About Nik Daum's Sad Poems

Sad Poems reflect on the darker, sadder side of life. These expertly crafted verses cut to the poignant truths of love, loss, hope, fear, desire, struggle and other human conditions. Written by Nik Daum during his brief downtime at work, they stink like the smell of a sister who has died after many years of painful and hopeless cancer. They are a cautionary tale. They are both a guide and the unbeaten path. Live with them, let them dissolve.

My Best Friend
Yesterday my dog was hit by a truck
Oh fuck

Mother
My mother has breast cancer
She used to be a dancer
Now she is just going to die.

The Decision
When she said with her mouth
“I just want to be friends”
It hurt my heart

Nocturne Obscure
Oh endless darkness,
An obscurity that dims
You are no friend of mine

I Am a Wolf
I am a wolf.
Carnivorous mammary
Of the Canidae family.
Beware the northern regions
For you are always in season,
Unable avoid my hierarchical pack
For in this predatory game
I cut no slack.

Dance for Me
The stars shine like yesternight
Upon the parquet floor
Lunar reflections illuminate
Luminous loves lost lore
Dance like you used to
Dance with your tits showing
Dance for me.

Depression
I sit in a hollow
Sunk below the surrounding world
Sad
Despondent sitting in dent.
Psychiatric disorder
Can’t concentrate
Can’t sleep
Can’t eat
Anhedonia and guilt
Helplessness
Hopelessness
Thoughts of death
I am depressed.

Jesus
Save us
Jesus.

Trees in the Forest
If a tree falls
In the forest
It won’t make a sound
It is just a fucking tree
So shut the fuck up you cunt.

The Immortal Spirit, Killed
Sorry kid your vision is killed
We are the fools that captain this ship
Holding the prik that gouges your eyes
You mean well
But so do we
And we is more powerful than the.

Scent of a Women
Huwah, the pungent waft
From the shadows of the lacy petticoat
Huwah, a wandering mind
vacuuming up such delights
with reckless abandon.

Trinidad
Bamboo residents vow protest until action
Schoolboy receives probation for gun
Used ammo found at People’s Mall
Vendors want to rebuild themselves
Alfred must accept responsibility
Woman sues cop for killing bandit son
Prisoner can hear clearly now
Soldier to know fate Tuesday
Chutney Monarch final put off for Adesh recovery
Woman, hit by runaway van, dies
Everything not in place to fight fire
Police brutality, say protesting residents
SHARMA STRIKES BACK

To Live a Mockingbird
Birds have it easy
All they do is eat seeds and have sex
they don’t play bird games
they don’t have a word for games even
they don’t even talk
but their singsongs are magical
siren songs to lustful sex fantasy.

On Dust Motes
Light streams through the transom
I look at the luminosity and conjecture about existence.
Those flecks floating straightforwardly in the radiance
They bear me away to a better site.

Pizza
Pizza for breakfast
Pizza for lunch
Pizza for dinner
I am so fat and ugly.

All the World’s Children Have Polio
What days are these
When all children’s legs are worthless
It’s a bad disease though
Just as Franklin
If there some way to cure them, I’’d like to know
Until then, I’ll just watch a telethon show.

Square
I’m not too hip to be square.
Aware of the four-walled prison that is my mad existence.

Shantilly Huxtable
Nobody knows about Shantilly Huxtable,
The negro hillbilly from West Virginia.
Where she died there is no clue
Even her name sounds made up
A ploy to get another few lines of poetry.

Prepare to Pie
Look upon yonder windowsill
See the dappled light upon the cinnamon apple treat.
I like pie because it’’s sweet.

Ode de Cologne
Stubble chin and muscley skin
Pressed slacks and blank cheques.
You have it all when you wink my way.
Your cologne is on my back when you walk away.

Eternal Hiaku
How many
Syllables are there in a fucking hiaku
Is it eighteen?

Duke of Daisies
Whose legs these are I think I know
So white and supple as the twilight snow
If they holler, let them go
Whose legs these are I think I know.

