The Oak

She rolls her eyes at me
I can tell that she is annoyed.
She is peevish on beer filled nights
Emboldened by the adoring friends
Surrounding her.

 

The place is dank with ill will
The malcontent owner fights
More than he works
And the floor is covered with
Sweet stickiness
It never goes away
The humidity of the sweat filled air
Congeals it to the linoleum.

But she loves places like this
Seedy bars with questionable characters
And men she can toy with and swat
Away like the fruit flies
That hover over the peanut jars.

 

But tonight I mistakenly
Hijacked her attention
And misspoke.
Her sharp retribution
Was a sarcastic rebuke
Intended to embarrass and shame

 

 

And my simple quietness
In reply angered her

 

She thinks I am too sensitive.
I sit, sipping from my glass
Smudged with fingerprints
That aren’t mine
I ignore most of them
And pity the worst
Listening to them drone on
In a stupor

About the life they’ve lived
The grief they don’t deserve
And the regrets they don’t have

 

She eviscerates them
And they turn to their drinks with verve
To salt the wounds.

 

With her irritation
Aimed at me
She blunts the edges of her wit
We are friends,
After all.
My silence is clemency
And we toast with fireball.

Ignition

It burned at first

pain, unfathomable

could almost feel

my skin melting

dripping away from the bone.

I watched helplessly

as my dreams turned to

blackened ash

wisping at my feet.

And it blew away

in the slightest breeze

like it’d been nothing at all.

 

Now,

I can’t get warm

without the blue licks

of flame that engulf my soul

you burnt me alive

in a white hot inferno

 

dust to dust.

And

from whence I came

I shall ever remain

 

Speak Politely

Your fear is predictable and boring.
Your hate is lackluster and uninspiring.
Your antipathy and banal critique are unavailing.
You can’t see resolution buried underneath your layers of barren dirt.
Elevate yourself.
or stand aside and let others.

People have cracked crowns to feel life’s worth.

What makes you any different?

Not Yours to Keep

I love the weird and off kilter…that goes for material things and people.

I’m immediately drawn in to random unexpectedness. Every time I encounter it I feel like i’m in the presence of something truly authentic and remarkable.

More often then not those things i admire and try to surround myself with, are the subjects of pain, inflicted by so many wrong things that are a part of societies suffocating quilt. Its amazing what pressure and pain can do…what it can create— only if it doesn’t destroy.

Beautiful things don’t break
They shatter

Like a mirror
once whole,
Now defines life
In a myriad
Of complex shards

Pick up the
Sharp edges
And slice
Your tender skin

Only if you grab and grasp too
Tightly

With consideration
Scoop them up

Not using the direct rudeness
Of fingertips and force

But the gentle sweep and brush
Of the palm

Because

Beautiful things can hurt
They can wound and
Bleed you
If you don’t notice
Their magnificence hides
Razor blades

But only the fools
Are fooled

And only Beautiful things are
Truly wild

Untamed by natures definition
Driven by the true nature

Revealing

The wildness of being
Is to live and love
With deliberate abandon

Only, Beautiful things
Aren’t beautiful at all
But true manifestations
Of the soul

Scarred and bent
With missing limbs
And indentations
Where the social constructs
Pinch too tight

You cannot keep a beautiful thing
Its ephemeral
And eternal
But never yours

Hearts and Bees

I want to tear you open
Make you bleed your truths
Let your stories run, coursing
Out your shredded veins

Finger the ligaments
Testing their strength
And understanding their resolve
Feel your passion through
The beating of your heart

Like a baseline… like
A motion,
a repetitive motion

Maybe the way your eyebrows
Twitch when you concentrate
Speaking of your heart
I want to lay with you

Head on your chest with
Legs intertwined
Just our skin touching, but
Our souls meeting
My fingertips tickling

Every inch of you
My lips doing the same
Caress the parts of you
That are bruised and broken until
They are just shadows of scars

Be still with you, listen
To the sound of your breath
In and out
To hear your thoughts and
Bleed your pain

To understand the depth of what you are
How each part of your puzzle
Came to be there and what
Pieces remain
How can I place them?
Would you let me?

Peel back your translucent
Layers
Seek out the bullet wound
With you
Because I understand

Her bullet was only the catalyst
Lodged in an already fragile
Mound, of muscle and bone
The decay around it isn’t permanent

You can regrow, rebuild
Stitch up the painful incision
Cauterize the wound.
Emerge from the ash
Whole and healed.

Making Coffee

I reject most acclaim,
it doubles as a masked criticism

and what is criticism?

It’s the person that filters through you
soaking in the grounds
absorbing the flavor
savoring the bitterness
dulling the acidity

until

they come out the other side
changed and mutated
into something else
entirely

an opinion
cloaked in your ideas
but not so much
a reflection of you
as a reflection of

them

Shrouded in Yellow

I use random infusions of song lyrics in my daily life. So why not use them to explain the WHY of this blog.

But first, its not for you. Because I’m not for you. I’m not to be tasted, or tried. It’s not really FOR me because I didn’t choose the writers life.

It just is.

It started with…

“The urge to run, the restlessness, the heart of stone I sometimes get, the things I’ve done for foolish pride, the me that’s never satisfied, the face that’s in the mirror when I don’t like what I see…” –Tim Mcgraw, “Cowboy in Me”

I guess that’s just the writer in me

The Disappearing Act Inside me Act III

Act III is barely lit

It paces tirelessly in its cage
waiting for its spotlight moment on stage
to be teased, coaxed and then appeased
into action which leaves its hungry masses pleased

With gleaming eyes, and giant claws
it anticipates every action, each pause
batting all taunts with slow sure paws
awaiting the reveal of insecure flaws

At center stage it delights
in notoriety and attention
during the ceaseless battle
against the most famed affliction

It’s hungry to exploit, to tear into
any glint any hint, any spark of hesitation

It preys on the weak, and chips away at the bold
daring the sheep-lings to wander from the fold

“A lion tamer”- some may whisper.
But the whip holder is merely
second tier
upstaged by the roaring fearsome beast
known as fear

For Bowie

Face Full of Stars

Stripes of blue or red
glittery drops
spikes that extend the length of a stage
fiery orange

The glorious noise
you emit
is so strange
yet familiar
like the sound of
the home you never had

the pull of your unfamiliarity
sparked madness every way

You blinked and the world
rotated your way
not knowing that you
exuded through your very pores
the essence of self

we could be you
by being you
but you wanted more
than earthly bounds
and repetitive creation

and you reached it
each time
with thin white hands
shaky but unconcerned.
You fell like only a star can

and made a crater so big
the worlds ego dropped in

But I heard you
in your silence
and it inspired
me to explode