I have offered to feed you my spirit
in exchange for a leash on your soul,
a moment of body to body
in half-hearted search to be whole.

You reach out, still tied to your freedom;
I cling and confuse it with care.
We honor the contract as written -
the other will always be there.

What price do I pay for pursuing
a love only I can perceive?
Pardon me as I pull the last ounce of
the flesh from the bones that still breathe.

What price do you pay to be lonely -
to avoid love yet need it so much
that you struggle to keep on embracing
the friendship that ends when we touch?

A delicate balance of wishes;
it's hard to tell losses from gains.
My prayer for a shift in my favor...
your hope that the balance remains.

What gently falls around me now
and settles soft upon my soul,
fleecy coats on autumn's boughs;
drifting, shifting, white and cold?

Deeper, deeper, piling high;
at least chest level at my door.
I dare not venture out, for I
might lose myself forevermore.

Each a crystal, each unique,
when multiplied by billions they
inundate my world with bleak
and heavy stillness. Children play
in brilliant sun and cloudless skies;
the blizzard blows behind my eyes.

My wife's family
is a pack of wolves.
One will be chosen,
and the others pile on,
tugging and tumbling
the lucky winner,
looking like they would tear
the chosen one
limb from limb.
At day's end
they huddle about
the battered cub,
licking its wounds
and nesting
warm and huddled.

My family was crocodilian,
cold-blooded and
waiting in preternatural
prehistoric patience
for a spot of blood
as the excuse
to pull the wounded one
beneath muddied waters
and devour their own.

from unlikely size
(breadth depth mass) words
slice pummel caress
nothing is sacred
but love and feeling

precisely
               ;so

My poet's eye is tired;
please, muse, raise my spirit to
Spirit...grant me life.

a piece of flotsam, tumbled, pounded
on the rocky river bank, she
scrambles, slipping off the rounded
mossy stones of misery
no purchase gained, no breath recovered,
no graceful saving branch nearby
just searing icy pain that hovers
circling, striking mercilessly

a passerby hears desperate pleading
sees her in above her head
as he wades in the flood's receding
settles back to riverbed
she's leaning, gasping, sobbing, asks
how'd you escape the undertow?
he said don't feed it power it lacks
let it flow and let it go

I do not fight my fatal malady;
awake each morn, and live the day anew.
I have it; my cancer won't have me.

No battleground, no carnage to be seen,
my gentle Spirit bears my burden through.
I do not fight my fatal malady.

No cringing, no beseeching God, "Why me?"
In truth, I'd rather it be me than you.
I have it; my cancer won't have me.

Of course, I wish no one at all would be
in suffering.  Someday, I pray that's true.
I do not fight my fatal malady.

Should I live long enough that I might see
the cure the doctors say is coming due,
I'll have it.  The cancer won't have me.

When death will win its meager victory
the door will open.  Gladly, I'll pass through.
I do not fight my fatal malady.
I have it; the cancer won't have me.

Humid evening's womb
filled with expectation of
thunder birthing rain.

A prayer offered
that he might outlive her so
she wouldn't see him
die as her last husband died.
Nice thought till her cancer came.

I want these words to match your being;
strength for strength, grace for grace
(that you might see my eyes are seeing
more than hands can merely trace).

I want these words to plunge the deepest
pools of reason in your eyes
(the open secret that you keep as
shallow men see summer skies).

I want these words to touch your spirit
(not to capture or to hold,
but share it, cherish and be near it)
as I'd touch your hair of gold.

I want these words to match your being
(honest as your arms' embrace).
My spirit, body, mind agreeing -
beauty in your soul and face.

A living poet writes for those not born,
for those who wake, and live as if they're dead
and those who resurrect themselves each morn.

A pat of praise upon a loaf of scorn's
what constitutes a rebel's daily bread.
A living poet writes for those not born.

An elegy to comfort those who mourn,
to weep the sadness they have left unshed
and those who resurrect themselves each morn.

To lovers, unrequited and forlorn
whose stillborn passion never left their heads,
a living poet writes for those not born.

A few rare people, worldly, wise and shorn
of most pretense, will grasp what's being said
and those, who resurrect themselves each morn,

will reach for pen and paper, and adorn
us all with sacred words, keep spirit fed.
A living poet writes for those not born
and those who resurrect themselves each morn.

Compression stockings
bring back memories of faires,
shaping iron jaws,
prithee tell me, good gentles,
wouldst thou have me play a tune?

So much unsaid
with voice unsure
in years unspent,
to be undone,
unthinkable.

Searching through my mind
for anything I fear to say.
I have spent thirty-five years
of my life tracking down
my fears,
cornering the slippery ones
and facing the fearsome feral ones.
The few secrets I keep
are no longer for my sake,
but are kept to spare others.
Even those,
I have aired to a few,
close and close-mouthed friends
who hold my trust
as sacred as I hold theirs.
To keep what
hard-earned sanity I have,
I need to keep facing myself,
and stare the evil within me
square in the eyes.

The thing I fear most today
is my arrogance...
my arrogance that there is nothing left to fear.

Ah...sir?
  
                  Yes, uh... you, sir,
with your head up your ***?

