Another type of love—

I was a handful and

she had very small hands,

handing me love I

couldn’t handle and

it was no secret

we knew eachother’s secrets

quietly speaking through tears

and farewell in exchange

for another type of love—

one we both could afford.

Solace’s Depths

People might never understand

sincere isolation or solace’s depths

until they find themselves

most comfortably within

their own weightless bounds of solitude.

still as the evening air

For some reason, people

just keep on sticking around—

no matter how I push them away.

And God knows I’ve tried, yet

still as the evening air

they remain, willing and shifty

to see me from my darkness

onward, till dawn.

a silent mass

I never wrote a word, not until

I’d said my peace,

misconstrued and gnawed on,

beaten to a pulp,

dead as embers—burnt black on arrival

to a silent mass, ready

and aching to be heard.

Whatever you decide, do it without the need for validation—we are one.

Whatever you decide, do it without the need for validation.

To seek validity is but a farce. It’s like aiming to make a splash in a rain puddle.

A child learns early on whether they care to admit it or not, that their choice is theirs and theirs alone. Nobody really cares more than it takes them to realize, eventually with age, that nobody really cares.

Sure, a mother cares deeply, but only as far as it interrupts her well being.

A father can break his back many times, but only as many times as it serves his cause.

Progression doesn’t come from an audience. Progression comes from within.

Progression comes from love, awareness, and nurture.

And although social media tells a different story from reality, we seek it, crave it, we often need it, but do we really?

Perhaps the greatest lesson we can learn from posting our day to day lives, morality, and hardships is that we are all equally as alone as we are the same—myself included.

Not too long ago, there was a time, it seemed, the world was much larger than we could ever imagine.

Driving cross country felt then like an achievement whereas now—after doing it more than a dozen times—it feels more like a routine I’d rather not admit.

Mostly it’s this that scares me.

Desensitization. It’s this that makes me wonder.

What’s the point?

The point is to treat yourself with the same dignity you would a stranger—a child.

The point is to look beyond life’s blessings, with eyes wide shut, and understand that all will be regardless of whatever validation you seek.

We can learn this by simply looking at a flower bloom. We can understand this by accepting that although, it may seem, the flower dies, another will take its place, as equally and wholly as beautiful as its former.

So whatever you decide, decide knowing, you aren’t as separate as you feel—we are all one.

Long Island Cottage, 2012

Children

Children are very important, more in tune

than our fragile adult minds are willing to admit,

because kids know what’s important

and they’ll tell you to your face,

though it’s hard to hear them

with all the nonsense man’s created

to convince the world

he ain’t so little anymore, knowing the truth

once he’s willing to truly listen.

My Nephew Collin

Surrender for this man is essential for future understanding.

As important as it is to be informed, it’s just as important, if not of further importance to distinguish between what information you allow in and what information you choose to put out.

Feeling pain is not an excuse to cause another pain.

Feeling slighted is not an excuse to slight another person.

The news and media are valuable resources to acquire current information but the information gained from the news and media is not an excuse to promote ignorance and intolerance—or for lack of a better metaphor: one side of the coin—without further, more definitive research.

I don’t claim to know everything and I have come to terms with the fact that I never will.

I’m no a saint.

There has and always has been social injustice and sorrow in the world and I can’t change that. All I can do is choose a righteous path towards consciousness.

Consider this.

The anteater will eat ants to survive as the hawk will hunt ground squirrels and field mice. The spider will spin a web to catch the fly. The fly will feast on feces to survive. The feces will decompose into the soil and a tree will grow.

Nature always finds a way.

Human nature is an entirely different phenomenon.

It’s a common theme between civilizations to find balance and order between extremes. Love and hate. Fear and faith. War and peace.

Each and every day this phenomenon is in question—human nature. The hawk does not see the field mouse as a hawk. The hawk sees the field mouse as prey. The field mouse does not see the insect as a field mouse. It sees it as prey.

Nature operates without question.

