I’m so sick of
That nesquick
Caramel candy
That thickens our blood
****** sin birth
The bleached sugar
Kills my DNA
And burns out
My brain cells

I’m so sick of
That oil slick addiction
Fire breathing
Dragon needing
Four wheeled monsters
Till their horns
Burn my ears

I’m so sick of
That apathy
That tortures me
But not them
I’m nauseas
Cautious cause
Of the disposition
Of the disposable
Disenfranchised
Human herd

I’m so sick of
My desperation
Struggling to fill this nation
With wit and wisdom
To build a new kingdom
With no royalty or kingsmen
But kinship
And friendship

Maybe I’m just sick

Someone whispers to him “calm your heart,” but the crimson streaked flesh that beats soft wet palpitations hastens his impatience to face what’s coming. He has no armor or weapon only the determination to do what is right.
      Four chambers are thudding like the boots a coming. Men in black garbs marching with fully loaded chambers, clear plastic shields up, and black sticks ready to bludgeon. Their anger is oppositional to their opponent’s fog of fear, fatigue, and determination.

“Breath my child,” a gentle voice says. A sharp pain pierces on the back of his head. A thin line begins to ride down his neck. Someone yells “get down!”
One row of men raise their hands, eyes turned upward. The soft voice in his head says” be strong.”
Billows of grey smoke spew from a black canister. Strangers and familiars choke and gasp, eyes watering. Dreams of a bygone era play out in his mind. A tall thin brown sweaty woman smiles, moving down the road while singing we shall overcome. Dogs snap viscously at her compatriots. A fire pushes her siblings back with skin scraping pressure. A few of them fall, and couple falter in the struggle but most keep marching. Her brother, who is tall slightly bulky but wears the well-earned muscles of a man who labored hard all his life, clenches his fists, preparing to strike. She pulls him back. “Be strong, and gentle baby brother.”

They continue to sing “We shall overcome.”

       In his mind the young man sees his mother smiling, saying “"Be calm, saith my heart. I am a warrior. I have seen far worse than this." He smiles through the pain stands up and chants “Hands up don’t shoot. Hands up don’t shoot.” Another brother rises behind him yelling “Black lives matter. Black lives matter.” A thin nerdy pale white guy cries we shall overcome, not in a singing tone, but it still rings beautifully. The struggle continues.

Blades of wet grass slide softly across the bottom of my feet as I stride across the rain slicken yard. There, barely ten feet in front of me sits an echo. A small boy with goofy looking black rimmed glasses, and thin brown curly hair, sits planted firmly on a makeshift rope swing twists around and around, winding the swing up, than spins in circles as the tension in the rope is released. Smiles, and laughter play out in the shiny day. Innocence wearing its sweet face. The unknowing a better fruit then the bitterness of truth.

I turn away to see a shaded landscape filled with vine trees. Their thin string things whipping back and forth in the wind. Another echo haunts my heart. The young boy, no longer bespectacled runs, jumps, and grasps a handful of vines. He swings in and out of a fantasy world. He is alone in a world crowded with imaginary friends. Pirates swashbuckle as he and the lost boys of Neverland fight and fly. Now the tree rots from the roots tilting at an uneasy angle, and is slowly dying.

A dog barks out into the evening sky as the last bit of the sun’s rays disappear.  The new night is marked by the howls of several other canines. They feel like mournful howls. My mind slips back to younger days and I recall how I would rise at five in the morning to walk both of my dogs. Such sweet shaggy friends, very wary of strangers but oh so loving to me. They are both dead now.

I slip a photo out of my wallet and stare at the crumbled visage of my grandpa. Dark glasses cover his old eyes, but there is a playful smile edging its way across his face. This is, was the face of a happy man. Now, he too, is just another dead thing. I am just another dead thing.
One step becomes another as I make my way to what is left of the old two port garage. Its dulled colors seam to match my mood perfectly. Cracked windows and grey broken siding marking its age like the rings of an old dying oak tree. Small and large rocks painfully embed themselves into my toes and feet. This was easier when I was lighter or at least wearing shoes. I stare at the decimated building imagining the way it was before time ate it all up; standing sturdy with a dog house to the right of it and a car, tools, toys, and other potpourri parked safely inside.

Then, I remember the sawhorses. Those old things with white paint chipped or chipping away. I rode them like unsaddled horses until my **** and ***** ached. Swinging light brown cardboard swords like I was a hero fighting monsters, never realizing the real monsters were human beings.

They took this from my family, those stupid bankers with their stupid mortgages. There is so much history here. Shades and shadows of the past to interact with. Sensations to stir passing passions. A tear coalesces, followed by a stream. I struggle to suppress it.

