Paper flowers blooming in my paper heart
Swaying gently back and forth
Singing every day
Song after song
Every sound
Every word about you
Its become an eternal spring
Under the sunshine of your smile
New words by the hour
Pushing through the pulp
Glowing deep red with pure love
Gardens unfolding by the mile
The grey dark skys washed away
Painted by the endless ocean blue of your eyes
Paper flowers
Paper heart
Paper world
All of it carved and covered
By the words inspired
By your soul
Your heart
Your light
Your love

My Heart made out of paper
Gently folded and creased
The softest hues
And darkest shades
Of red
Tattooed on every layer
And at every bend
Words of eternity stitched
Throughout the depths
And pushing through its pulp
Poetry bloomed like flowers
Every day and every hour
Gardens of endless dreams
Sleeping safely in the seams
And love
Yes the love
Is the lead act of every page
And
No tale every told
No story ever read
No song ever sang
No poem ever penned
No adventure ever lived
Was ever quite
As
Delicate and strong
Bold and gentle
Shadowed and hoped
Beautifully felt
And loved
My paper heart
Made from pages
Of you

Paper moons
Paper flowers
Paper hearts
Paper me
Paper you
Lovers on the page
Madness all the rage
Shreds of pulp
Book full of love
Paper suns
Paper stars
Paper boats
Paper you
Paper me
Madness on the page
Love in full rage
Shreds of books
Pulp full of love
Paper smiles
Paper laughs
Paper happiness
Paper us
Paper us
One single page
Written full of love
By two hearts
Becoming one
In this paper tale
This paper world
This paper love

Paper planes weren't made to cross the ocean
Not the Pacific or the Atlantic
Paper hearts weren't made to burn all night
A quick flame and a bright flash
Paper loves weren't written to last forever
Nothing more than a rhyme and a rhythm
But then my paper love turned real like Pinocchio
And sold my soul to the darkness below
And my paper heart burns but refuses to turn to ash
The fire growing brighter and hotter everyday
And the paper planes circle high around the moon
Over the ocean to give my heart to you
And now I'm made of paper
And my blood has turned to ink
And my marrow is the pulp to the pulse
And you're now my paper queen
With my paper heart
A jewel in your crown
As I'm just a paper fool
A paper puppet
A paper love
Ruled by you

My heart was lost until I found the paradise
woven into the wonder of your eyes
and the dark spheres they surround
painted with the endless colors of the night
and I was frozen in their warm velvet gaze
and entangled in the dreams
laced throughout your porcelain cream skin
and the perfect elegant curves of your form
and your smile would make
the devil blush and stutter
and the soft touch of your lips
would cause the stars to spill out poetry
and prayers made from flame and seduction
and I can only weep to know such bliss
to see you dance under moon
and sway like a serpent that hypnotizes
to charm its prey and steal its soul and breath
and I am helpless as an infant
and I hunger to taste your lavish breast
to feel you pulse push against my tongue
and your heart beat in my hand
what heaven could learn
if it took a moment
and spent eternity
in the paradise and wonder of your eyes

I don't love you because I think your an angel
No, I love you because your able to be human in a world full of monsters
To expose your heart to the unbearable act of living and breathing
To rather bare the painful ugly trurh
Than live the beautiful comfortable life of the lie everyone else  swims in
I love you for baring the pain and heartache  no one else dare touch or even look at
For breathing through the hurt days and cold lonely nights
For breaking and crying and falling weak to your knees in the darkness
While everyone else just pretends that they are strong
I love you for the sadness you accept
The bad unexplainable hours your heart beats and bleeds through
I love you for the beauty you carry that comes without aid of ribbons and bows and heaven
The beauty only found in the tears of a devil with a broken heart
I love you for being perfectly you

