I used to believe in love never leaving,

It'd stay through the season, endure any treason, 

Persist through all reason and always be pleasing.

But love is not that, at least not always

It can be pretty yes, but brutal in all ways,

it can burn the rest of you out, like acid in your veins.

It can be a balm for some pains,

but also like salt in an unhealed wound. 

I don't know the origin of that classic idiom;

'It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all'

I am relatively sure, that its originator had not in fact loved and lost after all.

Because who would take the pain of certainty over unknowing serenity?

I would rather have a hopeful bliss of ignorance of the futures eternity. 

I wonder is their anything more hopeless than surety? 

 As a child, I would often proudly proclaim I would never smoke.

I would say "The body is a temple, and shouldn't be stained by THC and nicotine."

As though priest and shaman alike have not reverence for the sacred power of smoke stained air. 

Nowadays, I'd say the oxygen that was once sweet in my mouth has soured.

I'd say I see a little too clearly, and could use the grace of obfuscation. 

I could weep rain and craft clouds with little more than breath and intention. 

Yet the holy wind within me remains undiminished,

I can cleave it, as sharp as a knife if need be,

I smother it with lip and lung,

I shape it with tooth and tongue.

Yet it ever trembles in my chest demanding release,

Sometimes it escapes in squeaking stuttering struggle

Sometimes it seems to only return in anguish. 

But this cycle of repeated release

Vibrato born of storm shaken passion,

Could be called singing.

Or weeping.

or both. 

Compulsive Masculinity

In the era of unrealistic standards for women,
With the plastic precision  of barbie dolls,
and the physically impossible bust to waist ratio of Laura Croft
where the only thing that mirrors the warped results of a first attempt at photoshop
is the very standard that editing is trying to match.
We cannot ignore the corner that women in our society are literally being painted into,
but we also cannot ignore the reciprocal for our young men.
For every scantly clad, computer generated model on the cover of a magazine
there is an action figure being placed into the hands of a little boy.
That action figure has hands that are forever closed fists
that action figure comes complete with kung-fu kicks
that action figure is telling that little boy the exact opposite
of everything I have ever been taught to tell kids
See my kids have mantras that they echo around the classroom
"Hands are not for hitting"
"You can't just take that from me"
"I need help please"
That action figure, and the movies that spawned him
they tell kids that asking for help is for the weak,
they tell kids that the quickest way to solve the problem
is a combination closed fists, bullets and explosives,
and you can be damn sure whatever you want is always for the taking

I want us to remember and weep
for every little boy whose dreams are stained red
by the bloody myth of redemptive violence
whose games are permeated by deus ex machina guns
whose bullets only penetrate the bad guys.
I want to tell these kids bad guys only exist in nightmares
and political campaign speeches
but then I would have to explain to them what politics are
and there are rules about using filthy language around kids.
I want us to remember and weep
because damnit, it is OK to cry sometimes
Despite every movie, every adult, every cultural representation of MAN
that tells us boys dont cry
that tells us boys are meant to fight
that tells us boys are meant to chase down women or objects
that tells us boys are meant not to know the difference between the two
that tells us boys are all biceps and bravado
and it makes me sad that at age four,
I can already see boys looking at their hands and forgetting what they're for
so I want to remind them:
Guys, hands are not for hitting even when it seems like your heart is just for hurting,
they're for holding and writing and making
and even though you'll never see a Michelangelo action figure
with realistic brush stroke action,
or an MLK video game where players hold signs while marching and write speeches
that change a country
you can know that your hands are not molded into plastic fists
I want to remind them:
Guys, they can't just take it from you, your innocence and believe me they're coming for it,
they want to take it from you, replace it with extra helpings of testosterone and misogyny
but you can't let them.
Hold onto your hope,
because even though no one wakes up thinking:
"today I will tell a boy that manning up means hiding behind guns and knuckles
and forgetting any kind of empathy"
that seems to be the lesson the world has to offer
I want to remind them:
Guys, it's OK to ask for help, if we are helped when we need it and help when we are needed this whole world thing works, and I dont know of any obstacle that isn't lighter with an extra pair of hands.

But I can't say these things to four year olds,
I can only say them to you.
We've been sold on this definition of MAN for far too long
it's about time we asked for our money back
it's about time we canceled our societal subscription to compulsive masculinity.

