Dignity, Undenied September 25, 2009

What can a man do
To salvage his dignity?
Is his belief in the Holy Trinity
Enough?
No
It is a start
But dignity comes from the heart
And the soul
Respect of self
Of all life
Despisal of strife
These make a man whole
Love of knowledge
Love of health
Love itself
These noble ends
Can stop a man
From descending
Into personal hell
A neighborhood I know well

What good does hatred do?
I could let it consume me
I could become
The antithesis of dignity
Easily
Sit in my chair
Spewing vitriol
Rejecting all
Of everything I know
To be true

I have seen this done
Untold times
Millions of little crimes
Claiming lives
Personal slavery
The illusion of being free
Paying homage to decadence
Seeking satisfaction
In scenes of violence
Fantasizing of triumphs unfulfilled
Wallowing in the communal
Pool of blood spilled
The universal satisfaction
Of the lowest common denominator
The ultimate distraction
Of the seductive annihilator

I look at these pathetic men
And I say never again
I’ve tried
To mask my self contempt
With misplaced pride
I’ve felt
The sense of emptiness
As my besieged soul died
And I survived
I saw the light
And I tore myself down
Until I felt the night recede
I built a spiritual pedestal
And I stand upon it
Determined to succeed
With a dignity
No one will deny
And I shall stay that way
Until the day I die

True Life Productions 2/2/07

Why is it?
Only the beautiful people fall in love
In the movies
Why do they live in a spotless house
And drive new cars?
Why don't they watch ball games
And hang out in seedy bars?

How does the cowboy
Out in the wilderness
Always have a fresh cup of joe?
How does he feed his horses
When he barely has enough for himself?
Why is he built like John Wayne
When his diet would leave him in poor health?
What makes anyone think
That all we admire
Is the beautiful and the bold?
Why do we lay prone and swallow
The graceful lies we're sold?

Where is the film about the Plain Jane
Who falls in love with John Doe?
When will Hollywood
Clue in to the fact
That we poets seem to know?
There is drama in the every day
From the housewife who fantasizes about a way out
To the CEO who practices nihilism for pay
The producers will whine that the audience will balk
But the roles will reveal
The way real people talk
The movie that i would really like to see
Is a celebration of majestic mediocrity

What Would Walt Whitman Want? 3/15/07

I've heard America sing
And I've heard her scream
The anguished howls
Echoing across the decades
Now I hear the cries
Of those devoid of a voice
Suppressed in their expression
While the fortunate few
Pummel them with artificial force
Singing a song of self importance
Whose obscenity is only surpassed
By the size of their campaign fund
Whose chorus is carefully composed
To be mimicked through the red lipped mouth
Of the milky media maven

The disenfranchised masses
Who have mortgaged their voices
For the sake of slippery security
Instead seethe in silence
Until anger permeates
Every aspect of their existence
The distressing results are seen
In their reaction to their television screen
When they can laugh at a man
Being shot through the heart
While his wife and daughter
Cower in the corner
Praying for their lives
Crying for a peaceful resolution
To their ungodly situation

To express opposition
To this tiresome tide of violence
Is to stand
Like a sapling against a tsunami
You are small
And your chances are less
So you step aside
To avoid being washed away
And solemnly pray
For the restoration
Of voices and sensation

The Tragic Ones- Christmas Day 2008

I see the profound sadness
Reflected in the eyes
On a daily basis
The nervous woman paces impatiently
And I wonder
Is she meeting someone or running away
The shopworn women with too many children in tow
Whose lives have spun out of control
Who live day to day with no future
Who will never be seen
By the wall st. types
Who line their pockets
With derivative profits
While the eggshell homes
The train passes
Crumble at their foundations
Till life is one intense blur of insecurity

The well educated titans of finance
Have learned well to feel no guilt
Their cousins, the cockroaches
Scatter at the first sign of light
But the Ivy League and evolution
Have taught this new breed to stand tall
Or sit up straight
Stare at the cameras
And blame those who weren’t watching
In the first place

