You promised me bountiful orchards
And fruit dripping with honey—
Handing me a half-bruised peach
Saying “Trust me”

I took a bite and found
The pit of your malintent
Rotting in my mouth.
And still, I swallowed.

Vines of resentment
Grew from within,
Wrapping around my ribs,
Suffocating me.

I battle the vines
To save my life
As I was strangled
Half to death

Free from your grasp
I learned how to breathe
Each inhale, a resurrection
Each exhale, a release

It is hard to find just one character from my past
Memories of those early days go by so fast

It could be Buffalo Bob and Howdy Duty
Or Cinderella the famous beauty

Maybe Tonto and the famous Lone Ranger
Or Superman saving us from danger

Sometime Romper Room entered our hearts
Or the Mickey Mouse club for starts

My favorite characters moved each hour
But brought great memories to devour

Sitting in front of that black and white
Taught us how to read and write

One step at a time, holding grandma's hand
eyes on each step of the steep staircase.
They barely registered at first, those famous boots!
Well-worn leather polished black, and white trim.

I felt my heart flutter, my breath grows big
as my mind and eyes traveled up and up...
His dark grey pants tucked in and the shiny buckle
holding his gun-belt with pearl-handled dealers of justice.

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!"

The alarming trend of renegade
souper spoons ladling out propaganda
cast a chilling, galvanizing, and spooking trend
many spoons transitioning to sporks
and running off with knaves of knives.

In a world where love is frail
And no one considers the heart,
There was a precious being
Who was immensely loved by someone,
A girl who would seek it
Even though it was beyond her reach.
It was a creature so heavenly pure,
Charming everyone with its jewel-like eyes,
But its wings had already scattered
Towards the sky,
A dove presenting a divine sight.
Yet when it saw her,
The one who had searched the ends of the earth for it,
It faltered shyly
A vision she could never truly fathom.

I saw the devil beneath the sheets
Yet so often offered her charms to cheats

Pretending to be a true married soul
Forgetting the vows to fulfill her role

Finally she found the payment due
A video that portrayed her in every view

The end of a marriage straight from hell
Allowed me to laugh from my new cell

The devil now lives beneath the burial plot
From the casket has earned what she had sought

From my placement in life’s eternal hell
I smile with each and every day in jail

There is a small, winged creature
on the edge of this page.
Is he curious about what I write?

I'll write about him.

He is tiny,
striped,
itty-bitty-bee-like
with no inkling to sting.

Just hover here, linger,
visit with me

as I drink in the call of the
Mourning Dove,
the Northern Cardinal

while we all battle the dull hum
of distant traffic invading our simple world.

Now there are two small, winged creatures.

Life is a party.

Our neighbor's dogs begin to howl
when they hear sirens in the distance.

It's a mournful sound they share,
as if they are reaching out in empathy

for the souls whose lives are changing
in the back of sterile ambulances.

All I can offer are my thoughts to their lament,
but I feel as if I understand their song.

Rotten, limply hanging from the tree,
Those wages of sin for all to see.
Evil so stark, there's no mystery.

Sorrow bows its eyes to the floor,
Blocks out fear, blocks out gore,
A veil to cover sin's fatal claw.

Cowardly, cheeks turned away,
And mind diverts to pray,
Yet no erasure, this darkest day.

And air's filled with sounds of glee,
In contrast to the fear it sees,
Brought dishonour to the bowing tree.

forever dooming how the missus and I relate
where interplay, foreplay and coldplay
insinuated themselves within mine pate,
once I espied and entered trap door to late,
thus now ensnared and inextricably
caught into the web of deceit
courtesy my own making
detritus of sundered scattered corpses
a stark prelude of unpleasant fate
awaits yours truly,
whereat once harmonious convergence
between the writer of these words
wrought havoc upon the wife
courtesy unfettered wanton lust
towards Alice in Chains,