Would you kindly unplug
your nose from your navel
and return to the world
of humans being long enough
to notice that you

yes you

are wanted, needed, and loved?

What do I say
when a telephone rebuilds a bridge
I burnt some time ago?
What do I say
to introduce me to a stranger;
someone I already know?

It took time
to swallow pride and understand
some feelings had to end.
It took time
to set aside a love gone past
and see you as a friend.

What do I say?
I know a hundred writers
and a thousand of their rhymes.
What do I say
when all of them desert me;
I create these naked lines?

It took time
to tear you from my dreams
and once again to make you real.
It took time
to be assured that I could feel
exactly as you feel.

What do I say
when life breathes in a friendship
that had died some time ago?
What do I say?

Maybe put away my poetry
and simply say Hello.

Though a married man,
I can consume you with words;
poetically
tease, caress, enfold, inflame
far better than in person.

The spring-head bubbled forth,
and ran in two separate streams.
One, sparkling, swift and cold:
the fount of eternal youth.
The other, unthinkably clear and deep:
the fount of age-old wisdom.
He was brought here by the elders,
and told he could drink from one alone.

Which would you choose?

He took the ancient wooden bowl,
dipped it into the second pool
and drank his fill;
saw with clarity and depth.

That day he became a poet,
using the gift of the second fount
to drink from the first every day.

Gifts phenomenal
at fourteen, merely average
forty years later.

Ray of clarity
breaks through my clouded vision
and warms my spirit.

We gaze
upon the unseen,
give voice
to the
inexplicable.

She pulls out a box of CD's;
says name your poison.
Cobalt-60 will do.

Bare Naked Ladies will be
the band du jour.
I lie on the slab
in the radiation lab...
yes i'm...lying in bed...
like brian wilson diiiid....

I'm wearing my spandex jacket
(where's Donald Fagan
when you need him?).

As LeAnn wraps the
velcro-ed elastic band
around me to bind my arms,
I mention that I miss
the good old days
of canvas
and leather straps.
i'm so sane
it's driving me crazy....

Time stops

I'm motionless

engage mind wander

it's so dangerous
you have to sign a waiver...
embossed positive
and negative
on the massive metal arm
the pluses and minuses
of shooting a carcinogen
at a spot of death
to save my life
*if there's someone you can live without...
then do so....

She plays her games
on her tablet
in the living room
with the TV on
for noise;
he sits quiet
tapping at his keyboard
in the spare room.
She's put a load
of laundry
in the dryer;
he has pizza dough
rising in the oven.
Warm uncharged atmosphere
of peace aerates
the real estate in between.
Its fertile soil
allows the grandchildren
to set roots
undisturbed
by domestic drama
and tween-age traumas.

beauty bright
burns the soul's retina
leaving blind spots
blotches on the vision
of what burns
behind the beauty

look
        away
from the dazzling
surface

feel the fusion
of mind and spirit
exploding
just beneath

generating
intense light
radiating

out through
ever-expanding
infinite space
between love
and being

never look into
the eyes of the sun;
look beyond them

Poets do not
make a living;
they make a life.

Though not in pain, I
ache for the times not far past
when I ached for you.

I'm shutting up for
a while now; the well is dry
and needs refilling.

Hello Poetry's
existential dilemma;
should I Like myself?

My heart aches for a
single evening's solitude;
family crashes
in, pieces of peace of mind
scattered across a week's time.

my mind opens to
unlearned knowledge
unwritten words
unspoken voices
unrecorded lives
untold wisdom
unearthed by
unceasing
undertow of
universal
understanding
undeterred
unless
my mind closes

After the week-old magazines
and half-read books are scattered
face-down all through the flat...

after turning the radio on and off...

after leaving the guitar
in the corner
for the fourth time...

after jerking off to the face
of the black woman flirting
on the bus ride home...

after the anger
     and the fear
          and the courage
               and the grief...

after all the useless questions
and senseless answers...

after I stop doing and start writing...
after I stop writing and start living

I crawl back into my skin
and I am

after all...

alone.

Alone is after
the wind whirls the world
away from me,
and rattles empty branches
against the side
of my soul.

I saw my future at the Dollar Town
today.  She shuffled, bent, a Sisyphus
who rolled her cart uphill on level ground,
resisting rollback grinding her to dust.
Perhaps fifteen or twenty years beyond
my age, or pushing ninety.  Hard for me
to tell; she labored so, with eyes despon-
ent, weight upon her arms, each step a plea.
I hobbled past her, grateful for a cart
nearby to hold me up.  The air-conditioned
blast a respite from the sweltered heat;
I panted softly, let my pounding heart
subside, inhaled a soothing breath, and sent
a prayer she'd make it home, get off her feet.

I don't know where these words will go - I'm writing in the dark;
throwing thoughts before me hoping some will find their mark.
I chase a moving target, follow footsteps down a street;
the sound of fleeing feelings, of your heartbeats in retreat.

That's pure imagination.  You're sitting by my side,
but even as I hold you I can feel you try to hide,
and more - to hide your hiding, hoping I'll be unaware.
You search your soul for someplace where you will not have to share.

