A Feather Fell

burnt my waxy heart
to close to the sun
fell to the sea
crisp and green and cold
what was left is what I am
and the waves scoot me toward
a forever of jetties
circled by gulls

The Body Today

pain wracked and half blind
I am broken again
the season ends as it began
I will end as I began
feeble and bawling
wanting for my mother
wanting for comforting
and nurturing
as I lay wasting into dust
and onto the great promise fulfilled
goodbye my loves, goodbye

Love

my back is against
stone wet and rough
a body cold and broken
I shiver, alone

Heavily Fell the Crown of Love

I will be a nail bomb
full of ugly efficacy
instilled with rust destined
to penetrate your tender
thick slut skull
like when you sucked him hard

I am the malignancy that
will wither your breast
that he devoured
cancer locust over the fertile crescent
he sowed with his transient hands

I will bestow upon you a curse
that famished in dearth
you may see my past charity
that you shit on in the street
defaced in the market square
for all to see
a dazzling laughing stock

now fallen from the great promise
there is nothing you say
the sword was raised
like Damocles
it hung from a thin line
when we held hands and laughed
and it was too much for you
you vacated the regal seat of wedlock

I will present a writ in stone
severed hearts in deed
nothing left of us but past
stuffed with nonce
a scare crow corpulent with weeds
that was our marriage
that was our sour love
once so precious
I gave up so much
but I was a terror
and you were what
ever the hell you were

This Stasis is Suicide

a voice in the desert wind
sand on my tongue
a pound of dry scraping off my words
onto barren soil
I lay my heart down
why not, nothing can hurt it now
armored from love and hate
I am ready for death
there is no sound and no passion
only a sigh of wind through sparse brush
history does not exist here in this landscape
time rules here only very subtly
in means immeasurable it passes
by human standards nothing is moving
it is loud, but with no distinct sound
I hear see taste feel and hope for nothing new
A slow procession is the same as a recursive loop
as elapsed time nears zero aspirations are meaningless
as expectation is stilled
the heart beat a metronome for a single note song
the wealthy, famous, sexy, charismatic
they feel lost as love ends for them
famous adulteries of beautiful beings
falling apart in a camera lens
teaching me, soothing my anxiety
I am not alone in this desert
this isolated waste
all humanity ends here
with this whistling wind and dun soil
caking us un-defining us
blurring our definite edges
this smudge of love lost
touches even the angels of the media heavens
and I, lowly I, have no hope of escaping
barefoot and pain stumbling across
this indistinct cracked earth

Homeless in Nashville

The place where they
feed the homeless
is underwater today
For the first time
in three years
these people
will not be fed
the humble troubled
will suffer more
but what is a little more
when one can expect so little
people look at them
as ghosts in rags
but these are people
in love with this life
who will band together
and be warmth and food
for one another
they will be family
they will be friends
for themselves
for no one else
is there with them today
and they will be hungry
and they will be despised
and God will have love for them
and hopefully hope will sustain
and they will not be alone

Someday She Will Go Away

sometimes I forget
my daughter is a girl
she is just a person to me
but sometimes I need to recall
she has some secrets
not meant for me
I need to step back
and let her be she
That is not so easy
because she means so much
but I know some day
another man or woman
will take her away
it will hurt so much
and it will be okay
it has to be that way
it has to be that way
it has to be that way
it has to be that way
She is the emobodiment
of the redeeming
power of love
a worthless man
was lifted up
rssied above
all the other stuff
by a pure an selfless love
for a thing some small
so piteous and young
Somehow it thived
throught dedication and sacrifice
sleepsless nights and marital fights
much pain and bitterness
but she was always a light
but she was always a light
born aloft like a torch of God
illuminating me
and the whole damn city
what a good thing to have
I've been a lucky
there will be some other damn lucky man
other than me
he better be worth it
he better be worth it
it has to be that way
it has to be that way

Suicide Note 3

I am a man.
This you must know with surety.
While young I fought with handfuls of gut
for glory for honor
as expression of personal power
As I got older I learned how to lead
how to plan and where the enemy would be
how to think like other men and trap them
within valleys having good lines of site
from the adjoining cliffs we would fie down on them
one time a junior officer of mine came to me and asked
how I knew the ememy would march through a particular meadow
I told him just as I am telling you
they are hungry and tired. They have been chased for three days
They have not slept and will need water in the next 2 hours
The easiest way to the water is to go along the edge of the forest
the safest route is through the trees,
but it will take 4 hours to go through the trees.
They need water too soon to be too cautious.
And so we killed them all that day in that wide open meadow.
I am writing this so you understand.
I was a thoughtful careful leader.
Not a reckless man who put the mission before everything.
We were simply out maneuvered along the flank of the hillside.
Our air support was diverted to cover an ambushed medical convoy.
They took out our howitzer threw a track trying to reposition
That sergant was useless.
I should have pulled him off the artillery piece
and replaced him with his corporal.
Still it is my fault the mortars got so close to our positions
and my fault they were not dug deep enough.
I do not take losing well. This is very personal to me.
As in feudal Japan, I am doing this not out of grief, nor shame
I am doing it out of a sense of honor that must be upheld
If I stay here, accept another post, perhaps in a rear unit
that would cause me shame I could not bare.
My men are dead so I go to lead them in heaven or in hell.
Captain Trevor Marshall US Amy Resigned

