Nobody smiles as they walk by
shoulders hunched beneath their coats
and faces pale as the gray sky
tempers as short as winter oats

In truth I'm part of this drab crowd
on this cold late winter day
eyes turned down and bald head bowed
and feet as cold as damp red clay

It's thirty nine and misting rain
even birds are under cover
gone with their cheerful refrain
a sparrow is all I can discover

I’d give up this sumptuous life
to join an Ashram
sleep on nails or cold as, floors
under darkened skies, with dead-stopped clocks
behind broken locks of discarded rooms
filled with their eternal silence,
deafening out the droning,
dumbing down the knowing,
flagellating this tempestuous longing -
just to be within reach of
You.

heartless elastic..

Imagine if you can
an elastic heart, that
I laid it at your feet.
Then go gather about
you the lovers,
with whom I
must compete.

Do you not know
you play on
stretched nerves raw?

Can I rest but an hour,
without my searing pain?
If I stretch a truth,
what justice does
honesty contain?

For if I was last survivor,
tossing tearful
on waves of pure emotion.
Could I expand these
heart walls infinitely,
giving movement
to your sway.

In these words I find solace
Passion breathes in every stroke of my pen
My heart bleeds onto this blank page

No more giving in to the suffocating
Tonight my pen intrigues the better me
My anguish grows afraid of my poetic melody

See rage lived in my mind rent free
She brought bags filled with sorrow
And her daughter named misery
Tonight I send them packing

In these words my heart loses that weight
The one that leaves you in a dark place
Blocking out the morning sun