People don't change
Their masks do

When I was one-and-twenty
    I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
    But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
    But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
    No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
    I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the *****
    Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
    And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
    And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild
It has devoured the little child.
The little child is unaware
It has been eaten by the bear.

Stars, I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
And still the sea is salt.

This hurts a lot
A clot
In the life of one
It's brought
Not caught
And seen
Not
In the expression of face
But gives a loss
For words

And we all have meaning
At least we assume it to
But what would happen
If that were proven untrue?

Today I spotted
a disfigured man
by the lake.
His right hand
in a soiled
bandage loosely tied.
Left eye missing -
I dared not
uproot his repose.
I feared for
him so frail,
Beside black water.

Today I spotted
a disfigured man
aboard a train.
Earphone hung from
melted plastic ear,
does he listen?
He smells foul
and looks unblinking -
a commuting ghoul.
What station can
such a man
find his home?

Today I spotted
a disfigured man
at dinner alone.
His teeth rotten
with gums bleeding -
drinking soup slowly.
Waxy red blood
staining cheap napkins
He doesn't care.
An omnipresent reminder
that no man
survived a week.

Unafraid
You peel out of your skin
Bare your soul to me
And I cry tears of love
for nothing is more sacred
or more beautiful