The pit-pit-pat of the rain drumming on the roof
In perfect sync with the beat-boom-boom of my pounding heart
And my pen won't stop with its skrit-skrit-scratch
Writing down what I'm trying to hide inside
Easy to write and type
When It's hidden in plain sight
Three counts of silence
Three words I whisper
Before I fall into dreaming
Three words that strecth
From dream to dream
Three words repeated when
The morning yawns in
Three words echoed
In the chambers of my heart
Three words haunting my soul
Three words I'm longing
To let fall out
Three words
If I could only say
Out loud
And hand in hand
Standing in front of you
Three words in the pit-pit-pat
And beat-boom-boom
And skrit-skrit-scratch
Spelled out in poems
While dancing
Madly in my heart
And caught in
My throat
Leaving my breathless
Unable to speak
Three words

Mary made a monster
mankind made a bomb

it’s all a fairytale gone wrong
we took the make believe
and made the horror real

history learned nothing
from all of that destruction
who forgot to read the book
that taught us our place
was not to play
the part of god

Mary made a monster
mankind made a bomb

the blood keeps spilling
as we still haven’t learned
that peace can’t be kept
by the threat and poor wisdom
of an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth

who can we pray to
and beg for forgiveness
for the hell we create
when by this point
we’re past knowing better

Mary made a monster
mankind made a bomb

we’re still not the wiser
as we repeat and repent
all of our sins
as again and again
we dress for the part
of playing god

and as the book ends
may the monster forgive us
for all the things
we have done

Stripping the spines of Angels
Playing the part of God
I could make you ugly
But you are Beautiful
As you are

Hatred seeping
Out in plain sight
From followers
Of presidential
Hopefulls
And men
Of law
And politics
Trying to protect
Murders and
Spawns of
Predators and
******
Over the
Hearts and
Lives of
The
Women
Who have
Done nothing
Other than
Existing
Stupidity
Dripping from
Their foaming
Mouths
Pretending
It's to
Protect
Religion
But what
Hate filled
God
Could ever
Excuse
Their actions?
Who can
Save us
Now
That we've
Showed
Our ugly
Truth
Gathered
In the
Streets
Putrid hearts
And
Blood and bones
Deadly fists
Of judgment
Time and space
Such
Dreadful waste
Please
Tell me
I'm not
Human

There was a kindness
so soft and quite
in the acorn nut brown
color of her eyes
that the magic there
though silent and still
burst into fireworks
of magic and awe
beauty and splendor
and he felt that
he was under a spell
where he could tell no lies
and though he did not want
to spill the truth
he had no choice
and colors of love
were forged andlayed out
and hammered and sharpened
over the stones and water
of the wellspring of eternity
and shaped into poems
of furnace and fire
and laying helplessly
under her milky way skin
his voice cracked
and his lips trembled
and in a hushed whisperd
he confessed thathe had fallen
stars over moons
and suns sleeping in oceans
and into the beautiful madness
of finding the meaning
of life and love
as he sewed her name
within the walls of his heart

Confessions hidden in the rhythm and the rhyme
Its not poetry but a lowly cowards crime
Fallen completely and blamming madness
Fearing the love more than fearing sadness
Using dime store story clichés
Red shoes waiting
Rain and overpriced umbrellas
Romeo bleeding
Pretending nothings wrong
He can't say it out loud
So he just quotes an old song
So when she puts it all together
He can claim he
Was just singing along
Checking the airfare
To her far away town
At 2:32 am
Restless and sleepless
But still dreaming along
Falling and singing
And dancing
With that madness
Knowing his hearts
Gonna break
He's just the kinda guy
Who always makes
Mistakes
Waiting too long
Or saying too much
Too soon
Or never saying
Anything at all
Because he
Likes crying in the rain
Out there in the dark
Where no one
Can hear him
Or tell the rain
From the tears
A cowardly way to die
Letting all that love
Burn alone
In the middle
And bottom of his soul
His heart beating its wings
In his chest
But the noose is wrapped
Tight around his ribs
As well as his neck
A fully loaded gun
Playing Russian Roulette
Bang
Dead on the floor
While every one is watching
Cagney on the screen
Swaying to the rhythm and the rhyme
Fitted for his straight jacket
Strapping the madness in tight
Hoping it while ****** his heart
Somewhere in the night
He's just the kinda guy
Who always makes
Mistakes
No way out
Just a prisoner
Writing bad poetry
On his cell walls
Written up his confession
But refuses
To sign the dotted line

