I’m what they call
rapid cycling
what this means is I can shift and change and transcend from
one state of being state of doing state of elation state of denial state of creation
to the next and the next and the next and the next
while you’re still stuck on
satisfaction
I can burn my candle at both
ride my horse into the
leap buildings in a single
hold my feet to the
build palaces with my bare
wrap you around my
rip away your clothes and make
be everything I you they ask
do everything I you they ask
look at you jump into you hold onto you
and fall in love in love in love in love
before you even really wonder-ask-know who I

am.

and

what I am

is

a bomb

imploding

in

predictable

intervals

leaving me

dead

to

your

touch.

I turn

chronic

....melancholic

.........catatonic

..............catastrophic

and the

only

movement

I

make

other than

to lift

my heavy hands

to shield

my eyes

from the

memory

of your

overwhelming

light

is to

succumb

to the desire

to have

no desire.

(another pill)

the monotone voice
that I vaguely recognize
as sanity
speaks slowly now,
with sadness,
knowing,
when I come back around,

you’ll be long gone.

Churchill made his dashing

Chaplin made his funny

Lincoln made his historic

and rather gently human.

Washington made his patriotic

and Roy Rogers made his tough

yet gentle.

The Lone Ranger made his stand for goodness

while my papa chose his black,

and was in the end just as good,

though slightly less wholesome.

Then there is old Saint Nick

and how could I forget Captain McFadden?

Never I say! Never!

hats, hats, hats

the topper to a head

the identifier of a soul

the essence of a man who has

an ugly head

and chooses to cover it

with glory!

i love the curve
of a woman’s belly –
that gentle roundness
arcing just below her
belly-button and ending
just above her mons veneris.

There is something
very intriguing about
that curve - something
secretive, something
wondrous - it
peeks impishly out
and teases;
it is as if she is
trying to conceal
an astounding revelation
that is too overwhelming,
too magnificent, to be
completely concealed –

like, perhaps,
that in her,
in that gentle curve
of her belly,
she holds the orb
of the world,
the whole world,
the whole of
humankind,
the whole of
humanity.

Thank you

Denie
bzmom
Jason
Art
pkd
Harold

Adulthood unexpectedly
brings me half a mile from the backyard
where my childhood intersected
with August dusk,
where I was content to run in circles,
arms outstretched,
chasing fireflies.

In the decade and some odd years since those evenings,
life has raised her mask and
revealed her face to be
the unexpected,
where even her smile
might be interpreted
as cold or callous.

I slowed a bit as she watched me
always following something,
with fireflies becoming boys and
even breath;
these things I fought for
so different from the simplicity I sought
those summer nights,
in such contrast
with the yellow lights
that guided my young assent.

Occasionally, then, I would catch them,
and cradle them gently in my hands,
but I would never have the heart to seal their fate
inside a mason jar.

Oh, how things have changed.

(((Harold)))

There is really no other place
to taste the sweet and sour of America,
to peel her layers back to reveal
the stunning and the ugly
and the middle point
where both beautifully blur.
Downtown sunrise, a blank page
waiting to be scribbled upon
or pressed hard against,
bleeding onto mornings after.
Smells of coffee and tar
mingle to the beeping
of machines operating in reverse.
The sidewalk
is full of cellular chatter
of phantoms unseen
who never utter a word in response.
Tall buildings confident
in their newness, never a downward glance
to the sagging two-story structures below.
Life here is perfect in its contrast,
as if the scene and its occupants
were randomly selected
for a blind experiment
on the psychology of city psychosis
or the sociology of metropolitan mania
that results in statistical significance
where deviation
is standard.

Thank you, all my wonderful people

JT
Harold
Angel
pkd
Noden
Mom

(((JT)))

Who are my people?

They are subtle whisperers

who do not ask for direction

but lead with knowledge gained

by endless painful lessons.



They are the dirty faces

that have gotten in the mud

beside others who labor,

gaining much from the gift of work.



They are the hand that never wavers

but offers gentle guidance

even for those not clean

or pleasantly perfumed.



They are the glad heart that opens

each day with a song

even as the rainstorm comes

to wash their feet in dirty water.



They are the heart that blossoms

for each new moment appearing

for they somehow are hearing

the beauty in cursed hearts forgotten.



They are the tears that linger

when truth enters an eye

and sets to rights the inner soul

of a forgotten humanity

long given up on

but never forgotten.



My people, my people

you are my hearts firm family.

Thank you

Iam
Roco (it's nice to see someone's thought process)
Bill
Harold

Some seconds ripple
the quiet surface of an hour.
Power sags and language

leaves. A shirt snags on
a nail, the shock and flail
at the sudden pull, caught,

incomprehensible at first.
The pit is blended with the grass
in the path across the yard,

A step, kneel quick and clutch
an aching ankle. One hand
holds the lemon, the other

the sharpest knife slicing
easy suns. A slip and red
reaches fingertip before the

brain describes the blood.
Lips anticipate the tumbler,
the throat waits. But on the

way the glass becomes
unreachable. For two seconds
fingers hold a ghost moving

toward the mouth, even as
sharp splinters scatter over
tile. A basket full of

clothes is carried down
the stairs. The foot miscounts
and fumbles for the missing

bottom step. The brain wrecks,
muscles clench, waiting for the
fall that doesn’t come.

As hours peak and break we’re
tossed by tiny catastrophes. The
nerve burns, the psyche rattles

faster than the eye sees. What
are these but small reminders? Holes
in the day’s relenting story?

Thank you

Mirror
Mom
Harold
Txs

Where do writers go
When doors are no longer receiving
Where do a heart aches
When tears are not falling
I keep falling
Yet I refuse to remain on floor
So I stand beyond the falls
Just being a woman who wipes her tears
That keeps standing with a brave smile
So if you think you snatched away my words
Within a voice of a soul I keep reciting
The world would not call me a poet
Still the poetry in me carries on

We’ve all known a man, or a woman,
that the only thing that springs
from the diving board of their tongue,

is a whine, a complaint, a curse,
a double somersault negative
with a back stabbing twist.

Immediately, you want to grab the words,
like splashed globules of
mangled, water-puzzle-pieces,

and put them back behind their lips.
But, the ears have already been soaked
with a two point two end of dive belly flop.

Agreed!

I know I personally won't answer IMs from people I've never emailed with before.

I wear a mask
I act tough (it’s a good defense)
’Cuz I don’t want to get hurt.
If only somebody would see through my mask,
Then they will see that I’m not so tough
Or cruel or cold-hearted.
I need friends
But real friends I have few.
My life is just a façade.
I am a hypocrite
I hide behind my mask,
Behind my defense of being tough
Just because I am a coward.
I am afraid to let you know I’m afraid
- of Life, people, reality –
Of everything.