Squeezing my sore toes together, I pick up mud in between each digit. The cold sludge feels good on my dry skin. Suddenly, I realize that this is it. This will be the last time I ever come back here. A part of me wants to cry some more, but I refuse to yield to that part. These feelings are merely specters of a past long since departed.

The specter of the small boy stares at me from a distance, and I can’t tell if he is looking at or through me. Can he sense my pain or see my disease? My stomach is swelling while I’m stewing in a sea of sewer smelling tumors. I can almost feel the cancer eating me up from the inside. White cells massing like a mad army to march on my various organs. Each ***** slowly consumed until enough fail and I fall. It makes me so ******* angry. While greedy business men plague the world with their wicked intent, extending their lives with wealth and perpetuating human suffering, I have to die.  

I slap myself. The stinging warm pain prevents me from becoming too immersed in my own grief. I refuse to yield to this depression. I go back to the vine tree with a glint of mischievous intent in my eyes. Hands outstretched I charge forth fast and furious. My fingers grasp several thin slips of dried and dying vines. It is only a couple of feet off the ground but for the briefest of moments I fly back in to Neverland. Then the vines snap, I crash into a small ditch, busting my ****. A jolt of pain passes from my posterior to my neck, jarring my spine. When the pain passes I laugh, my face filled with a childlike smile. I guess I’m not dead yet.

Come hither to see
What lies lie in our humanity
What dissonance
Carries us
Dissolving into confusion
Resolving all of our angers
And rage unbecoming
Misdirected
Undirected
Unperfected
Wounding strangers
As well as loved ones
Come forth and bare the brunt
Of our burning destruction
I have known ignorance’s lashes
By those unnamed *****
Who claim control of the masses
Come here to see me
Invested with all the potential of our species
With hope well met
Even when hope failed itself
I milked the moment
And beg thee to see me
With all and none of my humility
Naked

This is the place where I put my truths
A small lock box that **** blocks ignorance
Strands of genetic structured poetry imbedded in
My every blood cell and ligament

This is where all figments go to die
Where all delusions and illusions find their end
Where I bend myself to impossible positions
Like some contortionist magician
To tell you how much I love how much the truth hurts

So many artists struggle to find their style.
Then fully become said style.
As writers work to find their voice
and fully become that voice,
but I have no voice or style
I am multitudinous,
multi-dimensional.
There is an infinite variety
of possible and impossible realities
which exist inside of me.
So I express such diversity
with almost the same variety
of verbal and visual tools provided for me;
Not confined to how you define I should write
but free to discover everything.

I never knew a noble sacrifice
I couldn’t use
Couldn’t take
To demonstrate
My point of view
Shroud the truth
To pound the youth
Into my way of thinking
Orwell would have been cowed
By my level of thinking
Hemingway
Would have had to stop drinking
To out-smart our stinking
Propaganda machine
Human beings make
Perfect machines to partake of
More sacrifices
Not to Allah or Yahweh
But to my god of greed
The capitol conquest
My bible to succeed

This is winter. Low hanging leaves wear frozen dew droplets. Crystalline dots dangle precariously above the thin layer of snow. My boots sink slowly in to the soft slushy earth. Whiteness permeate the air, a cold but beautiful glare cascading across the infinite horizon. Across the flat field folds of snow sparkle like diamond dust but twice as precious for their impermanence. When I go inside, I know I will be blind, but it is better to be blinded for a bit and see such a spectacular view then to never see such a wondrous thing.
Off to my peripheral there is a giant ball of snow with bits gravel, grass, and mud checkered across its’ body and a trail of bare earth following behind it. Someone was either trying to make the biggest **** for a snowman, or just wanting to see how big they could roll a snowball. It reminds me of the old cartoons where some crazy character would roll a huge snow ball down a hill but the ball would bounce back and crush them.  
My feet finally sink the last inch in till they meet solid ground. The snow rolls over the top of my boots and then inside, melting through the socks, and sending a shiver of alertness through me. I crunch through the white expanse running franticly to free my frozen feet from cold and soggy socks.
A patch of ice loosens my tread and I slip slightly towards my front door. It feels almost like a carnival ride. I stumble struggling to catch myself, then fall back busting my ****, but it is ok. I brush some snow from my backside and laugh. The only damage done is to my pride and that will pass.
It has been a spectacular day. Deer darted across my landscape, stopping only long enough to chew on the bark of an old oak tree. The white specks on their brown fur dancing across their backs and sides. I love their black noses and wonder if it is wet like a dog’s nose.
Though I was distracted by my minor musings I still managed to see a snow owl swoop down just in time to catch a white rabbit. The earth spit up its cold dandruff from the impact. Bad luck for the rabbit despite its foot but an amazing thing to see on this end.  
Now the snow that stuck to my pants is soaking through straight into my underwear. I slip my black leather gloves off to pull out my house keys. Rummaging through each of my many pockets.
What a wonderful day. What a delightfully wonderful day.
Oh, ****. Where are my keys?

