And on his deathbed...
He’d said his goodbyes
To his family first
His colleagues second
And finally his college roommates
And cronies
They asked him of any wishes
Anything left unsaid
‘I’ve always wanted to see...
‘Niagara Falls...’
Gasping for air
In the middle of the night
Found them placing
Their friend in a barrel
And putting it into the raging waters
And over the side it went
His death ruled a
Suicide
It’s good to have literal friends

Maybe
Once again
You’ll hear my familiar
Bell
Ringing
Portside
213am
Calm waters
Black
Lifeless
Ragged
Torn
Flag
Listing to one
Side
Passing
You
Once
More
In the night...

They’re like the wife you didn’t see coming, and now you have to divorce them too
‘Mr Red when can we expect payment?’
‘If I give blood today, plasma tomorrow...I can send $30 the day after that but won’t eat till Friday.’

Bloodsuckers
Parasites
I would’ve stayed with my ex if I knew it was gonna run $10k!

$27 for a phone call with client
$37 to reply to an email from opposing counsel
$135.67 for 30 minutes of preparing documents
$78.63 for filing documents with courts

Yep...I should’ve been a **** lawyer
And folks wonder why nobody ever wants to marry again...
It was cheaper to keep secrets

‘Yes, I’ll send the $30 by Thursday...’

Only god & the devil know how much
I love you

I only believe in one of them...

I’ve never met you...
But I miss you terribly...

If you think you’re having a
Bad day
Bad life

There are soldiers coming home
From a deployment
That consider it a success
Because they didn’t ****
Any children
This time

Remember that...

470,000
Words
In
The
Dictionary
And
She
Knows
The
Only
3
Words
I
Want
To
Hear

Loved
How she slept
How she laughs
How she looks at herself
Her words that she writes
How she dances by herself
Sometimes
With music
Sometimes
With tears
So I’ll stand guard
Unrelieved watch
Over her
Until she joins me
Hear her whisper
Each and everynight
Before turning off the light
‘I miss you my love...I know you are there. I feel you.’
‘I miss you too...
I’m the Ghost
And she haunts me...

At 1st Glance of Her
I heard my father’s voice
From when I was a boy

Don't start a fire you don’t know how to put out

At 2nd Glance of Her
She pierced my heart & soul
With a forlorn smile
&
I knew my ship would
Go down in flames sometime
In the middle of the night

But I didn’t care

And if I had one day
That would be okay
With you
I
Would just ask
For the sun to never set
Nor the moon to never rise
&
Just get lost in eternal seconds
Press against your immortal skin
&
Get back all the time
Lost between us

And so it came to pass
On the eleventh hour
On the eleventh year of
Her demise
A
Sojourn
Was convened as a final
Will and Testament
Was finally processed
And just by happenstance
A lover of hers appeared
Long grayed
Frayed
And tattered by years
For his appearance
Was summoned for matters
As he was included
In her final sentence
Her final wishes
‘As for my dearest...’
The estate
With it’s abandoned greenhouses
Cobwebbed interiors
Failing structure
On the outside
Were his
........
And as he made his way
Haphazardly around
The lonely walk
His boots clanking on the floors
Room to room to what was
Now his property
Remembering
Fondly
The love made there
The smells of fresh
Lilac
Her gait
Her hair
Touch
Shuddered him to think
As he made way round each corner
‘Was that her?’
Couldn’t be
A giggle
Clank clank
His boots made
Dining hall
Chairs covered in slips
Cobwebs
Candelabra where they burned
For hours
As we sipped endless bottles of wine
‘We did didn’t we?’
A whisper
Quickly turn around
Nothing
Room fills with the frigid
See my breath
And there
Couldn’t be
Beloved Gwenivere
‘Dine with me once more my love...’
Twas but a trap
To keep him forever...

Somewhere
Underneath the twisted metal
Strewn Wreckage
Smell of fuel
Patches of fire

Somewhere

This rotting blue green corpse

Hidden by decaying leaves
Clumps Of earth
Never to be found

Somewhere
Underneath the rubble of
Concrete
Protruding iron wires
Pummeled
****** & Bruised

Somewhere
Floating on the deepest
Part of the ocean
The bloated
Face down
Pelicans pecking

Somewhere
Somehow
Someway

You found me

Return to me at night
As I was drifting
Foot of my bed
Blankets
Sheets
Turn to water

Your hands
Ripple
Currents towards me
Scales
Along my legs
Across my chest
Can’t move
Can’t resist
Gentle kiss
Holding onto me
By your lips
‘I can’t swim’
I say
‘I’ll swim for both of us...’
You say
As you pull me under

‘It’s time for both of us to be wet’
Whisper
Succumb
Drown
Inside
Of
You
..............
..........
.....
...
..
.

The truth is out there
Always has been...
Always will be...
Sometimes the truth
Is hidden in the seas
Mired in the dense forest
Asleep in deserts
..........
And sometimes the truth
Is in a campfire cup of coffee,
A sky full of stars,
And no cell phone service for
2 to 3 days...

Gentrification has ruined art...
Food Collectives replaced the trumpeter
In the window
3 bedroom 2 bath condos
Slaughtered the *****
On the rainy street
...
There isn’t any **** side of town
Anymore
No starving artist
No one selling repentance soup
3 for a $1
Newspapers for 25 cents
To look for deadend jobs
....
Art dwindles on empty canvas
Poets are a dime a dozen tho
‘Check out my page’
‘Like my stuff’
Poems that go nowhere
******* we’re suffering
Enough
.....
Just an oncoming storm
That never seems to get here

You’re the fire
I’ll never be
Able
To
Put out...
.
Ever
.
I should just
Accept
That
.
Even on my
Deathbed
.
I’ll look past
Everyone
.
For you...

