Paper machete bodies With a matchstick heart And the mind to live forever Life truly is an amusement park with no safety measures Don't let the lack of limitations freeze you at the gates Dare yourself into the scariest parts, for in the dark you can then have perspective for the light And in the absence of fear you can grow old with joy rather than suffice a stagnant existence #2 #allthefeels #poetry

Bareboned and skeletoned The silver trees streak the skyline And night has fallen With a loud red spot still simmering And the cold grips But the trees were there last year And the year before And every year they put on another coat And every year they don't mind the cold We do that too Well some of us, If we learn to use our experiences as insulation for tender hearts We can ensure their warmth Into the age of love and the age of teaching And we can stay together for the next great thing that is to be in store If not, you'll have some cold winters ahead #1 #allthefeels #poetry

Stark strong trees Bare boned against a fading black red backdrop We are not permanent fixtures in each other's lives but That does not mean we can spoil our stays If the tree had spoiled fruit They would drop spoiled seed And will be surrounded by spoiled roots And rot will take hold We must grow what is with us with fervor And see it off in fall and winter with joy and melancholy And look forward to the spring when we can do it all over again And for now we shall enjoy the fading sunset on skeleton elms Their bare silver arms splaying out naked Embracing the cold And awaiting next year's growth Knowing they will be stronger for it #252 #poetry

I want my sons to be born with their feet in the snow I want my daughters to be cradled by feat boughs of willow I would like them to dance with the spirits of the forrest And marry into the people of the mountain And merry with the lakes and the streams To have loam in their veins and wildflowers for hearts These things I wish for most #251 #poetry

You have to want it really bad Most things are like The easy effort, the quick joy, they're also quickly gone and sometimes it takes a piece from where it was resting complacently on your insides, like removing a benign tumor But real things, they're going to burn in your chest You're legs will be full of mud and you're lungs will be full of fire and you're vision will blur and you'll feel weak and will want to quit more than you want to breath and you'll think you're dying and you won't You just get to the other side and realize how you almost sold yourself short And somewhere, in those moments, is the wallpaper for the universe, lies all the colors you've never seen, somewhere in there is all the joy that doesn't have a name but keeps you alive It's not comfortable vs uncomfortable It's dying patiently vs kicking and screaming and clawing joy out of the deep abyss It's about soaking your mortality in sulfur and finding sandpaper, Light the damned world up and laugh joyfully Sorrow is for suckers #293 #poetry

Forgettable days That I desperately want to remember Grasping and gasping and comatose A combination of a lot of things Desperately caught in a limbo carousel But I can't stop putting quarters in the damn thing I reach into my pocket and have an endless ticket Lost is something that happens when you're no longer familiar with your local But what is it when you've been there so long, and you can't remember if you actually came from somewhere else, or if everything just changed color and tastes different and feels brittle What is it when you don't know who you are Lost would be good, because that means you have a place to get back to It means you have a home somewhere with someone waiting there for you But all my someone's have matchstick characteristics And I have a matchstick heart made of Phoenix bones I'll strike and burn up and strike and burn up and strike and burn up I'll just keep at it Looking to put a fire to the world I'll give someone light and comfort and warmth And that'll be good, I'll just have to burn my finger tips Navigating this tunnel One match at a time The sun is somewhere It has to be, To brilliant a thing can't be chalked up to imagination But must be a memory I'll remember these desperate days, maybe all those people just wanted to help me on my way, spread their precious light for me #poetry #291

It's cold out, bone chilling cold, the kind that makes you forget the sun is a real thing and how certain colors just don't exist in your memory anymore So you're building a house Not because you'll get to live in it Death may come first, You'll never know its lovely warmth or its reassuring high ceilings, But you'll care for each brick as it's placed in the mortar you mixed yourself, Someone else will have this house And they won't have to live in this damn cold And that is warmth enough My spring is long gone, now is the time I prepare for those after me, the ones I love, so they may have their years warm, no matter the weather #289 #poetry

