Voyeurism

rain sprinkles the

face of the ground

but not her eyes;

we watch in silent awe

never touching

not interfering

with the magic 

of the moment 

she has reserved

for herself.

8Oct17

Weeds

a lifetime of pain falls
short of sacrifice when
our souls are wrapped up
in the weeds of the heart.

8Oct17

Life Flees Off

the hours of the day

unfold rapidly

no longer minutes or

seconds do we wait,

but days then weeks

and months flow

quickly into years

as years give way

to decades and our

lives finally reach

a point of maturity

when life flees off.

8Oct17

Backpacks of Sin

down in the valley where
the good soil has slid down
from the mountain side,
are the bottom people whose

lives are fill with the rains
of sorrow and who tediously
toil the land due to the myth
of Sisyphus, who for centuries
have lived and died and been
born again into the world of
righteousness and original sin,
bend their knees as tokens of
submission to sky gods that
visited us and caused the soil
to slide down the mountains
and into the valleys as the
cycles of growth began to
fill their hearts and minds,
providing children and the
need to live in peace and
harmony while precariously
carrying their sins in token
backpacks conveniently
provided to them annually.

7Oct17

Unpublished Poetry

my mind is blank
my thoughts curtailed
my insights dimed
how long will I taste this last supper?
hope slips but does
not slide away, at
least not that far;
openness lays down
her weapons and
and the surface, life blooms around me;
blank mind
thoughts curtailed
lifeless all are alike
my veins swell with chemo,
leaving my toxic body free
for the medical examiner
to give away along with all
of my unpublished poetry.

7Oct17

Silenced

incomplete
my life has been...
for me anyway,
as I see no
predeterminations
in my present
or in my future,
even though
my birth was one
as will be my death;
but, all the rest
belongs to my
speculations
and choices
that no one made
except for me
unless you include
the influences
that were
oftentimes ignored
and silenced
by my actions.

6Oct17

Always Been

I know not my future
nor yours for that matter
but I care not about yours
like I do my own
and still I see nothing;
and, I saw nothing
before and nothing
before that and it did
not matter, so, why
would it matter now?

Why today?

there is no emergency as
best as I can tell and my life
lives on just like it always
did with no future
relative or not in mind
since that's the way
it has always been for me
long as I can remember.

6Oct17

Second Journey

What have I seen?
What have I not seen?
For what will I be remembered?
Will I be remembered at all?
Lymphoma and Melanoma
live within me
side-by-side with the rest of me,
taking it away from me
like a jealous parent,
snatching up my life
because it means nothing
to anyone but me; still,
there is hope
I am stronger
or perhaps bolder
or even more tenacious
but when the lamenting is done
I will be gone and
on my second journey.

6Oct17

Unanswered

quietly, I observe the stillness
the solitude of the morning
with only birds announcing
the dead remains of the night
and a fresh beginning to the
plight if living in this world;

respectfully, I call upon the
heavens to change the ways of life
but for sixty years those pleas
have remained unanswered and
the crisis in our souls worsens;

unconsciously, but collectively
we brought ourselves here and
consciously collectively is the
only way to change, yet there
are those who see no evil in
what they do only in our efforts
to put an end to their evilness.

4Oct17

Still Standing

the mirror on the wall is cracked

and the clock beside it no longer works;

the floors and walkways are in need of repair

and there is a musty odor of abandonment;

no humans dwell inside today

nor are there any animals, birds or fish;

there is only emptiness as whoever

once lived here has long since

departed even though the bombs

no longer hit this area of the world.

4Oct17

Left Behind

bottles of chemicals sit
on a plastic shelf under
a wooden gazebo next
to a covered pool waiting
to be used, but their
desires will not be fulfilled
for many months because
the owners have relocated
to a warmer climate and
left all behind as they
did their vacant dreams.

4Oct17

Crooked

a crooked tree has
sunk its roots into a
crooked piece of property
that butts us to a
crooked street that
has no destination but
to give access to a
crooked house in which
people who are not
crooked live or so the
story goes and you can
visit them to see for
yourself if you like.

4Oct17

Fortunate

the sun squeezes its way
through tree branches until
it reaches it goal of touching
everyone who is foolish

enough to be exposed to light;
within minutes and
over a lifetime
the damage is done
and we are marked for life
with holes in our bodies
once the cancer is removed
that could have killed us.

4Oct17

Forever

life is the desert of time
limited in fulfillment
by one's desires and wants,
preconceived ideas,
and biases that are filtered
through one's imagination
and dreams with motivation;
time's desert is life
but without the heat,
only air to breathe
and sand to see as it
drops from one chamber
to another relentlessly
as if it were attempting to
finish faster than before.

4Oct17

Nothing

within the context of life,
we see what we should
but within the context of
death, we see only a void;


within the context of spirit,
we see a life full of possibilities
but within a narrow window of time;


within the context of soul,
we are eternal beings who
have no beginning or end as
we are what we will always be
for without the universe,
there is absolutely nothing.

