simply one

A mass of humanity
A living breathing thing
Not many bodies
Simply one
Each an atom
In a larger organism
That knows nothing
Of its component
Just as most
Know nothing
Of the organism
Or in knowing, despise.
Much as they should
Destruction, degradation
A tale told in a billion voices
Mosaic of a billion faces
Entering the world
Leaving the world
Moments passing through the void
The void of being
And the absence that gives it meaning

I Failed Health Class

"I Failed Health Class"

Doctors' offices
Cold & sterile
Cast in harsh light
Instant scars to the psyche
Prescription drugs
The stone of Sysiphus
The bitter bite taste
Of the lack of a cure
The impermanence
Of cautious relief
Only to feel again
The agony of disease
And the bone-deep hatred
Of my genes
That bring me ever back
To doctors' offices

Legacy

"Legacy"

Transgressing
Minute by minute
Every hour of the day
In cognitive dissonance
What I believe
How I behave
Hard drawn lines
Smudged grey with compromise
Living, breathing
While shedding reptilian skins
Searching for another fruit
To hasten my decay
Street sounds
Howling desert winds
Machine gun fire
Forms in triplicate
Cigarette butts tossed in styrofoam cups
Gathered in plastic grocery bags
And stacked high before museum doors
Vegetable mutation
Meat suicide
Morphine pumps
Sugar highs
Lollipop sins & whiskey repentance
Birds falling mid-air
Ashamed of their flight
Close the door behind you, dear
It feels dead outside
I left this for you, my chld
A legacy of indifference.,

Dead Already

"Dead Already"

If you knew you would die in your sleep
From the time you woke up one day
What would you worry about?
The loved ones you leave behind?
Every day thousands of lives end
Those connected to their lives go on
Would you regret some omission of word or deed?
When you had a lifetime to bear it...
How vulgar, how profane
To stammer through it now
If you knew you would die today
Would you go to work?
Would you eat a favorite meal?
Would you climb onto the stair master
Would you sit in silent judgment
Of the life you have lived?
Or silent regret for the one you did not?
Would you say goodbye
Or make dozens of phone calls?
Would you just stare greedily
Into the faces of those you love?
If you knew your would die today
Would you pray?
Would you beg for more time?
I don't think so.
If you knew you would die today
You would do much as you do every day.
You would feel the same minor frustrations
That seem to make life unbearable: 
Poor cell phone reception, slow internet
Lovehandles you just can't shed
Those you love so much would walk by
Unnoticed as they so often are
If you knew your would die today
You would live just as selfishly as yesterday
Because you are going to die today
Some today
But don't covet your worries and cares
They were already dea.

Prayer for Acceptance #1207

God, grant me forgiveness
For the things I could change
But never will

God give me peace, please
To accept who I am
To confess all I can

To be honest with myself
To hold open my eyes
And burn with a vision of truth

How could I begin to utter
A single word in prayer
When I can't stop lying to myself

Let my fear be my courage
Let my trauma be my strength
Let my weakness be my joy

Let my vanity bring me to my knees
Let me stand before You
With fear and trembling

Because of what I am
Let me confess my failure
And feel my insignificance

Then let my heart find peace
In Your accepting, warm
Kind disappointent

Let me not avert my eyes from
The reflection of my rebellion
Take my will, my desire

And let my emptiness
Rest in perfection
Amen.

What is it you pretend not to know?

What is this that you pretend not to know?
Is it that you are ugly or getting old?
Is it that you are not as smart as you seem to be?
Is it that you are full of all these doubts at once?
What is it that you pretend not to know?
That you are talentless and only faking?
That you want everyone to think you are cute?
That there is a rage inside you that's barely controlled?
What are you pretending not to know?
That you are empty inside and trying to plug the hole?
Is it that you are an addict or an obsessive?
That you are falling apart every second and
Just puling yourself back together in time to appear sane?
What do you pretend not to know?
That you are a crazy person in an insane world?
That wars and famines and diseases make sense?
That you think you could do something good but can't?
Why are you pretending not to know?
Is it because you are afraid to look for real answers?
Afraid to challenge your own beliefs?
Afraid of what you'll find at the end of the sentence?
What is it that you pretend not to know?
That your life is over?
That you are dis-abled?
That you have nothing to contribute to the world?
Is it that it's all a lie to you?
What is it that I'm pretending not to know?
That I don't know anything at all?
That I am actually happy?
That I lack the will for sorrow?
Or that I pretend always--
Pretending not to know

Thump

I hope you hate this poem
I hope it sticks in your mind like flypaper
And that its lack of formal structure
Gnaws at you like restless legs in a sleepless night
I hope you wake with this verse in your mind
Tumbling over and over monotonously
The thump of a forgotten cellphone
Tumbling around in the clothes dryer
Thump
Intruding upon your thoughts
Thump
Try to not think of this thump
As you go throughout your day
As you search for your car keys
Thump
Try to forget this poem, thump 
It's only symbols on a page
That thump around your head
Like the hours you count desperate
Until work is finally over
Thump 
I hope you hate this poem
And the hand that wrote it
And bang your head against the wall
Thump
 Thump
  Thump