I'm standing in the sunshine and the warmth of summer's play,
you sit in winter twilight and grieve the passing day.
You think that night and day can't meet - we're hours and miles apart;
you're sure we'll never finish, so it's senseless then to start.

I've walked the path you travel, I know the way along.
It's rough and cold in places, and it's easy to go wrong.
The crossroads of our journey's just a little further on,
where night and day become as one: I'll meet you at the dawn.

I pull back shrouds of memory
and mourn the child who was
and is no more. Now I can see
just how you died; because
innocence, morality
gave up one day (applause).

Strange, I felt but apathy
when I watched you die,
my child, but when you ceased to be,
my eyes were all but dry.
Just yesterday you swore to me
you'd always be alive.

And there you are. You lie in state.
I grieve your passing. See,
no one knows the massive hate
that caused your life to flee.
Perhaps I'll find, as tears abate,
how much of you was me.

It takes a special poet to
write solely for themself;
so much better to be read
than stuck upon a shelf.

The poems flow so easily
when they're so easily shared.
The love, the dreams, the angst, the rage
all satisfactorily aired.

I do write for an audience;
it's true to some extent.
Readers tell me if my words
express just what I meant.

Still it's for me to judge my poems
effective or effete;
that's why God made the keyboard with
a button named Delete.

La Chanson Triste* is played from memory
and the heart. She catches his eye as she leaves,
letting him know he caught a piece of her self;
he places it carefully in his valise
as he packs up to go home alone,
wondering why all the fine women
are taken...or gay...or both.

A frilly card,
a ****** poem,
stale chocolate
on the clearance rack,
a fading bouquet
for my bruised flower
brings a budding smile
and a burst of color.

Rename a street
and believe you've
preserved a man's memory.

Close government down
for a single day each year
and dream that you are
perpetuating freedom.

Remember first and foremost

that

until every human being
is free in heart and mind
from the tyranny of color

two men
murdered
nineteen hundred and
thirty-five years apart
were killed
in vain.

Soft breezes of love
become nothing but passing
of winds in the night.

Gray sky-smoke smoulders;
cuts off morning sunshine.  Good
thing I pack my own.

Pouring some coffee...stirring up thoughts of you;
they settle down slowly.  Look at all we've been through.
Darkness of morning covers you in my bed -
candlelight's warning blinking out above your head.

It's not dancing out in danger, doesn't signal right or wrong;
but your love leads to forever, so I cannot go along.

I'm seeing too clearly, even blinded by my tears;
for though I've just met you, seems like I've known you for years.
The one that I prayed for through those long and lonely nights.
The one I was made for...all the pieces would fit so tight.

But that picture is a puzzle scattered all across the floor,
'cause the man whose prayers were answered doesn't live here anymore.

You're the woman someone wanted...
that someone who I was.
It's good that you've been good to me
but you'd better go. Because
I'm not looking for a wife, babe
though I love you, please believe
that I've missed you all my life, babe
and I'll miss you when you leave.

I can tell you what's not right, babe,
but I can't say what is wrong.
It's been just out of sight, babe
since the day you came along.
Now my dreams are all in tatters,
scattered all across the floor.
You're the woman someone wanted...
I'm not someone anymore.

Warming up coffee...washing down thoughts of you.

A gorgeous sunrise
makes me glad for this lifetime,
strikes me stone grateful.

As much as I am nature's man,
in spite of all my hopes,
I'm just a walk-on in her plan;
the one who interlopes.

There is a
thousandandone
year old man

you'd never guess
to see him

for that matter
you'd walk by him
and never notice

he is old
he is wise
he tries to change
no one
but himself
and then only
on alternate Tuesdays

the few who know
will once and again ask
"how do you do it" and
"of what do you dream"

he will say
he will always say
"i wake, i live my day
until i sleep
i sleep, i dream
to live another day".

a thousandandoneyears
a day at a time.
he is a happy man

To: Career politicians and insiders
From: The great unwashed rabble beneath your feet

Over the next few years, and into the foreseeable future,
Your past and present performance
Will be scrupulously reviewed
With an eye toward
Eliminating hangers-on and dead weight.
No cow is sacred
When so many are starving.
The heiress apparent to the retiring CEO
has been shown the door;
the head of sales now the head of state.
There will be regular meetings
With the new HR director.
Those of you who've been with us
For a while will know him well.
His name is Howard Beale.

In the midst of human chaos
we might seek out the beauty
of celestial love.
Can I get an Amen?
A-MEN!

In the midst of celestial love
we might glimpse the power
of the unconquerable human spirit.
Can I get an Awe-women?
AWE-WOMAN!

In the midst of human spirit
we perceive the tenderness
of the eternal human soul.
Can I get an Aww-men?
AWW-MEN!

In the midst of the human soul
we might find jealousy and hatred,
the sources of human conflicts.
Can I get an Ahh-men?
Ahh.  Men.

In the midst of human conflicts
we might find the love and soul
to disagree in harmony.

Can I get an A-men?

Names and faces, poems
and messages from old friends
soothe a lonely heart.

Autumn mourns passing
of summer; tears of rain streak
cheek of a rainbow.