4Oct17

Critics

monsters live
inside my head
and have been there
quite a while;

guarded thoughts

must always have

a potty break,

allowing one to 

temporary explore;

waves of nausea

wash over me

like waters at a shore,

even though the

violent currents

are dissimilar;

life take a life

but returns another

to balance the

formula's equation,

while we justify

and rationalize the

arguments of our

critic's hypotheses.

28Sept17

In Honor of MLK Jr

From out of her bowels
you have emerged victorious
proud and strong;

From out of the depths of despair
you have brought us your songs of family
your rhythms of life;

From out of your hearts
you have brought your culture
seasoned with the spices of vivid memories;

From our of your minds
you have brought us advances in medicine
advances in education
advances in the spirit of competition;

From out of your music
you have united a youthful exuberance
and given us cause to celebrate;

From off of your backs
you have given us the strength
to hold this nation together against our enemies;

From out of your sacrifices
You have reached out the hand of forgiveness
Offering us a prayer of hope
That we could all simply be called
Americans…


In celebration & observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Monday - 17Jan11

Democratic Freedoms

live long and prosper is a
worthy adversary to behold,
a life is predicated entirely
upon the freedoms we enjoy;

freedoms are never universal

but individualistic at best

since thoughts and feelings

and especially expressions

will never be identical;

and yet, we try to make

it collective as best we can

but fail every time because

of all the  rainbow colors.

28Sept17

Justice

there is no code of justice
that could possibly
apply to all
unless we rigged
the system so that
all concerned
would be blind
and that no anomalies
could ever happen
in a land as free as ours.

28Sept17

Bearings

our faults
dwell in our beginnings
when free will
was first explored
as being a
viable alternative
to just believing
it had ever been
given so freely;
and, in return
we learned not a thing
still growing
in our pursuits
until one day,
we acquired the vision
that was intellectual
and had no bearing
on the truth.

28Sept17

Word Knives

whip out your knives of words
and cut me throughout
leaving little room for doubt;

I will survive and
believe me brother
I will make you eat
those final words for me.

28Sept17

Long Before

the sun
penetrates the sky,
the sky
surrounds the earth,

the earth
bears witness to life,

the life,
respects not the earth,

and it is all over
long before it
ever had begun.

28Sept17

Not Lost

I see what I can see

I feel what I can feel

I know what I can know

but one day I believe

I will cease to be and
all that I am or was
or will become will
be lost forever unless
I recall it here for
everyone who reads.

28Sept17

Sinners

sinners...

be warned

and damned

if you do;

sinners...

if you please 

have come

full circle;

sinners...

of the world

unite and

be destroyed;

sinners...

take you place

with other

worldly fools;

sinners...

will be boiled

to death

in big black pots;

sinners...

nailed and jailed

will be

released to hell;

sinners...

once and for all

be gone

from our world.

17Sept17

Always Forward

Sunday morning sleeps in
as did Saturday, but time

continued regardless and
we were fortunate enough
to see its passage at least for
a while until death takes us;
Monday serves up Tuesday
the Wednesday celebrates
its claim to fame briefly
while life huddles around its
flames even on a sunny day
in the Southern hemisphere;
Friday has been begotten
and forgotten by Thursday
whose sole purpose was to
finish out the week, but time
waits for none of us as we
make plans to celebrate yet
another fast-paced weekend.

17Sept17

From Above

the devil works in ways
only known to God,
they say, but is never stopped
in its pursuits of converting
good to evil or
somewhere in between
so as not to be too obvious
with his direction or
course-of-action,
especially since God
is watching it all
from above.

17Sept17

Color Blind

white springs of hope
replace dark desires
referred to as black
even when black is
a word of color that
divides us in two;
but, a population can
never be divided if
it was never equal
from the moment of
birth and thereafter.

17Sept17

Sinful Lives

Adam and Eve knew sin

after eating the forbidden

and as mankind's parents

birth us all into sin that

we carry around forever,

never rectifying anything.

17Sept17

Powers of Prayer

we pray for success in sports
we pray for success in school
we pray for success in marriage
we pray for removal of illness
we pray for success in battle
we pray for success at work
never knowing the will of God
and never really caring as
long as it works for us and
does not work for others who
are also praying in opposition.

17Sept17

Rough Cut

a fan blade turns silently
with the wind,
birds talk to each other
under a rising sun,
a lone dog bark impatiently
to be released,
the hum of a pool pump motor
sings behind me;

light reflects off of Magnolia leaves
in all directions,
a black lamp post stands guard
beside its spa,
grass grows green in the fall due to
an abundance of rain;

no silence appears this day
no need to hide from the sun
no thoughts are shared internally
no need to think at all,
just sit and admire relative quiet
as if more rare than a diamond.

16Sept17

New Year's Day 2018

We say goodbye to a year that
brought with it hope and despair

We say goodbye to failure, success,
and mediocrity but we embrace all
the rest while patting ourselves on the
back for really, really, really trying;

We say goodbye to gender issues
as well as racial issues and all
those issues of motivation that
brought us where we are today;

We say goodbye to longing and
embracing the everlasting doubt
as if it were a crutch for all our
crippled mental thoughts lingering;

We say goodbye to ourselves and
to all those who are like us in the
hopes that salvation will be received
for all earthy but necessary crimes.

31Dec17