Abyss

You,
hiding
from all that care.
Climb up from the abyss and free yourself.

His Story (A Puzzle Piece)

We snuggle together
inside a cardboard box built
for one thousand pieces.
We are warm and comfortable
and fairly equal in every way.

Occasionally, our limbs
become entangled. These brief
love affairs only tear us apart.
We don’t complete each other
when accidents happen.

When the puzzle master
rummages through us,
we lose our friends as we
are scattered carefully about.
We feel picked over and used.

We often end up in close
proximity to others more like
us in color and shape. We make
new friends and lose some who
appeared other than they were.

When it is time to marry,
we are put in our appropriate
places with our perfect spouses
and life is good. Our families
are rapidly added and we are happy.

Our warmth is slowly returned
as the picture becomes whole.
We form colonies of families
and hold tightly to each other
less we be torn asunder.

Once the master has his fill,
he rapes us of our parents and siblings.
He steals our lives and throws us back
where we came from. He leaves us to find
comfort among strangers once again.

Ugly Truths and Pretty Lies

Ugly truths and pretty lies
slice through the rule
that was once golden.
Freedom does come
at a cost too pricey
for the average man.

What once was held sacred
is now blemished and black.
Honesty and integrity
have been usurped
with treachery and debauchery.

The bride no longer wears white;
she is raped repeatedly
of her individuality. She
drapes herself in a shroud
of red—the blood she sheds
on the road to perdition.

Pick Up the Pieces

Pick up the pieces still
after four years, of my life
and his. The economy
mimics my sorrow
with gas price fluctuation
akin to the apex of my
irrationality.

The war is not part
of the world I am living.
That September affected
us all; the war, only a subset.
The perpetrators still
haunt my endless days
and ruffle my intolerable nights.

I can’t see my normal
returning to my existence.
Half of me died that day;
the other suffers miserably.
I go on the best I can
and hope to see you again.

Spring Fever

Light and frivolous
moods suffuse
the air with a rainbow
of colors. Winter
has melted away.

Buds spring up
and blossom overnight.
No matter how careful
we watch, we miss
the miracle of rebirth.

Sounds of Insomnia

Listen to the myriad sounds
of the emptiness of the night.
Great drums of marching bands
beat time to the darkness.
Each tick, tick, tick of the clock
urge inaction beneath the pillows.
There’s no escape from the deafening
noise of insomnia.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity—
It’s only fair, of course.
Isn’t that a give-and-take,
no-grain-of-salt
non-relationship?

Life is often unfair
and totally unaware
or it feels that way.

Things are never
what they seem.
It’s expected of you
but not for you.

Use and abuse
lead to a sense
of inadequacy
and self-doubt.

Uneven exchanges
cause mild resentment
in the mutual admiration
and pat-on-the-back society.

On the Road

Anticipation and reluctance,
genuine opposites, fight for the summit--
something new versus status quo.
Accomplish everything attempted
and try it all. Success smells sweeter
than succulent strawberries in summer.

Forgive only that which is not tested
to the best of our abilities.
Knowledge rounds the square
and sets perpetual motion
to the stillness of ennui.

Wade not when you can dive,
want not when you can have.
Take it, taste it, and use it
to your advantage.

Contentment serves only the dreamless.
Strive for utopia and sculpt your place within.
Reluctance shall lose to willingness—
gather greatness in victorious reflection.

Watercolor Words

Watercolor words
cascade through my brain and paint
a beautiful you.

Poetry Dies

As poetry dies
the world is stark, dark.
Make my words just disappear;
I flounder for expression.
Capture the inkwell
before a sea spills.

Who He Was

He was the debonair sailor
you met that summer eons ago
when you visited Aunt Rhoda
near Boston harbor.

He was on his last leave
before a two-year
tour of duty overseas.

The three days you spent together
were idyllic. Everything
and everyone duly faded
into the background.

You had a very difficult time
when he had to leave, but
you promised to write, so did he.
He would come home to you.

You moved; he got reassigned.
The mail was delayed. You lost touch
with each other and never found
him again. But you never forgot.

Neither did he.

In Memory of the Future

I remember my solitude
as it will be five years forward.
Much like an isolated rabbit
ever watchful for his next predator,
I wait for you.

Ten years ahead, I’ve developed
a nervous tic in my neck
from constantly looking back.
My eyes are blurred and shadowed
with the impossibility of age.

Fifteen years in my future,
I surrender to my destiny
and forgive my hesitancy
in living my life each day.
I fear you’ve already left
even before you arrive.

After twenty years, it barely matters
since my thoughts migrate
regularly without season.
I watch the calendar and wonder
which day will be my last,
but I finally understand

you will be there then.

My Everlasting Once

I never married, never littered
the world with images of myself,
and never asked for immortality.
I squandered my days in work
and words that become my legacy.

I keep to myself with only
a significant few others—quietly,
somberly—to contemplate life
and its varied conspirators.
My thoughts on most idiosyncrasies
shared only between pen and paper.

Were I to expire—simply be no longer—
the few I know could profess to know me.
The intangible nature of my mind
might cause suspicion among some
of my questionable associates.

How little they understand
the multi-faceted diamond
that is my warped and twisted brain.
Surely, they recognize purity of heart;
they must cope with insanity as well.