Category: man, love, poem, poetry

Hubris

I am just another
Diluted human being
Strained with whetstone thoughts
And rhinestone dream
Tracing the echo of my footsteps
In silent halls
Sans any walls
Was I born to burn
And cling to life
Like cigarette ash
Dying and dying
One breath at a time?
I can hear the puppets talk
At night
Their voice
Made of wood and string
Mirrors of what the violin sing
My tragedy and ivory
A comedy and ebony
My face is falling apart
Like wallpaper
And what’s beneath is no longer me
It’s a different shade
This bruise beneath the bandage
I am alone
And awake
And I know
That I ache
Somewhere deep inside
Where those things hide
Which I keep
So not to weep
At every pain that passes
Like needle through my arm
For I am just another
Diluted human being
Strained with whetstone thoughts
And rhinestone dream

Akin

Let me go
And I shall be
Something akin
To a memory
My flesh it burns
My bones they weigh
The nights are tough
And it’s hard these days
For my soul it wanes
Like wax neath flame
And I know the pain
To always feel the same
Thus there is no way
Where I can sow
A seed of pearl
For a sea to grow
So I shall pass
Through the veil of sand
Alone with eternity
Hand in hand…

Marmalade

Pieces of sunlight on my shirt
Golden flakes caught unawares in snow
I wear the world
As a witness upon my eyebrow

Pendulum thoughts, mine,
Rising to always fall, falling to ever rise
A deaf dance; this one legged tango
Should I mourn
The forgotten remembrance
Of irony bound in common things
Like water buried in a coconut or born in one who knows what it means to be a child
Without being none
I, myself, was born skinless
In a seed of wild fern
Wordless they named me; those voices in my head,
Till I spoke and my friends began to fade
One after another
Like orange in marmalade

The wind upon the canvas do not dry the paint
Nor a fire miles away
Help me find my feet
Of all the pain in the world; it’s the loss that alone tastes sweet
With syrup on my bruise
And sugar on my wound
I limp away
From weeping windows and waking walls
For I heard my cupboard say the other day
Wear less and be more
Was that a dream, a dream
Like Dali high on sour cream?
I wish only to know
Can my hand reach out to my heart and squeeze
The last drops of Carpe Diem to please
My soul; that cotton candy wrapped in light and luck
Made In Bed after a night of soft….

Dear Diary
I am exhausted
Ginsberg and Sexton, Whitman and Poe
Conrad, Tolstoy, Orwell and Thoreau
I read about them all
Copperfield and Twist
And Einstein’s Relativity and Marie Antoinette’s false feast
Should I sleep now
Will the night ask me no more
Questions and answers
Legends and lores

There is a spider on the bed
(Yes, it’s a thought in my head)
Should I scream or be quiet
(There is nothing to be said)
So twinkle twinkle little star
There are bottles in the hotel bar
And many miles to drink before I sleep
Till the laughter stops and it soothes to weep…

Testimonies

Image by Jean Wemmerlin @unsplash


They put him in an empty chair
As blank as his eyes
The studied wooden smile
Peeled slivers
Red and dripping
From hands that stayed cold
Upon the switch.


Ghosts of strangers
Pale and long
Scratched at the glass
Like cats for milk
They craved his gaze;
Shuffling hair, straightening neckties
So theirs could be the faces
He last sees.


While gloved fingers thrust
Rubber in his mouth
So death could swallow his scream
And not escape to haunt those
Who broke the stainless nip
Upon some pages
In a file, soon to be laid upon a pile
That stated his particulars
And the supposed crime
He agreed to
Everytime.


He sat like a king upon a throne
The helmet far too small
For his frame
He let it sit
As a visor
Of some knight from a game
How was he to know
This was no story being told
That his hands were being tied
So he could not hold
Any secrets in his hide
Which may spill
Once the deed was done
And justice restored
Just for fun.


The pale hand moved
Lights flickered and wailed
Tiny feet gasped to run
But fluttered and failed
The puppeteer has left
This marionette alone
Never to move again
On its own.


Glass hands closed in faith
Mirror lips moved in prayer
For the balance restored
True and fair
Unaware as ever
These fixers of frames
That many men in this lifetime
Can carry one name

Death, Dear Friend

Image by Dave Hoefler @ Unsplash

Death, do not cry
I know; you are no one’s friend
But that does not make you; a foe
Like all who have been and are being swept away
Like a clove leaf upon a current
You too are destined by design
To sow and grow; sorrow
That abandoned thistle tree
Which all passes and pretends not to see

Death, do not cry
When your choices go wrong
There are so many voices asking
To add another verse to their swan song
But you know as do I
That music is sweet only for so long
And it starts with no cymbals and shall end with no gong

Death, do not cry
People do care about you a lot
You may not always be the fountainhead
But you are almost always an afterthought
And we may not think of you as we breathe
Or when we play the games of Holy Land
But we do rehearse our union every night
Though not all of us understand

Death, do not cry
We shall meet for once and forever
But before that I must ask an honest, humble favor:
Of all the places for us to meet
And greet, if you could visit me when I am fast asleep
Then there shall be nothing for me to weep
As I skip; the curtain call of my every emotion
And be like a nameless raindrop falling into an aimless ocean