some believe in the deity
others in the sanctity of self
I think poetry is a religion
a soul unto itself
not a god
but close
and I seek her his its
calming words
wisdom
to get on my knees
and worship
every night
alone
here
in my sanctuary
like any
true believer

lest love and heart and freedom die among
the city streets be known
we have the choice of peace to war upon

t'is best to be the struck then wage a battle
of moral codes with
fists and guns

For those who fight with hate and anger
are bowing down to those
with power, we must first be ourselves

pure and right and honorable, stand
up to wrong with acuity
and strength of mind

not be the same aggressors
ignorant violent and greedy
like our oppressors,

But our place in history will
look back and judge us
honorable, wise peaceful
and good men.

In the end we will win.

I am setting up an adjunct me
to dress me up a little
a bit more polished
a little more free

he , my sidekick, will
be less needy but
have a heart of gold still
and give all he can
to others

this one I set aside to
be the one I wished I were
will fault himself less
and be more mature

his will will bend
if needed
his self worth
will never depend
on others

his heart will be  mine
his head the same
if but a bit more
shiny
and
sane

I have nary a need  a want a breath
no sundries, none wet,
no bucket or list of
climbing Mt Everest
or skydiving,
not a single wish left,
when they were answered,
all of them, my life became complete,
the day you were born.

For which I lived I die and leave you this,
all I have is words, heart, and dust
in the grand scheme of things
I wish I wished for more
to leave you darling I hoped
had I did to be a  millionaire
or have great collections of silverware
and antique things
and all I got is
brute force words and
tarnished rings
sordid tales and dreams, which
I can't properly
bequeath to anyone
let alone a breathless
being

I am sleeping when i am dying
and  nobody would know a difference
and the sun would come up as bright
the world would turn with
or without me
rain would fall
and my pretend grave
would be garnished
with weeds and neglected
yet,
I bought myself a rose today
came in a glass tube
it burnt
my obituary
I got high as a kite  and passed out
and thought of
them, again

I think it began with a  consonant I am not sure now
or a dream  might have been a vowel,
it ****** sure began someway somehow,
anyhow and anyway it never ended
it kept playing on and on
driving me crazier the little words
composed so perfectly
rhymed and rhytmed at all
the right times , the pauses made me think

even while the sky threw lighting bolts
and last months rent is due and
you have to work tomorrow
and it is already 4 am
and you are a little bit drunk
the sink is filled with every last dish *****
the dogs and kittens have covered your light
brown carpet in black fur
everything seems rosy
perfect tomorrow your last worry
bills and notices
go until whenever
because you are in love again.
That is everything.

on dreamy elves and better things
fortuitous it may be, lifesaving,
more constructive  in the scheme
of things, better suited to Knights
and Maidens so long ago may
be
things like dreams and visions
hopes and purpose,
love and romances, dances
under the arms of willow trees,
softly flowing brooks babbling, the calling
of a whippoorwill
the seance **** trance you put me in

or oxygen
or food or water
you could not
drench
my thirsts
my breath
my hunger
or drought
more

maybe I should give you room
to sail fly away
tears flow down in  the absence

when once she thought of  eagles
gathered her will up
feathers and determination

the body bends of the tree now
to the point of howls
now, the wind is breaking

behind in the past under the surface cloaked
masked hidden forgotten hiding
away
the masks gloves and purposes
of my history
my life
I try to run away to a new me a new reality
tote baggage all the
way
in bottles and casks hidden
for then
unto only me

i had learned more from my eyes being closed
than from seeing. more from dreams and
imagining than life. More from books and poems
than from the streets.
A little more from my upbringing
than my bringing myself up.
More from love than lust.
More from life than
paying bills
and accumulating things.
I had the chances.

causing all the spring to bud
the moon to shine golden
the farmers to get busy planting
she caused the bees to be buzzy
the birds to be flittering
the sun to lean farther east
the clouds to be more fluffy
the horizon to be closer
nightfall to be a joy
dark a parade in paradise
stars to glitter like her eyes
dancing to be easier

