Don't let the lightning steal your thunder
Or the stars dull your light
You may not be destined for greatness
But that is up to you to decide
You can let it slide just get by
Get taken on a crazy trip
Or be the one who takes everyone
On a beautifully strange and wild ride

These soft and hard hands
Beautiful and strong
Small and large
The same hands that held babies
Herded sheep
Softly stroked the heads of pets
Carried crops from the field
Wove cloth from wool
Formed pots from earth
Drenched the dry fires
Held spears, swords, and shields
In defense and for war
Hunted for food
Tickled newborn babes
Carefully cradling their heads
Against their bare breast
So it may suckle
Hugged a crying child
Reprimanded wrong doings
Raised a family
Folded cloths
Cut coupons
Drove kids to school
Wiped tears from strangers eyes
Massaged stress from a body
Satisfied ****** desires
Carried all she had to safer ground
Miles away from her home
Wrote poems, painted pictures
Snapped photos, posted prose
Clenched in outrage
Fought to protect her loved ones
Held high signs of resistance
These hands have shaped the world

My secret place began with a big bang, expanding as space divided and multiplied.
Intersections and dark lines forming strange corridors
Watching each mass in flux become its own synaptic map.
Gloomy ghosts of the past intersecting with visions of the present.
Energy always pushing forward constantly rerouting old wiring.
My secret place is a radiating pool reflecting infinity within a cave of glowing moss.
Shallow puddles paint theses surfaces but beneath their glimmering façade
There are endless depths funneling to dimensions beyond my own comprehension
Worlds of what if and why not places where loved ones are never lost just locked away
Saved in an astral plane to be remembered any day I choose.
Emotions are evident through the rocks as they cycle through cliché colors
Red for rage, blue for despair, green for calm, and purple for passion.
Siren songs of yester everything echo through the wet walls
Sounding lamentation and celebrations of every degree
From overjoyed and apathetic to all the shades of agony.
Angels and demons manifest in varying degrees of desire.
Ego and id sipping slime from the pulsing membrane of the cave walls.
Red rocks thumping like an African drums beating to the rhythm of my heart.
For some their sacred secret place is a safe zone but my home is fraught with danger.
There is always ying and yang *** for tat.
Abstract things born to balances great happiness with deep sadness,
So I can appreciate the beauty and irony because security is an illusion and stability is for fools.
My secret place is fluid always adapting to me, a changing sea unencumbered by destiny.
Better than Wonderland worse than Neverland, and almost as sweet as OZ.
I won’t lose my head but I may lose my heart while flying far to slow to start.
All dreams and fantasies rise and fall from within these corridors.
Prison cells of DNA forms certain passageways flaring with neurotransmitters.
My secret place will fall one day receding into the dark shadows of collapsing stars
Be ****** up into the grand void of space and spit out a wasted mass of molecules.
No matter how hard I try to describe this, you will never really know my world.
As I will never live in yours, so I wonder what is your secret space like?

Dinners end
Table cloth must be put away
Butchered heart
Silver spoon
To mark this moment
People passing plates
Take their meals and look away
Hands touch only for a second
Charged by old memories
Lust
Confusion
The knife reflects
Tears not yet
Wiped away
The ****** beef
Salty and sweet
Oil caked skin
Digested grossly
Like lazy lovers we depart
The dinner with stomachs empty
Desires unfulfilled
Wasted day without a meal
Move on
Move on

The war is coming rising rivers of dark red blood will be spilt, stop
Innocent lives spent in the pursuit of greed, glory, and hate, stop
Machine gun turret, grenades, poison gas, planes, submarines, stop
Bullet, blades, blood, enemy-entrenched, death in the mud, stop
Children becoming men before their time dying on your dime, stop
Next war, with oh so many new ways to terminate life, stop
New technology, modern mass media telling us how to feel, stop
Building bombs to **** one another leaving behind crying mothers, stop
Bigger bomb tap that atom go out and get those yellow *******, stop
Pandora’s box opened up with bitter metal bearing baring hate, stop
Two cities decimated, burning the earth, Heaven cries black tar tears, stop
The cycle continues from war to war the tragedy never seems to end, stop
Human horror, I am begging for the love of all humanity please, stop

Someone you love dies it is a tragedy.
Two strangers die in your town is a tragedy.
Ten strangers die in your states a tragedy.
Twenty-five strangers die in your country is tragedy.
Two hundred strangers in another country die.
You don’t even blink an eye.
How the hell does that work?
It’s a tragedy that you don’t see it’s tragedy.

