My Head

My head,
You always live in your head she said.
But is it enough for you and what do you think
About the nonexistence of god?

Sun-kissed sky and crazy moon on the horizon,
Home foreclosures and pink slips,
Unemployment and homelessness
Feels like religion.

He held her life in his hands and gave
Her too much until she died in his arms
On the table of reprimand, and he questioned
His purpose and the control of a deity.

He drank, god how he drank
Because what the hell else could he do when the
Blame was his and he had no other existential
Way of non-feeling?

I felt longingly for his no-soul
To reach a capacity of unyielding
Acceptance of forgiveness and pure
Acceptance that he

Could accept the fact that the universe
Does what she does and it's often
Harsh and confusing and
Never about you.

He cried
He “messed up,” he said
I could have done something
I could have saved her

I could have...
I hugged him and told him that he was human,
That he was human, that he was human and
That the burden of existence and suffering

Is existence and to not take things too personally
Even when it is personal
And control is lost, and
You feel

You feel lost.

Humanity, humanity
in a box

It's a box filled with disappointment,

It's a box filled with first amendment and litigious rhetoric

It's a box filled with fear and self loathing and self doubt

It's a box filled with love and you are loved.

I gave him what I could that day
When he lost his faith and I told him about the loss of mine,
But not a loss of faith in him, and
In return he cried.

For One Stop Poetry: Congrats on winning the Shorty Award for Art!

Reminder

Photo By James Rainsford - for One Shoot Sunday @ onestoppoetry.com







Because of a knock on my door
From a stranger delivering bad news,
Because of necessity
And unwanted promises,
Because of failed attempts to conform
To normalcy,
Because I had no other choice than
To put on clean clothes and face the intimidation of corporate intimidation,
Because I needed help,

Did I realize that all would be well.

Instantly, when I began to doubt,
A pigeon swooped down and smacked me on the head to remind me to forget and smile.

Laughing like a fool I sang.

For One Shoot Sunday @ Onestop Poetry

Desire

Comes from within, innate in nature
It comes from suffering and the hope of not experiencing such

It is
Overcoming and beguiling.

It is
Fear

It is Fox News and MSNBC and Lockup
Debt collector, solicitor on the phone

It is disaster on platinum served freely and without thought,

Or from the concept of life after death.

It is a one night stand.

It is the economy, it is the shiver that reaches to the core of my bones
When you and your life are all too familiar for me and I speed up my gate.

It is
The pain in my body

It is
The pain in my body

The pain in my body that is overflowing with grandiose dreams of content,


Such a fool.

Rain

The rain, oh, the rain -
An oxymoron, a synonym, another word
For sustainability and pain and
Inconvenience and the bearer of bad fate,
Ambassador of good news for someone else unknown.
On a park bench in the Embarcadero
With read and re-read copies of the Examiner
As intellectual property or comfort and shelter -
Lonnie was pissed that he had washed his belongings the night before
They were all soaked now and was shit out of something
Close to six bucks or a shower and a bed or a prayer
They were all worth about the same.


And I got kicked in the leg for sleeping outside of the Gap
By security, securing suburbia.

For One Shot Wednesday @onestoppoetry

For Jesse Wasser

You did what you thought that you needed to do
To be a man and provide and mold.
Worked with wood regardless of exploitation,
Joined the Navy – I have a feeling that you,
Never really wanted to do so in the first place,
But machismo was validity in the heyday,
And you bought into it like the rest of us wanderers.
If only you, if only you could have,
If only you could have not listened so intently,
If only you could have realized
That your life was yours and yours alone,
If only you could have had the courage to walk away
Or have even an ounce of gumshoe to be more like Jack,
Then it might not seem so fuckin' normal.
I stand 'neath the tiers of success where you used to
And pose like you do,
And observe vessels and quote verbatim from words you said when you made me a sandwich with butter and I didn't like it because I thought that it was strange.
That's “how it's done,” you said.
And from that moment, I wonder about the wherewithal
Of my mind, and of the ocean so vast
Standing and smoking a cigarette on top of a rock in Carmel,
Saying nothing but reflecting
Hugging grand-kids and whispering apologies to the wind,
“Sorry” for being nothing other than who you are and what you could
Have Been.