this world poetry day
is meaningless,
Maya, Charles, Sylvia, Allen
never even thought of it
it breeds more seed of
ego and monstrosity
deep inside those men
to lift their hands and
push us down the drain
to ensure that
we are stuck in between
honesty and reality,
forever.

it feels like it was yesterday
but a yesterday a long time ago
away, sealed up in a dream
i can only faintly remember parts of it
while the rest is a blur

i can’t escape this strange dream
floating by
not truly feeling anything,
just existing

my heart hurts
a hurt that aches endlessly, eating away

it’s the bell jar
the same sour air i breathe

always had an inkling
an inkling to end the thoughts
end the aching

The fig tree metaphor
Seems to gain much more meaning
The older I get.
I put a cigarette behind my ear today
And when I removed it to smoke
I realized that it was wet with the oil
From my scalp; I smoked it anyway.

Does smoking my ****** fluids
Make me seem a little more
Bukowski than normal?
Bob Dylan, the unwashed phenomenon
Of his day
Held no candle  (in my opinion)
To Phil Ochs
But here we are,
Marching on
Because the Times Are Changing.

Remember me
When the draft comes
And they forget your sunken eyes and sallow skin.
Remember me and how I said
That purple and yellow
Were my favorite colors.

On a cold autumn day, on the edge
of a railroad bridge, fifteen feet high,
a young bulky black kid contemplates
the impact, the end awaiting him

on the surface of a historically
winding boulevard. Below, service
men and women stand wet from rain,
stand huddled, foggy with confusion.

A paramedic, understanding
the surgeon’s warning, stands poised, close by,
blowing curls of smoke from her thin lips.
Had I the nerve, or just the access,

I would climb the slick, grassy hillside
that leads to the old rusted train tracks
and ask the young boy for his thick hands,
ask him what he thinks the moment was

like before L’Wren Scott held the rope
in her hands, the last breath in her lungs?
I’d ask him what he thinks it was like
before Don Cornelius planted

cold metal against his head and pulled
the trigger? Ask him what he thinks was
in the oven before Plath entered the kitchen?

You know, just to be heard one last time.

"Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, adhering to rules, to rules, to rules."

Baptized once again at 31
you were dressed in an apron of glory
purple-inked and gas-filled
a ******* carved inside your head

Withering in the basement at the age of 10
you took the blade as a best friend
a walking miracle, a providence
you were a tempest of silent wails

Ariel has made a banshee out of you
the world is going up in a shriek
but your head never went with it
an epoch later; you're in holy flames

A golden lotus crescendos in the ground
stripped of the chance to see your Ariel grow
the bell jar is inhabited by some
my patriotism has been ablaze

O' American Isis
I grant you now the discretion you desired
you don't have to adhere to rules anymore

*The universe is coming by your side

Sometimes you can't win, you can only hear 'em talk. They might take your haircut and clothes, your jacket, and blame it on you for that. Some they say their ships coming in at this hour or that, but who can tell when they're riding the shadow of a ship or if they're just laying in the river waiting as all their clouds move passed.

She only takes a step if she can collect many stranded eyes. She walks right out of cities and leaves all the husbands cryin'. Her dignity has gone, her past is waiting up ahead. She's a loose cannon posted on the sea, and aimed towards land-locked places paved in red. But who can tell if they're just laying in the river waiting as all their clouds move passed. Her pockets filled with rocks while she draws the water to her breath, it's one of some confusion that most men and women will never half.

Soon the eyes fill up with blood, the pupils turn to silt, the skin turns into leather, no one I know yet has gills. Roof to the river, sun to Adam, this gardens very rude. **** your brother, slay a goat, and make an apple and serpent stew.

If the sounds keep getting louder, and the eight ball won't turn back. Keep your hands out of your pockets, don't walk into a river, go home and have yourself a bubble bath.

Save the cursing for the evening. Make your name something quite unique, this is today's new tomorrow, a pain from each bother, a whole in the ears not supposed to be there, don't wake up, your life is better, as long as your dreams they keep growing, while you keep working to keep yourself fast asleep.

The quarter isn't what it was, the arrow yields no more. And even if you've got 10 fingers, the man wants you to use more. Keep your arms in the ovens. Keep your disease to yourself. When the violence gets here, you'll find it's only you and her, and you both only love yourselves. The poison is growing, the water can't be drank, if you flick your cigarette ****, you might have your own Nagasaki in the middle of your kitchen sink.

So let the rocks do the talking. Let your slave work wait until the fall. It's so unpredictable picking poisons, that's why The Wolves do it in the river or on the kitchen floor.

I should've loved a tree,
Strong, tall and fierce,
Roaring through me,
(But I had to love you.)

The tree and I could make a pact,
To lay together awake,
(But I had to lay with you.)

To love the sky would be a thrill,
Grey, blue, black, yellow, pink, red,
You were like a cloud,
(But I loved the clouds too.)

I tried to love a bottle,
To tip liquid on it till it swam,
Bitter sweet on my tongue,
(But you tasted better.)

Maybe I'll love the sea,
Cool and dark and swirling in mystery,
(And I'll love the waves forever.)