Manhood
This cock is limp,
Watch it dangle there
Tick-tock tick-tock
An old man’s cock.

The Voice of Reason
I was going to get out of bed today
Time for gusto for once
No thanks, said my covers: the disincentive

The Void
The porcelain doesn’t deserve the putrid voiding of my stump
The walls are as thin as paper
I know she tries to sleep as I labor my dump.

Slice of Life
standing
line
shuffle
deposit
overdrawn.

On My Birthday
This gun is for you,
I said to myself on my 30th.
Of you shouldn’t have!

The Breakdown
This car
Mi coche
broken two miles back
On this shrieking road
Brown vistas mock my crippled legs
You drove by dependably and looked my way
Stopping isn’t hard
I am part of no club you know
But your eyes became red,
or maybe they always were
And now I don’t get to see you up close
You lose yourself in the motorcade that I used to lead
Your exit doesn’t lead to empathy
Instead, a gas station.

Pessimism
My glass is half empty
Yours isn’t.
The foam speaks volumes about the depth I lack.

Bloodwork
Eating sugar
Doesn’t make my diabetes sweeter

Another Day
My armpits radiate
The armchair is covered in cloth
Work ethics of sloth
I want to look back at the day being great
But Mr. Sun is saying goodnight

So Soon you Leave
I wish
I wish
My baby weren’t dead.

Beneath the Surface
Dirty kitchen floor
Yes, ma’am I’ll clean it rightaway
No ma’am, I ain’t gunna steal from you
She leaves like before I stoop and scoop Comet onto my skin
No ma’am, I can’t bleach the truth away.
I am the same person again
But now with burning skin

Lost Empathy
To walk a mile in your shoes
Would get me sodomized by your bearded uncle.

Remembrance in the Key of Me
Before you go remember me
Have down pat the first time I saw you
The first time we kissed
As I looked through the window
You never said a word
But I knew you would be too scared to see me
And that’s why I ran away
The bushes cut me up
But now the door to our relationship is being locked
And you’re leaving
I will not forget you if you promise to remember me.

Whiteman
I am the whiteman
With reservations
About slaughtering Native Americans

The Darkness
Darkness fills my soul
Like blood fills the bathtub
Dark thoughts
Dark heart
I am alone
I am alone
I am alone
I am alone
I am alone
I am alone
Alone

The Wasteland
Deep in the cavernous wasteland of my soul
You delve, you dive.
When you surface, grasping slimy entrails, thoughts of grim rope,
Cables of despair
Throw them on the pavement
Poke at them with sticks
Watch them grow dry and crack in the searing sun
Walk away

No Play
My crippled soul, dragged down by a life of untaken possibilities.
Now my cough comes easily
Though it stays dry and unproductive
Unlike my years as a frantically spinning cog in life’s machine.
A baby doesn’t seem to worry
At least not for anything more than it’s momma’s tit.
Those tits get saggy and tattered life’s milk sucked away.
I remember my pillow, unsoiled.
I could have worked harder
To be all worth it.

SK8R
I’m was with the skater boy
Until I said “see ya later boy”
I’ll be mourning for all morning
I’ll be at his curbside grave
Singin’ the song we wrote
About a girl (me) you used to crave.

The Hunger
Pit.
Ice-cream.
Sidewalk.
Hair on it.

Worthless
Don’t cry for me
I am not worth your salty discharge.

A Simple Plan
I wouldn’t sign up if I knew it was this hard
Every day is a struggle
I’m such a retard
The only plan I can follow through
Is a blast to split my head in two.

The Cut-off
Big white serpent
Blocking the day
Is your life so in shambles
You must scream my way?
Don’t get jealous
For doing what I can
Trade in your serpent
For that with throttle by hand.

All I want for Christmas
It’s been this way since eating candy in bed
when a glass of water was my floss.

What a loss, lustrous enamel.
Shield of dentin.
Aegis to shy oral nerves.

These teeth,
pitted like pumice,
brittle and rank.
A haven for the wayward organisms
seeking warm, wet peace.

