An Honest Day’s Work

What is an honest day’s work? Certainly not what happens here. It all feels so hollow. So… inconsequential. Nothing really happens here. Numbers go up, numbers go down. Meetings all day, every day. Nothing really changes. Same thing. Day in, day out. Sit at a desk. Walk to get coffee. Back to the desk. Maybe take a vacation at the end of the year. Go to Bali or Cancun. Whatever. No adventures, no quests, no treks. Back to the office, back home, clacking keyboards and haughty metronomes. A building full of cardboard cutouts that never seem to wither or fold. All oblivious to the pain that lies underneath a thin veneer of niceties and falsehoods told and retold until hearts give out and cubicles are emptied.


Faring Not So Well

Almost as if

The feeling itself

That being numb

It might be better

But whether it’s the former or the latter

Here I sit

Dreaming of forgotten malls

And Taj Mahals

Wishing I could feel something other than the one that gnaws

At my heart

At my bones

On my mind

And on my toes

Can you hear them?

Can you feel them?

Phantoms and spectres

Invisible

Screaming

Begging

My heart, it begs the question:

“Love me?”

Do You Kiss First?

How much for a kiss? How much do you love me, love? I have so much to do and yet? I do not do it. I am tired. I am not so sad but I am tired. It is a Tuesday through and through. Maybe the worst day of the week. Somehow, I do not find myself having a bad day. Just a boring day. Surely, you understand. “No I do not and don’t call me Shirley.”


California Vineyard

Creases trace lips 

like cracks

In an ancient oaken barrel

Aging that smile

Like a fine wine

I never quite get tired

To see you so inspired

That glitter in your eyes

And little joking sighs

Hard enough to be apart

But always want to be a part

Of you and we 

And this and us

Red lips

Sweet wine

Drink again

And find the time

Ever The Romantic

Somehow, I manage to retain my ability to see the world in rose-colored glasses no matter the circumstances. I look up through the clouds and see the stars shining just so brightly that I am basked in the faintest of lights. A world in which the problems I face are but a bump on a road to something greater. Gotta keep looking forward, that’s where your eyes face.


My Heart In California

There I am

Heart in the sand

In California where I wish I could stand

Smell the sea

And hear the gulls

Ships passing by, so many hulls

Cliffs by the ocean

Penguins in the spring

The queerest little notion

Perhaps you’d like this ring?

Hear wedding bells

Adorned in seashells

Listen to what the wind tells

That golden, shining bridge

Spied from a ridge

I think that’s where I’d like to be with you

Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Love

Consider it, my friends. To be in Paris in the 1920s, to escape and find that magic! To take it and bring it back to the present to find yourself and everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Take that magic and that majesty you found in the past and apply it to the world at large. Oh, to be in a wonderful world of wizards and sorcerers, casting their magics on pages and canvases and the keys of pianos. What a wonderful world it will be, filled with art and song.


Carnival Comes to Paris

There’s flying and there’s dying

Both ending on the ground

Hearing that one final sound

Make refuge there, in burial mound

A man in a three-piece suit

Playing the piano

Can’t help but fall in love

Fly away, little dove

All affairs fair at the fair, long as you can pay the fare

Car broke down

Grab the spare

It’s a long way back to town

One day soon we’ll be back home

One day soon I’ll read that tome

Evil little lexicon

Stare me down, thereupon

Sitting on the shelf

Bore your holes

Whack those moles

Cross the bridge and pay the tolls

Find yourself and find our souls

Never Alone In The Woods

I often hike alone. I find peace there in the trees and with the animals. I like to think they find peace in my presence as well. The same peace I feel in your presence, of course. It is nice to hike with people you love, animals you love. You will always find something new on the trail. Even the same trail isn’t the same twice. You just have to look. Same goes for people. If you’re making generalizations, if you’re not really looking, not really seeing… You’ll never reach those depths of understanding that may one day lead you to Elysium, home of the heroes and the Gods. Or perhaps just to somewhere you might be happy.


Peaks and Valleys

Tending to a violet color

Regal purple, never duller

Shine so bright, as a star

Violescent, never far

How many miles can you go?

And still be here beside me, no?

My heart’s cascade, a thousand peaks

Trek through my rivers and all my creeks

Not so hard, to survive

A bountiful harvest, my heart provides

Two hearts, one locus

You have always been my focus

Sit inside this heart of mine

Think not hard, but cross the line

Take this linking as a sign

Always back, and always mine