Pain is all I’ve ever known!
It’s been said “You reap what you sow”.
But I’ve never harmed anyone. Not a living soul.

So, I reap the whirlwind,
living the life I was given
with no expectation that somewhere there’s a heaven.

Turning down the avenue with cold rain on my face,
my mind searches back to a better place
as I pray that God will give me his grace.

I’m just a faceless apparition,
taking up space and time,
with its shoes soaking wet
and soles thin as a dime.

I wish it were different
but this is my lot;
facing the reality that
the streets are all I’ve got.

We see them every day.
Look at them with disgust and dismay
and call our children in from play.
They are of every ethnicity and background,
found in every city and every town.
The numbers of them surely do astound.

Their faces are gaunt and stressed.
They’re always disheveled and unkempt.
Their situations are desperate and stark as they make
their homes in our parks and doorways,
or in a huddled mass
in alleyways amongst rats and trash.

Others hide away under highway ramps.
Those we’ve labeled bums, derelicts, and tramps.

When will come the day when we take stock of ourselves and say,
Homelessness won’t be solved unless we all get involved?

Perhaps we should concentrate less on self and personal vanity
by questioning our common decency and our humanity.

Let’s all look a little deeper, because we really and truly are
our brother’s keeper.

No matter the home
Where I may reside
The emptiness will be
Both around and inside
No feelings, nor love
Will ever be found
For there’ll never be
Any loving family around

It’s a place where
All my yesterday’s die
Where dreams and hopes
Bring tears and cries
Where all that’s past
Can overwhelm me
Where what could’ve been
Will always torment me

No longer a father,
Only an empty shell
Abandoned in a place
That’s a living hell
They call it living
But it’s ongoing pain
A place that forever
Where I will remain

For me yesterday’s certainties
Have become today’s doubts
Causing feelings of despair
That settles all about
I fear and dread
What tomorrow might bring
More of that which
Will never be changing

So much is unknown
About who I am
My life has flowed
Like water over a dam
All of its goodness
Now quietly streams away
Nobody has diverted it
To flow their way

Forgotten in their mind
Bled from their heart
Only in their memory
Am I still part
Why can’t the family
Who’s from my seed
Give love and forgiveness
That I desperately need

A poet is born with heart and soul,
To express his feelings is his lifetime goal.
Life is his subject, his reason to be,
He puts into words what others can’t see.

The poems he writes are from his heart,
True poetry is words that your emotions start.
Your emotions will feel, your mind will dwell,
On what he’s written, what his poems tell.

He feels the world, while others only sense,
Everything he writes is profound and intense.
The world is alive, everything has a life,
He describes life’s beauty and also its strife.

But inside his heart each written word pains,
Tearing apart his essence till ‘til no life remains. ^^^
His words are emotions, each line he’ll feel
Every poem is alive, to him it’s real.

A poet is nothing ‘til till he doesn’t exist ^^^
Then what he’s written, his readers can’t resist.
His words come alive only when he’s dead,
Death is an emphasizer assuring he’ll be read.

If someone’s a poet then he must die,
To prove his words were not a lie.
Words are his lifeblood, thus his final cost,
His word’s gain immortality, his life is lost.

AMBER LIGHT, FADING, DYING
DARKNESS, ENCOMPASSING, CONSUMING
VOICES, UNTRUTHFUL, LYING
FEAR, UNCERTAINTY LOOMING.

SLEEPLESS NIGHT, TOO WELL KNOWN
NIGHTMARISH HORRORS ON NIGHTS OF FITFUL SLEEP
PEACEFUL DREAMS FAR AWAY HAVE FLOWN
ONLY DESPAIR FOLLOWS, FOREVER DEEP.

PACING, FRIGHTENED, CRAVING DAWN
WISHING AWAY THE AWFUL VOICES.
KNOWING NOT WHERE HOPE HAS GONE
AND HAVING NO MORE CHOICES.

BLACK GIVES WAY TO GRAY
THE VOICES DRIFT AFAR
THE SUN GIVES PROMISE OF A NEW DAY
AND ERASES EACH AND EVERY SCAR.

BUT SOON THE LIGHT BEGINS TO FADE
GIVING WAY TO DARKNESS ONCE MORE.
AGAIN SHE MUST LIE UPON THE BED SHE MADE
AND CRY HER PAIN AS BEFORE.