What level of warrior
do you claim to be
when you maim the weak
and wreak havoc when you speak
of sick sentiments?

You build your armaments
stockpile rifles, semi-automatics,
and handguns
shoot animals for fun.

I do not begrudge that.
I merely judge the fact
that you lack any tact
as you cry out the government
is coming to take them back.

You were afraid of the democrat,
the one you despised because he was black
perhaps you felt that he would
pay us all back for the two hundred
and forty plus years of
treating brown people like trash.

However, despite your rants
despite the Sandy Hook massacre,
the nightclub, the church
Columbine, and all other hurt
in the multitudinous mass shootings
I have not seen any government scheme
to take your guns or gun rights away.

As a little child I prayed for the pain to stop
for a my heart to burst, becoming
A ****** bloom under a corn red moon
No answer came just silence
Leaving me to stew in my room
Under the doom and gloom
Of the oncoming matriarchal storm

I'm lonely
but only
temporarily
using these
words sparingly
as I search
this dark area
for some sign
of hope.

Weeping with pre-grief
because I see
uncertain future possibilities
as inevitable tragedies.

My brothers and sisters
seem strange and deranged,
lost in cycles of hate and pain
that drain the vein
of what’s humane.
  
So, I want to rewrite
the wiring inside
that has them dying
like others do
with withering emotions
that cause violence to brew
the kind that silences
the few who
would speak truth
about this mess.

The broad brush is poisonous
Still you paint painful pictures
Red, yellow, brown, white
Forgetting the sweet minutia
Unlearning the shades and variations
The beauty in our treasured tints
I look closer at your simple statements
Even in your wheel of colors
I can see the potential
Life is sunburnt, light
Bache, pink, jaundiced,
Dark and lightly tanned
Plain or with flocks of freckles

This tangled web
of red nerves divide
and separate
into strange vines.
Their throbbing heat
blocks my sleep
with surges of
pain and anger.
Roots work their way
to the broken tooth
and gums inflamed.
**** builds
its own bulge
then explodes
a yellow, thick,
viscous, poisonous
liquid.
My face swollen.
In defeat
forces me to seek
a dentist.
whom I distrust
because of
the previous ones.
I do not want to
but I must
or this ****
fueled folly
will be the death of me.

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.

I think there is something wrong with me
for I cannot love as deliciously
or deeply as I used to.
I cannot be swallowed by the hope of
unconfirmed fictions I once called love.

There is a still an inkling of
fierceness that wants to clench someone
so tightly to my body that we become one
wet with the desire of perpetual ****** motions.

I am broken for the shadow kin still sleeps within,
longing to uncover soft warm pale skin underneath
her ******* lacey dress, and thin white sheets.
I still long to let my fingers swirl,
submerged in a wetness of that beautiful girl
gyrating as our tongues vibrate with
the sweet sexiness of her pink part lips.

I am broken because I would let her
harness me, riding to find whatever she needs,
bending my tongue to taste
sweet strawberry juices from below her waist.

But that will never be.
I am broken because I no longer believe
there is anything less then
masturbatory fantasies
left for me.

Listen to America? by graff1980 #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/graff1980/america

They resist
and I respect this
social movement
connective bliss
of purposefulness

They agitate
and aggravate
but in this state
they perpetuate
their own intolerance

They volunteer
to make the sacrifice
but look down
on those
who do not try
to give every thing

They say
silence is violence
but I object
They do not
know or suspect
because they
never bothered to
look or listen to
the centuries
of suffering
I waded through
to find the glue
to bind us to
the deeper truth

They say
to do nothing
is to support
while they purport
to be moral magistrates
while looking down
on me

With venom in
their gleaming eyes
they reflect
the attitude
of those they despise
the other enemies
who are ill-informed
to storm the gates
of those who accept the hate
and perhaps
even celebrate
their own stupidity

But they
are not my enemies
Though they
frustrate me
with their
mindlessness
their sublimation
to their political
philosophical
and spiritual beliefs
I still love them
for they are my family
even though
they make me
want to bang my head
against the wall
till I fall
and have to crawl
off to die

You see
you are also judging
confusing
your own identity
obfuscating
while stretching
and skating
around your own
ill-fitting patriarchy
When you fill those pews
when you let
the church use you
submitting to
the found fathers
of the philosophy
you eschew
the one you
view askew
while not listening to
other minorities
who were oppressed