I had a home once.
It was called bad oral care.
I can never leave this home,
even though I’m miles away.

The cracks keep growing
the blood blisters and flows
Like the flakes outside my window on this hallowed eve.

All I want for Christmas are whole new teeth.

Graduation Day
Hey Mr. Bigshot,
All doe-eyed and scroll holding,
Ready to save the world with expensive wisdom,
“book smarts” as the intellectuals say
It’s all ceremony.
Receiving or conferring of an academic degree or diploma does not a man make.
Exercises, commencements, convocations.
Bullshits, if you ask me.
Get ready to enter a real school,
LIFE!!!
In this school the tests have real consequences,
the dorms are a small apartment, and your car remains relatively unchanged.
You don’t get your food handed to you on a silver tray
You have to buy it with your own bloody fists
Throwing greenbacks to and fro akin to the chaotic ballet that is your commute.
Classes are now called jobs,
Girlfriends are now called Internet,
Drugs are now called beer,
Taught, nubile skin is now called leather.
This is the first step to your death march,
so buck-up!
and congratulations.

Iraq
Planes Hijacked.
Let’s attack Iraq.

Backtrack:
Saddam was slipped US greenbacks.
Because Iran was whack.
The war was stacked.
But Saddam got claque.
And he began to rule like a quack on crack.
His bigger plans couldn’t be pulled-back.
To the UN he had no tact.
(Not that America was laid-back.)
Let’s attack Iraq.

Jam-packed planes scream off the tarmac.
Cities are ransacked.
Civilian eyes gouged with flack.
Explosive knapsacks.
Kids that lack snacks.
Sunnis and Shi’ites yacking wisecracks.
Poison sumac.
Inflated bidding on Jackson Pollacks.
Dueling populations that feel bushwacked.
Let’s attack Iraq.

But don’t mind the setbacks
Democracy is on track.
So let’s kickback,
pat our backs,
and relax.

A Gun is Like a Dick
A gun is like
a dick is like
a tube from which DNA are propelled by explosive force,
typically making a characteristic loud, sharp noise.

Jock Itch
Traversing my leg:
The explorers.
Like some spore-producing version of the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria.
“We claim the New World in the name of Spain”
They claim.
This land, the Groinribbean.
They infect and pillage.
My lands burning and red,
like an irritated patch of skin
it’s flaking towards the raised leading edge
Like some Conquistadorian sword.
El Dorado nowhere to be found.
The fountain of youth is dry.
This cream is moist.
It will be their foreign disease.
Go back to Isabella.
She will give you a coin for your troubles.

Jiggles
In all this uncertainty
the pee smell on my pants is steadfast.

There it was
Nooooooooo.
This is a life of no effect.
A sigh that goes a lil sumpin like this.

Checkin’ the dumps
round plumps, disco derrière
goodbye shadows of the woman I got busy.
Whoop, there it was.

I be fallin’ down all swirly
Time to take away the pen of this whitey
I’m an old school fool.
Whose lost his cool.
Whoop, there it was.

Drinking tap water/got no money for Colas.
Got crazy/blew all my money on vintage scootas.
Sad skills, blowing noses,
Digging ditches, I’m cold steel.
Cold like da party people dat dis unreal deal.
Whoop, there it was.

Senator Smith
Many score years ago there was a tree
whose symbolic shadow we stand today.
This tree: the Civil Rights Clause of Opportunity for All.
A decree, a beacon of hope to millions of souls,
Souls who had been seared in the flames.
Souls who had been seared by withering injustice.
It came as joyous daybreak to their searing.
But time does not heal all wounds.
And idle hands are the Clause’s unraveling machine.
Like some perverted Spinning Jenny,
Torquing the spirit of the law from the letter.
Again the life of the souls is crippled
by the searing manacles of flames
and the chains of withering injustice.

Our great nation’s moral coffers have been sucked dry,
As if some kind of Spinning Jenny had been modified to falate.
But souls need nourishment,
And the Men that hold the key to the nourishing closet
keep it hidden inside a locked box.
It has a single red letter on the lid.
That letter is “Racism”.