I can't dance, too
but

I did, then.

for a poem, a new one that eclipses
all those ever I did wrote. I sit
and sip awaiting the excavation
rebirth of my muse, her second
coming, her reincarnation,
I dig dig farther down
trying to make her appear out of the mud,
and she did, for a minute, said
you killed me you idiot,
with your misinterpretations
of what I whispered
in your ears that night, and told the whole world.
Guess I am
******?
guess I should have
listened better.
My *** still
itches.

what words can right is wrongs said loud
and long and right enough

in the name of religion whereby
it gets privileges not granted to others
the sins of man have hidden,
I don't want for that,
will not let the R word tell me to
shut up. I talk like I am god.
Talk of the wrongs, The Priests
who have molested  children and
the hypocrisy of the Church protecting, are
wrong as any murderer or thief , worse, in
my eyes.
Many women are ***** worldwide.
They are not covered up enough.
You do not allow women in your houses
of worship and  protect gang rapists.
Cut off the hands of a thief.
Something is wrong here. Religion
is supposed to be God's words.
What God , tell me, I am listening,
does  not let women in His house of worship.
What God lets priests ****** children.
I have no condolences for
the houses of the Holy ,
now.

to scroll down through
your prodigious poems
to find one I have not loved
before
it was worth it though
to show you how I feel
about you
and poetry ,
in general

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed and gazed but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message “He is Dead”.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

have at heart the next breath
second then the minute
then the day the next week
healing
our broken spirits
into years we have been
taken into lives
into hearts we loved
into those we have broken
into dreams we spoke not of
into memories we forget
into days we choose  now
where the time
of a sunrise
is something
we choose
now
and is not at a whim

you ever had one that kept haunting you
I saw llamas today in a field
I saw balloons again
to construct my urge
sanely you would have to share my head
When the llamas looked up at me
on the edge of their field
where they were minding their business
munching
flowers and grass and greens
I felt like an intruder
an alien
in their world
and the balloon thing again,
I watched the car dealers early today,
a  man walked with what seemed like a hundred
of them helium filled colorful things, tieing
them to antennas, when one did
escape, a white one, that wafted and floated
into the sky like freedom and relief,
I felt for it. I felt for the llamas.
You would have to
share my head to
see.

I set out to be President, then lowered
my goal to Secretary of State,
then to Governor of Alabama,
then to Mayor of Clayhatchee,
none of that worked out,
obviously, so I set my sights lower,
I decided to be my own animal rescuer.
I just got off  the floor with Missy,
a Lab mama someone decided to take out in
the country and abandon, I took her in.
I was lying next to her and the three
kittens she treats as her own, even letting them nurse
were curious meandering tween and twixt us, and Missy,
and the Titos , I call them, I could see were happy
as hell, all fed and loved and rescued.
So , yes, mission accomplished.

happened, that I felt jealous, again.
Has not happened in twenty years now.
So, can I say this feeling
has been buried within,
and I have felt it?
Or is this something
special?

Fridays are for the young
to go out and sow wild corn
or oats whatever,
for me Fridays
are another
day
of another
week
another year

was four balloons in the sky ,
cut loose to fly,
at the end of the auto dealers day,
I was done with my building a shower
awaiting my ride, outside.
The four balloons took flight
in a mostly blue sky, seemed to have
a direction in mind.
They were flying away from
the eastern grey clouds
into the more calming
west, filled with
fluffiness and calmer breezes,
I called to them, lying on
my back in the grass.
Hey you, blue balloon,
hey red one, okay yellow,
do YOU hear me, the white
one shimmered.
Hey, don't forget me. Come
take me with you, pretty
things, so free
and unencumbered
by things down here,
they seemed  gay,
one after the other, separated
by a few hundred  yards
I felt burden free for a minute.
I guess they inspired me.

