Toma'a

Don't care to be overwhelmed by the natural ease
Of a carefree smile
                               Yet
                                      I am
and it belongs to you


I have never told you


I am sure
               you don't know

about this intimate infatuation


Beauty can only go so far

and that is a hard-earned piece of wisdom

but in you I see

                         that duty to family

to responsibility

                          and most importantly

to honor the truth of yourself

Oh how endless I find your beauty

in such light


I watch mute from afar

beauty in your eyes
dare I kiss your blooming lips
shudder together

late hours turn to dawn
what does night say to morning
faintest of whispers

caress your soft neck
eyes closed feeling silken hair
raise your hand to me

power of silence

your lips do not part for me

wind rushes by us

The Eternal

Monuments carved in stone
To commemorate the eternal
Will be weathered in time
Until one day smooth and 
Unrecognizable rock is 
All that remains

Monuments to hubris.

Autumn of burning
Air sits heavy over us
Smell of distant smoke

Waste Your Life

Waste the hours of daylight
and moonlight
whenever possible

Lounge about as though
you are bored royalty

Wake up and stay in bed
Daydream as soon as possible

Rise only when necessary
Travel to a secluded beach
and empty conscious thought

Fall in and out of love everyday
Let your heart be broken wisely

Listen more intently than necessary
Speak only as a last resort

Embrace the creative act
Participate as often as possible

If a muse should appear
Be grateful and follow

Until the world has exhausted itself
And new life springs from ash

Adulthood

Dream your life into being
Simplicity of thought
Action left to the movement of body
Ambition both impetus and limiter
Dual-hearted chest beating steady
May long these lungs expand and contract
Found you buried in subconscious places
You asked where I had been
Nothing could be said
Marveled at your form before me
Watched your lips move
Though I could find no words
A simple life would be fine
If we were both there
If we could cease
These dreams
Life doesn't always work
The way we believe it should
That is for the best
We sit apart by our own choices
This is fine
I still dream
Time to time

You Whom I Loved Best.

We love the ones we cannot save.

Gathering Dust

Gathering the dust
                              of your ashes
you cover my hands


My tears find themselves within you

              Forgiveness

I could never ask that of you


Aching knees

Feet refuse to keep me standing

Ache of years

Mind
          weighted and
                                sink
                                      ing
No one will find me here

Alone
           together

To an end

Advice to Self

You will not like the fruit 
of bitterness if you decide 
to plant its seeds.

Even the dead pray.

Immutable Law of Humanity

We each have to make the decision 
of how much hypocrisy we are each 
comfortable within ourselves.   

Use failure as a starting point for living
Experience is earned
Success is equal parts fluke and work
You are as you are meant to be now

failure of memory

Solitude and loneliness
Don't ever conflate the two

I do not speak
I choose not to

Your beauty is cliched
I want you anyhow

Pray for nothing
And God will always answer

On my knees I fall
Dig my hands into the sand

Present tense is evaporating
Past tense are the memories
We write into cannon

Everything is falling away
My hands can no longer grasp

Unconscious Functions

Breathing because I must
Doing so unconsciously
My body keeps me alive
Heart couldn't think
Even if it wanted to
Brain couldn't beat like
My heart even if it tried
I see because I can
Because I open my eyes
Caught in this place
Victim only cause I let it be
This place
A place of unseen violence
Place of closed doors
And muffled sounds
Hushed words and
Cast off promises to be faithful
With no judgement
I watch and see
With judgement I turn and
Look away

Processional

Not ready to own up to my part of the blame
Pass it off again and again
I'll take this load if you'll take your share
Let the days gather behind us

This Night (Freewrite 9/12/16)