Adonais, thine eyes crushed, bleed like watery wine.
Bruised flesh, spoiled spirit, heart broken.
Tears flow faster and farther than any river,
Raging against futility, suffering your insanity.
Your are beautiful, so full of the luster of youth,
So innocent, so unique, and so freaking stupid.
Wear your folly like a cracked golden crown
Vanity chaining you to a dead path
Rocks and dirt, pretty pebbles and thorns
Bleed your tender bare feet.
You hunger for truth but in your youth
Would not know it really?
Adonais sweet brother of mine
You feel betrayed because I strayed from your side,
But I was once Adonais to.
I walked similar shades of life as you.
Now, you become a brighter reflection of the shade I am.
Your agony rages are like red hot irons
Your sobs fill my heart with sorrow.
I cannot save you, but will not be faulted for trying,
And though we are living, cannot be faulted for crying.
Adonais one day you to will feel your soul dying,
And find yourself reborn newer not better,
Dryer not wetter.
Oh my dear sweet stubborn Adonais
Only time will tell,
But you are special now and will be then as well.

If desire was a wild white rose
Would you let me paint it pink
Slam your back against the wall
And grind you while you’re sitting in the sink
Take a handful of bubbles to wash
And consecrate your flesh
As the holy temple your body is
Feel the goosebumps on your skin
As my tongues slides deeply in
Twirling in a tornado fashion
As I take you beyond the rainbow
Till I know you have cummed
And when you think that I am done
Oh dear let’s be clear,
That’s when the real fun will begin.

I was stretched and torn by gravity
Grabbed and incinerated in celestial furnaces
Spewed out into space to face
New particle possibilities
Vapors in the black
Travelling at my own speed
Till I became earth and earth beget life
And life devoured itself
While giving birth to itself
Moving in such strange ways
Till what matters became matter
Traveling space dust
In love with the cosmos
That grandfathered me into
Existence

Our passion should bleed the heavens dry
Inspire strangers to smile and cry                                  
Whispering our poetry in their dreams
Imagine what we stand imagining
Hoping, loving, lusting, scheming
Our passion should fly like stars
Searing the soft night of strangers
Gazing on our constellation
Looking upon our lives as destination
Historical spot where we burned with the deepest fury
Our passion should never be a bubble
Unless of course its a bubble of ever expanding trouble
Growing and consuming all who cross its path
Making them better for it presence then for its lack

I love the sound of laughter.
It is the sound of despairs defeat;
Enemy now fallen to the side with no ill will.
Chuckles Bounce back and forth volley per volley
Set match and serve has made you smile.
There is less stress in the sound of laughter.
Tensions easing out of our bouncing bodies.
Spirit safely restored with a strong sense of pride and dignity.
Even if it cost me mine,
As I take a tumble or make a frantically funny face,
Laughter is endearing knowing by hearing that here there is just for a second a little less hate.
Laughter can mark each moment with new lessons learned,
Or simply take away a tid bit of pain.
I love the sound of laughter cause when it’s good,
It echoes from stranger to stranger to stranger ,
In danger of engulfing the entire room.
It is ironic, it is unexpected, and it is easier than an ******.
Give me laughter or give me death.
Preferably laughter, please.

Memories, segmented strands of my history
Etched on my cerebral mess so deep and chaotically
Impressions and sensations linking past and present
With futures contemplation the calculations are not so evident
Memory a powerful brew stewing in my mind
Bittersweet lover that frequently looses time
And only relative realities are left to find
Lying with distorted and partial truths
Loving with my long departed youth
Memories will die
As will you, as will I

I bite into the soft flesh of the fruit.
The pressure makes it squirt
sprays of cool citric delight.
Swallowing leaves a sweet residue in my mouth
as little bits of orange get stuck in my broken tooth.