Good medicine or bad medicine
You protected me
Like a mother would
Shielding me
Even if my clouds were dark
My eyes red
My skin made of scales

You still made something
From me
Saw the good
Even when I didn’t want to be

For what it’s worth
You’re never too old
To start a Facebook account
I hope you live a life worth
Posting up
With a face that doesn’t need a filter
A life filled
&
Full of Likes
Retweets
&
Comments
And if you find that you don’t
I hope you find the strength
To start a fake account

There will soon be 12 dead flowers in millions of homes all across the world...
Have mercy for them

Once
In my 20s
I acquired things
Material Possessions
A
Wife
Kids
Mild success
Church goer
Do gooder
I cared about parent teacher conferences and great
School districts

In my thirties
It vanquished
Revealed its disguise
&
Lost it all
But that’s ok

Now in my 40s
I know all the
Happy Hour
Bars
&
Liquor Stores
Nearby
&
10 percent off Tuesdays
For wine
En vino veritas
Finally got the truth
I deserved
Had to lose everything
To get it
Thank you
Thirties

Alone
Cold
In the dark
Unable to see
You whisper
Whisper to me
‘Did you hear...hear me call
‘Out to thee?’
‘Oh yes...this is our spot...
‘The place we have to build...
‘If we can’t be together...
‘Right now you & me...
‘Our Love is fragile...
‘Needs a forest...
‘Needs a sea...
‘Your lovely voice
‘My love I heard it...
‘Calling out to me...
Leaving
You have your back to me
Stoking the fire
‘Don’t forget about us...
‘And what we can be...
Alone
Dark
Cold

Someone you’ve never met is waking in this universe
Under the same stars as
You
Ready to appreciate
The beautiful
Words
You write

In the Sahara
Grows a Tulip
From the day
We met

In the Antarctic
A Black Rose
Fights against the ice
The day we pronounced
Our love for each other

Light has reached
A Black Hole
In the deepest of space
&
Will survive it
Penetrating it
Mercilessly

Where nothing can grow
Where nothing living can survive
You will find us there
Our love
Our beating hearts
Together
Entwined

You’re the reason why
At the beginning of
Revolutions
They drag the poets
Into the streets
&
Have them shot

Poets
With their ideals
Compassion
Courage
Inflicting the masses

They always shoot the
Poets
Not the pastors
Teachers
Laborers
Politicians
Press

Poets give hope
Even when they
Themselves
Have none...

Beloved
The best ones
That were written about you
Were the ones written by my
Heart
When you were
1000 Light Years From Me
I had nothing to do with it

Found that orange pillow that you’d bring to our Saturday nights
On my couch
And like a dummy
I smelled it
And somehow
Someway
The gods remembered
How much I loved you
Because the smell of your
Hair was still upon it
After years
And
Years

Saw 847 faces
Driving 847 cars
Traffic in
Traffic out
Passed by 49 faces
Walking 49 different ways
Made eyes with
1
And she still
Wasn’t you
Why couldn’t
1
Of them be
U

In today’s instant Hookup Society
Where everybody gets laid
&
Played
The *** can be free
&
Anonymous

She was the only one
The only one
I’d throw my phone away
For
&
Communicate with smoke signals
If I had to
&
Call her from a pay phone
Just to hear her lovely
Voice

I see you in the distance
My star

I’m here too
Never touching
But constant

You’re not alone
And I don’t feel alone
Knowing you’re there

So bright
So beautiful
We are part of the same
Constellation
For millions of years to come

Come closer to me...

            *
          

Seconds tick away time
Time away from you
I
See you in the corners of my
Eyes
Waiting for me
In my time away from you

Isn’t easy
For me
Waking from dreams of you
Even there you walk away
‘I want to tell you everything...’
‘Stop...’
And I walk along the sand
Hand in hand
With nobody
Just like the lost...

Back in those days
All we had to do was
Scrape together $46
For a Friday night room
Two combo meals
A joint
&
A 12 pack of some ****** beer
$46
Got me a hand to hold
A naked body to lay next to
And try to decipher what
She’d say in her sleep
Sometimes she would laugh
Sometimes she would cry
Sometimes she slept all
Through the night
$46
To watch her **** silhouette
Against the window
To have a cigarette
$46
To get to say
‘I love you’
And
Hear it back
And sometimes we’d laugh
And sometimes we’d cry
And sometimes we’d fall asleep
In each other’s arms
All through the night
All for
$46

I felt like a millionaire
Back then
Love was simple

The summer of
1995

I don’t even care about words right now...just want to stare at pictures of you all day...

She took her gasoline can
Emptied it on my branches
My leaves
My outer bark
Covered me
Doused me
And stood on the edge
Of my forests
My green
She knew what she was doing
It had been 3 long months
Without her
Without a word
4am Monday morning
I saw the match
Drop
‘You haven’t written in a while
‘Are you okay?’
Let this fire consume us
I don’t ever want
To put it out

Rolling over to find you
Snuggled into my back
Trying to find warmth
‘Did you miss me?’
‘You know I did...’
‘I’ve missed this...’
Kissing me
Scent of your body
Giving off radiance
Your hips in the moonlight
Opening
Lip trembling
Opened eyes in desire
Then coming in for more

Awake
Clock reads
3:14am
Smell of your hair
In my nose
The place next to me warm
Desperately
Get back to sleep
Back to you

If
You’re gonna run from the cops
Do it when you’re young
Young enough for them
To release you to your parents
But do it once
If
You’re gonna fall in love
Do it when you’re old
Old enough for you
To forget all the loves before her
Let her be the last woman you love
If