As the Tree Sings Timber

I stood eyeless among life’s endlessness, absorbing vastness;
Growing old; growing mighty; growing wise, and patient for death
I watched as humankind began its cancerous tread across the world.
Tears, if a growth could grieve, might have deluged down my trunk
If I were human. While nature swallowed the gorgeous plague that is civilization,
Karma, a force godly among gods, laughed with its Seven Deadly Weapons.
Though we who hold nature were placed aside, as we always are,
Credit for a fresh earth sleeps still, buried in the dead stumps and swelling pits
We are the entity who lives forever. We are the elders – the mouths
Who watch over you, breathing every cell a better life. We grow tall
And never tired. Never will nature be put to rest, and nothing will change
In a world where cabins and sculptures are structured of bone and steel.

An Afternoon Before The Internet

The mild air of summer’s sun enveloped him

As he stood at arms, imagination his only ally.

Sparkles of sweat slid from his cardboard corona,

Making splits and splats upon the sandbox fortress.

Still he charged: Odin at his lips.

Spinning, thrusting in a masterful dance,

Plastic carved the air and draconic foes spilled.

With a red-crested lion hugging his lungs

He sang of victory.

Even the clouds caught the chorus.

His ardor faded with the dying light,

And his creator, grinning, stepped forth.

The world came to a sudden halt, and

The proud warrior exchanged his arms

For a shallow bowl of Mac ‘N Cheese and a warm bed.

What You Said

You asked, will you love?

and to love is all you can do

because we are young, going

no where tangible

yet

everywhere within ourselves.

Where will we go next?

We can be legendary.

Let’s forgo our acquiescence.

Let’s resist the dive into the deepest chasm and fill our lungs

with the unknown.

We will exhale no sorrow for never knowing the mundane.

Because life is everything but clairvoyant.

I hope you understand.

I understand.

But where are you?

Without the disease in our dreams

we will forge our pity

and our hope

into heaven. Together.

We can explode from seclusion

and feast our dormant embryonic hands

in all their pride.

We can run from this. To our living chimera.

The soul of a lost man doesn’t beckon, you said

if he instead accepts what is

nature as truth.

And truth is knowing what is right

to be rightful and beautiful.

And what is truly Beautiful?

The line between

Light and Dark.

Tears in a Bearded Scarf

If I had a hole, would you even patch me?
or would the threads hang with my wishes
to hold something worth falling out?

Would you let them untangle
until I’m a life no longer worth wrapping around you?
Hang me decrepit as a feast for moths?
Toss me aside and adopt something warmer?

No.

A misperceived hole in your world turns it
radically. And I am radiant regardless.
My hole has bristles growing to catch any woe
and prove a little light always shines through.

Mend me if you must,
but pessimism is a dull razor rusting
and optimism just keeps growing.

As An Oak

I’ll exclaim, assure, imply,
Holler, whisper; I’ll maintain
Through illest valleys; gorgeous peaks
“I’ll be here!” I’ll always promise.

When your weary little toes
Can’t grasp the earth to carry on,
I’ll find a snack, or two, or ten,
And shade you from the sun.

If the clouds defeat the sun,
Dowsing, drowning freezing rain
I’ll shelter you and hide your hair
From drenching and cold-catching.

Whenever boredom threatens you,
Whoever woos or beckons you
To fates less favorable than your dreams,
I’ll brandish guard; defend you.

And if, in the years to come, if
The skies bleed brown with poison,
Fear not, because I’d even die
To keep your breathing clear.

All I ask, my One, my Ever After,
Is when I pass, to plant my dust
Beneath a sturdy, gentle oak
So I may keep my promise.

The Future

Calm hearts argue for equality
And equal hearts
Definitely
Lead to man’s survival.
But who will survive man?

Once I argued for equality.
Once I witnessed the underprivileged.
Once, and only once, I went and winced
At the deepest tragedies; whining, waging war
Upon themselves. I winced once at followers
Of faeries and falsehoods.
Twice, this time I thought
I’d rather share nothing at all.

I Am A Poet

Witness me.
I do not explain,
Nor do I document.
I do not deign to write
For the sake of anyone else.
For I am a poet.

I am a poet, not a writer; I write
Without reason, and reason without
The need to make sense. For that
Is why I write: on wry, on red, on wrists with roars
Of rages and ranges of words. Would I, I’d be world-less.
I am a poet: confused.

I am no weaver of the weak, no support of young or meek.
I am no Dr. Seuss, nor Poe, no trippy cat or raven’s foe.
Why should I prove myself to freaks who seek the peak of knowledge?
This heart belongs not in the canon;
Casting me on famine’s throne.

My life is not devoted to creation of a masterpiece.
My skills instead simply instill me with a sense of self
And purpose – though I know I have none.
No one has one – no one will win – there is no win or one.
One win – one real win won – would win us nothing: none.
Don’t you see?

I am a poet: not a writer. I am a thinker, not a guide.
Not a greedy fabricator, I am no Rowling, I am no Meyer.
I am a simple poet; I simply think;
I simply am.

Relativity

Who's to claim their life is honest
When, relatively, we are all?
Black, white, yellow, green.
Point and case. Try and think.
Bee-hives: swarms of death or life?
Apropic storms defending life with strife.
Or is it strife? I believe the thorns
They wield for greater good and bad; yes, and.
Watch your mouth, son. We're all doomed ends
To portray honesty to the dishonest
and dishonesty to the honest.

Sweatitation

Droplets like upside-down matches;
Running marathons all over me.
Blood-warm on my hands and feet,
The taste is of a salty sea
As each opaque wave explodes.
Yet, there is an absence of sulfur;
The smell of dirt is in its place.
Sulfur’s scent never tasted right, anyway.
Sandy Shelle never thought so,
Waiting by the Red Sea,
Droplets dropping dry in the dirt.
Fear is such an unusual fear.
If only we saw the beauty in singing; in living;
But we don’t, and so we are not of the anura.
The lush Poison-Darts of the forest know the way
And if we got close enough to touch one,
We’d learn to stop living ourselves to death.
Shén me wŏ men rèn wei wŏ men chéng wéi.
The droplets will catch up to me eventually.

Poor Little Scooter

Through whistling flapjacks of skin in the wind,
I witnessed the atmosphere's gasses soar through her.
Bewildered I sat, and behind batting lashes burned
A Brave, beastly lady boasting girth of a bear.

Had I been in congress, a new law would be passed.
Riders would no longer ride rides
Which weighed less than they...

Angries and Lonelies

If only the lonely would breathe.
Heaving their loneliness only
And way away it'd fly on lies.
If only the lonely could breathe.

Hanging within him and angering him only
Less grizzly he'd be if his anger were free
If only the angry could grin at the lonely
The lonely might think again lovely
And the angry might instead turn green.

downhill

The wind cheered,
The pavement parted,
The wheels stumbled,
The handles flexed,
But the tree protested.