being benign

everyone's looking for something from you—
a pound of your flesh for a piece of your soul
it's not any wonder faith knows so few
for we're all so gaunt from some forgot toll

wishing & waiting for days that don't come—
all this while defying some setting in numb

strangers seem like they said: strange faces
like wraiths who see past this virtue & vice

you're delaying, not halting fate's embraces
already, she's seen in you & taken her price

it's futile; this war is long lost
you paid with your blood to cover the cost

you walk all along these straight lines
though being means you're being benign
& you know we couldn't be nearly fine

staring up

you're always seeing in the clouds.
you're dazed from so much staring up
into a portrait growing up.

a child-like faith:
in the motives & monsters under a bed;
in pretending that praying is bowing a head.

your world's got a veil all 'round it
meant to cleanse & keep it-

like:
a something far away & faint—
some chalk-drawn lines dividing restraint.
-like a something wild with primary paint
to keep away the futility taint.

what wholly truths
do not still have some pores?
grazed knees scar though they mend
& a fire within is of a kind can burn cold.

the prose in your plea

through a looking glass is:
resolve staring back-like
clarity & crystal — clear & then not.

resolve is like the motives you bought.

spinning & winding through in & out
like veins of fear-soiled faith tainting the air...
these pieces of puzzles like the journeys we wear.

your resolve is as strong as the faith that you doubt
& you must know somehow that you're playing devout.

you've known for some time
'bout the disease that you've caught
& you've not said a word,
but i see that you can't be the same.

listen just to the rhyme
& to what you know 'bout the beautiful shame.

reality & resolve are just the same word
echoing back like beat after blow
of the steps that you tread born of hard-earned woe.

the prose in your plea will one day be heard
& you'll know then, the way you were spurned.

this passion you are cannot be bought
& cannot be burnt.

all the braver men

inside & a part of me
there's a tattered, pale flag
i carry it 'round wherever i flee

it's worn from neglect & so much abuse
hasn't flown since ever, just drags 'round about
like my scarlet soul — a voice that cannot shout
i watch as all the braver men stand before a noose

my flag & i — we writhe it out without
it's just a bit of cloth all soaked in doubt
why should it matter that i have always known
how to give up, but not to atone?

all the braver men have run into the heat—
of a fierce, waged battle borne of defeat
some have known & some have not
but each fought with heart, no matter what his lot

i watch atop a faraway here
with envy lusting inside of revere
that men were strong amid their fear
would that i could run like they, with heart sincere

a scarlet scrape

lessons learned & all of that
proof of purchase; i swore i said it in my plea
sitting silent still & laying flat
behind the shadows praying at a gnat
shh— the world may see:
see me seeing all the high-gloss shrapnel & debris

yes, i see the blood & bent
i see the way it's leaning with intent
fingers & motives and ploys & taboos
it's just how they say every night on the news

there's nowhere that's far away
it's all next door to where we pray
the running's only gonna get you caught
'cause then they'll know that you have fought

someday you'll fall & they'll know you by a scarlet scrape
'cause you're all the same you know; you're that kind of shape

once awhile away

i'm learning though i'm nowhere yet
& finding breathing isn't the incurring of debt
it's just a journey in & out of foreign skies
where motion is a drug higher than a lust for a guise

i'm learning though i'm starting late—
that i can purchase & own my own slate
i remember the bars & conclusions got & foregone
now i pray promises that i won't be puppet or pawn

i'm learning though i'll make mistakes—
it's less about which fork or path that any takes
as what kind of breathing & seeing is got on the way
& learning too that all things near were once awhile away

almost & someday

three things all at once — a rising like a tide
a surveying of a mind, the limits — how far & wide
it's new & alien: the walking & breathing outside
the fear is all of mine — to put where i decide

a love & the freedom of feeling it
void of the clinging on shame & regret
just a longing to find a place i won't quit
where my mind is my own & i don't owe a debt

mistakes not yet made & a life not yet led
the feeling of faith over dread
it's so close, fingers almost close 'round a small thread

soon, almost, someday
tomorrow, next week — just not today
but i believe on what could be
& i can wait & trust that day i'll see

of these brambles & thorns

these bonds are so fiercly held
'til baked bitter & tart:
all that's poured in
must run again out.

no sins can scar
'til you conceal what they are.

from the ways' parting
are many hearts felled
& you & i know that an echo remains
of what always was there.

of these brambles & thorns,
some must be born
'fore you can see a way through.

it's no ball or chain—
just the burden you feign.
it isn't a cell; it isn't a poison.
this place you're fading in
is an unbarred prison.