Is it any wonder that the passengers
Sit staring with a tunnel vision
Any self respecting earthworm would be proud of
Even on Christmas day
They are insulated
In their infected cocoons
Where no change occurs
Except for slow decay

And I sit here and observe
Like time itself
Slowly passing into oblivion
A part of the sadness
I once flew above
Depending on others for a happiness
I know will never come
Till the day I embrace my loved ones
I fear that day as much as I crave it
As each day passes it grows
Both closer and further away
Because time forgives no one with a conscience
Any mistake
If tragedy is the stuff of life
Then I have had a rich experience
My spirit now resides in the collective consciousness
Of those whose eyes I feel for
But despise my pity.

The Sea in Autumn 10/08

The boardwalk is empty
The beach is closed
Yet the sea only knows
That it is colder
It takes a daily count
Of the souls it has swallowed
And I stand between the carousel
And the ticket booth
Alone
While the wind infiltrates
The holes in my flimsy jacket

I think of where I could be
At my age
Raking leaves
While a twelve year old golden retriever
Runs around messing up the piles
Mindlessly sipping Coors light in a recliner
Enjoying a state of utter complacency
Then the whistle of the wind
Brings me back
And I contemplate my solitude
While the termites in my soul
Gorge themselves
Then commit suicide
By jumping into the sea
Inside of me

Is loneliness self imposed?
Or is there a well orchestrated plan
To mold me into a more complete man?
The cold sea is the sandpaper
And my tears the lubricant
In a perpetual process of refinement

I cling to a fragile thread of hope
And know God intends
Something better for me than this
He helps me cope
He keeps me warm
Against the wind
Waiting for the unexpected
Soul renewing kiss

My Prayer 11/05

Oh dear God
Once I burned inside
But this feeling wasn’t pride
Or even lust
It was worthlessness
From a life unfulfilled
Of dreams dashed
On the brink of paradise
Of blood spilled
Of scars and wounds
That fester without waver
The weight of uncertainty
The falling out of favor
The wretched result
Of the pursuit
Of immediate gratification
That haunts my generation

Even with that said
I do not pretend
To absolve myself by ubiquity
I do not contend
That I was unwilling
To partner with iniquity
I had free will
And I abused it until
There was nothing to be done
Nowhere I could run
So I decided in my head
That being in jail
Was better than being dead

You have comforted my grief
You have cured my disbelief
It is only now I know
That path that I should follow
My past sins
You ignored
Through your grace
I am restored
The only earthly way
That I could ever repay
The kindness you have shown
Is to confirm
How much I’ve grown
By lighting the path to truth
For confused misguided youth

So dear God
I thank you
For this chance
For this change
In circumstance
For whatever
I may attain
For whatever
Days remain

Watching A Wedding

Written on the occasion of my cousin Bill's wedding
to Jen
August, 22, 2009
Written during the ceremony


All I want for the world is peace
But how can a man like me
Make hatred cease?
I can see how we are torn apart
Through conflicts of God
And those of the heart
Those battles rage within my soul
I am not whole
I am incomplete
But yet I can never retreat
From the fight
I must do what is right
For myself, for all

I sit today in a church pew
And all I can do
Is hold back tears
This declaration of love
In front of people
And God above
Is pure
It is the one day
When you can be sure
That everything is right
The oncoming night
Is anticipated
The new couple’s love is celebrated
And that is good
That is how it should be
Worldwide
That is why these feelings inside me
Reflect the conflict all around
And the realization comes
That the only sound
I want to hear
Is the heartbeat of the one I love
Beside me everywhere

This is where peace begins
When two people love, everyone wins
Through hearts, through hands, through looks
Across miles and continents
This feeling is transmitted
If the world could be committed
To this constant propagation
We could end alienation
Hatred
War
What else is worth fighting for?
Tell me something more important
And I will give it all my dedication

