Never Alone

I chase my thoughts in circles with you at its center, 

Clawing at my mind's eye with fists of cotton 

Growing dizzy in the pursuit 

With the taste of distain and disillusion 

Wet on the lips. 

My preferred indifferent, 

A noxious shot of novocain into the temporal lobe 

Leaving you scrambled like eggs 

With a slice of butter and a pinch of salt. 

The soft ease of slipping beneath the surface 

Only to be jerked away 

With the sudden revelation of choaking on your bath water 

That never turned to wine and in the end left you unclean. 

You step into a thin film of filth that clings to the skin 

Your new robe fit for a king. 

A garment to marvel for the ages

 Tanned in sadness, stitched with pain, and hemmed from anguish 

A death shroud taught to stand like a man. 

Beatings grow stale after time 

Leaving the only real wounds just beneath the skin, 

The ones that never seem to scab over 

Even when left unpicked. 

Tomorrow’s dreams always lay on the other side of Sisyphos’ bolder; 

Your clouds fill my eyes upending my equilibrium 

Sending me stumbling from one misnomer to the next, 

Focus cuts hard to port shattering against the rocks of reason 

Driven onward with that abstract compulsion 

To look under all the lids and behind each door for what is not there. 

It’s seeing the finished statue still laying in the ruff uncut stone and knowing it will never surface 

As false phantoms whisper sweet untruths 

To lure me back to my golden fetters 

To watch the shadows dance across my caves wall. 

Beauty Observed

Fire fills the veins and clouds the eyes; 

heat fills my mind at the mention of your name 

only surpassed by the heavenly drowning in your eyes. 

Throw away the key and let me fall endlessly..., 

no djinn could cast a greater spell 

the thoughts of you crowd in the head 

all the imagined personas driving the craving only deeper. 

I would have walked on the sun with you, 

touched its warmth as it spread out filling the lungs, 

breathing honey with each night 

consumed in each other, endlessly. 

Real passion only multiplies, 

a mitosis that fills first the chest then bursting outward. 

The largest fire first started with just a spark, 

your palpable on the tongue, 

a face to launch a 1000 ships 

where craven thoughts are held at bay 

looking only for the willing partner. 

Unchecked desire 

to have your cake and eat it to, 

to feed on that sweet soft nectar 

drawing life from barren ground. 

Gasping for air 

waiting for each word and shutter in their absence, 

a sweet supple intelligence 

a tree who’s fruit I could gorge myself on relentlessly. 

Its sticky and gets beneath the fingers and seeps into the pores, 

echoing into the very depths, 

a hurricane to rattle the windows and board the doors. 

Moving at the speed of thought, 

releasing the restraints of the day, 

letting the hidden wants slip out into the page’s endless night. 

One-way streets are always lonely, long, and 

better to walk alone if not walking next to destiny. 

The hard fall coming down from a sugar high to the impact of reality, 

the thrill of the chase is only reality if capture is the intended destination and 

two souls forged into one its goal.  

The Checkered Tiger

No distractions can fill it, 

No path will lead it. 

So much was left on the table. 

My thoughts blend like taffy, 

Your sweet bright colors swirl into the mind’s black abyss. 

I look at the future backwards 

Getting drawn into the hallucinogenic minutia 

Snapping at fireflies. 

The minds mirror maze, 

Each turn loops back on itself 

Where you spend your days dancing with ghosts 

As reason impales you on the dreams of tommorow. 

Each day bleeds into the next 

Beating the drums of loneliness, 

The well-groomed precession of empty picture frames 

Each marching one to the next,

 Decorating empty walls 

In a forgotten home. 

No safe harbor in your eyes, 

Only solitary vapid thoughts 

Churning out nothingness 

Leaving nothingness in its wake. 

Sandcastles built on supposition 

Mixed with arbitrary fascination 

And sprinkled with upended compassion. 

A puppet with its own back story 

Hung around my neck like the albatross. 

I find your footprints when gaze lingers on my mausoleum, 

I can feel your heat as you pass by, 

I would have poured what was left into you. 

If it were destined to be it would. 

A teacup just won’t do after years of drinking straight from the hose, 

It was never meant to be sip by sip. 

If I don’t have another endless ocean, 

No boundless infinity stretching from stem to stern, 

Then the island I will become. 

The exit wound it leaves can only be filled with what was lost, 

No substitute can fool the guards. 

Mindless pursuit, one after the other, 

Each just as hallow as the last

Life was designed as a duet and once it ends you learn to live in the absence of light.