i beg you; i dare you:
stop closing your eyes
& believing your lies.

the key that you crave
is only some strength to will out.

nothing gold can stay

nature's first green is gold

her hardest hue to hold

her early leaf's a flower;

but only so an hour.

then leaf subsides to leaf.

so Eden sank to grief,

so dawn goes down to day.

nothing gold can stay.

robert frost

hopeless

the heart wants what the heart wants
a pulling like a craving, it taunts
a shiny, gold trophy just beyond my reach
& i should know by now that it's a breach

we've crossed a line for the heart's craving
& i know now: we're beyond saving
we've tried everything, we can't stop the heart's raving

i can't wish the feeling away
& i can't walk away or astray
my heart's tethered to his so here we sway
we talked about why the feeling won't fade away

the why is so intangible & hard to see
but it won't stop & we can't flee

we're hopeless...
i can't bid him to stray
& he can't wish me away

the word i deny

nothing to change & nothing to say
'cause i've thought it all through all day
forward motion is the only path up ahead
anything else is just avoiding the dead

grieving & mourning, well that's all been done
i can hardly remember a life not undone

nothing to keep & nothing i know
'cause he left a long time ago
forward motion, i've got to keep pace
'else i'll just be wasting this space

grieving & mourning, well sometimes i forget
i forget that he's gone & then i regret

well there's nothing still here
& yes, i'm finally all i appear
it doesn't say much,
just that the cost was too high
& the only right word is the one i deny

reluctance

out through the fields and the woods

& over the walls i have wended;

i have climbed the hills of view

& i looked at the world, and descended;

i have come by the highway home,

& lo, it is ended.

the leaves are all dead on the ground,

save those that the oak is keeping

to ravel them one by one

& let them go scraping & creeping

out over the crusted snow,

when others are sleeping.

& the dead leaves lie huddled & still,

no longer blown hither & thither;

the last lone aster is gone;

the flowers of the witch hazel wither;

the heart is still aching to seek,

but the feet question "whither?"

ah, when to the heart of man

was it ever less than a treason

to go with the drift of things,

& bow & accept the end

of a love or a season?

robert frost

the weeping trees

it's loud & crowded in the silent, weeping trees
so lonesome here with just this cold, white wall
willow nigh, she whispers a capricious,taunting lullaby
her syllables taint eternity

i pull on my shoulders an overcast & mourning breeze
me & my bruised, black cloud running toward the angry bees
step-stones, wet-stones, will you catch me when i crawl—
down on grazed knees, bleeding from an inner brawl?

sting me, bate me, bite & take me
just promise you'll hold me when we flee
hate me, but don't let me be—
all by myself inside a barren sea

the lullaby just growing, rising red & wry
there's no will left so i just sigh
discontent, she's spreading like a gangrene breeze
& who can say what was before the weeping trees?

the tempo of rain

this air tastes like plastic & pain
& i'm so scared to leave here again
i won't go out 'til there's the tempo of rain

it's safe in the familiar pit-pattering rain
it's safer in the bleary dark-where
faces are shadows on a fast-fading train
i can hide away here where i'm bleeding & bare

here in the subtle, silent state of watching a life pass by
i contemplate the masters of the puppet-passers-by
strangers striving to toe twisted, straight lines
breathing & bowing to sentient strings on particular cues

from behind so many hoods & dark shades
i spy on a world i don't know that's made of charades

the feeling won't fade, it won't blow away —
not 'til the tempo of rain is steady like my dismay
i'm growing a dirt-festering fear of a place i don't know
it's a gangrenous root hiding under white snow
& the fear & the feeling won't fall away 'til i'm laid very low

where & how far?

you with those sable, sad eyes

eyes that challenge my slippery lies

please put away those eyes

i can't bare their gaze on my face

i can't bare the dismay in those eyes

where can i hide from that melting gaze?

where can i hide the shame on my face?

where can i run to that's far enough

to cloak my failure in a bluff?

why do you see inside of me?

why can't you let go of me?

why can't you let me fall

& shatter into nothing at all?

why can't i fade & fall far away?

why can't i crumble in the force of a fierce sway?

i want to go away

i want to grow old & grey

& be nothing that anyone knows

i want to hide all the truth that still shows

won't you let me slip into the never & forever?

can't i embrace a fabled nether?

louder & laboured

which part of a man is calling today?
which flavor of a boy is parading today?

a little boy who's standing so tall
a standing-tall man who's only a boy
he knows a price is paid for his joy
& only the ground will catch what will fall

what is he made of yesterday or now?
when was it said that he wasn't so much—
just some bones with lurid eyes & who knows how?

