Jerky tongue
crusted lips
daylight scorched and deep
ridge of the brow splits
cracks
brain leaks slow
sickly air
coarse skull
something rots in me
puke
i have to puke
i hate her
brown gold hair
i hate the speck of will
that veers from clot

I always carry a question, with me inside,
What is my purpose, why am I still alive,
I know there is a reason, that’s why I always try.

I was the youngest in my family, of five,
My parents, two siblings, and the lady I married,
Their souls moved on, when they died,
One thing I have learned, how to wipe tears from my eyes.

I personally don’t know anyone,
Living in the situation, I’m in,
Everyone, may not always agree, they still have family,
That they can call kin, I would have a hard time,
Explaining, the emotions & feelings, I carry within.

No one to make plans with, in any way,
Only thoughts in my mind, if I have a good or bad day,
I do know one thing, I am next in line,
To be placed, in a grave.
The End

                               The Original: Tom Maxwell © 5/05/2025 AD

My body is broken
But doesn't really matter
How badly beat up I get
My soul still wants
To pick a fight

I guess us fighters
Are just made like that
We never really know
When and how to quit
We're too **** tough
For our own good

We just want that fire
So we keep pushing
On and forward
Forward and on

I cut the wheel out in gravel,
I shaped a navel for the tadpoles.
Firmly, but gentle;
I dug out the furrows,
I made lush the fields,
I caused the showers.
And in that safe place, I deposited them.
So that they might grow.
But now they're adults!

Will they burn out all life
In their self-contained terrarium?
That is of their own making,
Their own doing.

For how high they have climbed up
Yet, how little they have grown!
Like Babel, like beanstalk,
Like Galileo's experiment at Pisa!

All things that go up must come down,
Right?

on a stage, guitars strumming a tune that
can only be hummed, for it has no verses
the songwriters, their tongues entwined,
joined as one, they can speak no words

but the crowd roars its favor,, sheds its de light, stomping and whooping it up, making
all the necessary noises, of two tongues, yes’m, entwining

kinda like a kissing, a little of hissing too,,
got its own rhythm, even the noises rhyming,
a rock n roll ballad with country western
mixed in, some say it sounds like Joan Baez
singing **** Jagger, or an Avett Brothers
serenade

words need tongues for formaytion,
tongues needed to speak, but absent
a common language,tongues do what
tongues do best,
intertwining, combining, licking,
making love noises that requires
two to be
heard
fulfilling
taste of two
blending
and we
though
silent
pronounce
ourselves
as one,
the loveliest
unspoken
vocabulary

on the edge
of this ravine, I’ve stood
so long that the grass has grown
between my toes, moss hanging off
my fingers in tendrils,
wildflowers in my hair,
but today it is time to move.

the darkness yawns wide, though
it wasn’t always this way.
once, it was a child—
like all grown-ups once were.
once, it was just a crack in the dirt,
the product of a thousand tiny
earthquakes.

when i was a child, running
free as the wind,
i stumbled to a stop at its cusp.

i became afraid like a
fawn turns to a deer with
wide, wide, wide eyes
darting around as the fish
in a crystal sea.
i spent all my years, frozen
there until the chasm grew and so
did i.

but today, i take the leap.

i shake off the dust and replace
it with steel, steel drum for a heart with
a beat for every step,
one foot in front of the other picking
up speed, until suddenly i am
f l y i n g.

fear?
in another life, perhaps.

You dim the light of others,
just so you can shine.

Does it make you feel good smirking
when you hear them cry?

You take our kindness for granted
and we’d help you every time.

One day you might fall over
as we won’t be your shoulder to cry on this time.