a poet sits in a corner
mind adrift floating some eons away
nether here nor there
but somewhere in between
yesterday and tomorrow and today

a reflection escaped from a mirror
a voice without a mouth
an ocean trapped in a tear
a story told over and over again
in a forest where every tree growing
makes its own sound

death is a mystery woven
into the fabric of life
grief is the thread
to which we use to mend our hearts
tragedy is the sacrificial lamb
to the alter where we will find
our laughter again

and love...

love is a sweater in the lost and found
waiting to be worn by anyone
in need of warmth
knitted from the softest yarn
from the generosity of kindness

love is row of crooked deciduous teeth
in a fresh bright smile
not yet ready to be traded
for quarters and trinkets
all giggles and sugar
in the innocence of youth
the magic of children

love is adrift
a vibration
connecting every heart
from this corner to that drugstore
from the gas station
to the solemn park bench
both here and there
anywhere and everywhere
looped through yesterday
  and tomorrow and today

I'm a poor father, that is to say my yearly income is nothing to brag about.  According to our government as of last year, I am now above the poverty line, so I realize there are many out there struggling more than I am.... too many, theres no reason for poverty to be so common in todays world.  I have my 9 to 5 life (though its not actually those specific hours),  I have a car to get me from here to there and back again and thats all it is, I live in a house that isn't impressive to look at, it's liveable and functional, and most importantly I have a little boy to take care of.  He's my only child, but he has a half sister and a half brother, so he's not an only child.  He's  almost 8 yrs old, unfortunately and fortunately since his mother and I went our separate ways I've gotten to spend half his life with him .  A week with me, a week with his mom, thats been his life since he was 6 months old.  Over the years I've grown  closer and developed a much stronger bound with him  than his mother has.  I taught him to read, add, subtract, multiply, divide, and write.  Reading time has been a major part of our life,  we've read hundreds and hundreds of books (and theres probably a few of those books we've read a hundred times each).  I've encourgaed him to exercise his brain daily, both for mental dexterity and creative agility.  I won't claim I taught him to draw or anything like that, like all kids he just picked up crayons and makers and pencils and brushes and went at it.  As he got older I gave him suggestions and "helped" if he asked but mostly I just watched and encouraged.  Nothing is more important to me than his health and happiness.  I took part in bringing him into this world because I wanted to be a father, I wanted to raise a child,  I wanted the challenges and responsibilities, I wanted the joys and the heartaches, the sleepless nights and the sleeping in, late night binges and earlier morning breakfasts....all the things I thought would be wonderful and amazing.  As great as I thought it would be, and I thought it would be beyond my wildest dreams,  its been so much more than I could have imagined.  I know as a parent I'm going to naturally want to brag and say what an amazing kid he is.  So I am. He is an amazingly beautiful little guy,  his heart is already too big for this world.  He's as kind and compassionate and empathetic, it's easy to forget his just a kid sometimes.  He's not perfect, he's silly and goofy and acts just like any other boy his age.  He makes mistakes, he runs in the hall and plays in the bathroom and talks during quite time and gets too excited and doesnt always listen the 1st or 2nd  or 3rd time and stands in the corner every now and then.  But he's a good kid with a good  heart and at this point in his life a better person than most of us (a more common trait in children than I think most "adults" would care to admit).  There's been no greater privilege in my life than being his dad.  We love each other, I'm not going to try to claim more than any other parent and child love each other but at least as much as any other can.  For the last 2 or 3 years (I can't recall the exact first time) he's been wishing and asking to just live with "dad".   It started off with cute expressions like "Dad, I wish I could be with you a million days and only have to see mom one day.", to crying "I don't want to go back to mom's, I want to stay with you.", to asking "Why can't I just live with you all the time?".  And every time, I sat down with him and explained that wouldn't be fair to mom and mom loves you just as much as I do and me and mom agreed to share you equally and deciding on who he wants to live with is a "Big Boy" decision  and he would have to have a "Big Boy" talk with mom one day, but he had to know that telling mom he wanted to live with dad would hurt moms felling so maybe we should wait until he was older.  However, mom wants to move somewhere were it wouldn't be possible to keep up the other every week and now we're in court...
It wasn't an easy decision to make, lawyers are expensive, outcomes are unknown until its all over.... I didn't have to ask where he would choose if it was his choice, but I did.  I've witnessed the heartache in his eyes week after week our last few days together for years now.  I know if I just let him go he would be devasted and heartbroken.  Now here we are waiting... my lawyer is hoping by christmas we'll be done.  Every now and then he asks, "What if mom wins?", and I have to choke down the tears and stop myself from crying and sit him down and put on a brave face and tell him "At least we tried, we just have to do our best, and no matter what happens always remember  we love each other and nothing will ever change that."  I wish I had a better answer... and every now and then I wish it was the other way around, that he would be happier at moms or at least just as happy.  It would be easy to let him go if it meant he would be happy.  There's nothing more beautiful than your childs smile, nothing more pleasing to your ears than their laughter, no greater privilege than keeping their minds, their hearts, and their spirits healthy. To teach them to be kind and generous, to show them no matter how little you have you always have enough to share,  to protect their innocence, to give them magic to belive in... to let them be children in the short time they have to be so.  As they grow through their childhood, encourage the things they love, push their minds and hearts towards the things that make them smile, give them the tools to develop discipline and a good work ethic.  There's no stopping time, and time will always steal some of everyones innocence, but we can teach our children to hold onto at the very least the ghost of their innocence.  Show them its not the size of their house, or the price tag of their car, or how many figures and zeros on their paychecks that makes them rich or successful, but instead it's the amount of love in their hearts they have to give to the world that will either make them rich or poor.  On paper, on the surface of my appearance, I'm just a poor father, one of too many on the world,  I drive a car that goes but has no vroom, I live in a house that won't ever end up on the pages of a magazine...  But that little guy of mine, what he's given my heart, what his smile does for our home.... There's  no on richer, no one living in bigger or more beautiful castle.

