accompanied on either side by silence,
A din of lead in could provide all the passion,
but when eyes meet without context
the moment has no soul.

This is what silence does during its sinister
reign over our tongues with forced second guesses
from our yearning-to-communicate minds.

Little Light of Mine

I don’t let my little light shine anymore.
I did once, but I have put the flame out.
Only lonely hearts welcome lights that keep them awake.

I’d rather take a long, refreshing sleep.
I’ve grown weary and deserve my rest.
There’s plenty of time to blind myself relighting it later.

Legs

All that was left of you
when I burrowed from the trap
of your comforter,
sprang upon me
in a moment of playful capture,
was your legs.

They smelled like lotion and vanilla
and the shine of them sent streaks
of reflected ceiling light
toward your framing knees and ankles.

I had fallen from the couch
trying to reconquer the blanket,
and had landed, defeated,
at the alter of your feet.

I love when your legs are freshly shaven,
still juicy from hints of moisturizer;
such a sight for freedmen’s eyes.

Elders

I had an idea once
But I sold it to the elders
To help with their productivity.

Their ancient smiles wrinkled
Their gravel eyes
And the sandpaper stubble
Around their pale, fleshy lips
Bounced with their laughter.

I help to hide the power of the youth.

I did my job;
I helped with their productivity.

Flowers for Smiles

Her diseased breath rolled out of the car and onto all of the flowers,
It was irresponsible of her to ruin our day trip,
the floral field I had found was for her.

Her sundress was new,
wrinkling in the leather of my passenger seat.
I hated the print.

She had asked for a surprise
and her eyes told me not to ignore her this time.

I wanted her to leave me, desperately,
but I wanted her to smile more.
She deserved it.

But we fought on the way out to the daisies or posies;
they were not roses.

The argument made her horrible
and I hated her again.
When she is angry, I assume she is sick.
She was terminal then.

The trip was ruined and crumbled
into another failed attempt to remind ourselves of love.
I’ll suffer through her cancers until she smiles again,
that might give me the courage to leave.

Perhaps I’ll just surprise her with a vase of flowers next time.
That might not upset her as much.

University Blvd.

Mockingbirds mimic, yet I am not fooled,
The breeze-in-the-leaves song also soothes.

Rubber soled shoes grind steadily on the gravel,
But leaves bustle by busier than my shoes or I.

Streets are filled and emptied on a stoplight's whim,
I stop walking until the crosswalk sign tells me to start again.

My chest bounces from my gate and steadily hardy breaths;
The spring swells the shops with hopefully rich clients.

Spirits wither and raise, falling then up, until the night calls in,
Then they soar until the sour taste of morning begins.

A stanza

Freed from the rigors of meaning,
Man can now assign his own.
What use is there projecting hope
Into isolation, loneliness, and cold?

For Lampasas, Texas

I could hurt myself all night
Staring at photographs I should have been in.
What happened to my life?
Didn’t I have a path, didn’t I have a path?

What road have I chosen?
And with all this dirt, where can it lead?
Didn’t I have a gravel black blacktop dream?
I suppose everyone wakes up, it’s not just me.

I see so clearly where I’d stand
If I hadn’t left, I know where I’d be.
I waited for it, but it was not reserved.
You couldn’t have saved the spot for me.

It’s fine, I concentrate on what’s mine,
I try to steal away the time
From what I spend lamenting for this,
I just miss the possibilities of my past.

I had a role
I had a home
And no matter how hard I build
I can’t see to find one here.

I’m just a renter.
I just rent the space I have.
When I’m gone it will be bought,
And I’ll be on to another old thought.

A Get-together

When the catgut spasms wither across my ears,
Stirred first by strokes of horse tail,
My cowhide covered feet tap

And I can stare away from the clamp-lights,
Strategically dug into porch cover cross beams,
Into the evening must, and I locate,
Naturally drawn to the disturbance,
The twinkle of lightning bugs.
I'll keep my feet taping for their thunder.

And as this lamb's wool shirt dampens,
Soaking up the proof of a celebration,
Maroon specks of lady soldiers assemble.
They organize and march over our supper,
Beginning a line dance of their own,
And carrying away our dregs,
But carrying away their subsidence.

When the catgut stops purring,
We'll be purified from our own exhaustion,
And a little closer to our condemned corner
Of the lost lush of Eden.