Waiting for the Mexican cook
Antonio
In front of the foreclosed house
On the edge of Mt. Pleasant
The white-winged thrushes
Chasing each other
through wire chain link fences
Junk trees
a “birds and the bees” reality show
The jumbled street back-dropped with thumping SUV’s
The kids even here in this neighborhood ride skateboards;
Dogs bark incessantly…
The Whippoorwill Whippoorwills
And Robins and Grackles grackle
A Wisteria some dead Italian immigrant planted in 1952
Wafts its heady Purple musk
The satellite TV truck
is parked sideways
Across the busted driveway
In front of the vinyl sided tenement that has
5 satellite dishes along its edge

Empty cases of
Corona and long neck Budweiser
The rims of each
Japanese vehicle glisten
In the afterglow
of late afternoon sunlight
The twisted metal Venetian blinds
On the third floor attic windows
Seem sad like half a smile
on Saturday night
Someone is blowing a horn
Someone else is sitting
on a peeling porch
Everyone is telling me
all they want is a job
“This country no good no more…
No jobs no more…”
I am the sore thumb
in this neighborhood
I am waiting for the Mexican
Antonio

In the lost wilderness animals are encountered deep in slumber
Sacred beautiful gifts are shared still, with promised hearts
They returned to dream, to escape solace as silence lay
The lovely lady awakens to rainbow skies, and prays
Elohi~~~~
Mystic spirit in a wolf’s tradition stands proud , straight spine
Each seasonal dress is commemorated with brightness in totems lines
Mesmerizing feathered ornaments in realism days
Stationary for visionary touch
Elohi~~~~~
Intricately woven with care from the blended history
Power of dreams, hand sculptured replicas to be
Guiding spirits reflective states, she sees
Tribal legends wisdom of ages, winter scenic life
Elohi~~~~~~~~
All is quite in night’s glow
Gleaming trails with moonstruck haze
Marbleized stands the lifted spiritual ancestors gulf streams
Blossoms fully in winters totem pole mystic dreams
She will awaken all beauty once again

Fog weighs anchor in the harbour,
shroud covering it’s imperfections,
hauntingly distant a bell buoy tolls,
to and fro on ocean’s gentle swell
outbound, a fog horn belches
stirring offended sea birds to flight,
flotsam and jetsam tell a story
only Neptune knows the ending
soul feeling the smell of salt brine,
lost heart yearns, he knows not why,
song lines adrift in a sailor’s minds
facing again, into the Southwest breeze,
resigned, he leaves yesterday behind…

Hoar frost coats a Sunday morn scene
day old donuts free but taste good
porridge ladled from a cast iron pot
life stories scratched in table wood
Supermarket cart home on wheels
bottles, rags…little treasures found
long cigarette butts quickly stashed away
need to keep your eyes to the ground
Big cardboard box behind Jo Mac’s Furniture
new shelter from cold North wind blowin
five buck wine from loose change bummed
dull the ache of things best not known
Cheap trick turned in darkened back ally
illegal thrills as he looks down his nose
staunch Sunday morning Christian moans
justification found only Lord he knows
Somewhere mother cries a baby’s name
she’s always listening for the phone
father prays forgiveness on bended knee
thirteen year old runaway dies alone…

Adam never asked
And we’ve wondered ever since.
As the First
He had the privilege of naming things.
Beasts, Stars, Honeysuckle,
Were called as they moved him.
Adam gave three names
To himself and five more
To Woman. Eve added
One more for herself and never
Told him.
Adam called himself
Hunter, Gatherer, and Woodcutter.
He called Eve
Lover, Mother, Peace, Gazer, and Home.
Adam called the Snake “Deceit” for he
Often mistook it for a branch on the ground
Or a vine in the trees.
Woman called it “Power” because it was not afraid
Of anything larger than itself.
“Say your name,” the Snake tempted Eve.
“Which one?” she asked.
“The one only you know and Man doesn’t.”
“Why should I tell you?” Woman asked.
“With it I can give you Power,” claimed the Snake.
“Go see if Man wants Power,” said Eve,
“It is enough I have to carry his Sins.”