A Little Down 8/15/09

The part of me that has died
Smolders like a sleeping dragon inside
I put forward the brave face
But my soul is torn
Like a running shirt
Caught on a thorn
The fluid it oozes is clear
Drained of all color by naked fear
The TV screen
Sends a searing image to my brain
Of a lonely child crying in pain
All I can do is wonder
If that child is mine
My brave face will tell you I’m fine
But that face is a lie
I always feel one step ahead of tears
I’ve had this feeling for so many years
That it becomes a constant mood
My sense of balance comes undone
My soul has bloody roots
So I cannot run
I can squirm but I still feel tied
My bonds tightened
By the tears I’ve cried.

The Man Upstairs 10/07

He is not a wizened old man
With a three meter beard
Sitting in the lotus position
In a constant state of peace and contemplation

He is all knowing
And all good
But equally frustrated
He paces back and forth
Trying to reconcile reason and faith
He has seen the bonds of love
Mutate into mutual disrespect
Sensuality transformed into selfish perversion

He sees diversity as a strength
But divisiveness as a weakness
And every time He dips into
His infinite pool of wisdom
Searching for a solution
He is nearly knocked of his feet
By undercurrents of indecision

He wears earplugs
To diminish the wails of anguish
That resonate off the gates of paradise
He does not wish to ignore
The pleas and supplications
From the products of His creation
But He must by necessity
Separate quality from quantity
In order to relieve the burden
Betrayed by the everlasting lines
On his sanctified face

He doesn’t consider mankind a mistake
But he sometimes questions
His course of passivity
He knows that we have now reached
The point where intervention
Would do more harm than good
He is sad because He knows
That for mankind to mature as a race
We must settle matters amongst ourselves
And He realizes the bloody price it will entail

Still, even while he surveys
This rock of unhappiness
A smile of satisfaction
Creases the ancient lines
As a father who knows
That his promise
Of eternal redemption
Will eventually be enough
To resolve the turbulence and disruption
He takes further quiet consolation
From his decision to leave
Immortality as an unattainable condition

Contrast 8/08

Joy is best expressed in a state of full frontal nudity
No concealment, no disguises
Just the baring of a momentarily unblemished soul
The little girl ecstatic at the sight of her grandmother
The little boy whose box contains the top item on his wish list
The tear rending moment
When a parent sees a child achieve a new level of maturity
Its fatal flaw is its lack of staying power
The moments are simple, few and fleet

Sadness is a stalker
In dark clothes with eyes hidden
A charlatan, playing games
With the fears of the desperate and depressed
An indiscriminate malaise
Eliminating previous traces of progress

Sadness can wash over you like a tidal wave
Establishing permanent residence like a stagnant pool
Rotting away any semblance of sobriety
I sometimes feel myself emitting sadness
Like radiation with a perpetual half life
I check my aura in the mirror
I’m shocked to find a glowing reddish-orange
Like the burning bush on Mt. Sinai

It becomes a nagging addiction
With false promises and increased tolerance
Eating away at all positive impulses
Till you feel your only purpose
Is an endless trek
Further away from your true self

Awake 12/07

This article was inspired by an article in The Sun magazine about a Zen Buddhist monk and his principles for living.


When I am fully awake
And the constraints of reality
Become more than I can take
My mind implodes
And as liquidity flows out
My ego erodes
I become one with all things
I enjoy the peace
This feeling brings
I can hear
The earth herself speak
I no longer seek
To know the mind of God
Because it is fully revealed
As the capsule of my destiny
Becomes unsealed
I soar with the eagle
I share his sight
I understand why the flower
Attracts the bee
Because they are both me
When the sun recedes
We are plunged into night
I feel the crush
Of the nocturnal hunter’s
Deadly bite
In my enlightened soul
I am satisfied with my role
To be a speck
Floating before the Creator’s eye
I am not afraid to die
Because I know I have
An inevitable date
What I hope to achieve
Before my dying day
Is the perpetuation
Of this peaceful state
And teach my children
To turn this glorious key
And share in the oneness
Of inverted beauty

Dad 10/08

Two very different poems tonight. One celebrating the reconciliation of alienation, the other celebrating universal harmony.