I do not march on
because like the strangers
you claim need to be unfriended
I am a prisoner of this system
of consumerism
this schism
between a better world
and the one we live in

And your ideal matriarchy
does not fulfill
the objective of
a good will
because I lived
in a world of pain
created by the mother figure
Sustained by
the other women
The angry math teacher
the confused lesbian
The frustrated poet
who objected
to my objection
of her religious indoctrination

I struggled to share the truth
directly and indirectly to you
While you walk feeling attacked
because your identity was attached
to certain fake realities

But just for the record
I am with those at Standing Rock
I am with the mothers and fathers
of the Black Lives matters
I am with the masters of the metal moms
who stand strong with their awesome *******
that no man will be allowed to grab
unless she permits this
I do resist this hate and violence
but you cannot equate silence with said violence

Despite my kind heart
I hit my steering wheel so hard
when Trump proclaimed
Most of those people were
professional protester
and his fellow jester
just repeated said claim
My knuckles bruised
almost bled
and I cried for a while
while I lied in bed
because I have been fighting
this battle inside
and outside of my head
for most of my life
and it took you all
this long to come along for the ride
but I will not demonize the confused
the betrayed, belittled, and abused
no matter how much you want them to
Not everyone can feel
exactly like you
Now my struggle has become
four pages to much
when all it breaks down to is
that I am still in love
with humanity’s hopeful nature
Even though it is still stumble
in confusion
on all sides of the issues

It is black, empty of color gazing deep into it
I see nothing, a void of sorrow and hopelessness
Helpless to face the onslaught
I struggled to stack it, one day upon another
Patting it down and compressing it
Till pounds became tons
I store it up like coal in cement structures
The center of the silo cracks in a circle
Part particles part wave of dark water
One moment breaks the building
And all that I am is consume by
Depression’s horror.

I don’t know how to be normal and most times I don’t care
I could read for hours and contemplate the ups and downs of whats fair
But sometimes I feel a spark of despair
A deep dark longing or apathy beyond compare
Sometimes I feel like death would be grand
Who gives a **** if the normals wouldn’t understand
I get tired of this life and all of its pain
Of the suffering existence is a trifle insane
To walk through this life which is so **** mundane
What do I have to show for this trip but a broken heart and overactive brain

1.Today I am  not celebrating the greatness of one nation but the wonder of humanity as a whole, and the hope that the illusion of borders, nations, races, religions, genders, and all other distinctions used to classify and separate will dissolve in order to form a more perfect union

2.You do yourself a disservice when you forget that we are not separate and in competition, but part of a collective that spans more than hundred thousand years in the past and hopefully a hundred thousand more in the future. Lifting up the weak strengthens the whole, educating the young enhances the potential future. Kindness and wisdom our the gift of the human.

3.Sometimes I forget the heart of me; that little boy who dreamed of love and fairness. Sometimes the road darkens, the heart is broken, but eventually I come back to the core of me. I am a child of light and love. So come dance the dance of humanity with me, grow and live to see the beauty in truth and our potential. We can be better.

to all with love

Your humble human scribe

Joshua Amos Graff

Cracked hearts cast no radiant light
Just flicker like fireflies
Crying while their trying to fly
Sighing while we watch them die
Call them band of brothers
Call them Jarheads
Old military romantics
It’s different from the distance of time
Miles of emotions jaded in Technicolor wars
Played out on tv
But never really reach real
Or let us truly see what they felt

I hope those beautiful flows,
Flowery verses, and deep prose
Always help me find my way home
Whenever I am searching these roads
For a place where humanity
Can finally see what I see
And celebrate the success
Of setting world citizens free
From the tyranny of greed

It is a metallic mountainous monstrous beast
fed on the flesh of the subdued worker class.
Weary eyed figures form a line for work time.
Strangled masses stumble in starving for relaxation.
Tension tightens their tired bodies and stripped bolts.
Work men’s muscles stretched and torn to their limits
only allowed to recover on the weekends.
Red eyes and amp energy drinks don’t stop the draining.
Machine metal bites furiously smoking sore bodies.
Steam and heat cook the workers till they are tender,
and with one exhausted misstep flesh and bone
Are consumed; blood and gore paint the assembly line.
The whistle blows, production stops.
the hunger is sated, and the factory slumbers.

How tragic that I have fallen for
my peacock colored angelic
poetically created fantasy,
how her lips are rainbows
and hair falls fancy
full of vibrance,
though she is written in silence,
hazel eyes always focused
in some far-off distance
behind me,
the man who longs to be
the one she is truly seeing.
Galatea to my Pygmalion,
though I know there are billions
of possible lovers out there,
I do not care or dare
avert the heart I share.
She is my obsession,
and I am her devoted
poet possession.