It is human nature to ask why. It is human nature to consider the consequences of our action. It is human nature to consider what is right, wrong, and just, then decide.

Either way, the tree will grow.

Either way, the prey will die.

I’m not asking for you or I to be a saint, I’m just asking you to consider another way, a way in which I’m sure you deal with like I, each and every single day.

What I suggest we all consider is this: walk gently, and spread love.

Love is a universal concept.

Hate is a creation of the mind as a defense mechanism.

Hate, is a creation of man.

With all the information that history, news, and media has so far presented us with, what’s stopping us from immediately choosing love as a means to an end of irrational hatred which like wild fire spreads without care or concern or reason?

Tonight I’ll lay my head down, as tomorrow I’ll rise and move forward with peace, love, and understanding.

And it will be easy because I’ve chosen to surrender.

Taken out of context, the idea of surrender is often considered as a form of defeat but not in this case.

The battle has already been won, so when we realize there was never a battle to be fought, surrender to this man is essential for future understanding.

What those lost do not say.

Remember me tomorrow

For who I was today

And understand my sorrow

Was never yours to save —

For everyone has reasons

The grieving call them brave

Who fought too many seasons

To end up in this grave

Still don’t mistake this sorrow

I’ve borrowed mine today —

Yet listen for tomorrow

What those lost do not say.

leaving only the snakeskin they’re worth.

Look at whoever

made you feel inferior

misplaced or intolerable

and ask yourself:

Whose burden do they carry?

Then remind yourself:

That weight is not meant for you.

Now tell whoever

made you feel inferior

misplaced or intolerable

you love them

And watch:

Their puzzled concern, still only for themselves.

Then walk away

leaving only the snakeskin they’re worth.

Manhattan’s in the Village

You know what they say, don’t yuh?

Can’t live with em, can’t live without em

But don’t get me twisted, I’m not talking about women

though the skin beneath my tongue’s still sore

my heart’s still heavy and well

there’s nothing quite like seeing her smile come morning

but anyway like I was saying to this jug of doom

in the evening gloom where I choose not one but two

and then two more to boot because, well, hell

who am I kidding? Nobody but the moon this evening

cause it’s this bitter sweet feeling

the kind you feel deep down in the rumbling, stumbling night

where it all gets so far gone, where nothing meaningful is born

where it all makes some sort of convoluted sense

and alas, once again I am but the floorboards dull creak

where I am like the riverbed flowing calmly and discrete

where life is but a dream and I am dreaming once again

of you dear friend, rustling like the leaves at my front door.

Oh dear friend, how I long to walk the beach again.

How I long to hear your sick, silly, sweet voice again

like those long ago up all Friday nights of old

all those Brooklyn winter blue’s and yellow streetlights

guiding us home, or at least to Crown Fried Chicken where

like two youthful bums we’d scavenge our pockets for change

enough to buy a couple chicken wings, coke, and pint

enough to settle the bone, cold, sidewalk snow till home

where we’d fall arm and arm up stairs

to that old wood, smoke filled, railroad apartment you’d call Grove.

And though I don’t often pray, in my own little way

I do for you now as I did then, driving back to my Long Island apartment.

I pray this little song of self, this little song of you, this small token of my appreciation

for your boundless soul and effortless style and class.

I ate too much cheese, I’d shout while holding a kitchen knife to my throat!

Where in a Polaroid our youth is kept,

where so many nights while you slept I wept,

where you’d give me your bed for a smile,

where I’d talk with Forest about everything and nothing for a while,

long enough not to feel alone in that maddening, crazy New York glow.

So I write this little poem, not enough but enough to show you

I’m still listening through the terror behind the walls.

Dear friend,

How are you?

I can’t live with you, but hell, I can’t live without you.

Manhattan’s in the Village

God knows we never had the scratch, aligned

I feel inclined to take this time and offer you my best

impression not impressed?

CALL ME SPIDER! CALL ME SPIDER!

I just had to get these salami’s off my back.

I just had to sing this short praise of you Mac.