My father was a difficult man
A stern persona, the product
Of a childhood low on childishness
There were no lessons needed
In emotional repression
A house of ten children
Leaves little room for growth

When the temper erupted
The punishment was swift
The pain eternal
If he suddenly became sullen
The fault was ours
For lack of appreciation

Hard work was his therapy
Intimacy was his deficiency
Reproach was not part of his makeup
When I assailed him for damage
He screamed that I wasn’t his confessor

He took out loans
To pay for my schooling
So I could average
A thousand bong hits a semester
And further contemplate
My lack of direction

He went to his grave a sage
He always said
I would have a hard life
I wouldn’t be surprised
If he developed
Post-mortem schizophrenia
Tears of disappointment
Laughter at my failure

His eulogy was a cold consideration
And his grandchildren barely knew him
Because he ensconced himself
In a warm tomb
With an alien woman
And a selective memory
After he polished my mom off early

In spite of these terrible sentiments
I remember him warmly
He did his best
I grant him penance
For his emotional absence
I owe him my ironic reverence
He made me a moral man
He ignited the spark of curiosity
That has become the passion of my life

If he was here today
After the crying
He would gladly say
If you need my help
I will smooth the way

Caricature? 4/09

The senior senator
Stood from his oaken chair
Tamped down his remaining hair
And pointed an accusing finger
At the assembly
What’s all this hoopla lately about morality?
Why I remember back in the day
No one would dare ask me about my nanny
Whether I flew on corporate jets
Or why my campaign contributors
Paid my personal debts
No one would ever have bothered
To ask me whether I have fathered
An illegitimate son
By the bitch of a former slave
I would have taken these secrets
To my grave
But this newfangled media
And their squawking about accountability
They’ve got the nerve
To ask these questions of me
So I must withdraw
From this venerable floor
And when I leave
I’ll spit on the chamber door
I’m a rich American
And that’s all I ever
Wanted to achieve
I’m sick and tired
Of having to pretend
I care about the poor
Then I think I’ll go
Get myself a whore
And slap her around a little when I’m done
Hell, how’s a soulless bastard
Supposed to have any fun
Then I’ll ignore Larry King and MSNBC
And go talk to my buddy Bill O’Reilly
And we’ll sit in recliners and smoke fat cigars
And laugh about how we didn’t pay sales tax
On our new cars
Then I’ll retire to my sprawling estate
And remember what’s it like
To be infatuated with pure hate
So I’ll take my leave
And say goodbye
If I get the chance
I’ll bleed this institution dry

John Brown's Farm 9/07

Another eccentric day
A veritable festival of feelings
At John Brown's farm

The ranch hands don't direct
Their wolf whistles at human females
They save their crude comments and catcalls
For the beautiful, painted mare
Due to give birth
To the spring foal

The greatest fear of the blind rooster
Who crows at midday
Isn't the sound of the axe
Smashing into the chopping block
It's the inexplicable howling
Of the border collies
When the moon ascends the night sky

The cows pass the time
While passively attached to milking machines
Scoffing at the size of each other's udders
And making off hand remarks
About the repellent features
Of the short legged, stout, woolen creatures

The sheep return the favor
By sneering at the ugly behemoths
Who block their paths
As they determinedly make their way
To the shack with the bright knives
And the blackened windows

Meanwhile, back at the main house
The liberal opinion of the commentator on television
Is enough to make the senile grandfather
Pee on himself in front of the fireplace

While the proud proprietor sounds off
In opposition to the creation
Of the agricultural arm of the university
What will they think of next?
He shouts to nobody
A tractor repair school
For city slickers
Who have never ridden one?