he's praying & begging to make them all pay—
for the strings that they pull on to make him this way
& he knows, oh he knows, that he won't wear his face to sunday

tomorrow, they're swearing he's less than this much,
but another stranger someone is preaching behind his tongue
& his legs are dancing & breaking & bending & such

will you do this much—
will you sell him before he's so young?

is the breathing getting louder & laboured?
is the charade ever worn out like a heart or time out-worn?
have you done with him now?
have you planted enough with his strong back to a plow?

plowmen

a plow, they say, to plow the snow.
they cannot mean to plant it, no--

unless in bitterness to mock
at having cultivated rock.

robert frost 

guise

a great, wide, wasting worldwide

full of sluts & saviors — strangers

painted & made-up, jaded & haze-eyed

we're pretenders & preachers playing with dangers

we're a techno-rapt culture — a collective & banal bride

a powered-down populace of bored, idle bootleggers

our eyes are tight-shut as we clamber across a coaxing divide

a pain-painted straddler falls away from our averted eyes & ears

his screaming fades far away while we pretend that no one hears

we'll pass the gutter where he lies

& assume a cavalier & blameless guise,

but behind a barred, dark door

is where the soul decays some more

the road not taken

two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

& sorry i could not travel both
& be one traveler, long i stood
& looked down one as far as i could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

then took the other, as just as fair
& having perhaps the better claim,
because it was grassy & wanted wear;
though as for that, the passing there
had worn them really about the same,

& both that morning equally lay
in leaves no step had trodden black.
oh, i kept the first for another day!
yet knowing how way leads on to way,

i doubted if i should ever come back.

i shall be telling this with a sigh
somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, & i --

i took the one less traveled by,
& that has made all the difference.

robert frost

always never

over by the rabbit hole decays my sober sense of loss
i leave it lying there baking under a big & brutal sun

in the limbo of a crucial choice & this boat rocking all the way across
i swear i won't feel, screaming loud & out loud waving this heavy, hollow gun

no, i swear that i won't stop, not until a heart is deaf & blind —
not until the sky is braille & the stars are all motley & maligned

sincere? am i sincere? who can tell with all this noise?
& who can say if we don't have a voice?

people always leave & i've always run away
people always grieve & i'll never ever say:
the things i feel inside, the neon coloured grey

the colour of another

the semblance of square, still waters

conceals the tantrum of a flood

behind these many steps & falters

walking a shaky, yellow line

can't find any straighter, wholsome road

can't find anyone that's fine

i steal inside a stranger's soul

to see the colour of another's blood —

to see if strangers are whole

broken, are you also broken?

or are you whole, not itching to implode

or fade away before you're broken?

little-girl time

time is a girl with light, whispy fingers —

a scent clinging to everywhere she lingers

like a hushed whisper uttered in thought,

or some old notion uttered for naught

a fair & flighty breeze

fleeing through the hiding trees

time is a girl who wakes up alone

uncertain who cast that first stone

little-girl time hides from her high, mighty throne

she's searching for the way to atone

cold & alone inside a torn, hollow home

time fled through a void, away from her home

time lost her way in the bramble & bone,

pebble & crumb swept up & away inside a cyclone

because she was torn & hollow all alone

she lost her way back to the place where hope shone

to e.t.

i slumbered with your poems on my breast
spread open as i dropped them half-read through

like dove wings on a figure on a tomb
to see, if in a dream they brought of you,

i might not have the chance i missed in life
through some delay, & call you to your face
first soldier, & then poet, & then both,
who died a soldier-poet of your race.

i meant, you meant, that nothing should remain
unsaid between us, brother, & this remained--
& one thing more that was not then to say:
the victory for what it lost & gained.

you went to meet the shell's embrace of fire
on vimy ridge; & when you fell that day

the war seemed over more for you than me,
but now for me than you--the other way.

how over, though, for even me who knew
the foe thrust back unsafe beyond the rhine,
if i was not to speak of it to you
& see you pleased once more with words of mine?

