Strides we make in life’s long journey
The things we acquire, who will own them?
When the sun sets, bringing darkness to bear
On glitzy cars, houses and fêted moments
When tints of candle light are left behind
And the eyes opened to see in silent night

Some may say, the dead have nothing
When material reality is a by-product
Of the coming and going from this world
Others may say the dead live in our recalls
Had names, and if not, just call them things
For something can not come from nothing

Oh, mother
Dressed in misery
Your broken spirit
Darkens the heavens

Democracy’s birthplace
Left in the hands
Of savages
That left decency
Somewhere far away

Uncertainty dances
To the sound
Of shattered
Dreams

The quiet night
Is woken
By corruption’s
Laughter

Pericles cries
from his grave
as Socrates
debates tyranny
Children of tomorrow
watch parents
sell their fortunes
for a piece
of comfort

It's been more than thirty years since I gave up smoking
but I never wrote a poem about my secret craving while
draining the spaghetti, waiting for you to come home

don't have the habits no more that led to old habits
rising to the ceiling, declaring their independence,
while listening to Billy Collins read his poem
about his last best cigarette,

Do ghosts of Clovis people walk
in woods beside me as I wander?
Are they with me as I stalk
sharing every hunt, I wonder?

I've found some shards they left behind
both in forests and plowed meadows.
Each time I do it brings to mind
I'm not the first to walk these sylvan shadows

In the low rustle of oak leaves
are those muted whispers that I hear
woven among the gentle breeze?
If so, the soft words are unclear

snarl the tin lid
the fluid futility
burning down the throat
like the most sensual
burning fire
moat madness
on the choppy wake
You and your wary eyes
glitter
but you still love me
still hold my hands still
as you show me a letter
a book a ship in a bottle
to settle me
before I climb the walls
and sing to tyranny
or weep against a wall
for bitterness swept like
broken promises

cumulative shelter
we collect our thoughts
like watts
our needles dancing

Happiness
Lays comatose
As she waits
To be saved

Bottle numbs the pain
For a couple
hours

mirror shows
reflections
Of a sad face

Words travel
a mind’s
Freeway
anguish seems
festive

Silence and doubt
Play card games
On the porch

Don’t look away
This torn man
Gave his all
To be
The crumpled page
In your journal

Your affection is not in doubt
I see it written all over your face
Of all the good people, you chose me
What can I say? But to thank you

In return I give the best I could
You led me into your troubled soul
The shaman sets to restore hope
And wiped away your silent tears

Since we met, nothing seems to work
People call you all sorts of names
And query everything you do and say
I see their points, but I gave a blind eye

following the sun
I am all bent out of shape
like patterns of light

refracting light shaped
into two more limbs bending
arcs into circles

drops of sky falling
into water, skipping stones
across the music.

An unholy scream punctures the silent landscape
pierces the gun metal grey,
against the cruel winter’s sky.

Darkest before the dawn
as agony abuses the air,
jerking in spasm.

Feathers wrenched from a muscular frame,
a pair of sleek Ravens wings , of vast dimension.
Armageddon’s warning.

Perversion and amorality his clarion call,
Innocence died.
On this ashen night.

Banished from heaven,
discarded upon the sodden earth.
Abandoned since birth.