War in Color
Faces less human and more pliable than rubber boots.
Pictures sharper than the shrapnel claiming them
explode mines in my mind, eating out my eyes:
Juicy-red-tomato-glare shining in the sun
is only dimmed by the count of graves, and we won?
Grief! Grief! 10,000 stronger than gravity pulling my heart
from my lungs.
Wailing could not release me from this grief’s grasp.
Fingers loosen as time fades the film away
eroding the endings of my retinas.
War in Color: stone, dead, color.
Dreams Unattainable
As I drag trashcans to the street, I see a star
My breath forms ice; my short sleeves shiver,
The grass’ shadows hide my toes
I have not mowed.
I will never see my star up there up close.
And never withhold food for forty one days.
I never will be pure energies so to not even care about my necessities.
My star twinkles and vanishes for a millisecond
I cry a tear for what cannot ever be held even as a dream.
It is a plane. It obeys gravity like me and will fall to the Earth.
Intrinsic
Staring at the phone’s unlit unlight of unuse:
a choice between the girl I have fallen for
and the fallen world into which I have fallen.
Scared to death I will die in .016 minutes:
ruddy entering my blue carpet’s world,
foreign as a meteorite shower splashing the sea.
Running through the house with all flopping uncaringly:
dropping laundry, soiled underwear falls;
exposed by my cloth; weak and doubtful.
I itch, scratch my hurried hairy head:
deciding I have not decided but accepted,
exhaling, reclining in my chilled leather chair.
My screen is wider than its fourteen inch glass:
but grant no insult immunity, words like liquid nitrogen at 20 K,
I’m OK though, broadcasting beyond me.
Letters Never Sent
I write letters that are never sent
Buy candy never passed out
Heap good intentions onto this my grimy plate and
Collapse under the stress of nothing happening.
It’s breaking me down to my molecules
Maybe it will recreate me, and I’ll be determined
After all this procrastination and wondering
Around like a half deaf, half dead hermit.
Schindler
I am Schindler? counting minutes–not possessions–
Those wouldn’t have been last words if I had spoken up.
Needing to be "recalled to life" to recall others.
Forgetting my life before I met Life:
Raised on white, forgetting the whole wheat, the barley of the Book.
Tearing off crust . . . leaving crumbs for friends.
so accustomed to safety nets, I do not practice and fall.
The crowd leaves for the side show.
More faith in my used car than my God: praying the fumes to combust till the next town.
No greater love has a man than to lay down his life for his friends?
But no Madame Guillotine, no red caps at my door ?
so I must sacrifice time and lay down my life in life, not in death.
I am the Arsonist
I oscillate to poet to designer to friend to son to lover
like wax around a candle wick twirling.
All persons projected out; never justice,
but who is the town-crier to yell to?
Me a pyromaniac throwing words around
as if sticks and stones never hurting.
I light the fire. Ash burns my eyes as it flies
Up to Heaven
becomes apparent, it was deliberate.
Can’t seem to put the frame down
Can’t put the frame down.
containing two important people,
one is me.
Retracing the curves of your face,
a smile pervading. I smile and
dial, your number to hear your voice and laugh and snort–
all I cherish.
You close your eyes
You close your eyes
When I kiss you breathlessly.
You close your eyes
When you scream inside
As I touch the scars and open sores.
Indigo Clouds and Tinman
The clouds turn indigo. The animals hurry silently away.
I, the Tinman, alone, furious before the coming storm,
Yet stolid to my friend.
Lightning flickers as I try–to hope.
The wind draws me in its arms and away
More carelessly than a dead beat dad.
Wrecking balls clutter the sky
Crumbling; my life scattering on the windy sea.
I pretend I am not–to cope.
Blind and deaf, I hurry for hiding.
The rain comes. I am still here.
Real World
Is this "The Real World?"
I see perfect hair and teeth and the right light for ambiance,
but real emotion I do see.
A cuss here, a cuss there.
Lives backed up like house sewer pipes,
Began to girgle and overflow saying "I hate this real world."
I peek on others’ lives to see what problem arise.
It really is like I don’t have enough myself
I whisper this afraid someone will laugh.
"If only I could be there," I say,
But could I really fix it- I mean them.
The problem- the person.