your flame is dying
let me be your fuel
please love don't cry
these hearts hurting are duel
if you need to hate
i can take the abuse
if you need me to wait
i'm yours to use
no one else can do
what you seem to
please don't hurt yourself
don't be alone
if you need to
be manic
have an episode
scream, punch, and kick me
it's a pleasure
to bare any bruise you'd lay
curse me out, wipe off my smirk
and any life from my face
it's agony going through
sleepless nights
and skyless day

i hope you're okay

Well, I guess we need
To send out the hounds.
For the crafty sheepdogs
To go pick out the bad actors
Hiding among the crowds.
Look over your shoulder,
There's that chill again,
The heat is rising
And you can feel something creeping.
Let it take you on,
Lest it take you over.
We've been
Building momentum,
Silently growing
Like a beautiful lotus
Or festering fungus.
It's just a matter of perspective,
It's only a matter of time.
Give in, or give up.
Fly if you will,
Fight if you think you must,
But listen to your neighbors.
Are you honest?
Are you trusting?
Are you nurturing?
Don't worry, don't stress out;
We're gonna figure each angle,
Lay out all the motives.
It's all there
On the internet,
And freely given!
You had a choice, you made a choice-
You dressed up the bed, now rest in it.

Fail safes, like preventive measures;
What percentile are you willing to lose?
You will lose them all.
Don't arrest you family
To the error of your decisions,
Take my advice
And don't take anyone with you.

Gripping,
You're the only sane one.
And everyone else
Just grasping at straws,
Running their jaws,
Can't hold a candle

to the silences that bother you
the pauses which seem to have no end
dragging on to eternity

to your shortness
and the quickness with which you act

it's really stupid

i'm in love with the idea
of seeing how you end

I shutter desire,
I quiet fear,
And drag a rusty blade across my skin.
It's about what I let out,
Not what I've taken in.
These sweat and tears,
This blood that drops,
I hope you all soak it up.
Each of you, like ***** mops;
Never getting anything clean,
Just spreading all the muck around
And calling everyone *****.

The old man eats his TV dinners,
He's never learned to cook.
He believes it's a woman's job
But he never quite has the nerve to approach one.
Sure, there have been some
But far & in-between.
They don't stay long,
Bar the ones who have been there
Not to love but to take.
But he was smart enough
To cut them off
And not ache for a connection
Even if it wasn't genuine.
He has sense enough
Yet, not exactly a kind which is common.
For he finds it hard
To stand on ground equidistant.
But what is normal?

Is it such a thing as loneliness or love
Which more people take apart of?
In love there is loneliness,
Just as in loneliness there is love.
Whether it is from hearts together
Who can't stand each other,
Or from hearts seperate
Yet readily love one another.
Is it such a thing as loneliness in love
Or love in loneliness
Which more people find themselves in?
Of the equal strength it takes to stay
There is someone stronger in leaving,
Of the equal weakness it takes to wane
There is someone weaker in longing.
Yet, of the unrequited,
These are but fancy words
Which don't always flower to fruition.
And love can be won through persistence,
But to some it is akin to attrition.
The foundation of it loose & unstructured,
Rather than unbound & liberated.

Perchance, by the eye which beholds;
Some think it cowardly -
Some think it bold.
To go on loving, nonreciprocal.
To go on loving, unconditional.

I like to sprinkle my likeness within my work,
Sometimes it's elusive or hidden.
Sometimes it is plainly written out
If you just read it from the right perspective.
A bird's eye view,
The lense of the cartographer,
The fun of the stenographer:
A wider & broader picture.

Listening to the great leader
And he promises better wages,
A better economy,
Safer streets,
Domestic manufacturing for national autonomy.
Just wondering when it's supposed to begin,
So far as I can see
The politicians taking the stage
Are long bought before they address the Republic.
40 years of presidents like pages,
Each turning over to new additions to a chapter
This awful period befallen our nation.
Another ink blotch, intelligible stains,
On the history of America

I was a ****** hopping trains,
Strung out on morphine
When they hired me at the mine.