-2022 December

The seconds soon pass into the minutes, hours, days, and years
Still the moments never last that bring upon us calmness or good cheer
The simple mind of man is disturbed from all that he has seen
The atrocities committed by a barbaric race of human beings
Once these deeds have been witnessed they can never be forgotten
Nor denied out of existence no matter how evil, vile, or rotten
We will always know how deep we can sink into the mud
Because our crimes are forever etched into the history of our blood

A patriot, a service man
stood proud and let his
American flag fly.

Served his nations
when they called,
distinguished service
and honorably discharged.

A purple heart
with some PTSD,
told his family
the V.A. would
take good care of me.

The president and congressmen
upped the military budget by billions,
and as soon as that passed
went ahead and tried to get
servicemen’s health care cut.

Man, America doesn’t give a ****
about any of us.

Well, he pinched and saved
for most of his days,
struggling to get by.

Worked very hard
to finally start
a business that was
close to his heart.

Every year he barely managed
to make ends meet,
but was grateful to be
in this land of opportunity
where he could support his family
doing what he loved.

A virus closed almost
all of the businesses
in his neighborhood,cont.
so the government
said they would
bailout small businesses like his,
passed a billed
swore the promise
was fulfilled,
but he never saw a cent,
from the federal government,
cause almost all that aid
went to help out
major party donors.

Man, America doesn’t give a ****
about the man who runs
a small business.

One kid grew up
trying to live up
to his parent’s expectations;
Got a fast-food job
while he was in high school,
then worked his way through
to go to a good college.
Four years and student loans
got him out in the world
and on his own.

Got a decent job,
to pay down the debt,
but along the way he
became really sick,
and the health insurance
barely covered a fraction of it.
Now he is drowning
in an ocean of bills,
from disease that may still
**** him,
and his prescriptions
are practically poison.

It’s a cold hard fact
that this country lacks
real human decency.
Should have learned by now,
we are just the fatted cows
that are culled to feed corporate greed.

Man, America doesn’t give a ****
about you or me.

They say she cuts a crude figure with her finger flying in the air
She’s been pulling punches since she got here
But now that she unleashed the heat
Now that she is firing back at that jackbooted fear rooted system
Well, she’s an uppity ***** or a snotty ****
A feminist **** on the hunt
For a masculine target
But, when she was docile she was to quiet,
She was a sheep that didn’t stand up enough
When she was bipartisan they called her indecisive and weak
Like a bad painting you say you want her over there
Then you want her over here
If she stays home to be a mother
She is a lazy
If she goes to work
She’s a bad mother
If she changes her mind
She’s to passive
If she sticks to her guns
She’s to bossy
What a bunch of bat ****
They barely managed to move the glass ceiling
And now they are lowering it again
If she wants control of her body
Than it is a sin
If she gives in to male control
Then it cycles back again
If life was a race she would never win
Cause pulsing ***** proselytizers
Keep hiding the finish line before she gets to the end

It was a
suicidal game
of self-destruction,
as I walked slowly
on the white winter ground.

Four or more
sleep deprived nights
because of some
drug a doctor prescribed
that nearly fried
my already fragile mind.

For the first time in my life
I decided to give cigarettes a try.
Cancer be ******
because I had already been
******* condemned.
So, I smoked them.

Pushed to the edge,
I punished myself
with cold indifference
popping the last bits
of this sick prescription.

Earlier,
I asked the doctor
if I could take these
before I went to bed.
I guess he didn’t
listen to a word I said.
Was it his ignorance
or merely negligence
that nearly did me in?

On the fourth night,
I watched my best friend
collapse from his asthma
because he was
running to call the cops
to come and save me.

His efforts made me laugh,
as I indifferently considered
just finding a place to hide
while I waited to wither and die.

Says to She causes she is me
The sun she seeks
Is the truth she speaks
Light like radiant beams
That breaks the dark
To soften each broken heart
And bring the warmer affections
To those who have been neglected
To calm furies that should not exist
And stoke the flames of rage
Where anger needs to persist
To help people resist
The chains that try and tie us down
To give every artist the wings
Of the Angelic hosts who in rebelling sing
Of freedom from an eternal being
Let her be the better part of humanity
So when this oval earth egg
Loses her loving presence
There will still be a bit of her essence
Left to linger and inspire
This human race to be les bitter
And much, much better

The miniature brown banded
queer clock stops
no longer moving
or marking new moments.
Till one year is lost
to the timelessness
of a broken watch.

