Tag Archives: life

Angelarium

Where death is natural,
the infection settles,
overwhelming the end,
echoing in the veins,
                  “again,
                                again.”
It spreads, revitalizing
to keep peace at bay, another day.

The mystery beyond the threshold,
pungent like a punchline.
Known, expected, overpowering;
withheld painfully.
Ignorance as sharp as a sword,
the vendetta cutting on all sides.

Life is meant to be overcome,
not given.
not taken lightly.
Fought against,
              bested,
                          subdued.
In death;
to beg for its persistence: blasphemy.
Lance the errant tongues.

A Lament

I regret the tragedies that broke me,
the quiet moments after, parsing thoughts,
finding solace when I should have suffered,
and, at last, forgetting the lesson learned.

I regret mysteries I did not see,
those theaters of war where I should have fought,
the responsibilities I deferred,
and not recognizing what I had earned.

I regret not letting my anger be,
becoming the anxiety it sought,
not heeding the advice that was conferred,
and ignoring the peace that I so yearned.

I regret thinking time was like the sea,
capricious waves in which we were all caught,
a purity otherwise unperturbed,
and not an ocean, overfished and spurned.

The Return

We try so hard to find the words
to remember the fading dream,
catch falling water with our hands;
to capture the best memories.

There is no jar that can hold them,
but go on and puncture the lid.
No box so large as to entomb,
but go on and wrap what you can.

Their fragile nature makes them great
while also the cause for heartbreak;
for the truth that they make us feel
cannot reconcile what is real.

Though we are obliged to live lies,
and the moments we truly lived
will fade into obscurity;
take solace in what gifts they give.

It is in those spaces we find
the time to appreciate love
and enjoy one another’s truths
that have eluded us since youth.

Unfettered by any demands
we become what we’re meant to be,
but like sifting desert sands;
that power is far too costly.

Still, I want all those memories;
the haunting phantasm of those dreams,
the moist lips of a desperate drink;
let photographers fill in those blanks.

Tomorrow

waits for no one – it but exists
          and that is enough.

           I accept the challenge
though it grows everyday.





I raise the sails each morning
      towards that great whale
                  not to hunt it down in vengeance
but to explore its yawning wake
                until at last it turns on me
            and speaks solemnly, “no more”
      having grown too great a future
                      for my sails to endure.

Grow Gray With Me

The fog that hides the day as night retires,
shades of sunlight grasping for purchase
struggling in undulating swirls,
hoping to find in ambiguity, some purpose.

The rising darkness from the depths of fire
billowing into the night to throttle the stars,
like open mouths cradling soundless screams
or the profound words of a dead man’s memoirs.

The way a tree feels when bound to expire,
stripped of all its lush extravagance
the machinations of a world that brought it life,
now turned to break it beneath those same elements.

The slow pyrotechnics of stagnant air’s attire
sustained in sanguine starlight while time drifts away,
held like the pot won in a game of marbles,
careful hands celebrating their display.

The decisions we unearth in quagmire
seeking more an end than a right or wrong,
transfixed by distant familiarity
the difference lost in the chorus of the song.

The way our histories resurface as satire
courage marred by fear, the bold now timid and pale
those truths that hide in the present revealed
once pitted against the rest and placed on a scale.

The thoughts that in twilight give cause to perspire
when the permanence of absence is paramount,
trickling through the cracks in our confidence
though it is only ourselves we need to surmount.

Sentry

His mind was
    patch worked duct tape
on the seams of a yellowing couch
  something that burrowed into the background
    a body discolored like an old formica table
that would topple
                    beneath even the slightest weight
                                              too often.

Discolored and unsettled
          nearly balanced on a piece of cardboard
                that must always be adjusted.
    Each bruise is a decade of smoke hazed biker bars
  lucid stupors of apologies or irritability
stuck to the bottom of this ancient surface.
                            Bright pinks and deep blues
                                now dirty and faded;
                      resigned
                  collecting what remains of life
  as dust in falling will grasp at the light
              spark like fire
                      shine like diamonds
        burn like youth.

Stagehand

Found
on the ground, a rhythm in the dirt
like a cackling brook beneath the surface
the sound is nervous
confounding any sense of purpose.
Look around
[you];
while you are free most are bound
a town full of brown slacks
round spectacles
all shapes are there on stage,
but the spotlight is on the testicles
because there lies rationality
or so says the old spectacle;
a fashion of resounding sterility.
Anonymity the greatest renown
or so says the celebrity.
So what if it costs our identity?
foster instead gratitude
over an exhausting attitude,
those, “what-ifs” reeling always around the head.
That fish you wish you’d caught?
You’ve already fought before and tossed back.
It wasn’t about what it had
but what you lacked.
Now, you’re on the other side,
more mad than glad that bridge was crossed
yet always
still
lost.