The faded white book
stands so tall above us as we rest beneath it
that it’s shadow spreads across the ground
while it hides the sun.

We sit crisscrossapplesauce
on the grass
while the Autumn insects
crawl and climb among the blades.
Yeats’ and Dickinson’s words float gently
into the tree branches above.

Poetry is something I will never understand
and something that is just as scary
as the razorblades
and the pills and drugs
that fade in my past.

But poetry is also something
that I find my joy in.

I’ll be more than happy to confide in it.

Zeus is ****** tonight.

Maybe he was having conflict with Hera. Maybe Apollo or Athena or Artemis accidentally attempted to rain art or astuteness or animals down upon Earth, respectively.

Maybe he drank too much wine.

Whatever the reason is, it's quite a light show.

There are no stars, only the
chemiluminescence
on my shirt and my shorts
that were poured upon me by
intoxicated partiers who thought it would be entertaining
to shower the combination of peroxide and phenyl oxalate ester
upon the party guests.

A map of the universe
is splattered across my hands.

It's as if Zeus
threw away the sky,
in an inebriated gesture,
and it landed around me.

Cronus should have swallowed the father of gods and of men whole.

After-rain sidewalks
soaked our weary feet
and the glistening of the Fall storm
fell softly from your eyelashes.

Your eyes were changing colors
from green to hazel.
Your floral dress complimented them well.

You know I didn't have a choice
to peek between my fingers
while you quietly hid behind the trees.
The trees that moved in rhythm with each other,
welcoming us to simply follow the

1 and
2 and
3 -

We loved in arboreal.
Our rings were numbered high above
any evergreen that scraped the infinities.

If only death could wait for us.

I was born amongst
neon lights and
bristling palm trees
on the scorching, receding beach line.

I am my mother's only one.

Several years spent
in garages rented out
by owners who felt sympathy
for my mother and father.

Many miles roaming,
sleeping in the backseat of cars
against my father's body -
all 125 pounds of him.

I am my father's newfound drug.

My mother and father
would take me back
to the receding beach line
while my mother weeps softly
and my dad smokes his last cigarette.

I am a life worth reverence.

I remember it well.
That naive kind of love
shared through anonymity
when, in fact, I knew it was you all along.

Things haven't changed very much from then,
have they?
We still write
but with a more
colorful
vocabulary.

And with this
I vicariously replace my virtues
with violent vibes and
vaudeville-esque veneers.

I try to become more mature than I was back then
with these words
that fill these notebooks
that ooze
adventure and joy and sorrow and hatred and lust and violence and praise and thanksgiving and trust and disbelief and doubt and
hope
and pain.

My truthbox is full of letters to myself.
Letters that wouldn't fit in an envelope
to send to you.

So I let you read them on that schoolyard bench
under the lamppost.

Did you pay attention to detail?

A poem inspired
by the awe and majesty of the pouring rain
falling upon the cathedrals and the vagrants
that say their Hail Mary's and Our Father's
on the front steps.

A poem inspired
by the love of a woman who
accepts the faults
and ignores the mistakes and regrets
that haunt many dreams.

A poem inspired
by the friends and the acquaintances
who hold up the hands of the weak
and give them a new sense of hope
and a new sense of buoyancy.

A poem inspired
by the soft melodies
floating softly over the plucking of strings
and the pounding of keys
ricocheting off the walls.

A poem inspired
by the enlightenment of the mind
that only comes once in a while,
but when it does come,
time stops and everything is perfect.