Watercolor trickles in from the edges of the window,
Smudging out the clear sky.
I flee the angry bucketfuls of oily paint,
That splash and smear the smooth floor below.
Finally I can run no more,
And I am pounded into red, white and brown,
Adding to the beautiful photograph below me,
Stretching out to the horizon.

I concede that I
Need not be happy;
I concede that I
Might just be lonely;
That might just be
How things are.
That might just be
How things will be.
But my words still stand;
I want what's due to me.

Some years ago, before my
Mind established its iron
Tyranny on the rest of my
Body, and the futile
Revolt that was led by my
Heart was easily suppressed,
I dared to ask this simple
Question: are there
Things out there that have their
Independent existence, or does my
Mind insert itself between me and
Reality, and invent these things as an
Illusion to prevent me from seeing the
Truth?

Within a floating
Bubble amidst the glowing
Chaos of an exploded star
I spin
In ever shrinking
Circles
I spiral
Towards a black destiny

I saw a whole army of wretched souls
Led on to do wondrous works ...
I made my way to their leader,
One shrouded in a dour cloak,
Who urged them forward to do their works,
And asked him, "how is this possible?",
He replied, "These are all those
Who wanted to **** themselves ...
All I did was to convince them, instead,
To give their lives to me."
I stared, mystified, as these long columns
Made their way through the world,
Overcoming with ease those who clung
Tightly, bitterly, long, to their illusions.

It is hard to write and hard not to write.
I hover over the next word or sentence, hesitating.
Perhaps I am searching what to write for,
Because I have no words to write.
But perhaps the words are pushing out,
Trying to be born,
To come out through me into the world.
It hurts.

After enough time passes,
All things become normal.

You get used to he great things in your life,
And you get used to all the troubles.

Very soon the need to change seems absurd,
In your mind.
But you don't stop feeling it,
In your heart.

Up all night, I'm in a funk,
Being quite sleepy's like being a bit drunk.
Stumble to a table, get my coffee, begin to write,
But hey, I'm still happy (yeah, who would've thunk?)

These eyes, and
These hands, they
Tell me, I must
Change
My life.

He muddles his way
Through all the
Puddles.
She stutters, mutters, and
After a moment,
Sputters.
He spies, shies away, and
Lies.
She sighs, hides away, and
Cries.

I think it's bitter,
But better say it's sweet.
I could make this longer,
Then it wouldn't be a tweet.

Hey you!
In there, in the mirror,
Looking doped and looking sleepy,
I loathe you!

Hey you!
Beginning another dreary day,
With no plan for your escape,
How I loathe you!

Hey you! No feeling, no
Feeling at all ...

Sitting here in my head,
Staring into the wall.

Time to go
Around the sun again.

Can I get off this ride ?

What's that you say,
A non-refundable ticket?

In that case might as well make
The best of it.

The forms of things
Are ever in flux
On their margins,
But once in a long while,
Solid turns to liquid,
And there is a small window
To act,
To change
The boundaries,
As former things pass away,
And new ones come into being.

Stone columns,
Half illuminated,
Half in shadow,
Hiding behind them
The numbers,
The ciphers,
The unknown,
The shadowy figures,
Massed,
Waiting.

It is very hard;
I want to be as I am.
The fear, it stops me.

A great wind, like a sandstorm,
Blows through my life,
And I try my best
To align with it.

Hey man, get a move on,
I gotta leave now, gotta take on
The world and its many
Barbs, and see if there's any
Guards I can put up in time;
I'm committing a crime
Against myself, I'm
Keeping me down,
So who's gonna own
Me when I'm done?

A smile, a thoughtful glance,
A meeting of eyes,
The slow emergence
Of a self.

A creeping crawling pain
That seems to control me
And slip away when I try
To find its controlling
Tendrils that have yet again
Succeeded in making me do
Something that I regret

Pull out
Of the flower
The dead bee.
It gets in the way.

Great pain can be liberating.
It can lead to the place where
There is no mind,
Where your sense of limits and boundaries
Is dissolved,
And there is a temporary sense of
Freedom from the world.

I have heard that great joy does the same thing,
But I wouldn't know.

In memory of the note
In the bottle
On the beach
In the sand
Behind the rock
After I met
The beautiful girl
Under the trees
At noon
While the breeze
Swayed the leaves
And me
On the day
In my life
That I would most
Like to forget.

Pounding legs
Hammering knees
Numbed toes
Fading strength
Blurred eyes
Dripping hair
I ran

Look at what I've got;
I've got bling, and money too.
Why then the despair?

Wow, I've been
Out of Action
For a while; I fell
Into the same old trap again.
The mind traps, the clever subterfuge,
The adversary always lurking.
When I let the poetry stop flowing,
It's pace and rhythm
Was replaced by a colder circuit.
Here's hoping I can
Claw my way back again.

The veins of a leaf,
The veins of my hand,
Pumping fluid,
Pumping blood,
Watering,
Feeding,
One moves,
So does the other.
In different ways,
Both are alive.

