"I wish I had a cigarette."
The man as he looked down
at his half empty glass of whiskey
at the bar in Paisley Town

Little did he know what that dear
cigarette was bound to be
In the form of a strawberry blonde
no older than twenty-three

- J.S.

Life provides the contours.
Poets provide the shading and colors.

r ~ 23Mar14

Pragmatic incantations
Of incandescent situations
Slide
          Softly
                     Soundless
Changing tributaries
of rearranging  
                         (Grin stricken
                  Hands poised to choke
                 Plans to spread the yoke
                    There flaming arms
    Your deepest thoughts they will invoke)
                              Faces
Poised to take the fibers of your being
Tie them up with a festive greeting
And hang you high to watch the bleeding

the first thing I want to tell you is:
I was always jealous of those kids who had glow in the dark stars
that they put on their ceiling
they could create their own personal paradise
and I wanted that power
to create something to stare at during the night
and if I can't play with the sky
I'll settle for plastic
and some tape
when you put your hands in the sky
some might call it playing god
but I'd like to think of it as creativity

you talk about God as if he was holding a cigarette
and
I talk about him as if he was holding a sword
but what if we combined them
a man
dragging a sword through new york
leaning against it on street corners
and asking for a light
they would wonder
wouldn't they
who he was
jeans
some armor
but only enough to cover his battle scars

It's becoming a right of passage
to pass out on the floor
someday
I think I'll wake up
under the sky
and when I look to my right
I'll see a man
with a cigarette
and a sword
that's when I know
that I've made it
I may smile to myself
comforted by the fact
it seems we all end up
on our backs facing the sky

God included

I feel
strange
like sunlight is trying to escape
through every crack in my body.
I don't know if this is happiness
but it sure isn't
sad.

you bleed stars
I stare into your eyes
you are lonely
you want to leave
the forest.
you are dim
flying around in your sad sidecar
looking for a settling ground
I will hold your mask.

Stride into the dark blue night;
sprint among the fallen and smite,
the peeling forest and withered wood,
the battling weather--they withstood.
Break the oak of the woodland’s door,
make what once was be no more,
the falling timber and groaning corpse,
watch as the warm, damp, wood warps.
Be the fire that falls from beyond,
strip the moss the trees have donned.
fly across the earthy lake,
drowning in the endless wake.