This land is a golden honey bucket
full of numerous sweet, sticky, yellowish-brown dreams
made by God and forged from the collective nectar of it’s souls.
Is not the bucket of suitable size for many paws?
May not a Black bear and a Grizzly bear double-dip?

My not both Polar and Brown sup on the same sustaining sugars? Do not all bears weather the same winter,
have paws,
smell like salmon or pic-i-nic baskets?

Remember the tree that I mentioned earlier?
It was a promise that all souls,
yes,
even those souls
as well as these souls
would be guaranteed to the inalienable rights of
life, liberty and the pursuit of honey.

Don’t be an Indian-giver, Senator Pale Face.

Kids Today
These kids today
and their pop "music"
All Genies in Buckets and Back Alley Boys,
waving their hips in the air like they just don’t care,
Talking about kissing and shenanigans like their preacher is deaf
Insipid, simplistic, adolescent tastes
They are today’s lotus eaters.
Lazy kids, sittin’ in the sun,
Popping their pink bubbles and gettin’ no work done.

Own the Room
To own the room is to know the room.
To know the audience.
To know your material.

Relax, visualize.
Everyone is in their underwear.
You are in a suit of armor,
with a mask on of someone you admire.

Remember:
People want you to succeed.
Apologizing is for the weak.
The message is not the medium.
Stop. Think.
Turn nervousness into positive energy.

To own the room is to know the room.
To gain experience.
To make an effective, memorable presentation.

The Neighbor Upstairs
CLOMP!
The creak of board,
feet shuffling towards the kitchen ceiling
CLOMP!
Drawers opened,
Drawers slamming shut.
CLOMP!
Mystery Man leaves now,
The lock latched with a healthy clack.
CLOMP!
He forgot something,
Maybe his keys on the bureau.
CLOMP!
Or his briefcase,
Next to his pile of pornographic magazines.
CLOMP!
Or the tear-stained letter
from his fed up wife.
CLOMP!
Mystery Man leaves again,
The lock latched with a healthy clack.

The Route of Least Resistance
Your signal is too weak,
You are too far away, there is an obstruction.
All the configuration in the world won’t let the packets flow.
After all,
Automatic DHCP does not dole out IPs like pings in a traceroute.
This is not what routers do, to self-assign.
Check your Access Point.
For it may mingle mixed ethernet and wireless,
a cornucopia of networks and protocols.
A channel of which to bridge,
network types of which to mode.
Extended Services Sets share the same code as Access Points.
And with this communion is your alpha-numeric connection.
Base your identity on the MAC address.
Renew your IP.
Manually release All.
Reboot.

Sherman Clay Pianos
Corpulent, moneyed man.
Strolling with pewter-tipped cane
the short distance between Bentley and glass door.

Today is a determined mission,
to possess to the largest keyed instrument this side of the Etruscan pipe organ.
The Concert Grand Piano,
hybrid of percussion and string.
A melodious blend of worlds, akin to supper of Thai/Spanish transcontinental fusion.

Lustrous ebony varnish.
So smooth,
reflecting equally debonair mostaccio and chapeau.
The major keys as white as a hooker’s inner thigh.

The affluent dandy furrows his brow.
His white-gloved finger deftly flicks the offense away.
A single strand of unrefined hair.
It’s dreams of being associated with this fine instrument
propelled away as quickly as it was deserved.

This is the baron’s piano.
Destiny’s in the air like the smell of old money
He reaches for his pocket.
It is everywhere he wants to be.™

Dear Diary
Dear Diary
Tonight I cried again.
I don’t think that things will get better any time soon.

While You’re Sleeping
While you’re sleeping
I am smiling.
While you are awake
I am silent.
While you’re sleeping
I am crying.
While you are awake
I am silent.
While you’re sleeping
I am holding a old model VHS camcorder with black tape concealing the red record LED
While you are awake
I am watching the tape I make the night before and wondering if I should invest in a newer model that has night-vision or some kind of gyroscopic anti-shake technology.
While you are sleeping
I am reading camcorder reviews over a slow dial-up connection while the camcorder is propped up on my free shoulder and on the brink of pitching forward and crashing to the ground.
While you are awake
I am eating a microwave burrito.
While you are sleeping
I am sleeping too.

