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I know you wish for it
But can you handle it?
The connection between
Yourself and others.
Do you not understand
You are already in control?
Their perception and yours
Are influenced by will.

Do you make an effort
To understand others?
You try your utmost
But lose your way.
Do you make an effort
To help others understand?
You try your utmost
But your perceptions differ still.

What is the ultimate reality
Of such opposing views?
Strife, hatred, sorrow, envy,
Worry, many types of pain.
Is the impossible hope
For peace worth this?
Only God can say surely
But there is little we can do.

Do you see, in every heart,
That man-shaped vacuum?
Yes, I do, and I long to fill it
No matter its cost to procure.
Don’t you think it would be best
If all were of one consciousness?
No, for then we would be lost
Within the shoreless sea of ourselves.

Then, in the waters of wholeness,
Shall one choose singularity?
They would have the option
If they perceive it as such.
Then will they fulfill
That gaping man-shaped vacuum?
Perhaps in a joint condition
Of individual unity.

Then happiness is found
In unachievable balance?
Not so, for filling that hole
Does not make man complete.
Then how are we to perceive
If not through ourselves and others?
Realistically, for there is yet
Another vacuum pulling us.

Then true happiness cannot
Be found in man’s embrace?
True earthly happiness can
If the love indeed be true.
Then true happiness cannot
Be found in God’s embrace?
True Heavenly joy is unveiled
With Death in glorious Rebirth.
Then true happiness cannot
Be found in my own embrace?
Only should you fail to heed
The longing of your pleading heart.

Then what is the reason for
My utter misery and hatred?
The reason is that you seek
Whatever is obtainable.
Is it only natural for man t
To want for his pleasure?
That which is to gain must be
Given to those who deserve it.
So, is happiness obtainable
In this unfair, connected land?
You should not ask me, for
A single view is not reliable.

Do I possibly have hope for
Happiness among others here?
If you keep your mind on Earth,
Then you shall never know
The free contentment
Of Heaven.

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behold
my stepbrother’s pet
for less than six months:
Leo, the Leopard Gecko.
For a week he wandered,
sluggish,
not chasing crickets
with reptilian reckless abandon
as he once did,
hiding away in his tree trunk
which had grown too small
or was just poorly crafted to begin with
until we dragged him out
and saw some dried thing
sticking out of his scaly anus.

at first we thought it was a fecal strand
or some digested piece of hair
which we tugged at and pulled
to no avail
until I, annoyed by the lizard’s inability
to register discomfort
as it lay there, seemingly drowsy
but actually dying
when I discovered that Leo
had a gut impaction
because pet stores don’t care enough
about lizards
to tell you that sand in a terrarrium
damages their insides when swallowed
because of clumping
and that you should use dirt, wood chips, moss,
basically anything
but sand
which leaves us with Leo and his intestines
sheiveled and sandy
sticking out his scaly anus.

my stepbrother was not there,
so the new question was
how to solve the gecko problem
without him finding out?
the answer was to distract him
by buying a ball python.
meanwhile, I was sent out back
with my stepbrother’s most recent pet
who had crawled into his water dish
as if to soak his dried-out intestine
though could absorb nothing any longer.

whose fault was it
that this gecko could suffer so?
I couldn’t tell you.
I also couldn’t tell you
why it took me ten minutes to prepare –
propping Leo’s head over the dish’s edge
petting him until his eyes closed
talking softly and soothingly
washing him with a bath’s last rites –
before I placed a paper towel over him
and broke his skull with a brick
expertly aimed to kill instantly
like a guillotine designed to crush
rather than sever.
he squirmed three times
and was still,
that little lizard corpse
who once possessed the moniker “lion”
yet was felled by a buildup
of gastronomic thorns
that sent him to my executioner’s block.

as I hurled him over the fence
and into the creek
I realized I was compelled by pity
rather than by whim
to end this creature’s short existence
unlike the gecko that flew
from my third-story window;
to kill the one that knew no more than a tank
seemed of more value
or, at least, of more consequence
than stopping the gecko that dared
to climb impressive heights

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If all the world’s a stage,
And all its peoples merely players,
Then whatever play they may display
Plays a role in their role-play.

Which mask dost thou don
Or cloak thy shoulders drape
Meaning to disguise thy demeanor
Of meanness in guise of mien?

To prance in pomp
As the hero, firm his stance
To be steadfast, though instead he fast
Hold of mead to drown his stead?

To swoon with grace
As the damsel, purest ideal,
Yet chastity yield to the chasing titty
And virginity crumbles with gin.

Hurl forth the wrench
As the villain, hating the world
Though his downfall is falling down
Into drunken ego and spirits.

Long live the fool
Who sees the world as a joke
And is not afeared to drink drink ‘til drunk
Nor implicate falsely placated designs.

He spies the game
Concealed behind purpose
And understands that standing under reason
Is reason enough to pine for a pint.

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I can do it!
Watch me now!
In and out, turn about, duck and tuck-
Shit!
One more time!
Something else, though.
Gather speed, bend the knees, straighten ou-
Ouch!
One more time!

One more time, the skater says,
That dainty figure-eighter skater says –
She tries so hard to land a Lutz
Or start a Salchow, but the klutz
Keeps falling smack upon her butt.

A shame.

The trick to where her problem lies
Is not with practice, or strong thighs,
But that she simply ate some lies
Fed to her by family, friends –
Those who gave her hobby credit due
Tenfold more than it deserved.

And so she scuffs her petite ass
With her best, which doesn’t pass
For even mediocre class –
Which is quite sad, for all she lacks
Is not the persevering knack
But the Gift.

Others skate about with ease
Who practice half as much as she –
But she would choose not to see
She never had the choice to free
The Gift within her.