That same story
Is much like mine,
Only there were other guys.

No, in mine too.
They orchestrated and I played instrument,
They used me as a patsy for their wasteful deeds.

Did they have you use an explosive device?

Did they have you use a pistol?

Did you shoot with a rifle?

Did they give you poison?

I sailed the rivers in a basket,
And my sight was not obscured by the reeds.
Overhead, the clouds cleared
And in my heart was a compass
Which lent to me direction
Under these starry skies.

I sampled all the miseries & delights,
I encompassed all of life:
I was a clap & echo in time.

I'm sure the phenomenon is
Far wider-spread than
At any other time throughout history.
The want to have been born,
Decades or years before,
And I think it's easily attributable.
Inundated with knowledge
It is hard to come to some consensus
Among peers,
Likewise it is difficult
To be in a situation you'd rather not
Able not only to conceive
But receive, every scenario you could think of.
Many of which would be the least bit better than the reality currently ascribed

Like a nereid,
Acutely aware of how to cause a flow.
But I was mistaken,
Sprawled across the ground as
Dianthus grows.
She thought herself a hunter.

I wish I were prey.

If evidence is incrimination,
Then fleeting art is an exoneration.
Like pictures drawn in the sand,
Like lightning turning sand to glass;
As though a constellation were made from a man,
As though a mule became a golden ***.

it's been warm this December
and barely a snowfall touched the ground
they're saying in several Septembers
heat rivaling ol' helios'll be found
supposed to be like Luckenbach, Texas in my area
Funny, I always liked Waylon n Willie
can you imagine the hysteria
when's there's even more to be fighting for
dying over, and killing?

you wanna **** yourself
so they put you where you'd rather die
where the fluorescents hum
and your life becomes eggshell, white
with pills you're fed
that make you emulate death
and the dead

eyes, that stare out
but barely do they do
and more oft, rarely too
instead, they turn within
and do as the dead

"This is the compassion I'm willing to give!"

This is the compassion you're liable to get.

Silence. Stillness. Absence.

Spaghetti condors and
Mango vultures,
Gobstop gumbo;
Velociraptors in the Bayou, and
Doves made of mildew.
Tell me, is it all
Getting old?

Think nothing of water which percolates,
Liquid evaporates.
Such are the forms trapped within themselves,
Meaningless rotes.

By formlessness corporeal,
But with materiality intangible.

Forlorn immolation;
Condensates re-saturate, only different.
Incongruent crystallization;
And they say there is change!

By factors invariant,
But with sums nonconstant.

A laugh is a laugh, verbalized or written -
It's still the same fundamentally.
Tears are tears, dribbled or scribbled -
It's still the same in essentiality.

By elements unproposed,
But with totalities nonexistent.

You think I speak of blood lineage,
Clearly I hold the whetstone,
But that's because you're dull.

Maybe,
I am.

From my shine, shimmer-
I'll stay solid as file;
Whether if needed firm or gentle,
Soft or abrasive.

In address to the west,
The rising sun.

At least, that's from our perspective.

From the hammer
Who shaped the stone.

i'm glad
i got to see you light up
and smile
even if it was brief

And so we all do this thing
Of using what one has said
Against who themselves said it.
Is it rejection? Deflection?
Is it acceptance? Confrontation?
It's about how we choose to take it,
Not how another interprets it.
Right?

Fission, fusion.
Derision after derision.
Creation, destruction.
Degredation after degredation.
Combination, seperation.
Decay after decay.

Fusion, fission.
Praise after praise.
Destruction, creation.
Amelioration after amelioration.
Splitting, collaboration.
Growth after growth.

I know only
That I know nothing!

treating her sadly
in his dull pride admired

when his innocence, inoculated
with sour spores,
devolves into thick hides
jaded attitudes
and glazed gaze
raised in the house,
to only look in at the garden
via viewports distorted

Some Conway Cabal;
It's a regular circus,
In the capitol.