Suicide Notes 2

There is a test today.
One for which I have not studied
Not nearly enough to do well
I fear I will not pass this term
My grades are very low in math
and polysci is so very early in the morning
I am late to half the classes
and Prof Stein is a ball breaker about deadlines
I have no idea how I can tell you this
not face to face. I know how you will react
with the sad eyes and thin lipped grimace
you are so disappointed in me already
I feel it even though you never say it
I never lived up to your expectations
not like Chris did. I am sorry that the wrong one lived
I really do feel that way. It tears me up inside.
So I am going to tell you this once.
I love you and I am sorry
Even this little school didn't work out.
I am not cut out for the world as it is.
I could have been a good cooper or wainwright
but I have failed to be a Kennedy.
I have already gotten ride of most of my things.
The rest can go to Goodwill.
I have tried to make as little mess as possible
for you
You should be able to have an open coffin.
You can also choose to cremate me. It is up to you.
Cremation looks to be cheaper.
Love Eric.

Suicide Notes 1

Your eyes
were once
the force
rooting
me to
this earth
they have
strayed too
far too
soon from
my face
my heart
I am
betrayed
I see
no reason
to go
on I
hope my
death serves
to teach
you the pain of betrayal
May you
suffer
from torment
everlasting
thinking of
me in
this bed
of our cold dead love
there is
nothing
left for me
so leave
everything
to my
mother

Suffering

The greatest failure is suffering to the point of despair.
Despair is the product of a suffering so great, that one wishes for death as the only amelioration. Despair occurs when death will not come. This lack of respite causes despair, which indicates a characterological flaw, that one has lost hope in redemption and purpose.

Suffer that can not be abated should be endured with dignity to signify hope. As endured effectively our suffering becomes a sacrifice. The nature of this sacrifice is not the suffering, not the pain in sympathy for God's suffering, no. The sacrifice is the ejection of despair onto death. The striving to endure suffering exhibits the fine nature, of an elevated spirit. It exemplifies the hope and meaningful purpose of existence in the face of a flawed world. It shows the enduring quality of the spirit in sharp contrast to the meaningless and random nature of violence and deprivation that exemplifies the current imperfect state in which we exist, and live, and feel.

This striving towards meaning is not a philosophical exercise. It engenders the personal experience of life with meaning, where otherwise the threat of meaninglessness looms ready to engulf us. To reject despair onto death is to embrace hope that there is purpose to one's experience, that may benefit someone, in someway, even when it is absolutely not clear to us how that could be. When one can see the meaning it takes not hope but endurance to push through suffering. When no goal or meaning is apparent it takes dumb, unquestioning loyalty to hope to move forward, without death, without amelioration, without narcotizing the senses. This is the pure act of devotion that I have such a hard time committing to.

Congressional Bribery II

a herd on the Savannah
the sick and young and elderly
are falling behind
we are losing them
we love them
for their weakness
is salvation
for the rest of us
we scorn them
to thwart our guilt
but we can not
staunch our bleeding hearts

Congressional Bribery I

Their withered hands
groping for the fetid money
weeds and centipeeds crawling
through their decaying suits
shiny and handsome
encrusted with remains of fine meals
the laugh and lie
and sell the health of millions
to affluent predators
whom are fattened and happy
the mansions of these tigers
are littered with so much
ineffectual health care policy
one can not walk though
without staining one's soul

Zero Sum Biodiversity

Relentlessly pounding on their existence
to gain our little hectare of Hell
sew that recently departed sacred grove
of rain forest with Montsanto GMOs
see what you will have left
as the Earth wilts at our touch
zoos become our last bastion of encapsulated nature
Soon only rats, humans, and cows will remain
to fill out the class mammalia
so much easier to draw the phylum chart
we have dwindled down to a zero sum biodiversity state
with each overreaching grasping desire
I take for me an essential piece
of the much diminished creation
splendor lost for consumer gains
I wonder if God is ever disappointed with
how little of His lovely work remains