Idiomatic Insanity

Lo siento.
Like, low I feel
Like I feel it
Like I'm sorry.
Por que?
For what?
what for a season?
Dame un razón or a razor,
and I will cut clean into us two.
So bésame, abrázame, screw it, mátame
because without you it doesn't matter to me.
Like my germanic antic
fails to manage a mind this manic
and my frantic tongue finds follie in a language romantic,
knowing it not, due to the taste and haste of panic.
No, I can't break the ice I'm like an organic titanic,
slowly sinking in the chill northern atlantic.

I just want to sleep.
Sólo quiero dormir.
Alone to pass through a door mere inches from my face.
into a land of fantasy y fantasmas.
This world, este mundo.
Is woefully mundane
it brings not literal but liturgical pain,
to live an existence so plain
with minds trapped in frames
souls and spirits subject to societal contrains.
No. No, I refuse to live as the man in chains,
I refuse to keep these ideas locked up in my brain,
So I guess I might be insane.
Can we make that a refrain?
Yes. I guess I might be insane,
because I want to speak in languages I don't know,
because I want to smell the soft scent of summer in sleet and snow,
because I want to plant a birch in the dark and then watch it grow.
Write love letters on its skin, set it ablaze, I hope you like the show.
Watch the smoke go winding through the wind
whilst whining soft hymns
as off to heaven it goes.
I guess I might be insane,
because for me the message here is quite plane,
I want you in a way that is not tame,
but say nothing and reasons like razors are to blame,
reasons like not knowing the rules to your game,
reasons that dont stop me from wanting to play,
I guess I might be insane.
'Cause there's this pounding in my head that I can barely explain
growing louder tumultuous over the words that I say,
it's like the reasons are pounding against one thought:
"I have nothing to lose and everything to gain."
The bouncing reasons have me shaking like tracks beneath a train.
But I'd better go to sleep now,
lest you think me insane.


Poet's note: I don't know how I feel about the title of the poem it might change.

Fears

You know when you lean too far back in a chair,
and you almost fall and it gives you a scare?
Well, that's how I feel when I look at you.
Like im falling out into the open air,
and it awfully funny that I dont even care
that often a smile is all that you'll share,
see to me that is a trade quite fair:
My last living breath for the chance that youll dare.
See there, are worlds we could open,
with naught but soft words spoken,
and it's quite clear that I am broken
but I am not past the point of hoping
I think we're just afraid of choking
and only part of you hopes were joking
cause we are that close to blowing
and you're pretty brave with those matches you've been throwing
cause there is simply no way of knowing
whether our fire will be gently glowing
or one that is violently burning
just like you cant finish a book without page turning
or a class without some learning
or a romance without some yearning
because isn't that all that love is?
A simple state of need?
Like a stomach's got to feed,
like a heart has got to bleed,
like eyes have got to read,
like the tide must recede
like animals have got to breed--
Wait. Crap. That isn't what I mean
I swore I could keep this clean,
So let's swing it back to you and what I've seen
Like giggles and grimaces with smiles slipped between
or eyes that wander and day dream
or a soul so big you're bursting at the seams
but such vague things are all that a can glean
because if I were to find out more
 I'd have to get closer, and I have done that before
the experience struck and cut straight to my core
so here I stand, knuckles inches from your door
and I cannot complete the action.
See among your friends are certain factions
that would reap such extreme satisfaction
from your negative reaction.
So I have a worry, I see a complication,
in your possible lack of reciprocation
because you have your ways of intimidation
that make me into a fool, an aberration
 but I cannot use words like fear or fragility
for they would impune my masculinity
and although that is a part of me
it does not define all that could be
and it is a simple reality
I am afraid but I hide it in jokes and poetry
I slip it into a slew of metaphor, smart-ass and simile
but I better stop hold my words right there
lest I fall right out of my chair.



Poet's Note: I wrote the first three lines of this poem over a year ago, the rest came to me recently.

Two men walked down two parallel roads,
and on their backs were heavy loads.
Although these two walked side by side,
neither mentioned what they had in mind.
That both shared a similar fate
That both men fought for state
One was red, one was blue
then bullets flew between the two
and once they were clad in that crimson hue.
No one could tell who was who.

