balcony balance
the smooth gooseflesh
ripple wind

updraft all entail gloss
lyric strand thread
undulations in dune
flat flesh
carved
with the lavish winds
tongue

beyond the tip
upturned nose
and hot rose
cigarette
end

behind the teal
iris
are ruins
forfeited and starved
with a hot fever

racing in vanities
mirror
the dark dance
a candle chance
a scandal advance

And sometimes I wonder
If my words are worth something
More than just phrases
Falling out of my mouth
Curled all around
In a bundle of nothingness
Waiting for someone
To figure them out
And sometimes I wonder
If this is all worth it
Just to end up lying
6 feet under ground
A life full of lies
To make others feel better
Without ever worrying
If you feel better yourself
So look in my eyes
And call me a cynic
But I know better
Than to take any offense

Dark settles on the walls, the street lamp blinks light,
dies, then blinks again. A moth- stuck inside the room-
pares its wings on the glass, falls to the windowsill,
then does it again. My eyelids do the same.    

I imagine his mouth; the ghosts under  
his tongue slide through the cracks of his teeth,  
find mine, stay there. And the birds at the  
backs of our eyes drink too much to leave.    

That corona garland, worn by few
may be brandished by those untainted

Who by some great deed, in memory sewn
thus impressed an angry god,
were then received as canon

Years have passed, and those who are left
to right the skewed halos, burnished above the pews

Grow fewer, and fainter, air deprived inside
the stone facade, that must persist

The brocade of landscape, pastoral, longed for green,
reminiscent: but drying to brown outside

"Something there is that does not love a wall."
Judging by the ruins Bob was right.
but there are folks who love them all.
They hide behind them crouched in fright
and there are many kinds of walls.

Some are wood and some are stone.
Some are real and others not.
Those which exist in mind alone
are the ones which never rot.
Redoubts of ignorance seldom fall.

Looking through a concrete barricade,
of a forever standing fence.
Edifices created to keep me in,
while jailers whip me with the price of wages.
When I am but a dime a dozen
of evil task masters that only see green.
I recognize the means to their grab bag hands.

I balance on the edge of that they call my lyric mind
and leave the bloody, cloven steps of razor’s walk behind.
Depression squeals, the choked muse reels and all I’ve wrought is thought.

We watch the flame the candle makes, but no one sees the wick.
The poet hides the closest parts because those parts are sick.
Nous runs amain, it flees the pain and all I write is naught.

What is this fear of showing self, of giving self away?
Mechanical I demonstrate and all I have to say.
I tell a tale and all bewail, but naught of poignant phrase.

Think of me when it hurts

I have faced greater misery
worth it's worth
and
having experienced more than most,
still upon mankind's wisdom and folly
I boast

alas some understand some don’t,
move on is all I say
none can have one's way

There once was a girl from Gorslas,
whose brain cells where shrivelled and sparse.
She was a bit crabby
and her buttocks were flabby
cos she constantly sat on her … Bottom.

Her job was to solder, they said,
which made her feel rancid and dead.
Her chin had grown stubble
and her back was bent double,
which made her near go off her head.

She worked with her hubby; so say,
breathing in fumes every day.
their bones anatomic
looked swollen bubonic
and their youth was soon whittled away.

Hurt, wounded,
Fell off a train.
Bruised and sore,
Don't think I'll ever
go there again.

Let it go,
Slide off those rails
Remind yourself of better climes -
Happier times,
and be on your way...