This is where your life begins
on a trip across a narrow channel
to an island outpost where twelve
students wait for class to start.

Our days are new, just building
our towers to support many children,
fantasy race cars, sojourns in war zones
so we can snap monumental geographic moments
of hidden earthly marvels where the sun blazes
against hot red rocks and we show how strange
and otherworldly our home can be.  
Our days are new...

Hope arrives in bulk and all we create
in our imaginations is available for us to believe in.
God still smiles upon us, it is before we turn our back on him.
Our mothers, fathers, teachers, friends root for us to win...

Every door we open becomes an adventure where
the unknown and impossible might come true.
We can become movie stars if we walk into the right cafe
on the right day in LA.
Now is when anything can happen.  

We still have a chance to mingle with learned scholars
who continue to seek out the beginning of their lives.  
If we are lucky, a conversation might bear fruit,
feeding us with treasures of study these schooled giants have uncovered
giving us material to put in our books, sending us on a path
through time reading other men's minds.  

Our days still are fresh, we wake like young peach roses,
wrapped naked in crisp sheets, our first apartment littered
with wine, sketches, and our lover...after we return from the island.

Smoldering with lustful ambition, refining our looks,
this is where our life begins.

Water,
The ocean is the most desperate vacuum
Where I can ride out over it’s dangerous dark water, driving the boat towards an unreachable port, sailing on into forever, sobbing into the wild Atlantic winds, running away from misery, boundaries, barriers, and dreams impossible to achieve.

GO OUTSIDE!!!!

three women looked in at me
one black man barely glanced,

I couldn't step onto the stage
that year, or any other year.

thirty thirteen year-olds
moved into the arena like cattle

wearing too much lipstick. unstoppable.
385,000 babies entered the world that day,

all crying. I became irritated, anxious,
like I needed to go back in time.

I kept reading, losing my breath, until I had to leave the room.

Cat sticks in the thicket deep.

It's a predictable cycle
Peaceful Nature.
The hum of the streams
layered by the whistle and the **** call.
Sunning spring green grasses
dew soaking their new season's blade.
A croak interrupts the morning,
calling us out to the field.
Only we hold our position listening in anticipation.
Nature excites us as though the unexpected will appear momentarily,
Only it's the regularity that surprises.
Our nervous system is poised for action,
until we realize the day is relaxing, breathing deeply,
Sat in prayer and obedience.

This tide sweeps over me
until I no longer want to live.

despair invades every breath
until I agonize over the pain of
going through each day alone,
walking over dandelions, watching
children sing,
spotting young men and women
embracing,
while I have only known rejection.

Black 5,
Phone dead.
No lines,
Whispering winds.
Kittens on the table,
The world still spins.
Black 5,
Phone dead.

you won't take responsibility in the role you played
in destroying my relationship.
You invaded my sacred home,
I let you in loving you.
Why did you enter in the first place
when you knew it was the home of another man?

It's difficult to believe I even have a purpose,
millions of people milling about on this planet,
hungry, dying, hurting, fighting,
all more desperate than I will ever be.
How can I believe I should even have a voice?
I am not one of the beaten down, not really.

Still, I am driven to help, I want to help you.
I want you to be the best version of yourself
and I want you to believe you are better than
what the world says you are.  

I've been poor my whole life. I used to want fame, maybe money,
when I was young. I wanted to be an actress. I was good too.
I had a lot of pain to draw from, but not as much as you.  

I've never wanted money enough to commit a crime to get it.
I don't really understand that mindset.
I've always known there was a better way, and there is.

I want you to believe people are on your side.
I want you to see people on your side.
What is your American Dream?

on the dating site I subscribe to
poor like I am, but full of quality
content to never be perverse
thrilled you found me
like the boys I used to run with down the railroad tracks
free, unimpaired, undefined
open to change, open to evolving slowly
discovering me
cutting wood or planting a garden
listening to soft music
keeping time to my footsteps.

The body of a tree
stretches beyond arm's length
of our five year plan,
brittle leaves descending upon our child's head.

Hello Poets,
my only friends
those who understand
why we sing into night.

Life is terrible, I can finally
say that now. Love, love,
It bludgeoned me twice.
Men, men, shiver at my song
sung to them while laughing.

Never did I intend to wound.
I hurt, with the sheer honesty
of my ignorance.

Age, Age coming near.
I am begging you for a home,
where I can be humble, earthbound,
dusty, and poor.
Where the heat of the sun is my only luxury
and wood on the fire means I am rich.

Life, life bring me back my youth,
just two years ago, when I thought the sky
was still open.

