the Goodwill.

The allure of hanging

Like an old-timey suit

Is just that.

Poetry for the waste-bin,

Ready for the Goodwill.

The Other Type Of Feeling

You know that feeling?

The excitement you get when you see someone

And that someone’s a stranger

A stranger creeping up on the ground itself

Cautious and casual as not to disturb the air

And they think they’re not being watched

Yet secretly hoping that they are, because

What they’re creeping towards, they believe

Is gold, mercury, or an ancient artifact

An artifact no one but them has discovered

Or ever will—first—in their own time,

And in that moment you get excited too

Except you get excited for a different reason

And when their discovery turns to a shameful frown of defeat

Your lips turn upward towards the sky

Chuckling to yourself, kind of happy, kind of sad

Yet you understand enough to feel commradery

Wishing that stranger was your friend

Just so you could kick em in the pants

Temporary Fate

I accept this temporary fate

In faith with the sun

In faith with the moon

In faith with the stars

Sinking through the ether

To rise like Roman candles

In the gasp of morrows yonder wake

Neighborhood, Winnetka CA 2021

Cat and Mouse

Two squirrel play

a fun little game of cat and mouse.

Both scurrying up the tree,

diving face first from branch to branch.

Like little cannons they shoot

back and forth between tree limbs.

One wagging it’s tail, the other

feigning ignorance, like two lovers

they quarrel, never knowing really

who’s cat, and who’s mouse.

Or what started all this in the first place.

Bliss

Don’t know how long I’ll be back,

but I am now. It’s like

waking in a movie theatre

while the credits roll and suddenly

everything and nothing’s changed.

You don’t know what everyone else saw

but you’ll take their word for it.

And with arms akimbo they just watch

you pocket your hands and head home.

So if I don’t see you today, then tomorrow

perhaps we’ll go swimming? And maybe

for just a while we can pretend

that I never left us in the first place,

and that this was all a dream, and that

starting over didn’t have to mean the end.

the bliss of ego-manic thought

There’s something happening when

There’s nothing left to lose—

The apple of the eye

Is begging for the truth—

I admit, it’s possible but

The language that we use—

To disengage, it’s all the same

Our fears of being used.

There’s something distinct in the

Absence of yourself—

Like when you manifest

Your love in someone else—

He’ll seem incapable but

The patterns that you choose—

To disengage, it’s all the same

Our fears of being used.

Now there’s a sinner and saint on the corner of the block

One’s got a rifle in hand believing that he’s God

They’re both wrapped warm in the bliss of ego-manic thought

To disengage, it’s all the same

Believing that it’s not.

Nirvana

It’s been a lonely walk home

Each step a calamity

Towards Nirvana

Self Portrait Journal 2020

The kind of nice I am.

Some days I make it a point

to be noticed by the guy in the muscle car.

I reach my arm out the window

with my camera in hand and snap a picture.

I do this to make him feel good.

I don’t very much care for muscle cars though.

That’s the kind of nice I am.

No Reason For Theatrics

A

play

doesn’t

work

without

the

audience.

Your Biggest Fan

I’ve got the words

Just not the plot

The characters though

I’ve never forgot

Tied like a thread

Sincerely knot,

Your Biggest Fan—

To have and have not.