Sometimes I get
Overheated
And my mind
Swirls down this
Vicious path, in a
Whirlpool,
Turbulent,
Wild,
With a radius of spin
Ever decreasing,
Steadily moving in for the final drop ...
... At the last moment, I awake, and
Reach out to grip
Something, Someone,
Anything that can
Halt my
Descent.

I drew her with one arm and one leg.
Why? Because I could!

I'm making things now, aren't I ?
I can choose now how
To give form
To them.

I  drew her with blue eyes,
And a red dress.

And pink lips,
And short, dark hair.
It wasn't fair
To draw her any other way,
This is how
I did see
Her in her box.

And I'm just sitting here,
Biding my time.
Useless, you say?
Useless it may
Well be.
Am I lazy?
Am I revolting?
Am I just
Standing by,
Waiting for you,
To get behind you,
To make my move?

Hey what what what are you doing?
Put that effing knife down!
This isn't how it's supposed to end,
This isn't why I came to town!

You wanted to see me, I'm here now,
Instead you just screaming at me, asking how
I'm gonna find all the money to pay you back,
This is out of whack!

My system's compromised, yo!
I'm running on empty,
I got no money for gas,
But I got plenty
Of blood in my veins
And you're gonna see,
I'mma make it rain,
Until I bleed.

And then you'll be stuck,
Look at me while I smile,
Throw your hands up and say, f*%$,
Where were you all this while?

An old book
Stopped by today
To say hi.

It's comic and tragic,
The cycles,
The ups and downs.
Sometimes the devil wins,
Sometimes I do
(But usually it's him).
I'm tired of these
Unnecessary spells of
Unceasing torture, they
Leave my
Body racked, and
Levy a terrible toll
On my mind.
"Crack!", they say.

... unstable it was, so I retreated to a corner,
Not wanting to be tossed around like the
Bits and Pieces that flew around me, making me
Duck for cover and carefully look around, to
Find what I came for.
But no, not today;
Not in this dream.

Pull it out, ******!
The well is nearly empty,
We want to get all the water we can.
We must be quick, we do not want
To share it, little that we have. Don't complain,
Or else I'll do you in too. I don't care
About you or the others, I want
My own water.

Ooh, that feels good ...
... what was it I stepped on again?

The moon was melting today,
And I brought out my cone.

My reflection grew blurry,
So I shut my eyes.

The wicked, wicked man.
He took my clothes, my shoes,
My money. My leather wallet
He found it funny. But he took it anyway,
He grabbed it all and then he ran.

I could've caught him if I could stand,
He took the ring right off my hand!
And my new sunglasses, he tore them off
And left me lying in the sand.

Ah that man, that wicked man.
Couldn't some kindness been shown by him?
If he had to rob, couldn't he be gentle,
Instead of smiling his wicked grin?

I didn't see just where he went.
You see, I couldn't quite move my head.
I would if I could, but dearest reader,
I assure you I am quite dead.

Are you like I was?
Is this who we're meant to be?
Were you like I am?

I clearly don't want to die,
So I need to crawl out of this pit.
So ***** you all,
I'll see you on the other side.
That is, if you make it too.

Say what you mean,
Do you mean what  you say ?

Say what you will,
Do you will what you say ?

Say what you want,
Do you want what you say ?

Say what you need,
Do you need what you say ?

Turned and twisted out of shape,
I stagger away from the inferno,
When I come face to face with another,
My eyes staring into hollow sockets.
What apparition is this?
It's bony finger points the way
To a hollow opening.
I emerge into a
Vast cave,
Illuminated,
Where cloaked figures are
Conjuring up new forms
To replace what remains of the old.
"Is there no escape
From the wasteland?", I ask.
The solemn figures continue,
Mournfully,
Seriously.
The apparition returns,
And tells me it is I who
Perceive things wrongly.
The wasteland is my mind, it says,
If I did not earlier see the
Enchantment,
I will not see it now.

It's too funny. My mind
Is overheated. Hate when
This happens. I'm all
Twitchy, and
Jumpy, and
Unable to focus, which
Is not a bad thing, just
Tedious.

Come down by the sea
And see what remains of it
She didn't leave much

Don't look at me like that
You don't have to be all stunned.
C'mon, relax, breathe a little,
The bullet wasn't even in the gun!

Busy, busy,
Keeping busy,
Always running,
Desperately fleeing
That awful, awful
Silence.

Floating with the leaf,
I reached at last the
High point of the current,
After which came the dizzying falll
Down, as the wind died,
And the golden light
Rose up to meet me.

When I tried to write,
I could not write,
The words would not come,
Because I tried to write.

If I had let the words flow,
Perhaps I would have had a poem today.

But I didn't, so I don't.

I do not fear this state for long.
There is feeling now, where I have been numb,
I can feel,
I can feel myself coming back to life.

I sleep by the fire,
Waiting for it to burn out.
Wake me when it ends.

My hands were missing when I needed
To pay for my coffee
I took a sip
And walked away