Ray of Light

There is a hole in my heart, and I can’t contain the light that is pouring out. This is the brilliance of truth and the refraction of soul. This is the damage that is done to a human being when you are betrayed, blinded, backstabbed, and belittled for trying to be more understanding than is [...]

Achille’s Heel

This is the slow motion
Of my Achille’s tendon unravelling.
Dimly I am aware
of something wrong
of terrible, horrible things impending
and that this is gonna hurt.
Again.
SNAP!
Scream.
Pain and agony.
My leg!
Ambulance on the way.
Stay calm — it’s going to be alright.
You’ll get medical attention.
Sirens and first aid.
Professionals stitching me back together.
Drugs [...]

Heavy and Blue

My heart is heavy and blue
Like a lack of oxygen
Some necessary energy source
A nutrient it is used to being fortified with.
This weight in my chest
Prevents me from breathing too deeply.
I walk hunched
Like there’s a rope attached to a stone.

Dictation:

thoughts like knives
– no blunt smile –
grinding to sharpen
against the stone of today.
my low self-esteem
smarts when it’s smart,
because nobody hurts me like me.

Coping

Sometimes I think about things,
and I’m embarrassed because
of the way I think.
I am just another person,
another human being,
and I’m sad because I’m supposedly
special.
I’m sad that I’ve been determined
to be smart or something.
I’m different, and that hurts,
and people need me because of my “gifts”
and “talents”.
I don’t refuse their necessities.
They need, I fulfill
and I’ll do my best.
But [...]

The Candlestick Maker

Sometimes I come and I go
fall apart like a fool,
too cool to admit I’m wrong:
I’m no Annie Sprinkle
with a cervix to show -
I get stoned and believe in the Maker,
the butcher, the baker,
and I’m three men in a tub:
one with a sword,
one with a glove,
one with a half-cocked smile
and a shrug.

I Can’t Breathe

why can’t I
just be another guy?
but I’m a person
with a snake-sharp tongue
and I’m a ripped flannel…
I shoot my mouth like a shotgun.
riddles and rhyming and rhythm,
not taken seriously enough to stay honest
just another number in the GTE phone list.
I lie and I lie and I lie
to convince you all
that the poet is just another human [...]

A Letter

Dear Mom,
I was so stoned the other night
that I was at awe with the world
like when I was a child
light and airy, care-free
and drug-free.
It’s just the weight of responsibility
that turns me to substance,
matter rather than mind -
a little more of the Kind
can sometimes give me back my pleasures:
the realities of the memories
I’ve dried and [...]

Stony Summer Days

I give myself the leniency
to sit and smoke beneath a tree
in fifteen minutes, a little break
from the summer school I choose to take.
I smoke with friends who’re in my class
from a little whorled pipe which I pass.
with smoky lungs and contented gaze
I stone them all with sunshine rays.

Painted Cave Creekbed

with all those spring rains
the Painted Cave creekbed
is full of raw boulders being softened
by green children with
still, poised fingers like
ricocheting fireworks.
I poke my head under huge stones
into spaces like lion’s jaws
to the screeching of irritated scrub jays.