Crying today, I wish I'd done things otherwise,
I remember a day  when we walked down the lane,
I was more innocent then,
you had been the one hurting me.

petty worries.

that's all I can think of when I imagine the sheer piercing inconceivable survival happening today. People waking up wondering if this will in fact be their last day. Couples dying for wanting to breath in a certain way, of their own choosing.

what do I have to complain about?

Lost to the tides swept out,
all the days in California
loving the forests, knowing the prospects
of opportunity that waited for me around every corner.

Life could happen, all my dreams lived there.
The ocean rolled out towards Japan
We rose last and stayed up later
the countryside rolling out between each of us
there was room to breath and be happy in our nature.

My home, my tiny corner,
my clean pine bench and sweet drop-leaf table,
my wicker chairs with linen-covered, feather-filled pillows
padding the seat.
Gone now. Gone.

And where am I? Far away in a land that does not want me.
There is no sunshine here, there is no hope.
There is no health here,
there is no love.
Only ageing and death to follow.

Will I fall down in failure here?
Unable to hoist the weight of any task,
inept at thinking, speaking, answering.
Tick Tick Time
Tomorrow's answer will arrive.

I'm going to read your poem or your story or your novel and write a response.
Not a response, but a reply, or rather, answer you.

It will be a song in meter and stanza that might flow like a soft conversation.
When I am finished, you will have a time to answer back.

This will go on for a while.

Old
Dead
Left
*****
Fat
Pathetic
Ugly
46 yrs
Wasted
Used
Unwanted

What makes things sad?

Why is the grey on the streets sad? Why is the song in our minds miserable and slicing up our spirits as we walk home from school?
Why do we tell ourselves that we are no good, a failure, ugly, untalented? Why do we **** ourselves or think about killing ourselves on a monthly basis? Why are we no good?

Terrible for all the days there
is nothing a fortune teller can see
Between sundown all the way to marching into our
last breath.

Waiting, we shall watch, foxes all,
like calculating merchants ticking out pennies,
wiping our counters, holding onto towels moistened
by water dripping off the glasses of laughing diners.

After hours we walk out the kitchen door,
sit down on a stool in the alley way,
in the glow of the low tangerine sun.
Exhausted, we are, from dreaming all the day.

Poetry sings humanity's tale of living.

Foiled at every turn
some say this as cliche,
for me it is true.

Every love affair spoils,
each chance at wealth stolen,
any opportunity to get ahead blocked.

Flower petals fall when
the bee refuses it's kiss, or
light reserves its brilliance.

The child remembers my failings,
so much so he separates.
The day he disembarked from the bus,
leaving me in my seat,
doing what he was told.

I can't even say if he turned around,
to wave. Was he scared?
Off he wandered,
on his 10 year legs, into town, alone.

Did anything traumatic happen to him that day?
Did he cry because he had noone with him?
Does he hold resentment from being left
to fend for himself
the entire day?

A small child
with no one to watch over him.
So much so
He doesn't care
to know me?

The people you keep in your life are the people you love.
Only them. Only them.

Why does it matter if you start something
by starting something I mean creating something for yourself
a job, a project, a goal, an art

When I look out at people who are optimistic, who seem to be carefree, I see they are starters, they work for themselves, they look for the answers, they ask themselves questions.

What else do they have?

February 23, 2023

Story idea:

Two sadhakas are walking on the road, looking down, walking quietly in peace, until they bump into each other.

They are startled out of their meditation, look at one another in the eyes, and instantly fall in love. They are wrapped up and swirled in a whirlwind of love, affectionate words, feelings, making love.

And then when it all stops, they realize they are walking in opposite directions. One turns white, the other black, or silver and gold, or some other colors. They shed tears, spend a few days and nights saying their goodbyes.

And then ultimately continue on their ways.

The sun sets, the moon rises and sets, and the sun rises, and butterflies flutter.

It was the quietest day of the year
when I discovered I knew nothing at all
except the loss of everything dear and knew then
it had been all my fault.

Without thought or time to think I'd wounded
every last one. Because I had no filter to speak
of, and I thought people were made out of stone.

Not so, as it turns, we are flesh, mostly flesh
with very little bone.

That you are able to say anything you want
and our actions will determine
our metal?

Satan uses people too you know,
how do I know you are not filled with his grace?

Is God silent
watching
while Satan plays his chess?

I don't want it to be true,
but if you are a brother,
why am I struck down by you?

Why are you here in my place?
Why could you not keep
a kind moment kind
and our lives at rest?

If you do not like what you see,
Reading my words,
Gazing at my photos,
Then turn away.
Do not enter my life.

