Dainty hours
spent with her petal soft smile
lush exchanges
how her mouth makes words warm
delicate  moments
when our eyes held each other
little desolate
when hands separated
and time disconnected us
as it blindly does
without so much as an apology

The grave was wet
with well water,
sinking flesh
fell farther down
into the brown ground
as it all rotted.

But, if I could
I would
pull you up
and out of that
cold black
and damp
death spot.

I would
warm you with
a loving kiss
and a tender hug
as I massaged
life back in to
your cold skin.

I would
bring you back
into a bright new day,
see your flesh
refresh
returning from
your withered
rotting form,
not a zombie,
but the warm body
that I remember.

So, I could have
one more day
to hear you tell
all the stories
you might have kept
to yourself.

I am coming,
the quick trickster
slick heart enchanter
dark dancer.

I’m coming,
heart burning
as ashes paint
these concrete streets,
as people multiply
and walked with me.

Sidewalks peppered
with plastic flesh
that is packed with
everything that leaks
and seeks
its own death;

A house of rubble,
a home of dust,
but I am
a traveling man
in tattered garbs
trying to connect you
to those who are
just distorted reflections
wearing similar scars.

Its heavy breathing,
heart stopping,
as a heavy man
crushes you
beneath the sheets.

You scream,
but he silences you
with threats.

Then shame
becomes the name
of you silence.

Years unsteady,
eyes unraised,
walking afraid;

Whistles
send shivers,
nerves
on an edge so deep
that sometimes
fatigue
is not enough
to bring you to sleep.

This is not my story,
but I am trying to see,
hoping to understand
so, I can be
a better man,
a helping hand
for those in need.

But when I speak to loudly
sometimes
you cannot breathe
because of the anxiety.

Then this poetry
of attempted empathy
becomes my shame.

Why do we allow
these shallow
stubborn *******
to acquire annual annuities
on slick sick
investments;

Like oil refinement
or weapons,
such detriments
to our social health
and our environment.

Will we be able
to restrain
this barbaric disposition
that manufactures
guns and
environmental disasters
with our false bravado?

I tell of the hell
that befell
a young whale
as purple pastels fell,
mixing in the foam,
bleeding colors
mostly unknown
in this aquatic world,
tainting the slick skin
of my orca acquaintance
I consider a friend.
So, that his kin
barely recognized him.
If not for
the sonic waves
that emanated across
the ocean floor
this purple painted
whale would have
died alone.

Will you feel me
and my lyrical poetry,
soft syllables
that speak easy
as the greasy
politicians fleece me?

Will you flee
to feel free
before you ever listen
to what I am giving?
Like all other
disappointing people
will you disappear
before you hear?

Cause I brought
my heart here.
It beats clearly,
thuds obsessively
begging people
to love me
because I am
so **** lonely.

These words perform
their sacred rites
and dance on tongues,
waking in working whispers,
passed on from one generation
to the next in line,
they shift in context
change in definition,
grow their influence,
and fall into exposition,
then fade into footnotes,
and finally become
part of a dead language.

I am alone
in observation,
a splendid
ascension
of sensations;

Textures,
tense fingers
find
tactile pleasures
smooth and cool
to rough and hot
from heated concrete
beneath my feet
to moist stems
and slippery grass
that barely allows
any traction at all.

A titan’s perception
my poetic obsession
with twirling words
in a myriad of ways;

Of tasting salty meats,
or soft sugary sweet treats,
of the quick dissolving
cotton candy
that clumps
then disintegrates
on the tip of my tongue,

or the blossoming pain
of a cracked tooth
and exposed nerve.

The blacktop
cracks,
and I observe
earth.
Till, my eyes
ascend to heaven’s height
and I perceive the slight
blinking lights
championed by
a bright beautiful moon.

What demons
darken
her deep
brown eyes,
hastening the violence
that seeks to rise?
Are they truths
that hurt her
or lies
that move
to mollify
any turbulence
in her life
so that
any gifts
she harbors
inside
cannot thrive?
Is it conflict
she needs
to seed these
plentiful rows
of dazzling roses
with extraordinary
beauty,
or is it
tranquility?