I almost celebrate the unpopularity
of my imaging sandpaper and saws
sounds
thy western accompaniment
of warmer inner purpose
progressions of chords
calming and coherent
when you listen to
the harmonies
like adding mustard and relish
to a hotdog
sniff around for
chords perfectly
a new layer or two
on a journey of  my own
may you join in
my Magical Mystery Tour
where I add an f flat
to an f major
f flat becomes
f seven
upon your shoulders
and my powers and
depth are nothing but borrowed
true artists
are more
articulate

I am but lyrical
trying to re-introduce
a cadence
developing
a dream or two
however successfully
or not

it might be because
of a disconnection
a hallucinogenic
recollection
an old song
I listened to
while tripping

a long time ago

a radical idea
no

nothing but
borrowed

shadows

of the other not being able to see
over the tall wall, I assume things
that might not be  real, excuse me
my imagination and history
with lovers gets the best of  me.
So call me tomorrow, with a good excuse
and a lawyer and two witnesses, cause
you are just like me
and I know how I am.

tell me more of you
I think I know
your heart your soul
we have shared each other
all over Bookface and G+
shamelessly
tongue kissed
and grappled
like teenagers on a
dating site
with words and emoticons
little hearts
and lol's
now I think
we need to get closer
I thinkI could
make you trend
in real life,
doll

whereby I lost my ears
misplaced my senses
somewhere nearly now
close, close as my nose

among the rafters
holding the ceiling up
somewheres
above the plaster

entwined in webs,
in the boxes saved
from centuries paths
right, right there

I can find them
given time
given centuries
given a direction
given a day or three

Blood thudded in my ears. I scuffed,
Steps stubborn, to the telltale booth
Beyond whose curtained portal coughed
The robed repositor of truth.

The slat shot back. The universe
Bowed down his cratered dome to hear
Enumerated my each curse,
The sip snitched from my old man's beer,

My sloth pride envy lechery,
The dime held back from Peter's Pence
with which I'd bribed my girl to ***
That I might spy her instruments.

Hovering scale-pans when I'd done
Settled their balance slow as silt
While in the restless dark I burned
Bright as a brimstone in my guilt

Until as one feeds birds he doled
Seven our Fathers and a Hail
Which I to double-scrub my soul
Intoned twice at the altar rail

Where Sunday in seraphic light
I knelt, as full of grace as most,
And stuck my tongue out at the priest:
A fresh roost for the Holy Ghost.

The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine I know:
I am too dumbly in my being pent.

The wind attendant on the solstices
Blows on the shutters of the metropoles,
Stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls
The grand ideas of the villages.

The malady of the quotidian . . .
Perhaps if summer ever came to rest
And lengthened, deepened, comforted, caressed
Through days like oceans in obsidian

Horizons, full of night's midsummer blaze;
Perhaps, if winter once could penetrate
Through all its purples to the final slate,
Persisting bleakly in an icy haze;

One might in turn become less diffident,
Out of such mildew plucking neater mould
And spouting new orations of the cold.
One might. One might. But time will not relent.

boy passes ghost-like through a curtain of weeping willow.
In rainbow-stained apparel, birds are singing a cappella.
Suddenly I sense it, in the birds and in the child:
The world is a poem growing wild.

A dewdrop on a blade of grass soon slips from where it clung
Like a perfect word that gathers on the tip of a poet's tongue.
And men are merely characters to love and be defiled.
God is a poem growing wild.

How's one to see
rightly that tree,
that flat illusion
and deep confusion
of branch, twig, splinter
stripped bare for winter,
standing black, bold
in winter's cold
and gray sky's gloom
outside my room?
Thinking I'll prove
it real, I move
my head south, north,
to bring it forth
and so, reveal
its depth, its feel.
Men rearrange
their thoughts thus. Strange
how intricately
it moves . . . like me
—me more than any—
beneath the Many
it is the One,
the skeleton—
its trunk, its stark
and mottled bark
raccoons and wind
have ripped and skinned
and left to die . . .
But it's not I
who can define
its shape, or mine.

