Shell Shock

I know how I am and how it must seem
Like I'm rushing around and trying to leave
But when my things are put away
And I visit every room everyday
Smiling in the dark when I'm alone
I know I'm back and feel at home.

Ode to New Pens

No villains on Earth
Or demons in Hell
Are more frustrating
Or more deceitful
Than the misfortune of trusting
The dull blades of dead pens.
The muse's words are lost to the ether
While my pen scrapes the paper.

In futility.

After years of silent wishing
While undeservedly stopping
In art shops and travel stops
Briefly allowing my eyes to settle
Like dust in a mausoleum
Onto the quills and inks
And parchment and fountain pens
To use and make my words beautiful.

Haiku Kung-Fu

In a Bored Room

Back in my art school

Never thought I’d be using

Words like synergy

Prosthesis

Chicken wings on dog

Wheels of polymer and steel

Now flying down streets

New American Dream

Smack your girl around

Get arrested and famous

Do drugs and retire

4:15

Nervously tapping

Legs crossed tightly toward restroom

HOW LONG IS THIS CLASS?

Tutoring a 7 year old

Teaching kids English

Was not the plan but now it’s

Strangely fulfilling

Universal Potential (Insp. by H.P. Lovecraft)

Potentially wrong.

Potentially bad…

Potential energies move grains of sand into

Odd patterns following waves on graphene

The beach is not a solar system or

Even a galaxy. The grains are not planets but

Subatomic particles appearing to be

Malleable. Laws can bend. Things can change.

Humanity is distracted; this does not change.

By movie-stars in tabloids and fashion shows,
By cheesy day-time television and on-demand
Pornography. Potentially wrong. Potentially bad...

Infighting between religions

Hate crimes between brothers

Wars between neighbors

No one trusts their doctors

Mothers could kill their children

Republics can rise and crumble
Planets revolve unaware and
Over the brink man shall tumble

Returning to the dust through which we trudge
The unceremonious death of an egotistical species
On a tiny rock, on an outer arm of a back-wood galaxy
Man dies, Earth dies, stars blink out and God never existed

Vast millions of planets continue revolving continue revolving
Einstein knows matter is not created or destroyed.
The cosmos are unchanged but no living being witnesses
The next big bang which perpetuates existence

The spark of life ignites in any dry forest over time
Energy cycles and begins where it once ended
Kinetic energy becomes potential
Potentially wrong. Potentially Bad.