I scanned the old man
Through my translucent curtain.
He stood before my door, hand raised,
Seeming ready to knock.
Wires ran into his large ears;
His waddle swayed over his crew neck,
Beneath a brown corduroy jacket.
Liver spots crowned his wispy head,
And the back of his hand.
He listed and bobbed
Like a Huron laker waiting to unload.
He had a distinct and not unfamiliar look;
A man with full faculties.
I opened the door to him,
But he said, "It's not time."
"Time?" I asked.
"To let me in."

It doesn't take
a kitchen knife
to butcher life
or a motorbike
to ride until I die.

Instead, I take this journey
on a broken gurney,
not a suffering soldier
but a poet older
than any bolder
active warrior.

My tourniquet tightens,
as blood loss lightens
my mental load.

This damaged road
is full of broken bones
and scattered scraps
of marble stones
that no longer fit
the foundation of
a safe home
full of love.

That's why I still roam,
searching alone,
staring at my phone
looking for answers
to a call I'll never make.

Every breath I ever take
should hold some purpose,
but the truth is
my search is fruitless.
This existence is useless;
Just another wound
that will not heal
but festers and rots
as everything I thought
held value gets lost.

In my mad mathematic trend
I subtract family and friends
from my equation,
becoming the inevitable immigrant
as I finally cross life's bitter border
to nowhere…

I met a monster
and I called her mother,
dangerous to no one other
than myself.

Every night she would berate me
make me think that she hates me
as she violently laid her hands on me.

I feel like I would have been safer
in the arms of any stranger,
cuz a decent person
wouldn't put that kind of hurting
on someone they claimed to love.

All the years that I lived with her
I learned how to suffer
indignities like they were trivialities,
and with each verbal and physical attack
I learned how to turn my mind black
and inwards towards
my own sharpened sword
as I skewered myself.

The day unveils
it's beautiful bright self
pulling back the curtain of
twilight’s twinkling.

Dark body undressed in favor
of nature's flavor of greens
that I long to savor
as I repatriate her repainted clouds
that cover a light blue complexion.

Death makes
imperfect things
into haloed beings
with white wings
fluttering in
ascension.

It turns attentions
away from the
anger and towards
more perfect abstractions
of past painful actions.

Uncomfortable truths
becomes distorted memories,
that we extract from all of these
filtered false realities.

Grieving becomes
the reweaving
of what was undone
into a long-viewed narrative,
as our current imperative
is to turn chaos
into purpose.

Oh, my dear
adorable nephew
let me hear your
heartstrings sing,
let them go on
vibrating in daydreams
all day long.

Let the chorus
of Angelic voices
raise you high
and all your
bad choices
help you
grow up to be
better than me.

Do not be
limited to
what you see
or how you were
taught to believe,
do not let logic
or religion confound
the heart of
compassion
when it is found.

These are not
the best or
worst of times
just moments
passing too fast,
precious seconds
that will not last.

So, what I ask,
is that you
remember how to laugh
and have a blast
in this one short life
you have to live
as I impart
the heart of love
I have to give.

Who would call them losers
Because they couldn't stand;
We lifted when they moved about
On worn out knees and hands.

We didn't call them fools
Because they didn't talk;
We oohed and ahhed with all their sounds
When they stood free and walked.

We heard a blend of letters spew
Like spilled out alphaghetti;
Raving with their oral prowess,
Like roars on the Serengeti.

As years passed by, and they were graded
(And most certainly not by us);
They might return with D's and E's,
But we never judged or fussed.

This is how we treated them,
Our children that we raised;
I pray that our changing world
Will forgive, forget and praise.

I tightened the circle
let the lines loosen,
then in my state of confusion
pulled them tightly.

I subtracted loved ones nightly,
despite my social media
connections
my real-life affections
became whispers in
the distance from
previous family members
and friends I’ve loved.

With a noose I constricted
till it was too perfect.
Then I ****** it.
It was like when
I was biting
my tongue
just hard enough to hurt
but not enough to cut
that slippery tool off.