You guys really messed up that message-
Do you have the postage? Addresses?

The records & reports
For what you purport?
Are all the passages
Just rewritten, or
Pages overwritten?
Torn out or rearranged?
Perhaps overlooked?

No longer properly understood?

Is the truth lurking out there,
Somewhere?
Buried under heaps of rubble,
Covered by mud & dirt.

Wipe the muck off.

Through the weeds & brush,
Thorn & thrush,
Save the vine & water the bush.

Get looking.

Let us not be
A generation of little martlets
Let them hear us
Over the ramparts, we will be triumphant

this gnawing ache in my chest
like words can't express
miles and miles from you
my love

From cosmopolitan, to nationalism;
For the world, for country.
For what is the world today
But a conglomerate of nations,
For what is a nation but apart of a world?
On a mish-mash, adrift through a vast nothing;
What a ride, what a whirl-
A mess of tribes infighting.

I cut the wheel out in gravel,
I shaped a navel for the tadpoles.
Firmly, but gentle;
I dug out the furrows,
I made lush the fields,
I caused the showers.
And in that safe place, I deposited them.
So that they might grow.
But now they're adults!

Will they burn out all life
In their self-contained terrarium?
That is of their own making,
Their own doing.

For how high they have climbed up
Yet, how little they have grown!
Like Babel, like beanstalk,
Like Galileo's experiment at Pisa!

All things that go up must come down,
Right?

God I'm a cynic
at times
I want the world to burn,
I want to die
look up in the sky
and think of the limitless possibilities
everyone out there
hurting
so many possibilities
and joy seems
so distant

To the Earth, we mourn!

Goddess Mother & Father Cosmos,
How far we have fallen;
How much we have let you down
Though you've nurtured us
And helped us to grow.

We were specks
On the backs of giants
And we thought ourselves special!

How ignorant we are,
How arrogant we have become;
How confusing have we shaped our existence.

The shades of black made white,
But the way the light shines
Shows there is no difference
When we are open & transparent.

The shades of white made black,
But the echo of the song
Reminds us there's more than the wailing
Of crimes against humanity being normalized again.

I like ****** the most
When they're quiet and know their worth.
Them being the only ones
To sell themselves out;
Set the rate yourself.
It'd be a shame
Living on your back
For but paltry wealth.
Small penance too,
For fleeting looks and fading health.
Not a profession with a pension,
Not a career with a penchant for happiness;
But if *******'s your passion
It's shorter lived in-person than on camera.

Shedding, prior to your sister's arrival
Quiet and silent
So it's all my own

Streaming in the car
Quiet, silent
All on my own

why is being a good man in the modern world so complicated
why can't i be good

It was the glen of jabberwocky,
Deep within the twaddle mire.
The gobbledygook was being spewed
By the grand codswallop,
The tripe was drivel
And all manner of blethered haver
Did most piffle & bosh.
The great imperial hooey of guff-phooey
Visited with bunk,
There was to be a festivity of the tommyrot;
On the morrow we would dribble bull
Till the cobblers called tosh, ****, cod,
And said their applesauce.
No malarkey here crosses their fingers,
For all the liars have bellywash
And work the flapdoodle with bunkum & bushwa.
All the poppycocks we laid out
For the celebration of the gibberish,
When mumbo jumbo hung a more,
Low & long.
On the fens of the balderdash,
At the mouth of the babble,
We sang the song of argle-bargle
By our native tongue jargon.

It was first rate flummery
By the standards of the order of palaver,
The prime wheedlers of gab & fanster.

He stands upon a stalk of grain,
Rested atop a leaf,
Balanced on the branch of a tree,
Nestled on the back of an amphibian
Four who salute longevity.

She comes as a breeze,
Graceful & gently.
As like spring blossoms
She extends an offering,
Ripe & sweet
Is the fruit of her peach.

Those given to fanfare of the stork;
Who hold nature, like the cosmos, sacred
And celebrate its different changes & forms.

