poem #5

Gratitude for an Annhilation

Life, being a dash between old age and death
To see which can first make youth succumb
Raises not my hairs

For she swallows the darkness whole

And mirth comes even on the precipice
A blithe joy bestowed and inherited
I am alive and know it

For she rips away the haze of habit

Petite raptures knit a chrysalis anew
Acyclic incarnations du jour
I am asunder and ascribed

For even in triteness she is dazzling

Multitudes over millennia
Caterwauled of the consequences
Of staring into the sun

For poor fools never realize how blessed blindness can be

poem #4

Out in chill midnight mist
Deep in wood and burdened
This onus, this charge

Guilt glistening forehead
Stink of feverish salt
Breath and heart competing

Lugging, pulling, dragging
Plastic wrapped monolith
The dead weight of uncertainty

Dig until torn palm skin
Neck cranes reigned by paranoia
Untold tensions and exasperated strains

O wasted pains of vain labor
Never ceasing until the dirty deed is done...
But dirty deeds are never done

In the art of intervention
Reason is impotent
Yet denial cannot hide what is naked to the mind:

No matter how deep the plot the dogs will still smell her

poem #3

Empty Calories and Hippocracy

Little epiphanies
Like sugar pills
A casual breakfast in the cathedral

Annulled incursions
Like stale popcorn
A pound of cellulite for every ounce of faith

Judgment from Jurispudence; Jurisprudence from Legos

Pithy prayers
Like soft fudge
A spoonful of awe sprinkled fear

Smug luncheons
Like mildewed milk
A base for culturing antibodies

Double-chins from Dogmatism; Dogmatism from Doubt

Midnight mass
Like tacky fondue
An epicurean Eucharist of immodesty

Saline and sugar sacraments according to the Gospel of Gastronomy
Diabetes and obesity according to the Canons of Karma

poem #2

She sluices herself with shadows
Could’ves and Should’ves
Iterations of opportunity absconded

He lilts in feigned levity
Guile and Wit
Opiates of stolid distraction

Solitary cells reduced by shame
Slideshow projections
On white walls

Tiny fingers and names potential
Birthdays that are just days

She self-flagellates
He self-medicates

She dreams of pogroms,
He has long since stopped dreaming

poem #1

If I slid a blade across
And severed the tip
Of my tongue

If I spoke in tongues
And let the blood drip
Onto canvass

If I slipped into darkness
And left the poem
Open to interpretation

If such a possibility
And discrete satisfaction
Over words

Would speak my heart
I could die happy