What is it like,
to Be
Tonically Alive—
While the Flowers
Remain abloom,
We find
Fleeting affirmations of
Our routinely
Maintained
Lies.
Sitting under the courtyard shade,
a block of dimmed rectangular architectural space
lays mildly cool;
Outside its precisely defined borders,
The sun seemed to have dyed everything
a bleached orange.
Waves of incessant breeze;
although felt in this unintended shelter, still carried
faint streaks of outside’s ubiquitous, gradually maturing
rolling heat.
Once more, the summer winds carry us—
some of whom have either been much too weary,
or others having regretfully
not been weary at all—
Into an apparently constant state
of pulsating
yet nonchalant dreaming.
“I can change,
I can change,
I can change—
If it helps you
to Fall in Love.”
when I was just a boy,
I thought I’d live and die
exhorting goodness, being through and through,
a protector of Innocence.
but as just a man,
I find myself losing Faith
in this world of sin—
promises of my crusader days
empty or broken.
now, I pray that I die not
having only been a hypocrite,
swinging like a hopeless pendulum
between self-destruct
and usurping.
Amen.
The Sun, without notice, rises
Upon our individual dystopia;
Garden grown amok, overtaken by
Weeds rampant—intertwined with
Floral carcasses.
A fatal reality of decay, brought forth by
Negligence, perhaps coupled with bright
Streaks of depression, and its consequent sloth—
All the while,
Nothing was there to be done;
No unwinding of this tangled,
Graying yarn—
As we spent days chasing bread,
and slip past nights, nibbling on
Cheese, then poisonously chasing it down,
Not sleeping, but passing into
Unconsciousness, ruing our Daylight gone.
A bundle of rotting Roses,
Burgundy and Brown,
Sitting slanted and splayed
Unfittingly in a vase oversized—
We are.
Yet here, maybe there; somewhere—
Under the caressing of Morning rays
In pastel, there is a vague, indescribable
Beauty to it all.
The Cicadas are Singing
Louder and Louder;
But no one sees them—
Invisible messengers they are,
Hiding behind leaves.
Their songs are ringing
Even more urgent now,
As their time is near—
Another conclusion of the year.
Can you hear?
In the echoing of these
Seemingly inexhaustible,
Dying Cicadas,
Distant yet vivid memories,
Of our Season
Soon-to-be-gone.
And are we, always unwary,
Startled, even a little—
To have come without a Choice,
To Seal
Another irretrievable Summer
Into just blurry dreams?
Bolts of Lightning,
In shivering thuds
So tumultuous,
Violently
Shook the roof above—
Ceilings once
so sure and secure,
Now rendered ragged,
powerless and brittle.
your small world
Disturbed;
Darkness seized, and
False Light interrupted.
A Calling
So clear—
For reevaluation;
to break away from
self-afflicting routines,
Yet the mind,
feeble and deprived of
Purpose,
Slacks,
Missing
Old Sins—
Once the rain
Subsides, along will fade
Memories of
this most Intimate
and Loud
Reminder…
But Resist
We must,
Goodness and Love
take Discipline,
We Must refrain,
Hold ourselves
From the perpetual
Hollows.
Write it all down!
So that after
this gentle humidity
recedes,
The Will
Remembers
to Fight,
to Learn,
to Crawl,
and to eventually Walk
Under the boiling Sun.
Standing Upright,
We each create
Testaments of true Heart
and Devotion—
Who shall survive
Past our time
In the blistering trials of
Hot Spells.
We take our drinks Cold,
Icy and chilled,
So the Stench—
of stale tonics,
of each other’s true repulsive
Scents and Intents,
of our unfavorable Circumstances,
and of the futility
of it all
Can thoroughly
Escape our paralyzed
Senses.
Particular Moments 