Madness be my mistress
My lovely siren song
Satyr in the forest
Chasing naughty nymphs
Demon in the darkness
And monster in my closet
Madness be my lover
Manic movements
Caffeinated frenzies
Typing fast and misspelling much
Strange allusions to those who are touched
Voices in my eardrums
Vision in my breath
Madness be the scent
Of sweaty insane men
Bashing brains
Against their times
Killing quantum equations
That plague their minds
She was my first lover
She will be my last
And from sanity’s flask
I will not sip one sup of it
Madness be my lover
Painter of the stars
Be you jester, genius
Or merely who you are
Madness be my cause to create
Cause no other cause is left

On wicked things
My confidence is spent
My passions pent
Do not relent
But spew as they vent
Desire classified
As what you eyed
What we spied
Others despised
Told lies
To restrain the vain
To maintain
Their golden veins
Morality impugn
Tricks imbued
The trickster
With new power
New class and classification
For the ossification
Of our nation
And bends our wills
To theirs
And decrees shame
For what is natural
Fear of what is original
Yes they call it sin
But I call it life

The madman works
Toils towards
An unknown purpose
Be it brushes or pens
Canvasses of color
Or lines in loose leaf
Emotions are erratic
Nothing is static
Everything is always
Moving towards something else
Nothing ever stays the same
The truth is change
With only little windows
The truth is
Tiny pockets of time
Emotions translate to
Déjà vu
The universe of experiences
Encapsulated in one mind
So the madman makes what he can
With what he was
Or at least how he remembers what he was

Hear me now for I am bound to offend
True poets and artist should not have to amend
For telling the truth is a painful burden
They poisoned Socrates in Athens
But in Salem the Protestants would have burned him
If history serves as witness
To the actions of the witless
I think I recall
Some of the greatest crimes of all
Were perpetrated by the men of cloth
From fascist to capitalist
Faithful extremist to creationist
Men betrayed the word
Or they misinterpreted what they heard
We know that Zeus and Hercules were merely tales of fiction
And that the stories Thor and Odin were of similar tradition
So tell me in this moment of musing
Why does the ark seem so confusing
How many animals can you fit on a boat
Before the predator is at your throat
How big would the fish story have to be
Before you realize you have been deceived
One woman and man are fore bearers of all
With only two sons they must have been an incestuous cabal
Then there is free will or so I recall
But that can’t be the case if God knows it all
In my confusion I must be mistaken
For the Ten Commandments can’t be literally taken
Thou shalt not covet **** or steal
So I wonder how you would feel
If the people who say that these are their rules
Surveyed your land, said it was okay
To pick and choose which laws they would obey
Then they proceeded to **** and to maim
Anyone who got in they way of their claim
How many lies can you find in a book that man has wrote
This will not win me any friends
But by challenging old ideals the search for truth begins
And for that I will never apologize
But when they come to burn me at the stake I will probably run and
hide

It is the snake that eats itself
Swallowing mortar and brick
From the bottom up
Consuming lives destroying families
Corrupting people
Greed begets greed
Desire begets desire
The top may stand for a little while
But as the building cracks
Floor by floor
The fallen scream
Said serpentine
Has cut the netting
Needing a helping hand
Quicksand men are sinking
Until one man stands
Deaf to poverty’s echoes
And then he starts falling
With no net to catch him

It is better to delve into the darkness
When I am restless
To trace a thin line
That tracks back
To all other conscious minds
In my own timeline
Revisiting people I used to be
Those ones who are no longer me
Completely lost in seven year cycles
Fractional deaths in the form of
Complete regeneration
Till not a single original cell remains
And all that I have is my name
And memories
But even the memories change

My past is a plague of pain
shadows that bruise
memories that leave
red marks,
but the isolation
was probably the worse.

I mastered pain
at a young age.
I could take a beating
better than anyone
I knew.

The trick was to let her
hurt me just enough;
resist just enough
then give her
A teary show.
Submitting
to her rage
because resistance
just fueled her
violent tendencies.

But when the beatings stopped
when she got caught
I became a prisoner
locked away
shriveled
A withering shade.

A child
looking at a world
that did not miss me
longing
for the freedom
that waited
just on the other side
of death.

Crying,
cringing,
flinching,
wishing,
At ten years old
that I was dead.
I am not.
Somehow,
I smile.
I go on
taking my pain
and turning it
inwards to introspection
and outwards to compassion.
I think there for I plan
to be a better man
and in moments of clarity
I know that I am.