Counting Up

I live in moments,
each second is a millenium in which I can define the world and all that is in it
and still forget it in the next eternal moment.
With each tick the world changes
and is reverted upon the tock,
new meanings new hopes,
 but still the same dream,
 the same illusion of control,
like we live on the face of the clock,
at least you do.
I don't.
Because the only timepiece I  keep is the measure of heart murmurs,
but my heart does not murmur,
it shouts
speaks out
 has mind of its own
and though it can only give voice about once a tick
that seems to do the trick
because by the time tock comes
I have loaded my guns.
You live like target acquired,
I live like a poet inspired
and don't you dare get tired
because every second lost upon yawn
is day done until the next brink of dawn
and like a child sprawled on the lawn
who you claim does not realize what he's losing
you've already lost too much.
You say youth is wasted on the young
but moments are all too often wasted on grown up humdrum,
our years are numbered in days
which are constructed of hours
which are made by minutes
which are counted in seconds.
So everything comes down to this next second
which is really the next minute
which rolls into the next hour
which falls into a day
which concludes this year.
Now as you walk into the daily drivel you call maturity
I want you to see,
we youths know our days are numbered,
we are simply unencumbered
by the weight of wasted moments
because we did our best to spend them wisely,
not upon completing the next task
or rushing to get to class but by sprawling on the lawn
watching the coming of the new dawn,
 in awe of moments which last eternities. 

Let Me Sleep

Well this is awkward, I started to feel for a moment.
For a few futile seconds words I wrote became a world
and here I was living in that world like it wasn't purely theoretic.
Like it held some corporeal substance like it wouldn't soon fail
like I wouldn't soon fall and like I wouldn't soon lose it all.
So hold for a moment, let me write, let me recreate.
let me lay down letters that loop together into lines and lacerations
that leap from the page and surround me.
An imperfect illusion I dare say but one of my liking
and here I rest my head for another moment
let sensation creep from those inscribed wounds
until gravity pulls me back down to reality's crumbling ruins
that now feel darker and more like an inescapable tomb
where bone dust covers every surface
and nothing we do really has a purpose
but to perpetuate this failing state
this homeostatic conclusion
so much duller than my created illusion
and the red of my blood is a useless infusion
because it lands black on the page
as i stand in the back of this cage
with all the pain and pent up rage
because at this point it seems nothing will ever change.
The bars may rust but what is the difference?
Does any effort at all make sense?
Every movement, every action seems useless
and so I stop. Lay down. Quit.

My First Villanelle

Hugging tightly closely fitting 
Sparkling shining like a bright suns rays 
Swaying bowing slowly spinning 

Now our dance is just beginning 
Can you see her bright eyes blaze? 
Hugging tightly closely fitting 

Hear the piano lightly playing 
The dance continues in a daze 
Swaying bowing slowly spinning 

Hushed voices softly singing 
Surrounding us in an opaque haze 
Hugging tightly closely fitting 

Eyes shining tears falling 
No escape from her stunning gaze 
Swaying, bowing,slowly spinning 

See now the dance is ending 
We are alone for this final phase 
Hugging tightly, closely fitting 
Swaying bowing slowly spinning 

poster's note: I never came up with a title for this piece, it's from my freshman year feel free to offer titles if you feel so inclined.

The Process of Existence

a hand brushed my arm and i looked up
the palm had the callouses of work
but had not yet attained that sandstone quality
that characterized the hands of working men
my eyes wandered over a not so young face
pioneer facial hair colonized baby cheeks

he wasn't a man yet but he was growing up fast

burlesque knuckles stood out on coarse haired hands
a smoke graveled voice spouted harsh swears
skin hardened from years of industrial labor
eyes glazed over with cynicism born of experience
a limp that told of athletic days long passed
bitterness emanated from pores creating a cloud of regret

he wasn't old yet but he was ageing fast

an aged arm reached up and grabbed my wrist
arthritis riddled fingers held me like a vice
skin faded from age clung to his skull
parchment flesh, marked with the stories of life
liver spots and scars, wrinkles and crinkles
a testament to a well worn existence reaching its conclusion

he wasn't a corpse yet but he was dying fast

Attempted Introspection

Feeble thoughts float across my mind
Tedious incorporeal theses linger
Teetering on edges, until attention shifts
And  ideas, symbols, hopes get left behind

I yearn for contemplative brevity
Complex analysis of intrinsic concepts
Overlapping confusion kills concision
And so surfaces a facade of cool levity

Impractical plans incoherent inquietude
These things rule within my cerebral cortex
Below the rabble and arguments of my conscious
Pragmatic practicality rises over useless platitude

Climbing the Stairs

Click, Crack, Pop
This is the language of my body
Contract, Groan, Release
This is what my body knows

The muscles tighten, the leg rises
Bones slide and joints bend
Tension is released the foot falls
Click, Crack, Pop

Rough sole meets step
The pressure returns to the thigh
Tendons tug and pull straightening the leg
Contract, Groan, Release

One step conquered,
A stairway to go.