Five minutes after he turns in
The field mice gather
On the kitchen counter
To feast on cheese and corn meal
And listen to heavy metal
On WSOU until an hour before dawn
At which time they scatter
Back into their comfortable abodes
And sleep the day away
Underneath their official flannel
Black Sabbath fan club blankets

The mentally unbalanced housecat
Is so confused by this chain of events
That he slinks his way into John Brown's bedroom
And curls up into a ball of furry anxiety
In his homemade kitty bed
Next to the heating vent
And fervently prays for rain

Look Around You 6/06

I want to stand up
And say something out loud
Right now
It's time to be proud
All over again, united
As women and men
We all must shine
As beacons of light
As moral standard bearers
For all human rights

It is not enough
To say
What should and shouldn't be
Without action
We will continue to have
Moral and ethical atrocity
We have arrived
In the 21st century
Alive
But still I see
Knowledge subject to suppression
The free flow of thought
Under constriction
There are too many places to name
That suffer from
A swelled sense of nationality
That condone
Passive acceptance of cruelty
That practice
Active xenophobia
With leaders
That are hallmarks of insanity

You look at me
Beet red
And scream in your loudest voice
As if I have no choice
That you deserve respect
And I respond
With a simple suggestion
To ask yourself two questions
What do we have the right to expect?
Is it right to receive kindness
While others receive neglect?
And as you walk away
With your tail between your legs
Keep in mind
That you deserve no more
Than the man who begs
For mercy on the street
The kind you hate to meet
As you hurry on your way
Through your busy, empty day

I will not listen
So stop telling me
That any religion
Would glorify tyranny
The jihadists are wrong
The fundamentalists are wrong
The crusaders were wrong

I heard it said on TV
Recently
That everyone has a right to be stupid
It brings to mind
An image of Cupid
He fires his arrows
And misses the hearts
But hits the brains
Now all that remains
Are the great fervent masses
Who advocate their holy law
But can't forgive the trespass
Of the unbelievers
And reveal their fatal flaw

The greatest social experiment
Of the 20th century
Was communism
And it failed miserably
But so did the Great Society
And the New Deal
They all had a chance to succeed
But the inefficiencies
Inherent in any bureaucracy
Leave too much room
For corruption and greed
We had our chance
To create utopia
But since politicians
Suffer from myopia
The dream implodes
When the squabbling starts
The months drag into years
And they lose the hearts
Of the people
They're elected to serve

The College Social Club- May '07

It starts with pupils frozen
Open wide
My body is humming
Like a machine inside
My senses are set loose
Their receptors run wild
My experience reverts
To my days as a child
My eyes behold
The bubbling floor
The depth of the room shifted
By the undulating door
The letters on the poster
Start to drip and run
The noise of a pin drop
Might be loud as a gun
While Bono sings
The walls begin to melt
The mood of the music
Is more deeply felt
You can consciously feel
Your blood as it races
While you lose awareness
Of the muscles in your face
Your stride feels as light
As a slight wisp of hair
With no energy expended
You can run anywhere
The winter air surrounds
You can feel it penetrate
But you will not get goose mounds
Only vibrate

Later my friends and I
Venture out to the fairway
In the middle of the night
To play
With a flying disc
There is seemingly no risk
To such boundless play
So imagine our fright
When a multi-legged dragon
In celestial white
Rises out of the ground
An ambiguous apparition
Sent as messenger from perdition
Making an ungodly hissing sound
With acrid, soggy breath
Signalling certain death
And causing immediate flight

Once safely ensconced
In our smoke filled room
Comes the delayed response
Of irrepressible laughter
And a tale
To tell our friends
Forever after

Flying Souls 5/28/06

This poem was written in memory of the two children whose father threw them off the balcony of their hotel room and then jumped to his own death in Miami on Memorial Day Weekend 2006.



