Family

Baby brother
with hair like wildfire
eyes of deepest blue
glistening like the surface
of Lake Michigan in Indian summer-
A smile of hidden treasures
buried deep like our mother before us

You learned this early on-
not all that is found yields reward
But count those calluses
the sting of sweat
watch the blood trickle into
the wound slashed into the earth

Baby brother
you remember it well-
a broken chair the kindling to
an arson whose hearth still glows
beneath the charred remains
of a broken home

Baby brother
show me the blisters-
Continue to stand too close
to the fire and you will get burned
But learn to walk away
and only then, will you learn to heal

Definition, What a Decision

Listen close, loose change
Hear its tune in your
faded denim pocket

Sag,
a smiling waistband
hugs your hips

The tone of your skin
cream of mushroom

Your ugly,
all to my appetite

Hackneyed

A view of mercy-
admiring her,
now from a distance

I catch a glimpse-
a fleeting future
flashing before my
welling, weary eyes

She has saturated
my senses, she has
my attention wrapped
tight around her limp finger

At her mercy now,
though I fear she has forgotten.
Will my words echo?

Will we love again?

I have began to dig deep into
my patience reserve, so you
don't have to bankrupt your emotions.

Clementine

i held you like

the world was ending

but that couldn’t stop you

from slipping through my fingers 

like sand 

i wish i could bottle 

but you are meant for beaches

sunsets  with the waves 

crashing over you 

if I bottled you

the world would never forgive me 

Mugshots, Obituaries, Major Awards

I remember when 

we were all bright

and smiles extended

past endless summer sky

I remember aspirations 

long since forgotten

a look in our eyes 

now unrecognizable 

We’ll always cling to 

these memories 

sweetened by time or 

made bitter in hindsight

for nothing is as good or true

as you remember it- 

but it’s how you remember it

If I could go back

I wouldn’t -

for what I’ve endured

I don’t wish to again

Somewhere Between 007 and My Desperate Search of Verse

In the interest
of mending broken hearts
I bring you superglue and silly putty

For the one I've never minded to mend
I turn my heart to the east
but my fears lie to the west

Love is the death of duty
due diligence be damned
ripples from rocks skipped across seas

Nevermind never mine
Never you mind damn you
Lest the words explode

Like shrapnel from your chest
I will not hear a word of it
Yet even whispers cut all the same

Kiss me you fool
Celluloids illuminate the night sky
Black and white so unlike life

To live I'm sure
Death is
Whatever this is

Montauk, Bangkok
Little Italian villages
Owosso nestled between darkness

I'm uniquely qualified
To find myself hated
In every corner of the world

Yet wherever I have loved
Love
Has been sure to follow

Persona Non Grata

Step out from the shadows
and let me get a look at you, little man.

So loud, so loud, yet
trouble growing into your pants.

You say you lost a lover along the way,
a friend makes two.

Your problems are their problems,
right, little man?

If you love me...
Do you love me...?
Oh, so you don't love me.

I've heard it all before,
taking what doesn't belong to you.

Little man,
do you think you are a man?

If you say so,
shifting uncomfortably in your skin.

Little man, how will you shrink
when the world is watching you,

Taunting you
with what you're so rightfully owed?

Put yourself together,
little man.

Fading into the ether,
all these years and a
pile of clay to make of it.

Materialize elsewhere,
little man.

Wade until you're saved,
sputter about how you nearly drowned
yet your feet always touching the floor.

But knowledge is violence
right, little man?

Abuse the privilege
until the privilege hits back.

Watch the little man cry about bruises
when he's left scars.

Little man,
do you think you are a man?

Little man,
I know who you are.

Little man,
I know what you are.

Crawl back into the shadows
or squirm in the light,

I don't care,
little man

No more,
no more.