The alchemy of memory
Will not transform me
Turning gold into dirt
Does nothing to ease the hurt
I find little of value in this earth
All that is, is so transient
All my memories will go
The way of death
Partly fading into nothing
Partly falling into obscurity
So all that security
Means nothing you see

A sharp cry of fury pierces the quiet atmosphere of the public housing complex. Neighbors from almost a block away can hear incoherent statements of rage and disgust. However, they seldom hear the sounds of violence. One would have to linger just outside the door to get an inkling of the ****** noses, busted lips, ripped shirts, pulled hair, bruised skin, or reddening flesh punctuated with shouts of “I don’t hate you; I hate your action” or” you’re going to end up just like your father rotting in cell.” Even “say you’re sorry, say you’re sorry or else” or “If you got it so bad why don’t you call DCF and have them take you away.”
Though the statements varied and the violence was different it always ended the same. The young boy locked in his little room watching the world spinning on without him. No books, no games, no hint of fun allowed, or the ire of the matriarch would be incited and more violence would ensue. Only homework, bible, and sleep were allowed. Some days dark moments of despair would creep in. The little boy would eye the electric socket with curiosity and desperation. Thinking that all it would take is a butter knife. Jab that in there and this would be over.
Sometimes he would grab the blanket, crumpling it together till it formed a hill then trace the strange pathways around the cover like his index finger was a car, or imagine his route of escape from this silent prison. Other times he would lie on his back still as death only breathing. In and out, in and out over and over again till his body felt as though it was moving with the tides of an unseen ocean. On rare occasion if only for a minute or two he could almost feel his body recede and his consciousness float up and away. What a strange thing for an eleven year old to experience.
At night in order to fall asleep he would imagine himself with his favorite fictional heroes, saving the world, and being part of their family, accepted and loved. After an hour or so of strange heroic and familial fantasy the boy would slip into the safest place he knew. Daring to dream, reality would fold in upon itself. Spheres of varying color, overlapping and blending would float through his unconscious world. Space dust and sparkling stars urging him on into the strange void. Even the blinking explosions of dying star ******* greedily at his ethereal essence seamed a sweet relief from the daily nightmares of life.
In the midst of this mosaic wonder there was a perfect peace. He could softly surrender the darkest moments of the day. Bubbles of light would gently cradle him in their warm and wet reassurances. He could almost believe this was heaven. There were no loud or sudden movements of fury, there were no bruises or busted lips, only the sweetest freedom.
Waking, that world of wonder would retreat into the clotted corners of his already anxious mind. Until, their comfort and wonder became only impressions, which were eventually swallowed by the day. A day that would be spent ******* in a plastic cup or just draining himself on the ***** green carpet to avoid being yelled at or beaten for leaving his room.
From the window, he watched his peers play unhindered by the dark shadows that seemed to linger in every corner of his home. Sometimes he envied them, other times he found himself furious with them, laughing gleefully at the thunderstorms which interrupted their play time. Still when sleep released him to his playful peace there was just enough joy to sustain him, just enough happiness to get him through the day till the dreams would come again. Then again, inching ever closer to maturity, then to freedom of his flesh from the maternal *******, then freedom of his mind much much later in life.
Now with the ease of an old friend he visits those wonders each night; sometimes waking in tears of gratitude and pain other nights waking with a sense of reinvigoration and determination. Each day a blank canvas to paint a better world upon, and each night a brighter adventure then the one before.

The diabetes has defeated me
And I am one leg down
Cut off like prime beef
But it was as diseased as me
One eye fades
Milky white clouds
Make their way
Half of my poor sight
Has already said goodnight
Then a mild stroke
My face doesn’t work
As well as it did before
Then a heart attack
Loved ones come and go
They may not know
I will be gone soon
But they tell me they love me
And I say thank you

99 desiccated corpses
bloated bodies ready
to burst from
the gasses building up
in the bellies of
our friends and kin.

99 bodies of newly
non-binary identities,
cause in death
he and she means
nothing.

99 tragedies
for all those families
who will have to
dig through
the bombed building.

99 sons, daughters,
mothers, and fathers
become a statistic
that no one will remember.

99 reasons to stop this horror,
to end our hurt making economy,
to stop selling weapons,
to the enemies of humanity.

In deeply disturbing dreams,
Heavy metals thunder
strikes lightning quality
violence,
inciting tension,
inducing exhausting levels
of stress.
Till, fatigue and anxiety
snaps a fragile mind.

Thud, thud, thud,

“God, please no more.”

Thud, thud, thud,

“Make it stop, I just need
thirty minutes of sleep.”

Thud.

A single trigger sounds.
The breath of brothers in arms
stops.

A softer bounce, rattle, and thwop.
as one tired body finally drops
of its own accord.

Thud, thud, thud.

Other adult children move forward,
while the self-inflicted sorrow
stains the hollow fox hole.