I choked and cough
felt the loss
as I tried to break
my own neck.
I signed my own check,
by happily self-secluding,
and the excuse I was using
was the best scape goat.

As grief scraped my throat,
I tried to cleanse my palate
stirred my mind like a salad
all vegies and greens mixing,
lying and saying it was healthy
but really just tricking
myself into doing what
I was always going to do.

Death by a thousand losses,
each cut cost me
a fraction of my identity
and hopeful personality.

Until my corpse
swung from the rafters
and tears sprung from
melancholic laughter.

Then nothing came
happily, ever after.

With a single stroke
all lines are broke,
the past becomes
previous paths
that I wrote.

Death is no longer
a possible future
but a present presence,
tired of playing
and predatorily pursuing,
now settling in for chewing
up my tired old skin.

Breathes are heavy labors,
and there is no hope
that they will come easier later.

A million-fold roads
collapse into one
reality,

and unlike this poem
life finds its inevitable ending.

I cannot be an apathetic
version who is free
to float carelessly
through life,

I am more like a specter,
an abstract human inspector
who sits and observes this sector
of our shared humanity.

Not bullet proof because
the pain of those I love
breaks all the barriers
I placed to save myself.

No super strength like Atlas
cause my stamina will not last
as I bare the whole world
on these small shoulders.

I cannot fly by high in the sky.
I cannot speed through this life
because each tragedy draws me
deeper into dark caverns of
human suffering.

I do not have any superpowers,
just lots of empathy and hours
to reflect and write a speck
of some gloriously poetic
lines that many may find pathetic.

Its two thirty a.m.
or maybe later,
as she lays there
on the outer limits
of the small town
gas station parking lot
just off the highway exit,
trying to sleep as safely
as she is able.

Couldn’t be
more than
twenty-three
with a fully loaded bike,
and body tightly curled
under the cover
of her safety vest
of bright colors.

She smothers herself
under bright streetlights
cause at this time of night
or morning the lights
offer some limited sense
of security.

A concerned security guard
tries to wake her,
mistaking a mam for sir
drops a bottle of Gatorade
for her to drink later that day
and a sandwich.

He tells her
the gas station attendant
called the police.
Then to ease
his concerns
passes a couple loose ones,
leaving when he is done
getting a short explanation
of where she is coming from
and where she is going.

This is where the narrator’s
lines end but leaves him
wondering miles down the highway
if the police hassled her
or left her undisturbed,
so she could get
a few more hours of rest
before the hot day
forced this girl
back on the frontage roads.

There are beautiful words
waiting to be seen,
poems waiting to sing,
like the diamond glistening
waterfall that plays me
to a gentle sleep,
as it sparkles
and leaves stranger in awe,
while giving me reason to pause
cause I to am dumbstruck
by my own dumb luck,
confounded by such glory
that I nearly trip on my
untied shoes,
racing forward to write
all that radiates from nature to
the amazing being of you
my emerald friend who glitters
just as wonderfully.

I used to hold on to grand ideas.
I used to believe I could change
how all the people in the world feel.
So, I spoke out, encouraged doubt,
directing people to the tools they had
to distinguish what was good and bad.

But after I had a thousand doors
slammed shut on my smiling face,
after each blow cracked the smile
and tears were sent in to replace
hope for despair for the whole human race.
I just settled in to enjoy the show.

Some claimed my actions were cowardice,
but in truth I was barely handling it.
Now, I’m no longer striving for justice,
just speed walking one step out of line,
just breathing several second out of sync,
adapting but not accepting how
other people act and think
knowing that we are on the brink
of destroying almost everything.

What is a foolish poet to do,
but write what he knows down
and give to all of you who
will not even deign to read it,
as you take our planet and bleed it,
of every natural resource
and ounce of human compassion.

Every act of violence is like a bomb blasting,
and demolishing every bud of hope that tries to bloom,
and even though I want to laugh have to I cry
cause no matter how hard I try
I’ll have to sit and watch as we all die
too soon.