Ode to the Forgotten Ones
Poor homeless,
Wandering the streets, forgotten and untouchable
Begging for food on cardboard signs
I have a piece of advice for you guys...
Ummm, get a job.
Jesus, its not that hard you lazy bums.

The Last Days of Disco
You can tell by the way I walk
that I am a ladies’ man.
Yes I am.
Strutting to pop music intended mainly for dancing,
Arm raising and waist twisting to soul-influenced and melodically regular bass beats
Oooooh! Oooooh!
Unfortunately the late 1970s is gone.
It is Sunday, and last night’s fever is still burning strong.

Drizzle
Zeus what’s the matter?
Why have your tears begun to mist?
Did Cronus die?
Did you stub your toe on a lightning bolt?
Is Hephaestus splitting open your head again so that Athena can crawl out.
I love you Zeus.
Sure there are many gods up there, but you’re my Number One.
You are in charge of our days and our nights
You are in charge of our wrongs and our rights
And I sing, I want, I want Zeus in charge of me.
Do not cry more than to water the olive patch
Do not cry more than to cause the enemies of our great empire hardship.
Your tears are the divine droppings of Olympus,
Like Uranus’s poop or Hera’s afterbirth.
You powerfully bearded, middle-aged but youthful God.
My woolen smock is smelling dank now.
It is moist with your judgment.

Gettin’ It On
You know how they say skin is the largest organ?
Not in my case.
It’s my heart.
I am absolutely and totally in love with you.
It’s not my fault I fell in love.
You are the one that tripped me.
If I could marry you on the spot I would...
But then I would lose the excitement of courting you.
Of holding your hand and buying you roses.
There is no rush,
As I am content to stare into alluring eyes.
You’re amazing.
My love for you is like diarrhea,
I just can’t hold it in.
Darling, I’ll give you a nickel
if you tickle my pickle.

Dude Where’s My Carpet
Dude.
Whooah dude.
I just rolled some primo substance for its narcotic effects.
What’s that?!
Hahaha, duuuuuude. No way dude!
Hahahahahaa.
Dude, where’s my carpet?
Where’s your carpet dude?
Have you seen my oriental carpet? Seriously.
Well, I saw the looped pile.
No dude, I’m talking about the whole thing.
Whatever Dude, can you pass the cuttings of the tall plant with a stiff upright stem, divided serrated leaves, and glandular hairs?
You mean the dried preparation of the flowering tops and resinous extract of it?
Exactamundo.
Dude, you ever look up at the sky and go
"shit, there are like a billion stars."
I feel so small dude, like an ant or, a.....um...
Hahhhahahaha. I totally forget what I was....
Dude, this substance is totally having a physiological effect when introduced into my body.
Sweeet!

The Scandal
Where did the scandal touch you?
In my profit margins,
In my corporate finance area.
The paper shredders stroke the paper trail
Ending accountability
The accountants and CEOS, all in bed together.
Retirement funds gone the morning after.
Stock market infected by rumors,
reoccurring financially transmitted disease.
Once hard pensions become soft.
The guilty are slapped on the wrist.
Sent home to their indulgent mansions.
While the meek inherit the scraps.

Immigrants are People Too
Statue of Liberty,
You used to welcome us to this Land of the Free.
Whether tired or poor,
You understood, you gave us refuge on your shores.
We could finally breath free.
So two planes crash into some buildings and now everyone’s Bin Laden?
I didn’t hijack no planes,
I’m not even from the Middle East.
I don’t even know how’d I’d pilot a 747 even if I wanted to–
Which I don’t.
Your streets were paved with gold.
Now they are paved with skepticism and distrust.
Your copper eyes look to the homeless and tempest-tost
Like they may suicide bomb their capitalist comrades.
America is not the best country.
We don’t seek it for so broad a reason.
Our intangible list includes what once was faith, freedom, and dreams.
And the hope that the once kind face of our fair lady would not warp to the service smile of xenophobia.
Lady Liberty, please hear our calls.
Lift the lamp beside the golden door,
and give us shelter.

