turmoil deposits

the electron won't admit 
it only went where the current took it
examining the evidence
through a lens of morality
and a microscope of backdraft wisdom

as the sand on this beach
so we ended up here
(wherever "here" is)
the illusion of choice being
the last and strongest superstition

it isn't your fault
and it isn't mine, it's just that
trying to prevent recurring traumas
in our children by
inflicting new ones continues to fail

knowing cannot replace feeling
remembering cannot replace doing
and the young are more rafts than motorboats
more kites than airplanes
and more to be pitied then censored

Who Else’s Voice?

Were you to speak and spill your heart 
Onto the waters of regret
The scorn might come in swarms and hordes
And nightmares not imagined, yet

We of the world can heartless be
But know as sure as life, or breath,
That only one can have your voice
And stilling it

Is worse

Than death

Grateful Interaction

In grateful interaction 
The scorn we flirt with ends,
The fear we have of strangers
Turns into love of friends.

And it can be surprising
To suddenly be seen
Outside the walls we hide behind
While looking through

A screen

the focus of attention

you were my ardent only, 
my every half-formed thought,
and though you were my everything,
you weren't quite what i sought

and so i turned attention
to what was new, and young,
and gave to all the friends i found
myself daily among

but some may love for money,
and others love for looks,
but me, i loved for nothing
and now i'm left with books

i bought when i was younger,
and you were still my stay;
the focus of a wasted man
who threw it all

away

“I Am The One Who Was…”

A morning gray, a two-day rain, 
A mind wrapped up in here and now,
A half-day passed, a needed a break,
Surprised to find the world now blue
And full of early flowers in bloom
His car took him (it seemed) down to
A place of stones, and flowers, and rest
And words and dates and silences --
A hand upon my shoulder now
With no one there, with no one there.

"I Am The One Who Was" it said,
Or they all said, in different words;
A living presence grown and gone
Now missing in the hearts of those
Who once took shape and came alive
In feeling skin and hearing voice
In ways no others ever could
For what is known and felt is kept
Inside the vault we can't unlock
For someone took the key and left,
For someone took the key

and left

For Those Who’d Be Unlovable…

Reach out and feel what should be yours by right; 
The cadence of a song that none have heard,
The measure of a breath that's full and light
Along a shore: a lonely boat, a bird --

And how you came to be where you are not:
The fuller you become a passing ghost
That all have seen and equal all, forgot,
A missing sign atop a broken post --

But you remember hope -- it was your claim
When everything you didn't know still glowed,
And so much seemed in reach, both love and fame,
While paying back much more than ever owed --

Our slipping grasp on all that missing peace,
Midst waves that ever lessen, never cease

all my songs have colors

when the outworld was my home 
i knew the smell of evenings
spent by lakes still wild and
full of unmapped feelings yet
but soon to be known by one
intrepid scurillous adventurous
made of heart and granite and
powered more by sugar than
forethought or any other kind
of blue-green wonder or sped-up
thoughts of what a drive-in
movie must look like when one
is there to be with someone who
wants only to be there with you
who read these lines and know
the red and gray awaits and
eventually your pillow becomes
your prison