The Day Beauty Forgot Its Name

When the source
Of validation
Is exposed skin
What should we
Expect?

What lies within,
For you,
Is defecation;
Something to be shamed,
Hidden.

Rather reap praise
From body’s melting
Canvas.
Appreciate the flesh,
Disregard what’s left.

So I’ll love your
Mounds and orbs,
Preach religion
To your holy carapace.
Make you a millionaire
In self-esteem
By loving this transparent
Beauty.

I wonder
If one day
You’ll realize
That’s not love at all.

Re-tiling

The floor rips up easily,
Flaking summery skin.

Two disenchanted mallards
Returning to the spot once called “home”.
Rain blurs windows to mosaic,
Slow drip damning in persistence.

Fog wreathes like a coil,
Suffocating the skyline.
Rooftops poke like bubbly hope
Distorted into nightmare.

The floor rips up easily,
Sucking peel of parting skin.

Tarnished oak floor,
A gilded heart
Beats consolation;
Exposure breeds erosion.

Trust is myth birthed to being;
Two parts honesty, eight parts deception.
Retold thereafter
As idealized dreaming.

It is all bare bones
Torn asunder.
Paint over, build upward,
Let time render it forgotten.

The floor rips up easily.

Fuse

Knowing the end
from the beginning–
each second ticking oblivion.

Nearing closer
to scything the heart,
agony building
its infernal time bomb.

Silver lining
won’t douse the fuse—
just make it burn beautiful.

Leagues and hours
speak insidiously,
wreathed in future’s garb.
Solitude’s banner unfurled,
totteringly holding the breeze.

Prophecy’s allure lies
on free will’s intervening cusp.

Divination

Burbling lullaby twitch,
Soul-time incandescence.
Racketeer Elysian’s frugal kisses,
Paradise permanently eclipsed.

Savage frond,
In what prophecy do we believe?
Blindfolded willingly,
Cantankerously trudging into viridian.

Shapeless stalking void,
Hungering Pandora.
Despondency’s limitless fuel
Is concaved stargazing.

Brumous Meditations

Infant Spring warbles off-key,
sky wreathed foggy.
Glide silently—picture reel—
floating weed is parched flooring.

Distance blurs,
horizon’s soggy filter.
Chill embracing bones,
copulating steam-breath.

Overhead, shrill foghorns bleat,
onyx stars circling—
splashing collisions hardly ruffling,
glass momentarily shimmering.

Beats turn cacophonous,
maelstrom discordance.
Vibrating in lobes,
commandeering heartbeat.

Rain patters trepidly,
whispering greatsongs.
Breeze rises in accompaniment—
still life’s aural soulmate.

Citadel's Lamentation

Castles speak of dreams,
fairytales, happy endings.
Crenellated defenses,
awe-invoking majesty.

Every prince snags a princess,
gallops into sunset distance.
Moat is perpetually open,
no grievous love afflictions.

Weathering endurance;
time’s depleting counter,
fuse tickling towards detonation–
void only in idealism,
fraught in temporality.

A fleeting wish:
permanent protection.
Walls crumble within,
moat turns septic,
bugles die in detente.

Naive defenses,
internal mutiny.
Ravenous gallows
devour surrender’s symphony.

Conundrum of Flavors

If love were meant
to be necessary
we wouldn’t barter
in ecstasy.

Panting breaths
pooling sweat
soiling sheets
spoiling purity.

Heat consumes,
logic departs.
Let action speak,
consequence welcomed.
Let reason rest,
weakly protest-
build tension’s dissension.

Of Burdens and Birthrights

Metamorphosis is a lot like it sounds; considerably scarier than the actual process. The humorous part of the whole endeavor is that you aren’t really aware of it until after the fact—merely existing as usual in our continual humdrum huzzah that leaves life all blurs of conditions to be met and satisfied. When we manually remove the obstruction, reveling in the actual moment, it is then we see how change is indeed possible—even in the remotest hearts, or fortified minds. Whether it be a person, object, or event, something or another starts the avalanche rolling, and the subtle nuances disappear and mutate into something altogether different, alien at first, but in actuality, more a simulacrum of our former selves.

The mirror reflects only what you will it. With Dorian Grey weighing on your mind, it is inevitable that decadence brushes the tips of your subconscious, imbuing you with the faults you secretly squirrel away from the world. We are the revolution in thought; constantly turning and churning to compensate for the vast light years of our own thought’s creation. Stopping is the fleeting kiss of death’s lips---we are the Cassady-bound-Tinsmith-searching masses that seek the truth in the constant fluctuation and propelling of desire into the unknown “next” moment. Let us chase the future if we must, if only to soothe the impertinent woes of the present, yet that won’t erase nor soothe the conundrums we devour in underland nonsense. Truth and only truth, the maxim above all else that is the true mitochondria of life; we seek nothing more than the infinitesimal grain of falsity that taints the purity of our Edenistic selves. What option do we have but to intoxicate on the second-rate revelatory truths that will satiate the personal cache of our pockmarked insecurities?

Chase futilely on into the forever setting sun; the paths sprawled out like diseased roots of the life tree….congealing into the horizon, dust-coated--- forever mocking in possibility. Indecision is the root, the tethers of a family life of responsibility and respectability; it is this that turns the body about face---leaving neck to scalding Helios---it is this that makes us move, for we have to move, if not for ourselves, then for the person the world needs of us. How long can the charade be played, façade maintained? For as long as the undying thirst of acceptance and reliance burdens your soul….carry on in the facsimile world, cherish the few honest kernels, perhaps that’s all we were ever meant to deserve...

