The Woe I Know

Brain is dead

heart is bled

heavy chest

interrupted breaths

grave moments

crashing sobs

temples throb

bodily torture

wax-paper wipes

comfortless needs

paintbrush umbrella

wrestling pillows

writhing limbs

screams inside

loud as red

hands tick and tremor

long and never

pitiful depths

of mire.

Gasping breaths

morose prose

muffled in suffocation

lingers in lobes

furious white flashes

deep in green monster caverns

incinerating ideas chanting

noxious notes swim

in flooded leaden sorrow

                                                             evaporated into tomorrow.

Painting Oil on canvas by Belmiro de Almeida 1858-1935[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Grapes In My Path

Photo by Famished Writer @ Madd Potter, in California

The Grapes In My Path

There are grapes in my path

on this abundant trail 

now invisible as if we never were

here, to pick and press, salvage and reap

for pleasure in pain

passion fruits of desire

I picked you some flowers,

I baked you a pie,

sacrificial labors of love

done by your own hands

connected to home and earth.

Breaking backs, clinging sweat

under wool, denim, straw, in cotton

keeping more out than simply the sun

depleted soil

exhausted soul

bursting with strangled juice

bountiful, delectable

selected and hand chosen

always searching for more

scantily ripe for the picking

and You

likely in a hurry,

just drive by

clouds of dust in the lane

settling on skins of

clay and mud

day after day-

a boulder rolls

among the rows

hunched in fields

punched with toil

blistering leather gloves

servitude by season

migrants moving

with the benevolent harvest of

plump bursting strawberries

dipped by chocolate covered hands

the wrath of happenstance

gratefully destined from birth

to be eternally closer to earth.

Beautiful Things and Those In Between

Worms with wings and other beautiful things.

Melodious birdsong all morning long.

Lovely stargazing lily, stained by rusty stamen filthy.

Diamonds in the rough-though just a rock of carbon,

all facets aside.

Bars of precious gold people still hide.

Supplest of metal, soft shiny pride,

purposeless and paradoxical.

Emaciated elegance,

Easy on the Eye,

a standard of beauty is dictated.

Monumental stupidity in all the standards of frivolity.

Semiprecious or flawed, not making the cut,

inadequacies fill the black Hole-

that is the empty soul,

which pines and yearns but never learns…

The most beautiful thing should not be judged

by human packaging,

maybe what we are told to see

that is beautiful to you-

may not be to me.

Reaching for the status-quo

determines just how far you will grow.

Things of value we are sold,

advertising aggrandizement is how we are told.

What is a handsome treasure?

Who is asking and why?

Is it a worm or a butterfly?

Photo By Cheryl Schultz for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Literally

Image courtesy of Unsplash by Florian Klauer"_A _Typewriter-Apart" 

Literally

Who knows What To Do Where or When;

exPLODing (inside)

disconnected t-h-o-u-g-h-t-s

u s  a d  d w s  a o n

 p    n      o n     b u d

Darkness

"Speaks"

then you start thinking of a

Question?

That has no _________.

Re:

forbidden words

*Fine print: Hidden truths

complex conjugation (-1)

If only you’d listen-but were interrupted

To: A Lyrical & Limber Linguist

w/ a puzzling e*c*y*pt*d message

I'm pleading!

Don't let me f

                     a

                       l                                                                  

                         l

//behind,

trying to comprehend this poem that never seems to end...

(figuratively)

Breathe of Reflection

Image credit: Unsplash by Robin Benad

I once could breathe
wholly and deeply-
because I was outside
myself,
looking in...

Mortal Moments and Morality

"The Seven Deadly Sins" by Pieter Brueghel

Image By Toho at de.wikipedia (Transferred from de.wikipedia) [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Simple moments and kisses

are for stealing

spongy crabby grass, squeaky pool rafts

are for lying

one can cheat at the race of time

by living in the moment

Philosophic inquiry and idle curiosity

never hurt a fly

Logic and Geometry, trapped sticky strings of thought

The Machiavellian webs we weave

Creeps and Opportunist may pray upon the weak

Lay in wait with incorruptible malice

Sin without Pleasure

Pain with no Gain

Acts of immorality

Feats of mortality

sealing ones fate

in the Karmic Realm

of possibilities

where Paradise was lost

but Humanity found

Heavenly bodies

Angels in action

Ghostly haunts

Demonic desire

lines in the sand

glass between toes

shards of time

a trace of what matters

Singeing flesh

blinding light

gut instinct

a Sixth sense

Acrid salty mists

Infiltrating and asphyxiating  

at the end of land and rope

twisted stronger by fate

at the tip of the iceberg

on the verge of reason

Choose to live

Resign in death

paralyzed in fear

suffocating in security

To dare, to taunt

To tempt and tease

Inventing not Alibis

nor concocting Lies;

Fracturing the Tenet

while embracing

in You-

Feeling still-

virtuously Alive.