Little Souls
Flying through the air
I'm sure
They have no idea
How they got there
Cut off
From the experience
Of their discovery years
All that's left
Is a mother's memory
A river of tears
And a pool of blood

They probably had
Normal childhood fears
But even with
Superhero powers
They couldn't see
Their father
Throwing them off the balcony
And then jumping himself
All the promise
Of a pure heart
And a clean slate
Ended by gravity
And seething hate

I've known every emotion
Ecstasy to rage
Euphoria to despair
But I'll never know
From where
The feeling arises
When someone so despises
The life that they've created
That it has to be negated
In a fit of sudden fury
That leaves the judge and jury
No choice
But to surmise
That the tragedy
Of the souls
Flying off the balcony
Is a product of our age
And serves only to gauge
The degree to which
We're all related

I cried
When I wrote this ode
Because a child's death
Increases the load
We all must bear
If we are to be human
And still care

Emotional Juxtaposition- early 2007

When snow is falling from a starless sky
You can hear God calling in a silent cry
To Mother Nature, whose job it is
To remind us all that the earth's still His

That's when I go out in the night
See the world outlined in black and white
To feel God's breath blowing in my face
Get carried off to a transcendent place

As I walk along in the storm
My spirit rises o'er my bodily form
I raise my arms and joyfully sing
Of the beauty of all natural things

But this joy is short lived because I cannot ignore
The plight of the cold and desperately poor
For whom a night like this brings only dread
For the want of warmth or a slice of bread

I can't help but ask why this is so
And it hurts me to realize I don't really know
How something so beautiful, free and wild
Can bring so much pain to an innocent child

A Testimony to Disorder- Today 7/18/09

“Lord may this sacrifice which has made our peace
with you advance the peace and salvation of all the world.”


Every week
I hear the priest speak
These words
I have to wonder
If everyone has heard them
If they are understood
If it does any good
To say them at all
Take a look at the news
See another wall fall
At some hotel
At someplace I have never been
Will probably never go

That doesn’t make it
Any easier to see
The impact is real
The first thing I feel
Is to wonder whether anyone
Can prevent further tragedy

Then I realize the motivation
Is total alienation
Annihilation raised to an art
As part of a master plan
To make the world a chaotic place
To invade everyone’s personal space
To engulf them in an argument about God

This same path has been trod
For thousands of years
What has been learned?
What have the peaceful gained?
The terrorists know that fears
Are an effective weapon
So another body burned
Is a victory

Their interpretation foments hate
So it is the fate
Of the pacific
To witness horrific scenes
Engineered
Through increasingly sophisticated means
As a testimony to disorder

Needless Dread, 2026 - written in sept. 07

My grandson walked up to me today and said
Grandpa, how come half the world’s staple food crops are dead?
Now, I had been dreading this question for some time
How to explain this environmental crime?
So I said, son, way back in 2005
When there were only six billion people alive
There was a mistaken belief that things were alright
That when the time came, we could fix the problem overnight
Then he asked, how could so many people have been wrong?
So I said, well some of us were right all along
But ego is a very destructive force
And then there is the power of arrogance of course
The insidiousness of those people who say
If we tell enough lies, the problem will just go away
He considered this for a moment, then simply asked why
And I had to hold back my inclination to cry
I held him tight, ran my fingers through his hair
And said the first rule of life, son, is that life isn’t fair

A Sad Celebration 5/07

This poem is humbly dedicated to those unfortunate souls who lost their lives in April 2007 at Virginia Tech University


The national soul is wounded and bleeding
From self-inflicted gun shots
Arising from a calloused culture of permissiveness
The soul prefers the darkness to blinding light
But the blood running down the beautiful slopes
Of the Blue Ridge mountains
Absorbed into the ground at Virginia Tech
Along with the hopes and dreams
Of thirty-two sons and daughters
Serves as a reminder of its mortality
And exposes its lack of civility

