Slow Burn

Warmed by the concrete as it tries to shine like the sun. The tepid breeze indicates my time on this slab is slipping away quickly.

I handle the heat like a I handle conversations with a crush, with fret and eventual incoherence. My red cheeks so piqued they long to melt.

The quiet scream of bugs create a zen that thwarts my sweating discomfort.

I close my eyes and enter the orange world of midsummer. Recollecting the flowers before they became earth again.

Alas my scorching posterior and the drip of my hydrations undoing drives me inside.

As my visages crimson hue returns to flesh again, I guzzle a glass of the most satisfying water nature has ever created.

January 25, 2018 0

You Are There

That dream has returned.

The one in which the world is constructed in perilous angles

And the clouds viscously ooze through the sky.

Azure lightning returns the sky in microscopic moments,

Like the small shreds of hope you find in your darkest moments

And you are there, but only in those azure moments

January 24, 2018 0

Royalty

Own the throne you sit upon

Polish bright your crown

Spite the tongues that lash at you

By never looking down

Prize the eyes that you possess

For seeing the horizon

Enveloped in your regal robes

You’ve found your place to rise in

Fight with might the battles

Only of your choosing

The victorious in petty wars

Don’t know just what their losing

So hold your golden scepter

With wisdom before pride

For its opulence is bested

By the light you hold inside

January 23, 2018 0

Still Untitled

I find myself again

At this foggy window pane

Staring at a life

That has never born my name

Yet how do I untangle

The tethers I created

The ones that weigh upon me so

And rarely keep me sated

The strength perhaps will come

To cut away these bindings

And leave me free to float

And analyze my findings

But in me there’s a core

A life that I was given

But every step I take

Sees that away from it I’m driven

So there my life still lies

Somewhere beyond the pale

A place I’ve never been

Is where begins my tale

January 22, 2018 0

Sentimental Sunday: In Fading Light

In fading light we rambled
Hypnotized by the stars
Washed clean by blue horizons
Unable to see scars

Just silhouettes in motion
Swaddled by the dark
The moon was just then rising
The world no longer stark

The dwindling warmth of daytime
Still comforted our feet
But the night air with its coolness
Made the journey long and sweet

We could see forever
In the multitude of night
We knew life was a struggle
But we decided not to fight

January 21, 2018 0

That Glorious Strand

That dark strand, that glorious strand that stuck wet to his forehead, underlined by eyebrows and almondine eyes. Brown like earth or the dark wood from an ancient tree all leading to the cave of his pupils. There was safety there, or danger. How could I know and why should I care when his regal nose fit so perfectly on his face.

The bow on his lips collected his natural dew. I watched it pool then drip as if to spare his tender lips. As if even the drops of his running sweat felt unworthy to touch them.

When he smiled, his whole face did and everything within me that could flutter, gurgle, bubble, or twist did, and all at the same time.

I handed him his ball back knowing my face was a flushed as his with only this wave of emotion to blame. With a nod he was gone and it was then that I finally exhaled.

January 20, 2018 0

Counting

The tension of moments

Crawling toward a purpose

How our hearts pound

And redden our surface

But deeper inside

It’s more like combustion

A slow kind of smolder

A helpless reduction

Consumed by the coming

Whether it’s good or not

Inside, just the same

Your tying in knots

Until just the minute

It all comes to pass

It seems insurmountable

Impossibly vast

Then passes the moment

And finally it’s done

Time to find out

Just what you’ve become

January 19, 2018 0

Problems

Today I can feel gravity

as if it just has started

A day I must be mindful of

My words and looks imparted

I do not wish to smile at all

so I may have to fake it

and though it goes against my grain

sometimes I have to take it

It’s not the worst day that I’ve had

but quite far from the best

I’m short on patience, rest, and time

and in no mood for jest

But the hours are not over yet

and perhaps since time remains

I’ll find the gusto to push on

and unsnarl this vicious skein

January 18, 2018 0

The Realities We Try Not to Think About

Today was the first time I pictured a funeral.

The hearing of poems and songs I secretly socked away next to my hope.

The ones I always denied would have any meaning to me, not really.

I can hear them blaring through the cheap speakers, crackling at crucial moments in the verses. This would be my coping mechanism, my release from sadness parsed out in tons upon me. The net on my eyes that could catch my tears before they fell.

The pops, the hisses like pressure valves, the distortion my ohm.

The barrier that could hoard my grief away from those who are trying with all their might to share it but never could, not really.

January 17, 2018 0

MPS=S**t

It has a name but lets use shit

Cause i’m so tired of saying it

Everyday shits on my mind

A peaceful moment I cannot find

My world is shit, I have no choice

I speak for those without a voice

My sons know shit much more than I

Cause someday shit is how they’ll die

They’re only 10 and barely so

But someday soon with shit they’ll go

But until then shits everywhere

How they hold themselves and all that hair

I’ve lost count of surgeries

To treat symptoms, not the disease

There is no cure for shit just yet

A fact each day I can’t forget

They do not know or just don’t care

I love their faces my smiles live there

But someday soon shit will win

And make a world I can’t live in

‘Til further notice I’ll fight with it

So say it with me, Fuck you shit!

Learn more about MPS (the disease my kids have) at www.mpssociety.org