When I am alone I can imagine a future for myself
I plan, It seems like there are possibilities again.
I might meet a stranger with potential
I might meet an outstanding lover.

If my room is empty of anything save my life
then I can fill it, empty it, fill it, empty it
as long as I am able to attract something to me.

I can rewrite my story time and time again.
Today I can be a drunk sleeping with slobs.
Tomorrow I can be vegan cooking with my earth friends.
Then I can be a writer and pick up some dangerous man
who will steal from me soul or property.

Walking through my life again, from begining till now.
I want to find my life again, and somehow keep what is gone.

I'll ***** the pin through the paper
to bring the light back through.
Not all darkness persists.
In our desperate cries
into the void
God does listen.
Faithful to us
until the end.

There is a window through which I climbed
out towards an edge that promised me
pain and painted lights and desperation too sweet
to pass up the taste, a lust, a danger, a disaster
of life and I wandered happily out towards it's calling song.

Singing repeated songs, the strong arms of men,
playing around and around as I sifted through the moments
of thought and image flashing in day by day.
a young woman swept up in the transience of the traveling musician.

The tornado that lifted me out of my shelter
never did settle me, and I fly still, gazing down upon the
distant patterns of grids and circles, laughing
with a miraculous hysteria,
at what the breeze blows in each day.

Like mustard gas,
suffocating.

Better keep me contained,
Don't get me on your hands.

My home is a death chamber,
a spider's web.

Like the naked man running out of
Jeffery Dahmer's apartment.

Like the poison apple
offered to Snow White.

Better leave that money on the ground,
you don't know where it's been.

Today is a death, I remember two weeks ago as I listened to poetry, it was a birth, a start, there was an addition that propelled me and fueled my search and discovery. I finally had someone to share my knowledge with, my discoveries, my growth. Now death has covered that breath, like a ****** in a night and my home feels like a crime scene. The thrill of the attraction that filled all the moments until I saw you is dead now, killed by my own hunger for you. You were a quick meal I devoured or a prey that escaped my death clutch. I had my teeth in you, drinking, vampiric like, not really wanting you to suffer my fate, to live 1000 returning lifetimes, only you survived, got away, back to your own, to meet your people again, and I am left alone, standing alone, hoping again this aloneness comes to life again somehow with electricity and the mystery of discovering a whole person. But it won’t, never again with the same flavor, sound, hum, storyline. That song is sung

Baltimore will change you. Seen through the eyes, ears, and hearts of Black American, your liberal effort will be read as a white occupation.

It doesn't matter your intentions, if you've meditated on it all year long, if you yell at a black face, you have cast the whip.

You're not allowed to have emotions, you have to subservient yourself to the trauma of your students, your fellow teachers, the parents walking on the street. Your trauma no longer matters. It is not the same. It might not even be exist. Or rather, you're over 50, haven't you processed that **** yet?

Oh, Baltimore will change you. When you came here you wanted to help, you wanted to solve the problem of racism, of less than equal, you wanted to uplift like MLK and make real the sentiments of your 60s parents. Then you met the attitude, the snares as you walked through the Aldi on Orleans Street, the ostracization of your Black colleagues, the Black clicks, the Black power, and the side glances and suspicion waiting for you to be racist and oppressive. The questioning eyes looking at your old white face and grey hair, expecting you to control or belittle the Black man, woman, and child. Why did you come here to teach our children? What do you want with our children?

You face the slow walk of the Black man and woman. Why are they moving so slowly? Don't they know I am in a hurry? Are they doing that on purpose because of the years of white control and oppression? Are they punishing me for all the sins of the Whites? Or is it because that person is big, slow in pace because of the sheer weight they have to carry? Is that racist to think that? Does the butcher move slow at the meat counter because he wants to make me wait? Why am I even thinking this? I never thought this before! Baltimore is changing me.

You face the fast driving and the motocross culture of danger, noise, and recklessness. You meet the street fights our your front door, parents surrounding their children, cheering them on to kick the other 15year old's ***.  You get called a white ***** time and time again simply because you speak your mind. Or...did I do something wrong?  WAS I oppressive? I just wanted to....how can I even breath here? I might do it in a way that hurts the Black community. Why are they that fragile? Are they that fragile?

Baltimore will make you ask, where should I stand as the Black community moves into it's place? It will make you ask, "Why am I defending the white man? Why do I feel a need to play devil's advocate?" But why do I need to feel obliged to step aside for the Black? Isn't that the sentiment I have felt all my life? Move over for the Black. White people have had the lead for too long. Move out of the way for Black people, let them get ahead. Let them get ahead?  Like I hold the keys to the door? We were told (by MLK) that the dream was for us to play side by side, hold hands, walk up or down the mountain together. That is so hard. For both sides. Why are there sides?

