An Act of Courage

Open the body's gates. Now, let fear

come, up those steps of bone and down

pulsating halls, to the room

decorated with love,

chamber of the heart.

Offer your breath.

Softly say:

Welcome

home.

Traffic-Jammed Intersections in the Brain

Traffic-jammed intersections in the mind. 

The cause: Again, multi-car crash. 

The cause: Again, Anger tailgating Fear, 

Surprise 

unconscious, half under and half behind 

Happy still asleep at the wheel, 

with Disgust 

ahead repelled by Sorrow and Sorrow

feeling the cracks in the pavement where shards

of glass encircle a dandelion, 

headless. 

A hollow voice from deep inside the stem: 

Could have avoided this. 

Could have avoided this.

Some Nights I Fear Going to Sleep

I don't recall my dreams, at least
not the narrative: Saw a priest
wearing a cape, fluorescent green,
and warning me that West's now East.

Another dream: A vile disease;
it kills none but weakens the knees,
so people crawl along the streets
and weep sometimes and hug the trees.

Some nights I fear going to sleep;
stay up for hours just counting sheep.
My day's odd but I make it mean.
At night meaningless terrors creep. 

To the Thief

I'll be brief.
This, to the thief
who stole—to my grief—
my Kobe beef
and ate it here
guzzling my beer
with no fear
that we will hear:
Your worse crime
was adding the lime
and all my thyme!
Hope you do time!

Fingertongues

On the paper I walk on my fingertongues
this is no way to live I wish I didn't have to
hunt for words all about me
and jump from one to one as though a frog on a pond
my fingertongues projecting to swallow the meaning
before making another jump
here on a lotus leaf enclosed by stagnant waters
of unconscious white page I fear
falling in.

Fear

Fear is the bleeding yarn
Fear is the fleeting dawn
Fear is the grave of sleep
Fear is the fiery yawn

Fear is the naked plain
Fear is the shield and chain
Fear is the spider's creep
Fear is the lion's mane

Fear is the godless leer
Fear is the throaty croon
Fear is the missing sheep
Fear is the icy moon

Fear is the crack of bone
Fear is the dark unknown
Fear is the drowning deep
Fear is the dying moan

Fear is the perfect line
Fear is the senseless sign
Fear is the patterned beep
Fear is the curving spine

Fear is inside this yarn
Fear has knit my rhyme
Fear oh you fool...
My will's as sharp as knife!

Bull Shark

What you need to know:

I am a bull shark.
What you need to feel:
dread (and only dread),

when my jaw muscles
twitch, crack turtle shells.

What I need to know:
Why am I afraid of you?

Old Me

Why must we grow old
Why has fear taken hold
The dread of timeless loss
My searching eyes look
Just like the old me
The curly haired little boy
Dazed by the tiptoes of beauty
That took refuge in his innocence
And bestowed upon his fleeting being
A longing sense

Protecting Pain

Her wrinkled ground of psyche bears
the throbbing spoor of savage wills

She seeks to gather fearless strength
and build from hate a bed of spikes

It's not the light but shades she wears
reposing on protecting pain

Her skin was charred and she was shamed 
for all and naught and for her weight

She sighs as though an offshore wind
and arches faced with faceless void

She loathes herself as storm the breeze
and dies at sea as squalls abate

So fear and hate coordinate
in a harrowing harmony

Centillion Ways to Die

Hospital, hospice, laid in bed,
On freezing streets, in fancy rooms.
In timeless spaces, sunless skies,
Cubicles, prison cells...and tombs. 
In front of judges, parents, kids,
Audience—friend or strange—their eyes
Still staring from behind the lids
That speak the feelings left unsaid. 
With prayers, with grating cries, with sighs.
Unseen, unknown; unloved, unwed....
By force or will, with guns.  In wombs
Of girls whose souls have parted too.
Kisses on cheeks and pale foreheads,
Holding of hands, and swallowed tears,
With lonely aches and greedy fears.
Mystery, grief...then peace one year,
as pain searches, with wings unspread,
for warm and kind suffering peers
to help release the inner dead.

At Times

So if it's all your fault   
Then I am in the right
But then the world's unfair 

But if it's my failure 
It seems the world is fair
But I'm the one to blame 

If no one is at fault 
Nobody is to blame 
But world's no less unfair

At times the anguish wanes
The fearful guard relents
The world and I are one

At times I breathe the air
The air breathes me in turn
And pain forgets its shame

Play With Us It's Safe

What do you want
What would you like
It's up to you
The choice is yours
Whatever you might wish
Whatever you decide

But when the skies are foggy black I still recall the moon 
that night its bruised red eye was peeping at us through the clouds
I said come out and play with us it's safe we're children too.

Alone on a Stormy Night

A yellow bulb lit 
Under my lone bed—moonlit.
Monstered-light thunders!

Devouring Silence

The suitcase of silence    
is veiled in black, in white; 
it tails behind on wheels 
that dance to earthy tunes, 
spinning at whim.... 

My carry-on contains 
displaced letters only.
Homeless in frozen air— 
How they blubber!

In the flying coffin,     
relics of past, hollow.
Meaning: I call poem
my home. 

I escaped with letters hostage,  
so I can be.  At last.
Alone.  I

fear devouring
silence.