Africa

Expanse of blue sky

Stampede of creatures fill plain

Spirit, Simple, Life.

Ground teeming with vibes

Searing bright light chisels smiles 

United as one.

Horizon in view

Break of dawn pierces the sky

This is Africa.

This One's For You

Now it's been some skies since I took your number.
The pen smudged a little on that scratch slip.
If not for that, where would I be.

You know the murky waters of my soul, my secrets, my sins.
You know how I've hurt others. You know who has hurt me.
Yet you still come bounding down the hall, yelling my name every morning.

I've showed you my biggest box, and you delighted at the contents.
You've set the bar much too high.
My voice lights up your face like a candle in the night.
Your voice ignites my soul and shoots me up to space.

Your Beatles shirts, our drunken sessions, and those radiant, brighter than light smiles that we give each other.
I could hug you for days; we would laugh for days, smile for years after.
Thinking of you gets me out of bed every morning, and makes me wish for hasty rest to see you the next day.
Gosh, I hope you feel the same.
Enamored with you, not I.  I'm bedazzled by you.

You know what I love, what I hate.
And you certainly know this, but just to remind you, my dear.
I

Love

You.

And the Clock Kept Ticking

There once was a clock of many colors.
Blue danced with green, fought with red, and kissed yellow.
Purple serenaded aquamarine, and dove with iridescent crimson.
Her hands spun and the hues danced.

It had been by her side all her life, that clock.
Reminding her of time past and the future's descending length.
She got very sick, and the seasons went from spring budding pansies to fall crunching leaves.
But she was still sick, and the clock kept ticking.

With no regard, the clock turned the girl into a woman. But she was sick.
Very sick.
It made her scream and rant and cry and bleed, but the clock continued her rhythmic ticking, and the sickness persisted.
Her mom cried, begged, and pleaded.
"No," said the illness, "It is not I that needs to change."
The mom built up her courage, her savvy, her shrewdness into a towering bridge, large enough to stifle any sickness. But she was knocked down not by Hate, but by hate wearing Love's mask.

The girl came inside, and she got even more sick.
The clock kept on ticking.

Well, its been a long time gone, and Hate's mask is slowly being pealed from his face.
Well, its been a long time gone since the mom has cried.
But the girl is still sick.
She was halfway over the hill, but still a girl.

Maybe she'll be a girl forever, sick forever.
Maybe the mom will stop and cry.
Maybe they won't.

But the blue, green, purple, and red will dance into eternity; the canvas of time.

Love

No, It's not that first kiss that's magical.
Nor is it a marriage of 50 years, about to shatter, more delicate than a glass vase.
Love is sitting next to people who would throw their inhibitions to the curb and sob their eyes dry with you.
They embrace you even when they suffer.
Love scents the air when the leaving is the most hated person in the room.

It's so silly. 4 letter comprise the inspiration for countless works of expression.
They are thrown around lightly, and are as heavy as an anvil.
Love cantors down the field, it's mane painting the wind.
When the last candle is blown out, she knocks you out.
You fall prey to her unstoppable power.
These people are your family.

Love starts in the throat, either with a word or a lump.
Happiness is not always at Love's side.
Love comes streaming down your cheeks
And for days she'll mock you, bringing your loved ones back in mere seconds.
It's logic that shows you these people are figments of your imagination.
Love drags you back, again, again, and again.

Love cannot exist without hate.
Sweetness is nothing if not for something lesser.
The hills and valleys glide under you, and sometimes, we need to know that they don't stop.
Roses would not be unless they had thorns.
A ripe mango, succulent and voluptuous, is not noteworthy unless there is a vapid, rotten counterpart.
Love's beauty lies in it's fleeting.

I miss you.

I love you.

Campspiration.

I'll be back in a few weeks!
Until then, my life will be wet rain boots, quickly scribbled letters, and late night pranks.
Wish me luck, and hope I bring back gobs of campspiration.

A Pulse

Beams of light engulf.
Booze, laughs, mingling in city.
Thud. There is a pulse.

The Timeless Letter

My mother wrote me a letter.

Then she folded it into two and then again. It was sealed in an envelope and all that was said couldn't be undone.

I read it before school, letting her firm instructions guide me; her reassurance embrace me.

I read it before camp. She warned me about mosquitoes, alcohol, pot, and unruly kids. She told me, even if I did get into those things, it would be for a while, and she would still love me.

I read it before that first kiss, it said good luck sweetie.

I read it before college. My mother warned me of unmanageable roommates, peer pressures, and loss. She told me I'd have fun.

I read it before my first funeral. It said to not cry unless you must, to wear black, and to be in silence. It said to make sure not to fall in.

I read it before my first shot. The letter questioned my judgment, strength, integrity.

I read it before my V card's time was up. It said be gentle.

I didn't read that letter for my second, third or fourth drinks.

No.

It had been more drinks than I could count.

I hadn't read the letter.

I read it before my girlfriend broke up with me.

I read it before I lost my job.

I read it before I went to rehab.

Mama, I can still smell the perfume you were using on the day you wrote it, and I can still see your eyes.