Stopping at a Dog on a Summer Evening
Whose cakes these are I think I know.
Grains and bone meal mixed thorough;
He will not see me stopping here
to watch his dog fill up with dough.

I’m So Smart
I’m so smart
That is say that colors in that painting have transconductance.
I’m so smart
that my hat is called a zucchetto
And I don’t even wear it.
That for today’s brilliant mood, I’ll don my tarboosh.
I’m so smart
that I drink imported glacial spring water.
I’m so smart
That I only eat organic Northwestern Turkish Figs.
I’m so smart
that I defecate cinnamon-scented pellets opposed to the everyman’s scat.
I’m so smart
That I masturbate into a monogramed silk handkerchief.
I’m so smart
That my loneliness is actually unfrequented seclusion.
And that the tears I cry are actually
the brine of an exceptional man who has his shit together.

Eulogy for Trish
Ding dong!
Trish is dead.
Which old Trish?
Trish the bitch!
Ding dong! Trish the bitch is dead.
Wake up, sleepy head, get out of bed.
The bitch Trish is dead. She got in a car crash,
smash, boom, crash. Yo-ho let’s open up and sing!
Ding dong! A dead hoe! The road was high and she crashed low.
Let them know,
That the bitch Trish is dead!
Amen.

The Song
Hark!
What’s that sound?
A song?
A melody so beautiful,
broadcast from that rocky island yonder.
I can’t resist.
I must steer closer.
Oh shit, I just crashed my boat.
Will it stay afloat?
I just need a moment for
hearing the lyre, flute, and verse some more.

The Copper Wire of Bad News
Babe loves me.
But only as a friend.
She said over the phone.
I just want you to be happy.
I don’t think you can be truly happy with me.
She said over the phone.
But would friends have had sex together over 26 times.
Or talked of children and marriage.
Immediacy,
the pressing concerns of lifetime union and interdependency.
And now this transmission over the wire.
Like when my grandmother died.
Or when I didn’t become a teal-aproned barista.
Edison’s triumph is my tragedy.
“Mr. Watson,
sit down,
I have some bad news.”

Aurora
Aurora Borealis
filled with malice.
Red streamers strangle me as I journey above the tree line.
Northern blight.
Ugly and menacing.
Otherwise complementary colors that swirl in the night sky like celestial vomit.
Miles back my compass broke.
I am charged and nervous.
Crushed by the atmosphere of being lost.
If the lodestar was my guide,
this cloud is a tout.
It’s offer is irresistible
to send me hurtling off the plateau.

Believe
I don’t believe in life after love.
Once it’s over, it’s plain over.

Alpha Omega
"Alpha is for your eye’s allure.
B is for your benevolence.
C is your skill at shucking corn.
D is for the kingdom’s disenchantment."
His thoughts on love not meant to be,
a muse set to drink the light from the valley.

Estapholus the frail gnome:
hardly innocent,
jubilant, or kind
lurks mysteriously near O’Lord’s Palace
Quietly readying spear and torch
under the viscous waters of his xebec.
A yell.
Zing.
Estapholus’ window opens.
He runs, flies.
Omega.

Lust
What is lust without love,
What is love without commitment,
What is commitment without promise,
What is promise without redundancy,
What is redundancy without redundancy,
What is redundancy without digression.
Lust is a magnet that aligns the poles,
It indicates with whom we join and repel.
Passionate desires for the flesh and mind.
Appetite for biology.
An ardor without prediction or control.
Our own personal fate.

The Story of Life
Once upon a time,
the end.

