On cool moist virgin sand
in front of fire clouds
under the rising autumn sun
where there are no ripples
on the quiet Atlantic
or even a single sea gull
to sit by
is where you are found . . .

when faces that have smiled
slowly bridge from colorless places
impossible to forget
in a black and white world
made to shades of gray
nobody to blame
but you wonder who has made it
from Gods abstract canvas
where things were simple
or easy to understand
is how you are found . . .

He wrote it in under an hour for a class project

She had dreams,
Soft and sheer,
Lingerie whispers,
A future near.

Brilliant in class,
Gold star spark,
Now lost in shadows,
In a foreign dark.

No papers, no rights,
A life on the run,
Playing hide and seek,
With the law’s cruel gun.

Hopes are checks,
Bounced in despair,
Promises crumbled,
Nothing to wear.

Sketches now dust,
Threads left to fray,
Beauty once bright,
Fades day by day.

regarding President elect
Donald John Trump.

As a cruel joke to self,
I imagined myself as a Republican
for that one glorious day
voting for the candidate
who clinched the nomination
as our next commander in chief
and still reeling in the heady years
when said unnamed person
graced the covers
of countless magazines,
(especially those hard copy publications
with a politically right bent),
and electronic mass media platforms
when one felt proud
being the sole pachyderm in the room.

I wanted to love
but it turned to hate,
drenched in sin
tempted by fate.

Bloody nails down your back,
bite marks all across my neck.
Choke me one more time,
keep me in check.

Hold me down, let your scent
be the last I ever smell.
Cold steel to my throat,
I'll see you in hell.

Let me up, the game is over.
From the sheets, into the night,
You're a special kind of lover.
while I'm breathless, entombed by moonlight.

Burnt down to ashes
Embers softly reignited
The Phoenix rises

Among the dark corridors I have to go,
Not even a shift of light is there to glow.
All I once built for years, now is gone.
This soul is trapped; left behind the sun.

My man, I cherished utmost, becomes a shade,
My kids; my addicted aroma, now steadily fade.
I hear hums of their voices that slowly faint.
A blur of their faces comes as a swept-away paint.

Days of sun remembered
remembered again and again.
Though days of gloom and rain,
rain down on me, I remember.

Quantum loops and sparks,
sparks of life remembered.
Remembered, though days have pain,
again, again, again...

I see poetry in places you might not expect.
In your texts, supporting a friend in need.
Hoping your words will be just in time.

When you think you’re wasting time
but realize, abruptly, the thing you’re doing
is feeding your soul in a way you hadn’t counted on.

Or when someone reaches down
into a dark place, fighting back fear,
and brings back something unexpected,

maybe a vanquished demon, or a beautiful epiphany.
But most of all, for me, poetry resides in kindness.
It’s what I will remember most about you.