robert frost

veteran of loss

a lesson mourned & kept tight:
lady love is a foe one ought not provoke
& no heart is built to be iron or trite

she can taste of a fierce, great loss
even to those rare, champion folk
lady love is a force no one ought cross

harsh is a bed she has lain with consent
her names are like wind knowing every bent
her nature is whimsy, a fidgety child never content
no painter can hold her to capture her tragic torment

a scent heard in the air, then a sprite or a whore
her names & her passions are famous lust-lore
her heart has seen every shame-paved floor
love lingers where she was known: in widow & emptied drawer
she beats inside of every soul, she's a silent, familiar rapport

love is all kinds, a soldier & veteran of loss
be she a flame of passion or plastic, exterior gloss
love has toed every floor & known every dark door

monster of mine

there's a breathing in here
a raucous breath of smoldering fear
a monster in here
looking to prey on my fear

monster, i know your name
monster, i know your game

you're a crowded roar of fear
you're leaving filthy footprints here
a monster built with phantom fear
you're feeding on my soul in here

monster, you're always the same
monster, i know you breed my shame

in here, that's you i hear
caged in a closet feasting on my fear
you're not all that you appear
you manipulate me with my fear

monster, you're a phantom here
monster, i built you, i'll make you disappear

fire and ice

some say the world will end in fire,
some say in ice.
from what i've tasted of desire

i hold with those who favor fire.
but if it had to perish twice,

i think i know enough of hate
to say that for destruction ice

is also great

& would suffice. 

robert frost

pandemonium

it's a crowded roar in here
i can't see & i can't hear
the voices & noises
of lost moments & choices

she is all lips, emotion & laughter,
but all i know is noise
that moment gone, now it's after
my imitation heart is all but naked of her put-on poise

where the world is material & real
is where i fake an even keel
within it's still chaos, all motley wrong
i'm underfoot of some stampeding, witless throng

all the things that i am not
& all the petty poison i contrive
bathe me in a filthy, fetid rot
nothing breathes here where chaos thrives

there's a thousand screaming sounds inside
i can't hear a one, they're jealous, hate & pride
leaning on denial like a crutch; she's both whore & bride
all these thousand screaming sounds
wringing, ringing in furious, rising fashions
all gnashing at my soul like blood-lusty hounds
the pitch of the screaming hounds finally yielding all-vile passions

neon-painted, pasty dolls parading 'round
going 'round inside some turning scope
colliding inside a kaleidoscope
in this horror picture show, all the lost things here are found

conception

if i could open my eyes all the way, bright & wide
i imagine things simple: void of inner-contention, dissension, & divide

conception/misconception taunt every sight in my eyes
she's ever reaching for a foothold on too-fragile foundations
her warring perceptions topple cultures & nations when else they would rise
like gangrene in a wound, lady misconception stains generations

faces familiar & not so soiled by warped, false conception
she's choking me down 'til i'm naught but self-deception
she pollutes my vision & dims my perception

misconception damns me a citizen in her warring worldwide
& reality is that slippery word that morphs under scrutinized pride
what we all hide is the foothold she clings to, my mistress begging bride

in the regions where we hide our dark is where she plants her poison prayers
it's in those shadowy recesses that she sells her fiend-breeding wares

i wonder:
if i gave up my dark & tore assumption out of my heart
would my lady self-deception also fall apart?

good-bye, & keep cold

this saying good-bye on the edge of the dark 

& cold to an orchard so young in the bark
reminds me of all that can happen to harm
an orchard away at the end of the farm
all winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
i don't want it girdled by rabbit & mouse,
i don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse
by deer, & i don't want it budded by grouse.
(if certain it wouldn't be idle to call

i'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall
& warn them away with a stick for a gun.)

i don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.
(we made it secure against being, i hope,
by setting it out on a northerly slope.)

no orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;
but one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.
"how often already you've had to be told,

keep cold, young orchard. good-bye and keep cold.
dread fifty above more than fifty below."

i have to be gone for a season or so.

my business awhile is with different trees,
less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,
& such as is done to their wood with an axe--
maples & birches & tamaracks.

i wish i could promise to lie in the night

& think of an orchard's arboreal plight
when slowly (& nobody comes with a light)

its heart sinks lower under the sod.
but something has to be left to God. 

robert frost

self-loathing?

i loathe the sounds of my own voice—
the talking in my head
just the way the thoughts build up,
the way they form & bend

i loathe the beatings of my heart—
a shallow torrent of devastation & tears
i loathe the way that i can't feel
enough to conquer petty fears

i loathe the way my face looks
looking back at me
...just the way my eyes can't find
the riddle or the rhyme

i loathe the way i feel inside—
a constant, crashing tide
just a vacant waif of coal
where once must have been a soul

dim & dull

the shadows in mirrors linger of late

gnawing at fragmented glimmers of faces in slate

reflection's a'morphing towards shadowy blur

dimm-ed bulbs grown less bright toward a tongued, bleary slur

where shall we wander for a sharper sight

or traverse away of shadow in hunt of terse light?

i cannot say, for the ways that i look are all morphed & lit dim

grey bars my way like a cloak over sun's lit-pithy, unnumbered whims

there is One you could ask to unburden your sights so drenched in plight

you could bend on a knee to offer up that etched in your soul's hardy, alien height

but first be wary of the road taken & not
'cause all roads bare a tall toll when sought
by way of a dim & dull twilit night

the lockless door

it went many years,

but at last came a knock,

& i thought of the door

with no lock to lock.