After this frost
all will be lost
in a strange scene
of savage green
when it receives
its destined leaves
that charm the eyes
as the ears lies
that poets tell.
All will be well:
for we shall see
in greenery
in sun, in gale
its face, its veil,
drape upon drape;
its truest shape.

A toad the power mower caught,
Chewed and clipped of a leg, with a hobbling hop has got
   To the garden verge, and sanctuaried him
   Under the cineraria leaves, in the shade
      Of the ashen and heartshaped leaves, in a dim,
          Low, and a final glade.

       The rare original heartsblood goes,
Spends in the earthen hide, in the folds and wizenings, flows
    In the gutters of the banked and staring eyes. He lies
    As still as if he would return to stone,
        And soundlessly attending, dies
           Toward some deep monotone,

       Toward misted and ebullient seas
And cooling shores, toward lost Amphibia's emperies.
    Day dwindles, drowning and at length is gone
    In the wide and antique eyes, which still appear
        To watch, across the castrate lawn,
            The haggard daylight steer.

"the perfect poem is silence"
by someone once

when it was fur farthered
ten millimeters longer
I gave me kiss a nibble
along your neck
it was soft nibbling
kitten kisses
and you came back like lava
hot as *** is
and was
supposed to be'

lazily lost
to crony capitalism
corporate cobwebs
hunger
unsatisfied
first come served
rich get richer
walls get bigger
the river deeper
the gap is wider
the poor get
poorer
the black get blacker
the rift grows wider
the police get narrower
shootings
more common
more people dying
politicians
appear more frequent
on the TV
and nothing gets better
solved
are the next elections
nothing more

where
at this o'clock
are you this hour
the big hand barely moving
as I stared
at it
the little one goes round and round
dizzily
and still I have four more hours
'til
I jump out that small door
calling
coo coo

on the aged blinds, all dusty
filled corners of spiderwebs,
the dusky remembrances
sat a reign of yesterday's
fog filled eyes
the  bluish hue
random splotches
which glasses none
have a cure for
I recall her
her in glory
like it was yesterday
lithe
sweet as a sundrop
cool as a new wind
soft as the mellow song
whispering
cute
as a cub
new as the day was then

the beauty of the ****
her supple curves
fingers devouring her surfaces
reading braille
I am mute
and amazed

it's secret
the place we get
our inspiration
it takes sacrifice
suffering
a whole lot of meditations
it takes thinking alone
feeling the whole world
being
your own soulmate
losing things
being alone
having patience
being sacrilegious
questioning
accepting
reading and sacrificing
sanity
being unafraid
being afraid too
it , this takes
a gentle wind
blown
from the mountain tops
that makes you
want to describe it's taste
it's feeling
it takes an appreciation
of  color
brown green
olive
on your
mortal soul

unequaled regale
thou touched  me with
nor a equaled reveling
have reminisced into a night
into a broad sunlight
into a full moon
without
your words
grasped to my breast
to my sanity
I have walked
into the darkness
always
with your words on
my tongue
your scent on the wind
your measure
on
my shoulders.

there is a reason to be here
our hearts are made for it
we are made
in flesh
blood and feelings
normal
capable
of miracles
one word strong
one hand held
one heart touching
ours

once
just once I got weak
I felt the whole weight
of the world like Atlas
I took it on
held up the global
inequities
until I fell down
around the ankles
of God

I awoke this morn'
with sunlight traces of hope
upon the  tiles in my foyer,
like wonderous stories
told upon
the future's worries
winter storms return
go away all away in the
bright shimmerings
on the castle walls
the beams of light
call the zephyrs of hope
into my den
my parlor
my boudoir
under my cover
of hiding
no mores

Miss, you who knows who you are
who kindles me talks to me about all.
the girl I have known longer,
the one who speaks my language,
the one I search for when I am all
tangled up,
needing you
to untie the knots,
the one I can say anything to,
the girl who says all the right things,
figures out the nuances with digital
precision and analyses,
rights my path
corrects my worries,
I hope I do
half as much for
you.