I would do anything to warn you not to turn into that direction keeping you safe and warm.

I can carry you on my shoulders for the rest of your life until I walk into the dirt.

it will be 3 days before you decide that you're going to fall down so far you smell the waste and happiness of everyone around you.

I will be the observer, bound,

When days are fine
What shall we write on?
William Saroyan
And the cold day
In San Francisco.
Regular things like
Panging for touch
In the 3 o’clock hour,
Scratching mosquito bites
While studying portraits.

If all the days of my life
Led to this one
Where I had you
In communique,
Meeting you,
Sharing time,
Mixing our histories
Our pathways
It might not mean a thing to you
For me it has been a pleasure.

Portraits and laughter
Reviewing the song
Of your life
Colorful passion
Making leaps
I wonder where you will land.

In this early hour of the morning
I can only be overjoyed
That I might have the pleasure
Of you at least once more,
Uncertain how long you will
Be in my story.

This is a new day so they tell me,
hello new day, I want to thank you
for what you have given me.
A chance to become myself again
to be true to myself,
to love myself,
to not sacrifice myself,
to not compromise myself,
to find hope again,
to just love this one more new day,
and see what amazing moments you contain.

Is that God is in control.
His almighty power
knows my life.
Guiding me,
giving me the life he has planned for me.
All pains and troubles are a lesson,
growth.
Where was I before dear Lord?
Where am I now?
For you I shall live. To love you.
In the emptiness where there is noone,
the loneliness of being alone,
I will sit here in solitude,
knowing this is how you wish my life to be.

If asked what is the purpose of all the learning,
my answer now might be hollow.
To earn money, to have a house.
I am not an inventor,
I am not a powerful business person, I am not rich.
I can't answer this question with authority.
I am only a teacher and they tell me that all this learning is important.

If I could tell you one thing to be good at for success in your life,
I would say, please learn how to make friends. That great book,
that first primer on success,
"How to Make Friends and Influence People", read that!

If I were Elon Musk, I might have a different answer.
He knows why all this learning is important, but for me,
any learning has yet to really pay off, except I do have a job,
and I might be on the upswing. No learning has paid off really yet.
I am still hand to mouth.

Does learning gain you influence?  
It might, but George Santos might beg to differ.
Rather isn't it how you relate and manipulate
people that gets you where you want to go?
I mean, isn't that the secret ingredient?
Isn't that the one variable all the most successful people have in common?

Will all your learning get you what you want? There is no guarantee.

A slate chill
Beating morning
Chuckling
Drips of life.

I lost myself in some cranny
as I moved west to east.

My blue jeans fell off
somewhere along the road
and I can't see myself clearly.

I was wearing dust along my skin
with a tan, raggedy hair, and a cat.

I sang loudly with the radio
opened the window to let in the heat
let the wind dry my lips
and made plans, always making plans.

I had hope, and spirit, I let the worries of the world
roll off the hood of my car.
I followed the sacred om to the edge of the desert
and tried to heal.

I lost her somewhere in the din of the fat.
I have to find her again,
I have to shed the weight.

I'll find her again,
As soon as I am alone.

Before time began I had no name
nor face, nor home
I needed no future, nor plan
no clothing.

only skin
with sand blown against
the rough dry surface,
tan, dusty.
desert worn.
Earthened.

The days promised to carry on without end,
I never aged, never grew old

the silver in my hair fit.



I could climb the sierras, scale rocks,
swim the American river if I wanted to.
Men and women smiled at me.


I had beauty.



Time steals,
and now I only wish to make peace

so she might return my aim towards grace.
So my silver might return,

so the sand of my skin might roughen me
into a well worn woman

of the hottest day.

It's funny when you look back
to find out you have been erased
from the lives you thought you'd
played a role in. Who will remember
me? Did I even exist? There is no one
around me to remember I am alive. I
disappeared from the memory books,
covered up, erased.

bigger than I am,
more financially resolved,
he rejected tents
and festival colors.
now he walks with big steps,
I imagine 1000 ft. tall,
swishing in a blue suit.
all that I could hope for.

I hope he wins from life
what he desires.

Fall away
               s
                                        i          ,
          ­              then    a         r                               &


s                           p                         a                          c                             e


and

l   s   .

The only person who calls me today is
the creditor man.
God told me I was supposed to date him from now on,
and I guess I'll listen to him this time.
There was a fear I had at 25, that I would crawl out
of an old apartment house each day,
stinking of agedness.
People, that fear is about to happen, and I don't know
how to stop it.
Death has me in it's grip, and despite everything
Christ promises, I can not feel the light.