How do you know what to say at the right time?

I must have read that letter a million times and

I'll read it before I die.

An Instant

The snapping of an aperture.

The blinding flood of light.

That one second in time is gone, but it will always be remembered. 

Think about that.

Nothing is permanent, it can only be documented.

A lady jogging, ipod strapped to her arm, head cocked to one side. Maybe she'll quit exercise tomorrow.

A baby being born, the blood, screaming, and sheer joy. They are reminiscent and fresh in every parent's memory, yet only a picture can describe exactly what life was at that moment. 

An old man laughing; perhaps, for the last time.

Click.

I lived in the slums. 

There was no running water, no supermarket, smiles, or sadness.

Only survival. 

Life in that part of town was not life.

Even when I tried to look at the blooming lilies, their beauty escaped me.

Even the slim, buxom, or curvy woman's grace and lustful elegance seemed to dip quickly from my psyche. 

Not water, nor food; birds or stars would fancy my eye.

Why?

Because my children wouldn't see it, and I wouldn't see it again.

It was lost in time.

We're all lost in time.

There was an old man that lived not far from me, in the alleyway across and back from my flat.

He didn't have a name.

When I first asked him, he smiled toothlessly, and said, "Em names show ownership. Don belong to nobody, now, I guess."

He always wore a crimson scarf. It was the brightest crimson I had ever seen.

I was the brightest color, the only color, I had seen in my years here.

Or maybe in all my years.

I honestly can't remember.

He took pictures. 

Wonderful pictures.

He found beauty in my trash, in dirt, and spiders, and spoiled milk. 

He was in awe of crumpled notebook paper, rubber bands, and pizza boxes.

I would have never looked twice at these things.

Yet, somehow those pictures were the most amazing, wonderous, beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

One day, he gave me his camera. It was an old one, probably from the beginning of the camera. 

He told me this.

Everthing is temporary.

Them leaves grow from nothin to crisp and green and ripe, then they die and crumple and get yellow. Then it starts over again. We can't be too upset about things we can't change. Like the dyin of leaves and human and whatnot. We can change how we remember them. That's why there's this.

He handed me the camera.

As he walked down that alley for the last time, I held the crumbling frame up to my face, and snapped a shot of him from the back. Weeks later, after the film was developed, he was not in the picture.

After taking my first picture, I whirled around to see a world bursting with color and life.

But only for an instant.

Click.

 

Lightening

A boy sat on his stoop and watched as the world said what it may. With purple roaring energy, and rapid cracks of strength, and without rain; the world was silent. Purple was the boy's favorite color.
Crack!
It rang so clear.
So loud.
So bright.


So, he took himself by the hand, and the boy got up. 
He was just above the waves of mountains that rushed toward the lightening. He turned and walked the other way. He ran into the house, and pulled the screen shut behind him. He rushed upstairs with him head down, and his gears turning. 
He needed to get to this lightening.


So, he found the keys to his mother's car, a sedan, and jumped in the driver's seat.
The car had been parked outside, and he started it. He drove all the way to the lightening.
When he got to the lightening, he saw something strange. It was not purple at all, but whiteish. 
He wondered...


The boy wondered if the closer you got to the lightening, the more white it would appear. So he just stood there, in the middle of life, and looked the lightening straight in the eye and said softly, but sternly, "You lied to me. I came here to see purple, not white." 


I can tell you one thing. That boy saw a whole lotta white. 


A boy sat on his stoop and watched as the world said what it may. With purple roaring energy, and rapid cracks of strength, and without rain; the world was silent. Purple was the boy's favorite color. This time, it was just a different stoop.

Ode to Summer

Like a soft wind,
laced with lilac aroma,
and freshly trimmed grass,
summer breezes in quietly,
yet she captives everything one.
Summer means lazy hours
on the hammock keeping a lax vigil
on the cardinal's nest
in the adjacent tree.
She drags me to the beach,
and we sit until the sky's bottom falls out,
and we get sucked into the vast sky.
The cool sand under foot, and the
black waves beckon.
We just lie there; head to head on the sand, gazing up.

Summer brings life to the world.
In summer, flowers are found
in brown bowls; such simplicity
inspires us.
Summer is like a perfectly crisp apple.
Holding its waxy skin,
stalling that first, immaculate bite.
Just as the first ray of sun
 brushes your face. It is an invitation
from nature to come and play.

Summer is a beautiful woman with
long, blonde hair and a naughty smirk.
The whole world seems to melt around her.
Yet, she makes the world look so much
better than it really is.
She runs up to you, not
saying a word but jumps
into an embrace.
A surreal day in the Shopping
District, and night at the beach.
She leaves you all too soon, without a
goodbye, only a kissed skin to remember her by.

Summer is the bridge between life
and death; green, bursting buds and crisp
yellow leaves. She is life.
The feeling of looking at the calendar
and seeing more than half the summer
still ahead is summer itself.
To going barefoot.
To ice cream trucks.
To pink lemonade stands.
To lazy days.
To pleasure.
To summer.