Kill

I don’t like to kill
Even the small things
Even the littlest ones
I feel it too hard

I stand over them in their death
And whisper about their short life
As if mine is long
I don’t like to kill

I mustn’t
Do you understand me?
It hurts me too bad
To watch them writhe

To watch them twist
To watch their life leave
And abandon their eyes
It hurts me too bad

I hit a small wasp today
With a pocket size notebook
I scooped him up and slid
Him out the window

I hoped with everything
That he would fly
But I heard him hit the ground
I don’t like to kill

Made of glass

Glasses break
It’s what they’re good it,
especially the fancy ones

They are like people,
fragile and made of glass,
meant to contain

Why is it that your favorite
glass is always the first
to break?

Other ones
break every day,
but you don’t notice

People break too
but you don’t notice either –
You’re too busy cleaning
up all the pieces

The eye

Quietly, I walk through red lights and stop signs unseen,
against cityscapes juxtaposed with flowering cherry
blossoms, slipping like a snake made of smoke through
throngs. Every single night; in the pouring rain and beating
heat, all to maintain sanity and quell depression. The shower
principal only in motion. My mind clear and ruminating on
how little I actually need. Some food, some water, a roof and
little else. The nights are still and clear as crystal and I
wonder how loud I’d have to yell for God to hear me. Hear me
now You great, thundering voice of voices. Listen to my
trembling one. I have seen the city of peace with hope in the
center, surrounded by sentinels and watchmen, but I have
slid past these guards unnoticed and rested in the eye of
the garden.

The lines of this world are bent

A single drop of water
hits the surface
and ripples
forever.

The single drop of water
has become
infinite.

So are you.

The ripples may
become smaller
toward the banks,
but given enough water,
and no opposition,
they will never stop.

Do not be a force
that repels the
water. Instead,
be a force that
carries it on.

He is a drop of
water. We are the
many waves expanding
in concentric circles. That
is to say, we all come
from the same place.

See the horizon and
ocean meet. Realize that
they are no different from
each other. Dip your hand
into the sky and touch the
forever.

Keep her

I made a friend today.
I hope I can keep her.
She is lovely and says I am too.
She laughs loud;
the kind that would disrupt a quiet auditorium.
She’s delicate and soft and other things that I am not.
When she whispers in my ear, I imagine that we are the only people left on this earth.
Can a boy and a girl simply be friends?
Or as we grow older will there become a tension?
We don’t know about those sort of things yet, all we know is now.
All we know is that we want to be together always.
To say goodbye to her is like saying goodbye to a part of myself.
I made a friend many yesterdays ago.
I hope I can keep her.

Polaroid

Remember that time you fell?
I hated you then,
Mostly because you cried.

Remember what those summers tasted like?
I sure do.
You probably forget by now.

Remember mom?
You know, before the death?
Me too.

Remember dad?
Back when he had morals?
Me neither.

Remember when I wept at your side?
You were asleep.
With tubes down your throat.

Remember when I was sorry?
I really was.
Hope you noticed.

Static Tendencies

Come on and mean it to me.
In your 30 second television slot.
Cheap poetry.
Sell me something pretty.

Something that shines.
Something that dazzles.
A misty-eyed lady slinks,
barely wearing her plunging dress.

We all nod if it’s something we like.
A new brand from India
or gray cars from overseas
late at night.

Is this who we are now?
Narrators of beer commercials?
Knuckle up to a pint
and sink into oblivion.

Pay for it as fast as you can.
As fast as your mother, father
or significant other will let you.
Then, one week later, render it useless.

Keep buying it because of poor
imitations. Because of second rate
soliloquies. Buy it because the showman
seems to have:

the magic of speak.

Clean

Take the time to wash your soul clean.
Down by the river, born of the stream.
Take the time to see what it means.
Be.

The valley was cut by the river.
Torn in two by nothing more than water.
The valley was cut by a liquid meander.
You can be too.

Take the time to wash your soul clean.
Down by the river, born of the stream.
Take the time to see what it means.
Release.

Listen to the river.
We are all born into its banks.
Born without really knowing how to swim.
Then one day we learn.

Take the time to wash your soul clean.
Down by the river, born of the stream.
Take the time to see what it means.
Cease.

The Need

Waiting at the bus stop.
Shiny new shoes.
A pressed pair of shorts.
A crisp collared shirt.
And a backpack full of all the nonsense the teacher told you to buy.
You look the part.
Heck, you feel the part.
But there’s this nervousness that’s bursting inside you.
Will they like me?
I mean will they really like me?
I sure hope they like me.
The future of a thousand playdates rests on this first day.
And it doesn’t really change much from here.
Shifting in an office chair.
Will they hire me?
On one knee hoping.
Will she say she loves me?
Sending them on that very school bus.
Will they even need me?
We beg for love from the moment we tie our shoes until
we wither away to nothing in a hospital bed.
We are needy.
Crying out for attention
Longing for affection.
Hopeless shipwrecks that have washed up on shore.
But we are united in this need.
It’s not just some of us who are like this.
It is tied to the human condition.
The want, no, the need to be loved.
I saw a little boy get on the bus today.
He had his shoes tied up so tight and I thought, there
goes another circle in motion.
Another loop in a long chain.
But for some reason today, it made me smile.

With a little luck

A continuous piano melody is playing in the background.
He sits down to write. Everything is in order,
in that, everything’s a mess. Pens are strewn
about. Post it notes liter the wall adjacent.
3 x 5 index cards are folded with notes
written in the upper corner. 3 pocket size
notebooks sit atop 3 full sized notebooks; each
a different color. Piles of mail. Bills, unpaid. Checks
waiting to be cashed. A guitar capo is enclosed
around leaflets. Various business cards. A candle.
Mugs with loose change and a new idea.
Perhaps, he thinks, this one will be it.
The piano music swells.
He gives chase as he has done many times before,
and, with a little luck,
a new poem is born.