My ranking was 115 out of 300 or so
people at the high school I attended in
Kansas. Ineffectual. By most standards.

The university denied me membership into
the honors community, blacklisted by peers,
ignored, forgotten like a transient looking through
the cafe window at the revelers eating and drinking.

young voices contributing to publications, singing
thoughts, shaping the tenor of future days, heralded
like shining angels transcendant of mortals, supremacy
allowed to decide the shape of our cities, schools, feelings.

Entrusted with the duty to chisel our lives into a shape, the approval to think for us, or be the catalyst of our own thoughts, or rather simply, the winners who wrote it best, they ran faster, they ranked higher, they knew more.

Not one of them my voice. my voice was silence,
shoved back by the bouncer
at the threshold of influence.

Words floated inward, I witnessed the streams
of phrases float passed me on soundwaves,
reaching the ears of luminaries, academicians, renegade thinkers.
crowds rallied, wept, and devoured the ideas embedded in the poems, essays, articles allowed to reach the readers of the day.
Minds opened, wealth shifted, a flight towards a new horizon saw people preparing for the liftoff.

Yet, nothing changed.

The wounded continued to bleed upon the sidewalks
outside my apartment. Tiny children ignorantly ran past schools
refusing to walk inside. Men and Women preferred to dance viciously, like celebrating heathens, rejoicing in their ****** rituals, unashamed to entice one another into poverty.

SHOULD things even change?

Would the presence of my voice even make a microscopic difference? What vanity did I carry that imagined one hope
of a thought birthed from my mind might create the tipping point for human recovery? Wouldn't it be better to remain silent and let the masters continue with their work? Let the fittest push me out of their way, leaving me in the trench to camp and rebuild my primitive shelter. I will die soon enough. My dust enriching the soil as best it can, preparing the earth for tomorrow's crop of leaders.

my life is a walk spent dodging traps
I walk into with my mouth open to them,
even though I don't want to get caught,
I also don't want to be alone,
so I trap myself with men who
stop me in my tracks
keeping me from where I am really going,
which is nowhere at the moment,
except that I want it to be somewhere,
only I'm having trouble finding the path where
I am walking unrestrained, the winds freely blowing past my body
and the people are still there with me only they are walking with me
rather than being in front of me like a concrete blockade or a tar pit
something I might run head on into or die being stuck.

You didn’t know me. We kind of pretended to like each other because we wanted ***. And so we pretended to have a relationship. But  we really didn’t. This is a hardship. This is a struggle. Something to take on together. Otherwise, we are just living our own individual lives in tandem. This is the first piece of honesty that has shown itself in our relationship. This is the first sign of weakness. No, I don’t want it to happen again. I want to be cured of it. I want it expelled from my heart by the power of love. I want someone to wrap me up tightly in their arms and shush me as they rock me back and forth promising they will help me to overcome. I want their patience, acceptance, and understanding to be stronger than the anger and frustration that boils me inside. I want their kindness and devotion to give me the time to get better. I want them to watch over me as I grow. I am still the 19 year old girl living in her own flat for the first time in her life. I am still the maiden waiting to be molded by the man who becomes captivated by her youth and beauty. She has never been found, she is still waiting, hoping. Until…time runs out, and then she is thinking of building the walls, so she shares herself with no one, for their own protection.

A woman wants to be wanted
she wants to be pursued everyday to exhaustion.
She wants you to keep coming back, letting her know you have definitively chosen her above all others, and then she wants the option of breaking your heart, saying "No" to you. But she wants you to run after her everyday. She wants you to always make the first move, so she knows you want her more than she wants you.

It's always been this way. On the playground, when the game of chase was on, who was chasing and who was screaming with the thrill of the hunt, screaming not to be caught, because what would being caught mean?  It would mean capture, loss of freedom, and maybe something worse....a kiss.

Because if it were the other way, if she chased after you, you would call her names, ***** to your friends, make fun of her, and get sick of her fast. If she called you everyday, you would get tired of it, you would want more space, you would find a woman who was more aloof. You would blow her off, stop calling her back. You might keep ******* her if she showed up to your house, but you might feel bad about yourself afterwards and promise yourself and all your friends that was the last time.

I will return to my own land
That sits lost between continents
And the countries of other people.

I’ll not look for a place to fit in,
Wanting acceptance and for them to fall in love.

Goodbye to following hopeless trails. Them always doing just as they please and me always dying over them to please.

Traveling solo.

Finding the world that opens its arms to me.

Not worried that they are lusting after something tastier.