But sometimes
when I go back
slipping on wet stones
slick with my old
suicide pain
when I let the memories
the regrets, and fears
take me again
there is that blade of pain
waiting
whispering
“**** yourself you worthless
*******”

Anxiety is a flower that blooms
painful frustration
fear from insecurity
insecurity from uncertainty
or vice a versa
hurting me by blocking sleep.
Acid build-up keeps me
from resting comfortably
and takes me farther away from
my sanity.

That which hurts and haunt us
biting at our skin
gnawing at what’s within,
may begin strengthening
and thickening our skin
as well as our will power.
Though it may hurt at first
you may find in time
that the pain is your friend.

The clock in the waiting room
hasn't been changed to
reflect daylight saving time
just like the one in
the coffee break space.
The black liquid tastes
like a remedy to my lack of sleep
but since each clock is off
I am constantly caught
thinking my weekend
is an hour closer than it really is.

The clock in the waiting room
hasn't been changed to
reflect daylight saving time
just like the one in
the coffee break space.
The black liquid tastes
like a remedy to my lack of sleep
but since each clock is off
I am constantly caught
thinking my weekend
is an hour closer than it really is.

When there are profits to be made
the corporation's will sway
politicians to the warring ways.

When people believe
there is more to be gained
from war then from peace
more to be gained from bullets, bombs,
body armor, commodities, and unmanned planes
then it will always be easier
for the sick, slick, and sleazier
war profiteering *******
to trick this submissive
population into being dismissive
of the artists and other peace makers.

When there are many takers
big spending capitalistic money makers
instead of scientists, poets, singers, and songwriters
it is almost impossible or at least improbable
that we will live to see a free and non-warring society.

But if we can change a few minds at a time
if we can see change expand from me
to you and beyond
Finding such influence expanding exponentially
that is when we will see
a better world waits for us
if we can change enough.

Some say it would be great
to go back to those better days
but I remember a younger me
escaping in dreams
but waking in tears
no fears
Only a slight inkling
of my sad self sinking.

I am not certain
if the hurt was worsened,
stayed the same, or was softened.
I only now know
how much I have changed.

Old pains may remain.
heart bled a puddle strange
but so much feels unchanged;
Even though, I am unchained
from those past burdens.

Old pains only find me
in the remembering of
my younger self.

Going back in time
in my creative mind
is like picking a scab
or biting my tongue
I still feel it.

It helps to see
some of what was
but I would not go
back there for real

Two trees shadows duel
crossing dark blades
on the stone and brick courthouse
each demanding dominance
not knowing their shadow's growing
shows two becoming one
spirits made to become
soulmates under the sun.

Tic, the clock kicks
just a bit
counting seconds
but nothing moves.
The pen is still.
Time feels unreal.
The digital display
blinks at a slowed pace
and I match it
a slow breath
a slow heartbeat,
a scattered mess,
and an empty desk.

Tic, my sanity escapes me
driving me to boredom
ticking through
another minute or two
and all I want to do
is go home.

Tic, aaaarrrrrggggh

Nothing is eternal.
Even the beauty
locked in Amber
will be destroyed
in the void
of space and time.

We write our regrets in stone
Monuments meant to recognize
Those who will no longer
Be in our lives
Tears of heartache mark
These harsh days
The cruelest and only real fate

We write our regrets in stone
Monuments meant to recognize
Those who will no longer
Be in our lives
Tears of heartache mark
These harsh days
The cruelest and only real fate

As always she is the body of desire.
Pierced lips pursed with impure intent.
Mouth wet with desire.
Body writhing in the agony of passion's unfulfilled promise.
Black hair long and fallen like her favorite angel;
She absorbs the dark arts of lost hearts
pleading with the power of a submissive’s gaze,

Heaven's arms wrapped around her slender figure
while the denizens of hell desire her softest whisper.
The best passive conqueror of my soul
and I submit to the lust of her being.

The leaves have fallen.
Once brave soldiers
vital and firm
now old paratroopers
wrinkled with
the expectation of
winters rough war.
One by one
these daughters
And sons
fall to the Earth
to die.
The tree stands naked,
until winter’s war is over
and green life is restored

The Moon has no face,
yet it is still a place
we look to find a face.

Oh dear in dressing to be a princess
you cut your feet on glass slippers,
ate the poisoned apple of conformity,
had *** with a big abusive beast,
wept deep in dark dreams as you slept,
gave up the sea and your voice,
forgot how to sing, swim, and learn,
traded childhood dreams for adult schemes,
so you can aspire to other’s desire
to confine you to your pumpkin carriages
and strange boring marriages.