Thud, thud, thud.

Clarity is a rarity,
clouds cleared
so, I can see
sunny shades
radiate before me,

and it only comes
with a good night’s sleep,
whilst eating healthy,
exercising, reading,
chatting, and thinking.

Thirty something and I'm
living it up,
got a fat belly
with pink fluff
cause I'm a Jigglypuff,
playing hard like
its Pokemon go,
but the fact is
I never practice
and I don't even
like that show.

I was better in my twenties
had the moves like
Crocodile Dundee.
Even so
I never made it
in the movies.
I wasn’t as funny,
and I’ve never been
very thin
or stunning.

Maybe I should go back
to my teen years
back when freshmen
called me their senior
but those were the days
with the most tears.

In truth
there’s no reason to
entertain
going back to
my youth
cause now is better
then it ever was.

I wanted to rip the sorrow from my hollow bones
But when I swallowed the poison to stop the pain
My faint and fallow heart failed and then started again
Came thudding to a new budding sensation
The pain did not find its’ permanent cessation
But the darkness was dulled turned to a minor aching
My tightened chest eased to find less painful breath
It was hers and would not become my own death
So though she was gone I still lived on
Allowing her memory to fade away
She may be dead but I will still live today
And though it hurts the anguish will pass
And I will find myself mostly okay at last

The city slept on me

Cold bench bed
Newspaper blankets
Stuffed inside
My ***** clothes

Hiding under
Overhanging
Balconies
Or laying on steel grates
That coughed up
A little tuffs of heat

Till the sound of feet
Kicked me
As the mad masses marched on,

March’s farm of snow
Cultivated stiffness

Rigidity
Became my dream

Death became
My warmth

Hope melted
Faster than
Those flurries

And I was buried
Under a layer of
Human coldness

The radio doesn’t work.
It no longer distracts me
when I am driving
or obscures the thoughts
that used to hurt a lot.

I got new devices to
help me get through
dealing with what
American dummies
love to do.

Cellphone, laptop,
PlayStation four,
fun apps that
let me read
comic books,
watch TV,
and really good
movies.

In the race to resist
having to deal with
all the pain
we are all feeling,
I am killing it.

Don’t need chemicals
to fog or blackout,
don’t need to party
to ignore that nagging doubt,

I just fill every second with
modern tech ****,

so I can take my feelings
and turn the volume
down on all of them.

Its dejavu
the things they do
writing the same poem
but for who?

**** near everyone starts
with the same words.
He or she
and what follows is
some heartbreak
or stroke of obsession.

As if their words
are possessed and compressed
into such tiny things.

Where once blue jays sang
as they softly perched
partly leaning over
where deeply green leaves grows,

now their heart moans
and their skin grows
silky red river scars.

Where once chipmunks
chattered and scattered
dancing around each other
in a wild rumpus,
claiming this ground is
theirs,

now she cries
a ****** without her
drug of choice,
not ******
but his angelic voice.

Where fish scales sparkled
and the pond rippled
in pursuit of what fishes do
while the water was
glimmering to,

now he is perplexed
about how complex
her brown hair is,
wants to know
how she tastes down there
and longs to smack that
backed upped ***.  

Nature evaporates.
Philosophy and poetry
lose their edges,
while I sulk away
to wither in rage
and my own heartbreak
cause I know they are
so much more.

They are vast caverns of complexity,
deep seas of variety,
and a universe inside themselves,
but those are depths
they will not explore.

I was made for rivers of pain
Not plain crab but red grass
Smoked inside an appled colored flame
Dazzling while I dapple in the rain
Stained like church windows
Ready to crack before I crumble
Ready to rock before I rumble
Ready to bleed before I am humbled
Loneliness and uncertainty
Are spooks that keep ******* me
Ghosts that keep haunting me
Camouflaged and hunting me
Longing for the curves of her spine
To touch that thin line
That creases her smile
But I watch from a distance
Keep the memory of a dream
Keep the lie of what might have been
Add it to my repertoire
Stirring it in sweet saccharin  
But bitter as black coffee
The same color of her luscious flesh
Another heaven that I haven’t touch yet
Another sorrow for the lack of
That makes pain in to artistic stuff

It is stale and unstable
I write on a wobbly table
Begging for the words to come
Longing for any inspiration
In my desperation I would settle
For a simple score, haiku
Limerick, poem, or sentence
But I am a blank slate
An empty page that awaits
The right lightening to strike





The work does not work itself out
Word will not flow
So the wisdom falls short
I would crack my cranium
To find the mind
That was a cyclone of creativity
The pain would inspire me
I direly need something
Cause this is my second poem today
About not being able to write a poem

In lines of age
we find a trace
of history,

weathered responses
that come to haunt us
as we are weighed down
by all the gravity
that we have found
in this life,

creases of flesh
molded to express
all of time’s
presence.