A transplanted son of South Korea
Sought and won the right
To perpetrate the country’s worst mass slaughter
His name does not bear mention
In the pure realm of poetry
It should rightly be erased from all record of existence
The killer’s need for attention
Played such a powerful role
He took perverse pleasure in recognizing
The negative consequences for his own soul
He convinced himself
That suicide would be his final glory
The only way to make his broken life
More than a ten second story
Yet sadistic media will convey sainthood
On the head of the psychotic
With news specials and made for TV movies
Where he is the star and the victims are extras
They who woke up Monday morning
With bright futures and enlightened minds
That were snuffed by the dark force
Of the personified fallen angel
The list of the dead
Is too long to commit to memory
But the number remains notable
For the enormity of the tragedy
So here I will defy convention
By writing their names in sad celebration
To preserve their legacy for future generations

Ross and Chris, Jeremy and Emily
Brian and Ryan, Austin and Jocelyne
G.V. and Leviri, Henry and Partaki
Julia and Reema, Caitlin and Lauren
Juan and Jarrett, Mary and Leslie
Michael and Maxine, Erin and Kevin
Daniel C. and Daniel O., Waleed and Nicole
Matthew G. and Matthew L., Rachel and Minal


If a man seeks to kill
There is no way to stop him
In a society where technology
Makes killing as easy
As a trip to the convenience store
Where it takes longer to buy
Six items on a grocery list
Than to purchase an obvious instrument of murder
How long will this situation go on?
It’s a safe bet that hatred and resentment
Will never be gone
From a country that reinforces inequality
To such a harrowing degree
I would like to envision a day
Where enlightened masses band together and say
We will no longer submit to a self sustaining lobby
That manufactures death with incredible efficiency
And makes it much more likely
That blood will flow
From the mountains to the sea
Only a sustained slap in the face of apathy
Will bring us an era of gun reduced reality
The faces of the Virginia tech dead
Will comprise our virtuous tapestry

Civility 7/09

I remember the feeling of civility
I remember when we had some pride
I remember when thinking about America
Made me feel good inside

I remember when it was a virtue
To display humility
Now our instincts tend towards
Vulgar displays of misguided virility

I hear the old man
Curse at his grandchildren
On the train
His voice is all that remains
As the silence rises
And the festive mood disappears
You can see the heads begin to shake
As people envision their deepest fears

The pretty girl from overseas
Looks at me curiously
In her refined mind
Such behavior is an anomaly
I ignore the interruption
And elaborate on triviality
I refuse to spoil the congeniality
By explaining that his addled mind
Considers this a normality

If I can cover his transgression
With intelligent conversation
I can at least preserve the impression
Of insignificant aberration

But what concerns me most
Is the absence of dignity
The indifferent behavior
The crass acceptance of slight cruelty

I wonder if our principles
Can be preserved
I wonder if the opinions of our detractors
Are undeserved
I am an optimist by birth
I care about every single person on earth
Sometimes more than they care about themselves

I wish for amiability
Because it multiplies freedom by degrees
Making it that much more real
And instantaneous decision
Can change how we all deal
With each other

Milestone 7/09

I have reached a certain age
Where I have thrown away
My anxiety and rage
Achieved a modicum of mental health
And found some peace within myself

Now it's time
For me to feel alive
To radiate warmth
And put a smile
Where once only conflict survived

I know the possibilities are out there
And even though I know
Life isn't fair
I have no doubt
In the end love wins out

Music is the soundtrack of my life
It fills the air and soothes my soul
But it's only when i am in love
That my heart sings
And the music flows from the inside
Onto the page

Questions 7/09

Can you live if you don't progress?
Can a life free of ambition
Be considered a success?

Why does materialism's illusion cloud perception?
Why doesn't such emptiness invite rejection?

Can the substance of your life
Be a fashion show?
And if fashion is your passion
Will you ever really know?

When deception is the currency
Of social commerce
Will mistrust be the umbrella
Under which we all converse?

When God is the subject
And the pastor brings a gun
Should his words on brotherhood
Be believed by anyone?

From what I can see
If trust is to regain traction
We must shred our enmity
And shackle petty distractions