 

i blew out the light,

i tip-toed the floor,

& raised both hands

in prayer to the door.

 

but the knock came again

my window was wide;

i climbed on the sill

& descended outside.

 

back over the sill

i bade a “come in”

to whoever the knock

at the door may have been.

 

so at a knock

i emptied my cage

to hide in the world

& alter with age.

 

robert frost

filched breath

a life spent in hiding & running away

will catch up to your today

lies told seep top-side & haunt

all that running makes a soul gaunt

all that hiding filches the calmness of breath

steals a wasted life & makes it like death

action is better than nothing at all

change takes some fight & sometimes a fall

down from grace & right through the floor

but no matter so long as you wallow there no more

one foot to follow the other

next, one to plant in front of its brother

like breath after another

adrift

writing takes a depth of heart to pen

& oft' of late i've wondered where this heart has been

some steadfast will requisite to see the dreaming through

but all these ponderings stain my soul dark black & blue

my thoughts drift in and out again, like rainbows and the rain —

like the tide across the bridge lending to me, texture grit & grain

grit & grain arbitrate the thoughts inside kaleidoscope or time piece glass

colliding & settling in waves or absence o'er this heavy, shapeless mass

here again, but fading fast — away again, but flying fast

underneath where there's no air, just salty, barnacle-laden vessel masts

gilled creatures swimming past, little curious of winged entities above

waters part like windy skies — a disjunct current carrying some lone dove

then, the earth with earth-dwelling others blending among fowl and fish alike

these creatures roam on this earth united and divided, all with heart and depth alike

revelation

we make ourselves a place apart
behind light words that tease and flout,
but oh, the agitated heart
'til someone find us really out.

'tis pity if the case require
(or so we say) that in the end
we speak the literal to inspire
the understanding of a friend

but so with all, from babes that play
at hide-and-seek to God afar,
so all who hide too well away
must speak and tell us where they are.

robert frost

good hours

i had for my winter evening walk—

no one at all with whom to talk,

but I had the cottages in a row

up to their shining eyes in snow.

& i thought i had the folk within:

i had the sound of a violin;

i had a glimpse through curtain laces

of youthful forms and youthful faces.

i had such company outward bound.

i went 'till there were no cottages found.

i turned & repented, but coming back

i saw no window but that was black.

over the snow my creaking feet

disturbed the slumbering village street

like profanation, by your leave,

at ten o'clock of a winter eve.

robert frost

phantom

wish that you would fall away

tell myself you don't exist but in the gray

'cause you linger here like mortal death

& cloud mind's eye with every quickened breath

you won't go away 'cause you're not really here, lee

a ghost that only i can see...

haunts me with bumbled memory

letting go of what is gone, a repeating stupid song

cut these fetters bound 'round my will; they don't belong

these fraying threads of bruis-ed sight warp things wrong

raconteur & rabid dreams

dreams, like damage, dwell in fetters: bedlam trials past

vagabonds summon blurry thoughts that ought be under vessel mast

nightmares maul with past-parted souls retrieved in light, the crisp fluorescent

what's sought to be forgot frolics fresh like april's bloom after frost's torment

seeming arbitrary, but doubtless with some means & end

she finds her way in, peace & repose she threatens to bend

soaring through the skies immemorial as like the night 'n gale:

is dusk's dark mare, flooding mind with her dark charm & whispers pale

her pallor may take hold of you, confine you dread-like doubled-over bile

but also with your trials, there be tides of bliss garnered in the chaos-laden erstwhile

a fork-ed tongue

i've accused him of this crime

but who am i to hold him liable?

me, my own suspect prime

my own convictions, disgustingly pliable

yes, he weilds a fork-ed tongue,

and just like he, i'll fall from highest ladder rung

so much pain he brought on me, but also his facade & lies —

his deceit, scar smattered conscience, & innocent guise

everything he did to me... i thought i knew

all these years later i find old scars are new

~ in memory of my father ~

if

if remorse could half cover the debt that i owe

if pain & fear of what's coming were a pettier foe

would it make these tears that well start to dry?

would it turn the screaming to a manageable sigh?

if truth were an easier thing to reveal

if secrets were less of a heart-wrenching last meal

would my fingers loosen their grasp on my tongue?

would breaking down seem less like my noose being hung?

those gallows seem monstrous — looming over the light

& i've got no means to cleanse, to forgiveness i have no right