It's an ocean Or a comfortable pair of pants Maybe it's like when you have the smell of the world enter your soul on sunsets on Sunday's, like the whole actual world floods through you in a perfect moment of landscape and cirrus and soft amber Its the double edge sword of memory that allows you to live with joy and will take a finger as tribute every so often It'll be there for nights with thoughts as fuel and regret and pining the engine It'll fill you when you grab a hand or touch the thin cotton dress small of a back or you put a brother's forehead to your own with eyes closed in a violent affection that neither of you can explain but both know exists deep down somewhere in Louisiana summers And it's in the eyes, hidden behind flecks of amalgamous color It's a fire and its disastrous when unchecked and it's glorious to see the end of and its missed when it's not there and it's fearsome awe of a 7 second ride on a ropecorded bull with no name Just hold on and enjoy the ride and enjoy the fall and enjoy the fear and step back in line quickly to do it again Take your restless soul and shake it into purpose And batter that mother fucker until it's bruised up I don't think souls have a resale value #288 #poetry

My soul's susurrus is one thing to warrant admiration. I wish I could record it for you but you will have to settle for its manifestations for my smiles and my struggles and my look joys and my paltry words and my callused hands. I'll keep the sound to myself. I fear it only sustains one anyway. #287 #poetry

It's good to keep records, just when you're feeling like you're stagnant you get a good mental boost when you see that you crushed an old run time. #staythecourse

An old man was dying and he knew he was dying So he went to his study Surrounding himself by words Others' and his own And he gathered those that were special to him around his person And though he no longer breathed He didn't really die But remained in the white spaces between character and numeral and punctuation Wrapped lovingly in ink and eternity #285 #poetry

If your words can't touch give them hands and make them gloves so they may handle hearts with care and gently bring meaning through our most tender parts. We walk through life collecting tiny, unknown lacerations and poems can enter through those cuts for the better or the worse, so we are now aware of the trauma's whereabouts. Make words soft and warm sometimes, for Fall nights. Words should be made from Fall nights, and Spring mornings, and lazy Summer afternoons. Don't make words from Winter days though. Winter is enough on its on without reminders. #284

Some people like to waste days and to waste nights and refuse to recognize that we are made of the stuff of stars and combustion is our engine, we need to live in contained bursts of gargantuan explosions, we need to be our own solar flares, your spirit deserves to dance upon the bolts of lighting your hips make and to shake at the thunder your voice forges, Hephaestus lives within you and is eager at his forge, let him loose, We can be demigods in singular moments of beauty and dance and laughter and friendship if we allow ourselves to throw off the shackles of self-conscious, I will not waste a day, And I damn sure won't waste a night not stomping my feet with awe and terror and a beauty on my side as the drums and guitar shout us to life #283 #poetry

It's a matter of dedication, you can only tell falsehoods forever to others, you can only tell so many to your spirit before corrosion derelicts your sensations, it'll take away your inner voice and before you know it a looped track of sorrows and woe-be-gones plays onto your inner eardrums, and you see the stop button but you chopped your own damned fingers off. If you don't figure out how to sew, surely you'll choke, you'll start reaching for the napalm and tear your head back to reveal a zippo's innards and strike and kinder yourself into a self-orchestrated Fuego of fantastical flames. Because putting a knife into your entrails and carving down the line is surely easier than admitting a fault, making corrections, and starting over. There's always a chance to start over, don't box yourself, you're a malleable Titan. Live in truth and life will be so simple and so beautiful. #282 #poetry

I'll always prefer to look at you with a painter's eye In some ways better than a lover I think I'm best seen at dusk and you're pretty in profile and even though I'll love you all the times of the day, Friday evening and Saturday morning are my favorite times to love you. Let's be the first to sail over land oceans, it would suit us to be on some prairie, in soft lighting on an elmwood ship with willow leaf sails traipsing soft feathers of the tall grass, we would be beauties there, our children would be kin to the wind and the great expanse would know them by name and the land itself would cherish us opening its bosom at nights, with nothing around but star and shimmer, we'd lay on our backs looking up to the bright, dark expanse with the wood still warm from the day's sun kissing our skins, and with a scene like that the land smiles and the earth mother feels it was all worth it to make two such as us, that can tame the wind and tame the prairies and sail golden fields with golden hearts. #281 #poetry