After the pain of the human body,
silence arrives,
not good, not bad,
just without noise,
without splendid glory,
filled with unfinished thoughts
of those who loved or were loved.

Crossing through an amorphous gate,
their material vessels vanish slowly
in the rotting smell,
inevitable deconstruction
in the same irreversible order.

The red liquid comes back
to the primordial elements,
to Earth, to Air, to Void,
everything and nothing.

We who are still breathing,
create new interpretations
to be more distant than close
to the elusive insight.

Clearing our space
we put various convictions
in our grief drawer, suffering,
looking for consolation—
against the final revelation.

The cosmic conscious dust
returns to the circle of life.
Does it matter what comes after?
Just stay now,
open your arms,
embrace a tender emptiness.

A strange, dense, heavy word.
Once, graceful and noble
or it seemed to be
until I used it too much.
I know that something fails,
that I’m losing its huge potential.

If I pronounce it aloud
it doesn’t shine anymore for me
in the tiny corners of my mind.
It lingered awkwardly, repeating
“I’m here!”.

The tangled threads
imposing new interpretations.
The materializing weight of sounds.
It's a bitter pill to swallow,
but I know the side effects.

The lightness of the feather
turns into a red brick.
When it hits me,
my inner calm ceases to exist.

I’m struggling to rationalize,
to be more tolerant.
And I just ask myself:
if I truly believe,
why do I say it?

The word so needed,
so loved,
in the silence,
in conviction,
in the presence of no absence.

Something authentic,
wasn’t it meant to be spoken?
So sinister…
it builds and destroys.

The word,

the idea

of




TRUST...

Hook him up to the machine.
Shock his brain into
mediocrity.
Death stalks him;
he is aware.
There is too much
flash in his eyes.
His brain needs a reboot;
he needs to forget,
like a goldfish, like
a monkey in the zoo.
Hook him up to the machine.
He is too sentimental.
Salmon swim in his blood;
he has a paisley heart,
and a tie-dye soul.
He can smell colors.
Hook him up to the machine.
He has Van Gogh eyes, and
a Bukowski gut; he walks
like he's lost in a maze;
hunchback sadness,
butcher knife nerves,
Hook him up to the machine.
He believes in love,
and has too much trust.
His vivid green memory
is a curse, we need to
crash it, **** the eternal spring.
Hook him up to
the machine.

We used to meet at this
enclosed bus stop.
Glassed in, like a
blurry-eyed goldfish.
Diesel morning sadness.
We were drunks, dead, and
still dreaming.
There was Chuck, Dog,
Lefty
Lucky
and Beth.

We shared our minuscule
amounts of liquor, and sang
old Motown favorites.

"Mama said there'd be days
like this."

These were the days of the
drunk and debauched.
Liars and lovers, partakers
in this waddling life.
Shattered days and fractured
nights.
We shadowboxed with the
sun, and pretended tomorrow
was a century away.

Blind devotion, a dangerous guide,
While reason sleeps, and truths hide.
Did you see the fire ignite?
The darkness in eyes, extinguishing the light
what a day in a lost paradise
But it happens yet again.

Darkness, darkness, lonely as the grave
Darkness, darkness, teach me to be brave
As shadows fall across the trees
and inky shade stills stormy seas
Darkness, darkness, teach me to be brave.

Darkness, darkness, lonely as the night
Darkness, darkness, take me from the light
Clothe me in the velvet soft black
and weave me a cloak to take me back
Darkness, darkness take me from the light.

Darkness, darkness, lonely as the moon
Darkness, darkness, sing me a soft tune
Hold my hand and lead me away
hide me from the sun of the day
Darkness, darkness, sing me a soft tune.

Chorus:
Gently, hold me, unto the end.
Darkness, darkness. Approach my friend.
Gently, hold me, unto the end.
Darkness, darkness. Approach my friend.

The mediocre march into oblivion
while watching Tik Tok videos
and never reading a
book or writing a
poem.
They don't know
the difference between
an orchid or an iris.

The mediocre march into
madness sleeping until
noon, while neglecting
Bukowski and Mozart.
They don't know how
to play an instrument.
No idea what a C
major chord is.
But they know all
the emojis.
The sad sheep masses
don't
know the difference
between a Van Gogh or
Monet painting, and a
digital reproduction on
a coffee cup.
Their phones look
like grotesque growths
attached to their ears.
Everyone should
contribute to the
cosmic dance,
Carpe Diem
*******!

We all hated music class in
6th grade.
We clowned around
constantly.
The only thing good about
it was Miss. Reed. She was a
nervous sort.  She wore her
hair in a **** bun, there were
always a few hairs that escaped
her beret.  She wore these big
horn-rimmed glasses.
Sat on her desk and waved her
hands around like she was
conducting an orchestra of
idiots.

She became animated and
moved from side to side, up
and down.
C major children!
I always tried to
look up those tweed
skirts she wore.
One time, I thought I saw her
bush.
I told my friends, and they called
me a liar.

Frank McManus said,
"Alright, wise guy, what did it
look like?"

I said,
Our cat, Muffin, just had kittens.
There's this chubby black fuzzy one,
we call her Grumpy.  That's what
it looked like."

"Oh, you're full of ****, a broad like that
would wear *******.  What if she had a
period and bled all over?  They'd fire
her for sure."

We used to sing that old song, Molly Malone.
Well, I had my best friend who sat at the
desk right in front of me, and no ****,
his name was Wally Malone.
One day, after school, he cornered me in the
bathroom.
"If you scream, sweet Wally Malone and
that **** about cockles and mussels in my
ear one more ******* time, I'm gonna sock
you right in the mouth."
I always felt bad for the woman in
the song, dying of fever, and then haunting
the town.

During the last class before summer, we were
being especially wild.
Miss Reed said,
"Am I addressing a 6th-grade class?"
I said, "No, we dress ourselves."
I knew I should have been a
comedian instead of a poet.
I sure miss that kitten, Grumpy.