To Restrain True Sorrow

Suffering exists
Not in contrived TV commercials
That swell with emotional music
And bloat the compassionate ego
Suffering exists
In the heart closest to yours
Where pains are locked up tight
Like a secret inheritance
Suffering exists
Caused by the withheld smile
The forced conversation
Naked words of obligatory sympathy
Suffering exists
To mock good intentions
To restrain true sorrow
To hold out hope just beyond your grasp
Suffering exists
In the quietest places of the soul
In the unacknowledged doubt
In the monotony of disconnected labors
As so we suffer
To avoid the embrace of our sorrow
To subvert what we would do...
To slaughter the human will
We suffer ourselves
We suffer our lives
We suffer our illusions of both
And hold our breath
Unless a delicate sigh once released
Should topple this house of cards
And lay bare the wounds
Inflicted by the tick of the clock
The shaky foundations of our world
Carefully insulating us
From the madness of reality
Yes, suffering exists
But don't tell anyone. 

For Something Lost

There is a pain
That covers all
Fills in the cracks
Smooths out the lines.
It buries intention
Under piles of regret
It holds your throat
And squeezes tight.
It is a pain that
You wake with
You walk with
You sleep with
You speak with...
It shades every memory
Makes clear old mistakes
It keeps you up at night
With dark thoughts.
It haunts you
With its living presence
Because you utterly refuse
To let it go,
To let it die as it wants.
You hold on to this pain
In desperation
Out of sentiment
For something lost.

Something Never to Be Confessed

Every step is cautious
On a slippery slope
When you find the right vein
You'll take any dope
And with sweaty palms
You'll try to hang on
What you thought was here
Was so suddenly gone.

You painted a bull's eye
All across your heart
Every con man and archer
Thought to take a shot
You can only live so long
But it takes a lifetime to die
And you have to risk it all
Every moment to be alive.

You calculated every move
With quantitative precision
Only to look backward
With a coward's indecision
You measured carefully
A full length of rope
Then cut it inch by inch
With such pious hope.

I guess it was happiness
That made such a mess
With armored tenderness
You needed less and less
Because you had this
One ungrateful weakness
Don't ever confess
Your happiness.

Something More, Beyond Words

I wandered through the ashes
Of all that I had burned
Kind words felt like curses
From the wages I had earned.
We may be made of stars
But scars are a better suit
In the distance, someone
Who understood this truth.

I walked among the faces
Of a dying proud wasteland
Love's words breathing as
We stumbled hand in hand.
No room for the sentimental
With wolves near the door
They ask a pound of flesh
But I know they want more.

But, I'll stand my ground here
Take my life but never love
I'll fight to my death and
Poison you with my blood.
But it was much too late
With the spirit of gentle dove
I found myself quite changed
By what saccrifice had done.

It was love that saw my pain
It was love that took my name
It was love that drew my art
It was love that that bound my heart
It was love endured my hate
It was love laughing at my shame
It was love mapped my course
It was love, or something more...

Something more,
Beyond words
That lives past death
And all that's worse.

A Play of Words and Action

Out of two was one
In a moment unchosen
Out of darkness blind
Into a soul unfrozen
And once being known
In the presence of light
There's only one question
But I can't ask 'why?'

Because I don't get to know
Just wander on stage blind
It all seems so improvised
I don't get to know, just
Stare dumbly into the phone
Just words not truth or lies.

I searched out shadows
A place to hide ignorance
I built a character to show
The scale of my indifference
I wandered into different sets
Put on different clothes
I parroted some new words
Kept my head always low

But I still I don't get to know
Just wander on stage blind
It all seems so improvised
I don't get to know, just
Stare dumbly up at drones
Just words not truth or lies.

Once more two made one
In a moment of intention
This is how it goes on
In acceptable convention
And once seeing unknown
Biological invention
So the word on her lips
But I dare not mention...

You won't get to know
You'll wander the world alone
Among symbols and science
Still you will never know
Even balanced equations
Are words not truth or lies.

And after all, it's only living
Your worst is still your best
Because you'll never know 'why'
Instead of nothing you exist. 

paying for attention

the darkness out there
just outside and out of view
of unknown depth and dimension
i might reach out and touch it
but the weak electromagnetic force
prevents this farce
across space
across time
lives carried like crabs in a bucket
each one seething with trapped hatred
drunken or wishing to be so
lost in conversations to be forgotten before the cab fare is paid
no one is paying attention
paying attention
the cost of attention
the price of attending to the moment
the work required of being here now
when i could be somewhere else
some other time
right now the past
right now the future
and reaching toward
the darkness out there

Haight-Ashbury

they come from everywhere
they come from nowhere
rising out of the ground
fully formed and weird
they are ready to take on the day
they are ready to rape the night
they are
and somehow continue
so full of life
too full, in fact
and that unused potential
begins to rot inside their bones
it spreads into their skin and hair
it rots their teeth
it eats away brain cells and intelligence
and they are
somehow continue
on a march
slow and certain
toward a charitable grave
a victim
not of vice or circumstance
but of hubris
to think that one man mattered
in any of this ugly mess at all
they went to find themselves
they searched hard
and looked into strange mirrors
and in the end
they found no one
they found themselves:
nobody