Phô Me A River
Somewhere on earth
a fertile plain,
Heated from within by geotherm.
Cleaved by a scalding river.
The livestock of this land are clumsy
cattle and pig, chicken and duck
falling into the scalding water
torn apart by the sharp rocks
broth.
As fate would have it
onions grow easily
garlic and ginger too.
They perch along the banks.
The erosive broth chipping away
plunging plant and spices into the current.
As if by Ho Chi Min’s grace,
two trucks from opposite villages
cross the narrow bridge.
One bears bowls and chopsticks,
the other basil, lime, hoisin sauce, and hot peppers.
They collide as usual.
Bowls and condiment intermingling with the river.
I am witness from the water’s edge.
ca phè sua in hand.
Ready to accept today’s meal.

Superfat Hero
Able to crash through an old floor in a single bound.
Chip eating skills unmatched.
Self-trained in the sedentary arts of television and MMORG.
Haunted by flashbacks of his father dying from hypertension,
and his mother getting crushed when his father fell.
All super-heroes wear masks,
to protect themselves and those they love.
His is made of stubble and pizza sauce.
His cape,
a blanket smeared with bean dip and body oil.
If he wasn’t bedridden, or had some kind of hydraulic crane
Running in the alley, purse clutched in hand
He’d drop in front of the perp.
The criminal:
“Who are you?”
His reply:
“I'm Fat Man.”

The Tubes
Kissing you is
like sucking on
a long tube with
shit on the other end.

Pacific Northwest
Cloud cover.
Moist damp socks.
Fuck
You
Portland.

Portrait of an Old Chinaman Sitting in a Chair in a Sunny Alley
A well worn wool cap
Grey cloth against patchy grey hair
Golden brown folds of sun chapped skin
Eyes as anuses upon a wrinkled canvas of stoic emotion
The old man sits on a wooden chair with red padded seat
The ground dusty from construction
He wears slippers, though he is outside
He has a container of well-steeped tea sitting beside him
His look is neither of boredom nor joy
It’s inscrutable
An expression as timeless as the sun that warms him
I wish I knew how to ask him if there was a public bathroom nearby.

The Little Ones
No greater joy than a child’s embrace
A small little mouth giving a kiss to your face.
The innocence and wonder
The energy and spunk
No one I was arrested for writing this junk.

The Okay Wall
There is a wall between us.
It is made of stone and hostility.
I attack it with swords and spears
But it withstands my ability.
I’m not a Manchurian.
You’re not a Ming.
Why would you ever build such a thing.
Walls can be great
Walls can be tall
But holding back my love
They are certain to fall.

The Man and the Moon (Dave Don’t Know)
Glowing orb upon the negative sky
Reflecting the hope of the day into my gloomy eyes
For millennia you have watched over the earth
When amoebae became bigger amoebae and dinosaurs ruled the roost.
I am but a speck in your memory,
A selfish little fellow urinating on his neighbor’s roses because of some remarks the neighbor shouldn’t have made about someone else’s roses.
Petty concerns these are to you, oh wise one.
But you don’t have to roll your eyes at me
I’m not worthless.
My roses are pretty awesome.
Dave don’t know.
Dave don’t know.

The Marks I Bare
A belly grown plump and healthy like a steamed dumpling
Tired, bloated hawthorn berries for eyes.
These are the marks I bare.

Willy Can You Hear Me?
Will can you hear me?
Oh Willy can you hear me?
Can you hear the sound of my heart being ripped out from behind my ample breasts when you didn’t return my text message?
It was a simple question.
Just eleven characters via overpriced cellular transmission.
DO U MISS ME?

Clam
I’m in emotional pain right now.
Also, I’m a clam.

Dingdongdeadendrelationship
I needed you to cheer me up when I was blue
I needed you to tie my shoe
I needed you to cut me down
I needed you to build me up
I’ve been with you for far too much time
and all you did was borrow my love and DVDs
I made your bed, and cared for your dead.
I lost my mind time after time
I was head over heals.
You used me and abused me
Never returned Free Willy.
But that’s okay.
We’re through.
I needed you to realize I don’t need you.

To Not Have and to Not Hold
The inky blackness surrounds me
I’m getting so old
All alone in the pit
With no one to hold