Car Insurance

~A memory I have of a rumor about someone I knew–a poem about the lengths we may go to if the world closes in on us.

drive me and park

where you want to

do what you need to

in order to insure 

that i get home safe

down dark asphalt

papers scattered on sidewalks

meant for passers-by and not

for me wishing that

i were walking them

in the cramped sweaty confines

of a seat now for two

you reek of regret and revulsion

and my only option still around

handsome once but now spent

car insurance–that’s all you are to me.

Photo by Tomas Castelazo

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waiting_for_customers.jpg

within

small eyes, fragile limbs
bright smile, curls of burnished gold
skin like snowy china
twirling, radiant happiness
black and white world of color
she makes it
silence that sings like a child
to me across time
the mother who has always been there
dancing, singing, smiling 
within

Dissent

A study in the paths
That have brought me up to now:
Sign posts of funerary use;
Of mourning for what was


Solitary exposition
Writings in the sands
Memory of fading "maybes"
Smoking up the mirrors


The tale to tell is one of "soon"
Of "later", "once", "eventual"--
The lee of all my hopes diverged
The yellowed dear investments


My step falls light on heavy times
No longer wishing to move forward
All the journey by your guidebook
And here I stand: I've failed


Creeping on this weathered page
My story of doing as told
I turn to see a precipice
And dare to think descent


From all the well-trod, failing paths
From all the misspent currency
Of youth never repaid with interest
Potential was waste realized


If I am writer, sage and author
Of my own details,
Let it be said I deviated
To savor every page


That you could never read.

Ghosts

Tranquil memory floats, writhes
Exhales a name lost
Sinful songs a mere aside
Echoes of the meaning linger
And sharp are the bruises
Of ghosts in the soul.

Vox Populi

silken it moves through my thoughts
a gentle assault on Stoic logic
vibrant and strong in the shadows
out of sight in the mind of my eye
creeping in shadows of acceptance
visions of cadence engulf me
cascades decrying my soul
plays my innermost sensual selfishness
on the whisper of all that i could-should have been
and the passion of what if infects me once more
as the promise of withering normal cedes
in the twilight of loss i am found again
uncovered in all disarray
dashed upon the jagged rocks of dead dreams
bruised by the youth as it bleeds from me fast
swollen with ideas damned in infancy
unbelievably crushed by opportunities' absence
worked to starving by education that taught me too well
tricked to wander 9 to 5 already-ever worn
exhausted by hoping for freedom, raison d'etre
yet this sound echoes loud in the still
and i focus the rising of my shallow breath
determined to finally sing loud, to sing me
a swirl of what i am in spite of this
near-pornographic hypocrisy and pretense,
waxing again my restless, ripened thoughts
as my lips part in finality of all yet realized
the history of my world in a voice
my raw impassioned cry of betrayal:

choking silence.

Langston, Walt, I, too, sing America
And the song is the substance of itself.

morning

green stretches over
warm and soft
to hold me, secured
the moss vivid
slowly caresses away
the fantasy of night
steel eyes somehow warmer
in their ice and distance
they, however, saw
what the mossy green of yours
conceals
but i gave all to them, his.
good night, love.
good morning again.

delicate

small and untaught
sprite in haze of childhood
an innocent spirit dances
in the soul

naivete glistens
in eyes without the jade
of a hundred disillusioned days
of abandonment

promises arriving
slow, agonizingly slow,
just before the hopeless lives
the ever hopeful

night is dreaming
quiet self-awareness of the maya
and you whatever you wish
is satisfaction

burn the candle bright
dance long and forever feel
think with the mind of innocence
delicate one

steel yourself