She moved like the fairytale of flowers
She had the grace of the gentle scent of rain
With butterfly eyelashes and loves red lips
Soft porcelain cloud white skin that hid heaven and hell within
Before I even opened her book I could tell she was the beginning of my end
I held my breath through every page
And with every word another part of my heart was stole
And I was completely lost in this story where I found
Love and forever had no end

She answers the prayers
of the lonely
and tenderly sews
and stitches broken hearts
and gives them a new coat of paint
and teaches them to laugh
and play and sing again

She is kind and wise
and knows more secrets
than all the mermaids
and the skulls lost at sea
and keeps a garden made
of flame and poetry
hidden in the heart
at the bottom of the ocean

She is there for the lost
and the miserable
and the dead
to guide them home
and carries the light of hope
in the emerald green of her eyes
full of elven lore

She was the first to have wings
and spread them endless and black
against the sky
to give the day
and the tired
a time to sleep
and dreams a place to bloom

She carved the moon and the stars
from the beat of her heart
and placed them high up in the night
and you can hear her voice
in the lullabies of leaves
and the song of the wind
whenever you whisper a lonely prayer
from the pieces of a broken heart

The world takes a turn for the worst
and it’s a little less safe
and that is to say
the danger that was there yesterday
grew a little stronger today

how many more lies
will fools swallow
before the find their own little girl
not a little girl anymore
but a ghost of who could have been
nothing more than a broken thing

broken by a boy just being a boy
who will grow into a man
believing he can take
whatever he wants
when ever he wants it
and that no
somehow always means yes

that being drunk
is a good enough excuse
for any one
with the right kind of money
and the right kind of name
the kind that comes
from being born
in the right kind of skin

the kind that believes
its culture is a good culture
a good culture
where boys will be boys
who grow into men who are men
who are nothing
but cruel monsters
pretending to be human