It chose not her
But others besides –
And so despite her wounding pride
She keeps upon the icy glide
Doomed to never change her stride
One more time.

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Costly preceding years
Seemed a net closing round –
A net in which
The mysterious way
Two people
Get to know each others’ thoughts
Outbreak…
Intolerable;
A great feeling of self-contempt speaking harshly.
There can have been few men more miserable
At that period.
He was a very simple soul – very simple –
No man can satisfactorily accomplish work
Without woman.
He was beginning his own traditions
A sheer individualist,
An overlord doing his best.
She came of a family plundered,
She was thinking unceasingly of children.
They never had any children –
Not that children
Made the dissimilarity
Of Edward and Leonora.

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Have you ever been
Encompassed by that rare feeling –
Peace –
Closed your eyes
Tight enough to shut out light, turn off world,
And floated (not very far)
From Corporeality?
To float among the stars –
In and out of people –
Leaving that shadow of yourself behind to ponder.
Ponder on the things it cannot reach or touch
Except when two twigs of the same branch
Snap themselves in twain, aware of their compatibility
But no longer desiring to be compatible
For the sake of the tree.
Their energy fills the mind

Like euphoria! physics beyond origin
But crackling all the brighter from some electrifying point
Of chemical separation,
And the mind reacts!
Releases for a second –
Gifts us with relief,
For one solitary second.
And, in that moment of autoscopy,
The body feels so strange,
So foreign.
To be able to feel one’s own existence
In the plane of material reality –
And to realize it feels so
Unnatural
Is unnatural to think about

Unless you escape to that plane once again
To not think about it over there.
Just to feel not thinking about it.
Because, once you’ve felt it,
You can’t stand not to feel it again
To seek it again
And all you do is think
About how you once had felt.

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A veil of peace covers Earth –
A cloak of darkness smothers mirth –
In the black expanse of space, comets keep their pace
To the sound of the stars’ symphony.

Betelgeuse orchestrates –
Sirius bright illuminates –
Galaxy radiation tempo heralds instrumental crescendo
Of the sound of the stars’ symphony.

Pirouette, Rond de jambe,
Pirouette, Rond de jambe
Twirls Nehtor, comet dancer.
Chasse, whisk,
Chasse, wing,
Leading on clumsy Cancer.
A beacon of light as they waltz through the night
And lull the universe to rest.

Musicians of the void
Plucking passing asteroids,
To every tuneful tinkle those time-old trumpets twinkle,
Another starry serenade grows cold.

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When the loins of my mother met the groin of my father,
The egg inside her just couldn’t be bothered.
You could say I was lazy before I was born,
Like the sun in the evenin’ or the moon in the morn’.
You could say I’m just tired from staying up late
Though I turn in at six to wake up at eight.
You could say my mind’s stuck in another timezone,
But the truth of the matter’s I’ve got lazy bones.

Every time I walk the dog,
They’re pulling me down –
Every time I drive through fog,
Feel them weigh upon my crown –
Every time I write my blog
I’m draggin’ the ground –
I’m not a jerk, just overworked
To move these lazy bones.

I searched for a wife to hasten my step
But she realized to do so would be such a shlep
I hoped that her love would make my pounds lighter
But her nagging divided my movements to spite her;
The chores are unfinished, the house is a wreck
With my body laid low by impatient hen-pecks
Our love-making only makes snores from her groans
As I rock her to sleep with my slow lazy bones.

Every day of every week
They’re pulling me down –
Every word I try to speak,
Feel them weigh upon my crown –
Every time she calls me “Bum”
For draggin’ the ground.
I’m not so weak, just born a freak
Cursed with these lazy bones.

I passed on my genetics, my wife her hormones
Since my children all seem like they’ve got lazy bones
Yet blame it on others that they are so slow –
A symptom my sluggish skeleton never shows –
Complaining the world wants to keep them subdued,
That being set up for failure is why they’re so rude,
They spend all their time making friends in their phones
While I spend all our earnings on their lazy bones.

Whose fault is it we’re born like this?
No one’s, I suppose.
But why can’t we seem to shake
These awful lazy bones?
I saw them in my Father, he saw them in his Mom –
If we closed our eyes would we consider it more wrong
To fall prey to lazy bones and waste our lives away?
I cannot say, ‘cause every day
My eyes grow more accustomed –
It’s just humanity.

The relaxed life is gravity –
Just pulling us down.
Profound thoughts inside our heads
Feel like weight upon our crowns –
Earth seems far too cruel a place
Unless we’re draggin’ the ground.
It’s our excuse, the only use
For stuffing our skins with Lazy Bones.

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Yards and miles
Hours and years
How long have you spent waiting here
For coffee you could better at home
If you had time,
A handful of cents,
Rather than spend thrice of both
As loans to Patience
And his tap-tapping foot
In the squall. So tell me why
You spend your life in the Starbucks line?

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Come hop on a barge
to Zanzibar
There’s a beautiful scene
in Zanzibar
The night is serene
at Zanzibar
With credit to charge
for Zanzibar

Zanzibar,
Oh! Zanzibar –
Your pockets be drained by Zanzibar.
You think you’ll withhold
That plastified gold
When wallet unfolds
In Zanzibar.

The spices are fresh
with Zanzibar
The merchant-tents stocked
near Zanzibar
Sandy beaches flocked
by Zanzibar
‘Neath a millionaire-mesh
and Zanzibar.

Zanzibar,
Oh! Zanzibar – 
Throw buck to the breeze of Zanzibar.
For rest you have found
Why not spend a pound
Of your savings sound
In Zanzibar?

Zanzibar,
Oh! Zanzibar –
We welcome you here at Zanzibar.
It’s dry and its hot
But others have thought
They liked life alot.
Thank Zanzibar!

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