These words don't need to mean anything. If there is meaning
then it is purely unintentional. There are intended consequences
for cast off actions and improvised thoughts. Pose a question as
a declarative statement and expect no answer. I held my niece
but she motioned for me to set her down so she could walk. I
obliged and watched her small legs carry to my mother, her
grandmother. There is never enough of the things we think we
need. We get by anyhow. I have twelve dollars to my name.
This isn't the first time. I worry enough but perhaps not about
the things I need to worry about. If I were to ask you to sing
for me would you? If you asked me to sing for you I would.
There would be no promise of my voice being pleasing, in
key, or even being remotely sensible lyrically. Perhaps I'd be
better off humming to you. Once upon a time there was a boy
who wrote poetry. One day that boy started playing music.
The boy grew up. To this day he still writes poetry and plays
music. The boy is now a broke man but more often than not
he is happy. The end. In medias res. Time is fleeting. Who
said that? Did it ever need to be said? And why in latin?
Tempus Fugit. Sometimes I think about what Mary told me
a few years ago. When I think about those things I think I
have been a fool to not act on them. Mary is fine. Her new
book will be published soon. This art, this struggle, may it
never end. Why would you want me to paint you a picture
of the sunset when I could take you to the beach and watch
it together in a profound silence broken only by the waves.
I like a well made Mai Tai after sunset at the beach. Two or
three well made drinks will put you comfortably at ease
with yourself and most anything else. Foolish blood caught
flowing through my body, we are both prisoners in the same
cell. Women I have loved. Women I have admired. Women
I have loved so much I cannot stand to be near them. What
did young Octavian think as he conquered the known world?
What did Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa think as he watched
Octavian become Augustus? The fate of a new empire rested
with them. We still speak their names. If I had no name what
would I call myself? If you had no name how would you be
known? Identity. Created and upkept. This nebulous vision
constructed and maintained for the benefit of who? Who and
whom, an other with no name to call but I wish you here.
Preach to the unwashed masses only because they forget to
bathe today. Covered in the dirt of the Earth are they not more
holy than we? God, are you listening? Have you gone to sleep?
This landslide will bury us whole. Choking on ash, collapse
of the known order, we must build something new or be
enslaved by the will of another. Moon shining bright over me
will you guide me to sleep? Will you keep Death at bay?
Will you kiss me farewell at dawn?

two incomplete ideas

Isn't it a pity,
Isn't it a shame
we couldn't work it out.
Isn't it a shame
we're still in love.

_______________

throwing bits of fingernails away
into the bin
cut and tossed
dead and forgotten
while we live
lazarus
morning to morning
alive and breathing

One of the highest functions of art 
is to elevate our shared humanity. 

Home / Less

Indifferent Earth

Place of my birth

Silence follows me

I bristle again

Listening

Listening

For a home

I cannot find

Those Who Sow the Soil

There is no audience worth creating for
If you must restrain your creativity
Do not neuter that which has not yet
Come into being
Cast your seed into the ground
and into the wind
Children of no father
and a reluctant mother
Let us meet beneath the fading moon
and let the white hang nail pierce us
Let those drops of blood
Give life to blessed soil

A Certain Kind of Writer

Please don't become one of those shitty alcoholic writers
Writing about their shitty drunk lives

Please don't spend the night getting loaded
Trying to find the divine where there is no light

What a horrible hypocrite I am
Who am I to tell you anything

As I sit here pouring rum into a glass
Trying to make sense of anything at all

The cola makes it easier to drink as the night
Goes on and on until blackness

Overcomes and we wait for the dawn
Even if we forgot about it

What Kind of Honesty Are You Looking For

Sinner in a confessional speaking to a priest
                  Sinner to sinner
Human exchange sanctioned to absolve
The penitent of their burden
One man is vested with the power to absolve
Unknowable amount of sins and secrets
Have been shed in confessionals
For hundreds and hundreds of years
What relief has been found
A human unburdened
Enough strength to carry on
For another day
Another week
Until enough sin burdens
Once again
A self-perpetuating path
Dividing the hemispheres
Of our behaviors

Recognition

A lifetime of fading beauty
I still recognize you
Despite what life has done
I could never forget
The brilliance in your eyes

Woke Up Dreaming

I woke up dreaming
but I loved you no less
Midnight memories
Tangle of limbs
Daylight reveals
what has passed
Impression of your body
My hand touches
where you were
Only coolness
Woke up dreaming

On Hope

I'll take hope anywhere and anytime I can find it.
To live without it is to surrender to the forces
that seek to destroy us. If we can preserve hope
within we can always persist.

It Doesn't Matter He's Dead Anyway

Don't believe the hype of conspiracy
I doubt his wife had reason to murder her famous husband
The signs had been piling up behind him
None of them were good
Hindsight won't do him any good now
His daughter was married to someone in a band
who looked just liked him
Perhaps it was more than coincidental
His wife is in the news every now and then
over something or other
It's sort of sad but she's managed to outlive him
despite her problems
His music lingers the speakers blaring
so called classic rock
even if it doesn't seem like long ago
The years pile up like dust on attic furniture
I was slightly too young to care
at the time and now I see the bigger picture
We're only here for a brief time
We'll watch many friends and strangers die
before our time comes
no matter how we may delude ourselves otherwise
You look beautiful today
I don't care how messed up your hair is
I'd kiss you right now
I love you
Don't worry
We're here together now

If I Need Your Help

Haven't forgotten my promises
I have trouble remembering myself lately
I'm still here walking through these days and nights
Am I in love or just breathing
Missives from another lifetime
Scraps of memories
Flashes of a past all too fleeting
Will you help me find a way home
Or will you remind me
There's nowhere to go back to