I walked past a half dozen cockroaches
scurrying on the sidewalk
and I thought how odd
we see them as filthy disgusting bugs
surviving by scavenging through our waste
when we're the ones turning the planet
into our own private trash bin

Pretty girls in summer dresses
  blowing in the wind
Careful of the devil making
  promises of sin
Pretty girls with soft pink lips
  framed on perfect porcelain skin
Careful of the devil painting
  colors of lust
Pretty girls dancing in dreams
  of autumn
Careful of the devil waltzing
  pretending to know loves song
Pretty girls wandering
  through strawberry fields
Careful of the devil planting
  seeds of lies woven through
   the fruits hanging from his vine
Pretty girls sleeping under
  the snowing stars Of winter
Careful of the devil trying
  to burn fires from the
    wood of your home
Pretty girls writing poetry
  on frost covered windows
Careful of the devil spying
  on your hearts desire
Pretty girls with spring flowers
  blooming in your hair
Careful of the devil pushing
  carts of lilies watered
    by the poison in his blood
Pretty girls laid down on blankets
  under sun and gently breeze
Careful of the devil roaming  
  waiting in your every season

What is it that we do?
Sewing metaphor to rhyme without reason
Mashing reason to metaphor without meaning
It's all so pretty in pretend
Ignoring ugly reality
For beautiful fiction
Why worry about tomorrow
As long as you can **** today away
**** poor but drunk rich
Pop another pill
For fake thrills
Sacrifice the truth
For pleasant lies
It's easier to feel numb
Than heart
Broken

I like pens that bleed
Ink that smears
Girls with scars
Broken parts
***** clothes
Stained sheets
The hint of blood
The taste of lust
The smells of love
Nights through morning
Mornings to night
Suns that sleep
Moons that dream
And all the pretty
You hide underneath
Those pretty
Pretty
Pretty things

Its just one of those nights
Where I just want to listen to the Pouges
And cry for an hour or two
Or the rest of my life
But hey
P.S.
*I love you

All in the pursuit of love
Footsteps of misery
Walking the lonesome miles
Lost to the sands and fire
Soul sacrificed to the divinity
Of longings aches
And distant dreams
Love needs a flame
Life needs the hurt
Theres no difference
Between heaven and earth
When lost in your gaze
No distance too far
No hope too dim
No wish too frail
For footsteps taken
Towards forevers end
When all in the pursuit
Of love

She wore death as crown
And balanced the cosmos on her fingertips
She could ****** June with a stare
But preferred the slow anticipation of Novembers rain
She created the illusion of god
And slept with the devil
She gave birth to sin
And made sin a pleasure
Nothing bloomed without
The touch of blood
Dripping down
From between her thighs
She drained the colors from her right eye
To paint the night
And morning sky
Then planted its corpse deep within the earth
A tree grew of myth and legend
The leaves turned into dragons
Fallen branches turned into flame
She sits beneath its shade
With one eye left
To weave fate and time
You will met her at your end
Queen of the blind

Take a dream to a star
****** the man in the moon
Put a bullet in his back
Watch the sky crack
Walk along the fallen pieces in the air
You will find it easiest this way
Don't mistake your tears for the rain
You will only get lost in the waves
It might feel like its been weeks
Of weeping in a dream
And thats when you will find
A starfish in a noose
Hanging just out of reach
You won't be able to take another step
Without finding your own death
You will be at the beginning of new dreams
When you find yourself
At oceans end

Red is the color of freedom
Red is the color of rage
Rage is the voice of reason
Reason the key to the cage

We live, love, and die
And then we do it all again
And isn't it just beautiful
In its ugly awful way
How we live, love, and die...
Hey, lets do it all again

