They can nail

my hands and feet

but never 

my heart and mind

My heart lays at the bottom of the ocean

where you will never find

what keeps it down

a world of black water

at top a thundering sound

The heart and mind are interdependent

without the heart the mind goes insane

without the mind the heart explodes

together they are the soul

And so here I am

affixed with a soul

thinking and beating

on nothing but time

 

YEARS

Wet leaves on the ground
breathe in the air
It takes you way back
---but another year passed

Cold air in the trees
wind to the face
Its not the way I remember
---but it comes every year

Everything dies, falls
into the ground
mends together slowly
---but what of it next year?

Everything comes back
from that ground
it has every year
---but will I be there?

THE MIDDLE

Two young people

in love

—see the man

the way he touches

the woman tenderly

like Magnolia petals

in May

See how they look

at each other

glassy and black

like Atlantic water

in June

But, so long as

one is brought up

low and the other

brought up high

what they have

from the start

is doomed

HELD IN CONTEMPORARY

NOW, there is all

and only one person—

living at the same time

for the first time—

contemporary

in the truest

form

There is no young

there is no old—

there is no man,

woman or child—

no adults—

there is only:

PERSON

Grey hair dyed red,

wrinkles sucked out—

Smartphones, texting

and middle school walk-outs—

Adults stumble and

children rise

to meet them

and become one:

THE PERSON

THE OCEAN

Widespread truth sunk deep

in the dark waters, where

there be no light to show

no air to speak—nothing

but the truth:

Everybody wants to be special

but when drops in the ocean

keep you up at night,

you want to have children

and want them to be special,

and they want to be special—

but it keeps raining

in the ocean.

The ocean. The clouds

absorbing water like a sponge

to be wrung out over

the mountain—the water

rivulets pulled hydraulically

down into brooks to streams

to rivers or to lakes then

the ocean. Life/time,

sucked up, twisted, and dropped—

slid, floated or waded out

into the crowd.

The crowd. The people

are fluid and swirl together,

mingle and linger thoughts—

just at the surface! and only

at the surface

of things

Sink!

Down into

the deep, dark waters

with the weight of world

upon you, but now

you know and only now

you know

what it is

to be you

THEY WANTED SOMEONE

To be like them, born

by custom and raised

in safety, learned by ease

---they were looking

for someone with no

life-lacerations, hidden

scars---someone polished,

sterling, a golden boy

---they were looking

for someone else, a

sports car, dollar-sign smile,

hands stranger to the ground

---they wanted

someone

with no grit

AN UP-SIDE-DOWN CROSS ON A GUITAR

Honesty and kindness come out

in your strained singing—trying

to match emotion with sound

in an articulation fit only

for your chosen style: Punk

Rock. Loud and fast and

hard, yet melodic—chords

banged out from the white

Telecaster—your medium—

with a flat broadside top: opportune

Place for your own message:

the symbol of Good and Love

in distress—a signal of one

whom YEARNS to be accepted

or placed with something GREATER.

It bothers you like hell, deep

from within to say something,—I just can't let it go.

Two pieces of crossing black

tape show your Recognition;—

Not letting it go into the crossing black

shows your Faith.