We earn each line
with perseverance
resisting death’s
determination.

Until, the end
when death finally
takes its revenge
and wins.

Bets placed
eternity takes
all the wrinkles
on our face,
and turns them to rot
and decay.

I pull a Sherlock Holmes
One look at you and I snap that steel trap
Right back
To cold facts
Points of business
There is nothing in you of interest
So, if gone
Shove the bible where it belongs
Maybe if you smoked a **** like Cheech and Chong
You’d be more interesting
After a cough choke you would take your ignorance
And get
and ten more tokes
You could learn to take a joke

Engage, in deep conversation not just hollow pleasantries. I want to see what is deep inside of you, let your universe unfold. I am certain through intense dialogue we will peel back the dark mask you hide behind. You are more then your previous relationship. You are more then the binary politics of society and all their simple slogans, and obfuscating talking points, you are more then the religion and ancient texts you turn to to find meaning and morality. You are a set of unique experiences, in a unique vessel, in a unique time, and a unique space. You are transcendent flesh formed from the cosmos with consciousness. Please do not squander that gift.

If skin color, place of birth, politics, or religions is what separates you from a stranger. Then remember your stranger was once a baby, has lost or will lose someone, and they will cry as you do. They will walk awake in mourning as will you, as you do, because they are human to. Syrian, Republican, Dominican, Cuban, American, Conservative, Liberal, Democrat, Atheist, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and all variations between and around these distinctions are part of our human family.

A voice whispers dig a little deeper
No time to be a sleeper
You are a secret keeper
**** the sheep herder
Or the mad hoarder
There is something to be found
Deeper, deeper, down, down
And the ground opens up
And the sound throws up
And the liars show up to shut up
And the thoughts runs on
To places where they don’t belong
And I ever the fool follow them
Drowning in my own idealism
Forgetting and recalling realism
Knowing that cynicism
Is usually closer to the truth
I follow that dark river
Cause that is what I am driven to do
Past the fake fair and balanced news
Past the Preachers and politicians
Past the cops, judges, and lawyers
Back to science and philosophy
Through literature and history
Till the discord in me finds some peace
And I fold my cold self
Into blankets of new and old truths
Even then my inner friend
Says digger a little deeper
So I try to

What a tasty trip
My finger slips
From soft page
Full of poetic texts
To the next
From light verse
I find my best self
I’m better in words
I’m better in dreams
But when it comes to the living
I’m more mundane
Than I seem
Words work
Their wondrous magic
Sometimes I cast
The spell
But in action
I am inactive
The activist
Only exists
In my poems

It is a world of randomness.
Photos play in
their digital displays.
Soft impression of
Of wet and salted sands
leave an imprint
of her sacred dance.

Another photo
catches her
soft features
strained in
fantastic effort.
Like a perfect sketch
her legs
are outstretched midair
in opposite directions.  

A gray cement cylinder
with open circles
cradles her soft body.
She is a changeling
that bends with
it’s hard contours.

Switching with
a finger’s flick,
finds two black ropes
that hold the hopes
of the young dancer
hanging down
unbound
as she is.

With the fierceness
Of Artemis
this bare foot goddess
sweeps her feet
across the
white winter grounds.
Her steps are
hot enough
to melt the snow.
Later she
enshrouds herself
in a transparent veil.
The melody does not stop.
She moves
like the figure in a  
faberge egg music box,
never allowed
to rest until
she breaks.

Beautiful and powerful,
she blooms like the flowers
her admirers plucked
to place pink petals
at her feet.

She is eloquence.
Arms outstretched
to open the doors
that lead to a
warm summer dreamland
which all her devotees
wish to explore.

Folds of blue fabric
fill her tiny hands,
rippling like water
hit by strange skipping stones.
She ***** the fabric forward
up, down, and back,
trying to soar  
with the fury of her dance.

One knee rises.
Unfeathered arms open,
flowing back, up, and away.
This long legged
blonde blue eyed child flys,
a canary in the coal mine
barely concealed
urging us to feel;
Frozen in time
on Instagram
to be seen
and soon sidecrolled away.
A queen like Titania,
fairy winged,
a thing of dreams.
Nature’s surroundings
obfuscate her
transient existence.

Her body bends and sways
with the wonders of
old orchestras and concertos.
Till, eve falls
and December takes the dancer.
The soft swimmer shimmers
in the soon to be frozen water.
Feathers fall from the Swan’s
long lost daughter,
and the well used
dance shoes
refuse to move.