Poem as Empty Words of Love

We are dead words equipped with sounds,
like pretty mannequins with guns
propped up against the parapets
fake-protecting a fort called love
and not even knowing it. The
susurrus of silken kisses,
neck on neck, breast caressing breast,
naked, exposed, but not undressed,
dead words touching, promiscuous,
lips feverish—mellifluous
gibberish, beau geste.

Silver Mascara

You apply coats of silver mascara
to the puffy folds about the setting sun.
In the screaming sky mannequins flew.
From the silent soil red flowers grew;
one in the shape of an umbrella,
another: a pointed gun.

Story of Buck

Up close he looks like a bereft cowboy
Waiting his turn for some more campfire beans.
Except Buck is in an institution,
both hands on hips posing in line for pills.
No rope nor gun, and not atop a horse,
No cowboy boots, neither donning a hat.
Still Buck had been a true cowboy no less,
Who'd owned some sheep and cattle and a ranch.
But then one day his soft reflection asked:
Oh Buck must we eat flesh, must we not grass?
So Buck let the ranch and the livestock go,
And grazed each day along with cows and sheep. 
But soon the land owners restrained our Buck.
They dragged him to the doctors; shackled, tied.
These days you won't see Buck out in the field,
But here surrounded by the walls—sans glass.
So now snowed into sanity, Buck sleeps.

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.