I believe in heaven
Because I watch people die
Death isn't what they told you
There's no light that fades from their eyes

No last words are spoken
From a heart that is at peace
The silence goes unbroken
No final breath perceived

Yet even in that quiet
As heart and lungs collapse
There is something clearly spoken
A resounding epitaph

The emptiness of body
Makes a claim of something more
What is now a mix of bonded cells
Was not just that before...

There was more to them than a beating heart
More than a chest's rise and fall
And if some part of them still lives
I know it's not stuck inside these walls

A soul has left the room.
A spirit took its flight.
The person that you knew escaped
While the body lost its fight.

So while I can only see a body
I believe there is something beyond
And as the optimist I am
I pray that heaven is where they've gone

I've never written a limerick.
Thinking of it makes me sick.
Better a sonnet
or a woman upon it.
Maybe, I'll just play with my ****.

That five-seven-five is a scam,
Just nature plus seasonal spam.
A frog in a bog—
Wow! A leaf! And some fog!
It’s a tweet with a syllable jam.

Now limericks think they’re so sly,
With their jigs and their wink of the eye.
But their punchlines grow stale,
Like a bar yuck from Yale—
It’s the dad joke of poetry. Why?

Oh Shakespeare, forgive what’s been done—
Fourteen lines on a love that won’t run.
With their iambic moans,
And romanticized groans—
They're just Tinder swipes dressed as the sun.

Repetition’s the name of its game,
But by stanza three, it’s all shame.
You repeat and repeat,
Till your brain hits delete—
Was it clever, or just all the same?

Acrostics spell TRY HARD down the side,
A format no critic can abide.
Each line bends and breaks,
Just for symmetry’s sake—
And the message gets lost in the ride.

Free verse gets a pass, but just barely—
Too often it screams “Look, I’m arty!”
With no rhythm or aim,
Just vibes and a name—
Like a drunk giving TED Talks at parties.

---

There once was a muse unconfined,
Who laughed at each rule tightly lined.
When pure thought took flight,
It outshone every rite—
For raw truth outclasses form every time.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.

She walks in beauty, like the night
     Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
     Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
     Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
     Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
     Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
     How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
     So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
     But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
     A heart whose love is innocent!

pick one out of billions
and stick to it
like spider bait
in the spider web

although you never know
when you’re caught
until it’s too late
and you’re in
too deep

the heart fills
with betrayal
and deception
or worse
the heart fills
with truth
when our beliefs
are based on lies

it’s hard to comprehend
and/or overcome

the ego gets scratched
or the connection
gets snipped

and finally,
a plumage of misconceptions
is what we’re deduced to:

that something is lost
that something has failed

but when the perspective
is turned upside down
and the lens adjusts itself

it reveals that something
is gained and/or returned

and this time
with a fresh start,
a new beginning,
a better outlook

maybe a lesson can be learned?
maybe a mistake can be avoided
by it’s reoccurrence?

maybe?

but listen,
I’m no love guru,
couples therapist,
marriage counselor
or divorce attorney

I can only guarantee that
there is another pair of
sweaty meat sacks
encased in decaying flesh
waiting for you
somewhere out there,
aching to ruin your life
all over again.

Without poetry, we'd all
be chained to fences of time.
locked in,
torn apart,
played with by the
cosmic dance.

Don't get me wrong,
the poems can't
cure cancer, or heal the
lame dog's leg.
But, they might give
the ****** hope, and the
hobos a home.

Poetry tricks the mind
into seeing things,
like woolfhounds with
bagpipes playing an
Irish jig, far away from
the ferryman and his ride
across the river.

Without poetry, about now,
my skull
would be a home for beetles
and worms, turning
ever so slowly into
dust.

i want to peel your skin back
and reveal your deepest sweetness.
to look at your veins
and memorize their paths.
maybe then i’d understand
why you are so rough on the outside.
it takes a lot of work,
digging your fingernails into the flesh,
pulling and pulling until you are bare.
but it is all worth it;
to visit your center,
to break past what conceals you,
and take you apart
slice by slice.