Where he erred
Was he could not stop.
Creation was like the
final throbbing vestiges of an ******
in his ego.
He came life
and birthed madness

We do not run
laughing and dancing
splashing through
puddles in in the rain.

We do not watch
the storms start
and stop
sitting together
talking about the weather
whether it is raining or not.

We do not play tag
or duck duck goose,
take off our shoes
and walk through the mud.

We do not
laugh and play
like the children
of yesterday
but maybe
we should.

I know we yearn to be known.
Jumping at the bit to say our bits
we barely listen, stand still missing
all the important parts
of strangers hearts
just so we can say our peace.

Every day
even in the rain
the old man walks by
my workplace window
limping lightly
could be very lonely
but that is not a certainty.

It is easy enough
to wish all the world would love us,
to strain for fame,
to claim a name
synonymous with success
living life at its best.
It is great for the rest
but for me I’d prefer to be
true to myself even though
I don't know exactly who he is.

Truth is the pursuit of our higher self;
Not Spiritual but intellectual,
empowering the ineffectual
with the information they need
to decide what, what they perceive means.

Life is my office
corner cubicle
where Plato's Cave
enslaves my day.

Phone calls and data entry
till ones and zeros becomes me
and I go away
to become we,

a dull unknown
who goes home
for just the slim hope  
of finding myself
in quiet introspection.

When I was a child
they said I needed Jesus
promised salvation with a cross
violent death bleeding
and my submission
is what it costs.

But now that life
has changed me
and knowledge
seen me transformed
I cannot return
to that garden.
One more reason
I can’t go home.

I do myself great harm
seeing the long arm
of the War Department
and all the innocents bombed,

while preachers and Mary Kay moms
go about their days.
I shift the rubble and clutter
that covers the internet.
I look for things,
I won't forget.

Forcing myself to see things
that make decent human beings
weep with grief and indignation
children lined up, bodies in bags
small faces wearing the veil of death.

I take myself to the brink of tears
and cross sorrow’s sick threshold
to learn and share my despair;
Hoping that like-minded hearts
will stop
what violent people have started.

They are always bearers words of love I will not know,
poems in the secret chamber of my heart,
each beat uneven but electrical.
Percussion playing at life's rhythm
tragedy and sorrow heartbreak and forgiveness.
Though I live in this reality
I still feel their fingers clutch the core of me.
Separately we are time and distance apart
In words we are married to such sweet shared meaning.
My veins run with their blood
unfinished photos, moving still life portraits.
I am unintentionally discarded by the hearts
I treasure most.
Still, they're always just
one page of prose and poetry away from me.

Excuse me are you
tracking all injustice
or just this
one particular issue?
Are you treating the symptoms
or the cause of the disease?
Please believe
that I admire the effort,
but you can't solve the problem
without addressing the underlying
issue.

Little boy brown
dusted by broken buildings
smoking ground, and busted concrete.

Little one with a red shirt
I cannot say if it was
made that way
by the manufacturer
or this man made
disaster.

Little child laying down
on a rubble bed
by his little brother.
Instead of playing childish games
now two children lay
posed in death's way.

Little life left
in this mess
but plenty of
blame and sorrow
to share.

I can never return
my body will not let me
will not let go of you
and if I go back to
that house I might have to.

I know you are dead
but the casket was closed,
and my emotions do not know
what my mind says is true,
so if I go back
I will have to truly lose you.

You see the hours and the town
still holds the past down
every memory is seeded
and carefully grown
painfully shown.
It is well known
that if I go home
it will be the last time I can.

So I claim that it is not shame
but a cold hard fact
that demands I never go back.
I will never go back,
because part of me
still believes you will be there
and not just still deceased.

If I go back, then
the chances of that
are decreased
to zero,

Then all that we were
together and apart
our history of family
flesh of my heart
will be forever dead.

I'm not scared of strangers. I'm afraid of forgetting how to be kind.

Oh dear were you here
I might not fear
But being unclear
I hear you still
managed to disappear

-----------------------------------------

Before you bake that beautiful loaf of bread
Please pass on the last piece of pie
So I might delight in such a delicious treat

-----------------------------------------
Cut out that kind of caterwauling
You're killing my kittens cat nap