If you don't wanna understand it, don't.
You're not held to comprehension.
If you don't want to agree, don't.
You're not held to a thing in discussion.
If you don't want to think, don't.
You're still liable for your actions.
If you don't want to speak, don't.
You're still liable for its consequences.

Personally? Don't have a fit,
I don't give a ****.
Smell the flowers!

It was silk that was choked on,
It was wind which was blowing.
For the fly never is caught
Until the act of consumption!
Yet, if by consumption,
Is the spider itself conditioned?
What few arachnids shall spin no web,
Like few snakes whom have no venom.
Defanged or deglanded,
I suppose only fools make distinction
Between either of them.
Yet, if by the action,
Is the hand itself also conditioned?

Don't search for me for where I am,
I'm not searching for where you are.

To that which you "belong."

Don't look for me to the future,
For I learned your histories & they are repulsive.

The records are detailed & long.

Don't give no magnification on my past,
For I have the details of your future.

Wrong is just wrong!

I rush to speak
When I should be quicker
To pause and think,
Parsing each phrase.
How my words will and could
Be interpreted or construed
And of that, whatever resulting.
Of the checks & balances
We put ourselves through,
What is the material from which
The weights of judgement
Have been constructed?
Pig iron, sterling silver, stainless steel?
And of our choice of counterweights,
What is revealed?

The best way to goad a lie?
Believe it yourself.
But it's even easier
To convince others of the truth
Being false itself

The contrast between truth and falsehood
Lie in the whether
The inquiring party
Believe, or not;

Sufficiently convinced enough?

commitments of convenience
where one gives another,
they lack themselves

valves let loose
and the sewer pipe spews
till the sludge run down
and your streets turn brown

joining the maelstrom

Alone
But I won't be, forever.
This feeling will go, too
Like you.

Admiration, often mistaken
As a sickly taste of desperation;
The desert sun falls on my back.
Borders tall, baked in radiation,
Sweat streaking tracks-
Where's my place, what's my designation?
Scale the wall, or go on under.
Dry lips crack, no ailing your suffer.
Starvation and dehydration
Walk, the Sahara

Six-shooters are holstered, swords are scabbard, arrows are un-nocked, blades are sheathed.
Not in the course
Of one petty conflict,
But comparatively throughout history.
There is more intergovernmental cooperation,
More trade and tourism,
More declarations and treaties.
The common person
Has greater breadth of movement
In travel of classes & region.
The ignition of all these dormant conflicts
Will not lead to any new or better resolution
But, more likely than not,
More conflagration & revolution.
To win or to lose
In a game of confusion
With the strategy of lies & ambiguity.
Better than to limply concede
And forfeit all claim to belief
In what you fought to seat.

And in fifty years from now
Some blasted fool shall say:
The ignition of all these dormant conflicts
Will not lead to any new or better resolution
But, more likely than not,
More conflagration & revolution.

They done killed the working man
And wrote an album about them,
Wiped out all them Cheddar heads-
Milk men's dead.
Somewhere a queen is weeping,
Somewhere a king has no wife;
Something called Neanderthalis
As another word for a human, a person.
These, members of my family as relatives,
Who are bonded to us in blood
Both in the veins of our hands
As much as they stain them.
But to that bond,
There is a responsibility to honor
And a duty to you entrusted.
That is,
The depth to it is much more than this
Lest you be the least of us.
In paying respect to those come before
And bringing up those now born,
In endeavoring to do more & be more.
Whatever facet, whatever role;
Be kind and civil,
Stand up to injustice.
Protect the weak
As an advocate made strong
By virtue & wisdom.
Turn on, tune in, turn up, awaken;
There is nothing wrong with your television set,
Have you checked the programming?
As timeless as infinity,
In the middle-ground between
Light and shadow -
Between science and superstition.
Through holes in canvases
Of freshly painted things,
Strange & otherworldly,
Aching to be discovered
And dying to be seen.