I would like to take a moment
and thank all my brothers
and sisters
that have died before me
those who died
sliding down my mothers throat
racing towards her gut
and their own deaths
those that went right
instead of left
and left instead of right
as we swam and raced
not knowing anything
of anything
to all those that died before me
and after me
And apologize to all the children
I will never see smile
those that died
in my teen angst tube socks
and crust stained sheets
those that died
wrapped in paper towels
and on tissue
and toilet paper
and tossed in trash bins
trapped in latex graves
and swirling and twirling
down the drain
May god forgive me
for living without
Republican wisdom
and law
and legislation
what unforgivably shame
to not make sure each
and every single one of you
did not go to waste
But not all hope is lost
Republicans are working hard
on new laws
and new legislation
and new prayers  
first they will secure you
a womb in women
willingly or unwillingly
teen or adult
consensual or ****
and then to be fair
(because we can always
trust a politician)
they'll be writing
and passing laws
to make sure
we don't casually enjoy our *****
without making sure
not one of you is wasted...

All poetry is horrible
the same way all babies are beautiful

you can’t say
what happened to that babies face
they same way you cant say
that poem made me cry
from places I didn’t know I had tears

so yea

your baby is the most
absolutely cutest thing I ever saw
and your poetry is garbage
pure garbage

but just like people
who can’t stop having babies
ugly babies
cute babies
adorable babies
not so adorable babies

we cant stop writing poetry
no matter how bad it gets
no matter how horrible they are
just keep writing

I mean we can’t just be *******
to make babies
there’s more to ******* than that


right?

There’s nothing left to say
that isn’t another cliché
flags flown at half mass
because last months solution
was less than half-assed
more dead kids
more thoughts and prayers
and the mountain of *******
is only dwarfed in comparison
to the pile of money being made
by the repetition of violence
but dont worry your pretty little head
as long as its not your kid
lying on the floor busy being dead
just give it a week or two
and all that guilt will fade
until the next gun loving
american mass shooter decides to
rinse
reload
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
repeat
...

She peeled off her skin long before
she ever took off her skirt
and I sat there watching
her heart beat beneath her ribs

  mesmerized

  listening to it beat

  watching it

      rise and fall

         rise

          and

            fall

I don’t remember that night ending
but then suddenly
it had been days since I had seen her
and then months

and I thought

I would never see her heart beat again
and then she was standing before me
dressed to the nines
more beautiful than a ten
her bones still exposed
her heart somehow even more radiant

  beating

    rise and fall

       rise and fall

and we danced
and then I could understand
the language of the stars
and I heard each one whisper her name
they were all making wishes
and saying their prayers

she smiled gently to the sky
and answered each prayer
and granted each wish
and then looked back down at me
and slid her hands beneath my ribs
and up and over my heart
and pulled it out

and then whispered

the meaning of life

and all the secrets

the universe had to give

and then in the language of truth and love
she pressed eternity between our lips
and I became

a schoolboy falling in love

an infant being born

a new leaf on an ancient tree

a flower blooming during autumns last breath

an old man lying on his deathbed

  smiling

   looking back at his life

   well lived

   well loved

and then her skirt came off
and my clothes
and the rest of her clothes
and the night felt long and endless
and so did the kisses
and the love we made

and created

and shared

and then morning came
and the sun smiled
and she smiled
and I smiled too

and even now to this day
I can still hear the stars
say their prayers
and make their wishes
and I smile again
just knowing she is out there

somewhere

Making this world more beautiful
with her heart beat

   rise and fall

     rise and fall

      rise and fall

The crows are going
  to rise up
over the black asphalt
  city skyline

singing into the
  blood red sky
   hearts crowned
    with fire and hope

flying high and free
   flying over
     the mountain tops

singing of the
   promised land

singing for the dead
   but not forgotten

singing words
  of flame
    and poetry

singing for
   freedom
     and unity

She came from the land of haunted castles
And the pages of a dead love tale
I would sell my soul to the devil
To give her my last first kiss
But the devil wasn't buying  
He laughed and howled and said
My heart was out of wishes
And my soul was just bad luck
He broke both my thumbs
And stole the moon
And tied a noose to a dying oak tree
And then left me on the road
Without even the stars to read
His parting gift
Was a piece of paper and a pen
And bullet of bad news
And a bit of advice
He suggested to put this dream
Out of my misery