The Unwhole Whole

Side yearns discontented,
heat signature missing,
numbness settling in,
fingers futilely grasping air–
absence viscerally felt.

Whole unmade,
foundation shakily swaying,
loneliness black hole,
imploding in desire—
touches dealing in rapture.

Brain can’t live
without heart
— beat on—
through agony’s chasm.
Separated through fictitious
miles, minutes,
reunion’s volatility requited.

The Romatic Quest for the Comfortably Numb

Let’s fix problems
by forgetting
burying
masking them—
living in the smokescreen.

One minute of pure agony
can be rapturous:
existence is duality.

Pain faced
— if and only if—
may possibly fade.
Fear confronted,
suffers a similar fate.

We’re the monsters,
fixing the parts we hate.

Maybe
we were never broken
But
resigned to being too late.

Battle of the String

Drawstring gets lost,
lopsided regression.
Seismic fulcrum see-saw,
iceberg visible—
claimed within waistband.

Squeeze fabric,
wringing forceful.
Inches, precious inches
caterpillar progress.
Lone string forlorn,
twin’s tragic empathy—
adjustment turned one-way.

Hopes ride impossible,
success always contingent.
Reconcile the lost, united–-
what defines struggle worthwhile?

Arrives reclaimed,
pulley-string functional.
Coaxing the minuscule,
fighting for mundane;
life’s little things
worth the war...

Sometimes
all we have is
small victories.

Solubility

If it didn’t burn out
I’d be nice—
If it does
It’s life.

What a currency.

Buoyancy knows
It floats—
Cul-de-sac
Sink slow

Maplewood

Screaming like polar bears
on the merry-go-round
air tasted sugary sweet
wonka chocolate factory
Milky finger
caressing on long bus rides
sparkly rings
husband and wife games
we played in big grownup talk
that rattled windows
Willow trees drop their tears
on the ground
in the rainy weather
while blood pools
down your knee
boo-boo kisses
only make lips more
red
Spinning so fast
and faster
sky turns muddy water
sun mixes coloring-book pages
crayons spill outside of lines
love we said
over and over again
love husband love wife
love you love me
the bus ride ends

Anatomy of Communication

When words fail
lips will do
Orating passion
branding truth
Unclothing lies
fleshy absolution
Rhythmic polygraph
erratic conclusion
Get an answer
seek again
Whet contentment
sate again
What question asked
need not be said

Amalgamation

Scattering of foreign toiletries
announces a presence.
A sobering reminder,
she’s taken up residence.

Scent acclimating;
imbuing sheets, painting walls.
Saunter in familiarity,
dominated by a frame so small.

Invaded completely;
irrevocably molded for wear.
Carved out a heart-space,
life waiting to be shared.

Collapse of the Assembly Line

Words flow forth from the well of thought,
Parch and wither upon barren minds.

Eyes meander through joy and sorrow-
Voluntarily blindness is the gateway to freedom.

Wishes define vacancies as real-
Hope is all but a waiting game.

Pretentious pretenders claim the throne,
Masses of rapscallions bare the witness.

Flowery words mask the worst of smells-
Bouquets deceive only a few senses.

Forgotten visionaries in pubs with jokers,
Toasting change and drinking powerlessness.

Reality pleads to be retaken-
Illusion topples all resistance.

Clocks stop, taking progress with them-
Stasis wavers over desolation.

Question marks pile sky high-
Air becomes thick with growing dissension.

Answers cry alongside solutions,
An unbearable burden of being invisible

Words rage relentless from invisible prisons,
Germinate and flourish in the waning fertility.

A Fly In The Wind

Easy, breeze. We got time.
The fight never ends,
our struggle just begins.

Give us a sec,
catch a breath,
as we brace for it.

Okay, Go.
Bye, bye, sweet control.

Decade Strong

Simple as exchanging names,
blustery indecision dare not tread.
Adolescent minds in need of affirmation,
kindness a currency, thus far well spent.

Brotherhood forged on manhood’s horizon,
squawking voices, stick arms–
amorous hearts, experimental wants.
Trials in youth’s volatility,
scarred for betterment,
experience scathingly wrought—
fraternity rightly earned.

Distance may blur memories;
muscles bulge and shrink,
stomachs protrude and suck—
battle-worn camaraderie never dies.

Know that time may change faces,
sunlight will race across and dip again–
life shall pummel in its righteous gauntlet.

A brother earned, family forged;
let the road meander true,
we remain, as always,
bound in the dust-worn journey.

Native Partition

Paumanok in my heart,
York in my soul;
chant the ethos,
that renders me whole.

Devouring metropolis,
rejuvenating burbs;
cleaved amidst urbanity,
progress haltingly heard.

Isolated in the hive,
emboldened in verdure;
quell duality’s quarrel,
binary mind be nurtured.

Inferno's Quell

When the flame sputters its dying glory
smoke curls into the heavens.
How could a spark reignite,
set ablaze a desecrated wick–
some flames deserve smothering.

The old burn is a new trick,
peel back the scab, scar the scar.
If only the wax truly melted,
taking the puddle with it–
burn to consume, burn parasitic.