I can offer you nothing
to soothe your wounded heart

In death
there is nothing to get
nothing to give
or forgive
it isn’t about you
or even about them
or us
it’s about

no one

no one being home anymore
no one to send an email
or pick up the phone
silence on the other side

they are gone
forever transformed
into eternity
this is the way
in death

So please don’t be upset
that I can offer you nothing

other than what is left
the mourning
the grief
the time
for remembering
and forgetting

There are no religious fairy tales
that can offer an answer
they are all used up
and aren’t true

what has happened
is permanent
and in this
there is
no hope

but there is a feeling
that can be shared and felt
all the way to the bones
a subtle letting go

and perhaps a deeper
appreciation for what still is
this aliveness, that is here
the aliveness, that they were
and the aliveness, that they are not

they are now just a feeling
a fading memory
drifting farther away
with each passing day
becoming the dirt
becoming the grass
becoming the air
becoming another transformative breath
of life

ahhh… this sweet breath of life…

Embracing death

Is embracing life

My alley is filled with darkness
A place where sleeping fools lie
for a few restless frozen hours
passed out in pissed soaked pants

Doing the stationary backstroke
in filthy scum water pools

Rolling around in black rancid kitchen grease
oozing from the pavement

sautéed in motor oil and garbage juice
spiced with used needles and condoms

Bits of sticky crap cover the soles
of lost souls who make up
this alley of horror
Filth and depravity

There is a river of poison
Running behind opulent glimmering facades
shiny shopping veneers masking the shadow side

It’s a place where consumer waste is stored
Rolling toxic dumpsters
Industrial metal coffins
Line the dimly lit
concrete passageways of misery

Sunshine is immune for the cracks
of black purgatory foulness
Germs and garbage thrive
but love does not

My alley is real
It hurts
There is no love here
Parents are here
Children are here
members of the lost tribe
do a tribal death dance

No home cooked meals or fresh linens
greet you here
Just drug zombies worshipping pain
with outstretched pock marked arms
paying homage to the dark hole with no end

No one pretends to care anymore
because they have lost touch with those feelings
no one is worth caring about here

There is no use pretending
Everyone is equal
in the alley of pain and misfortune

you can smell the bullshit of someone else’s miserable story
it goes with the stench of the trash
All just garbage in the end
Maybe that’s why this place feels like home
because when it comes down to it
I trust that dumpster filled with trash over there
More than I trust you

Give me some hope and I’ll hand you a rope
You can throw it over a tree limb and see if it is strong enough
To hold the weight of a grown man
If it is you can tie a noose knot on one end and make sure it won’t come loose
Once you’ve done this
Imagine a man named
Hope

This man isn’t your friend in fact he is a murderer
He has been killing the precious and most dear
Moments of your life as long as you can remember
So now it’s time for him to get what he deserves
What has been coming to him
His karmic debt to the universe must be paid
Now is the time
For Hope to die

He never did any good for
He kept making you believe that things would be different
He kept making you believe that people would be different
Who was responsible for all this misery and loss?
Hope

So fix the rope around his neck and cinch it good and tight
While he sits on top a horse grab yourself a riding crop
Say your last good byes and listen to his final words
Then he will surely say to you

I am you, you are me, we are one in the same
When you kill me you kill yourself
Everything I have done to you, you have done to you
There is no point to kill for I am dead already
In fact I was never born because I have always been you already

So here we are the condemned and the executioner
In this time of death
Together
Apart
We both know that Hope must die
So be done with it
Send me to my death and choose to live once more!

I confess to a spot of glee
It was a moth on the wall
I smacked it quick
It fell upside down
Kicked under the baseboard
There was a feeling of completion in doing it
Finalizing the life of someone else
How much punctuation is there in that?
There is no further grammatical correction needed
It is just death
Period

It is the place of dreams
Where the light gives way to night
Treading softly on moist ground
All sounds are amplified
The imagination works wondrous wild
Manifesting visions of all kinds
Creating illusions of fear to nip at the heels
Animals, men and spirits all clamor to grab hold
But none grasp tighter than the mind

Dante Alighieri stepped into the woods
Not knowing what he would find

In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray
Gone from the path direct: and e’en to tell,
It were no easy task, how savage wild
That forest, how robust and rough its growth,
Which to remember only, my dismay
Renews, in bitterness not far from death.

He was met by Virgil and was guided through hell, purgatory and paradise.
They stopped along the way to witness all kinds of suffering and joy.

This is the journey we take every time we risk the unknowable
It takes us through the shadows of the mind
To the salvation of our own presence
The willingness to go through that which we fear most
Will bring us closer to the source of our own truth
The truth of who we are

Tonight I stepped in the woods
Not knowing
Allowing my feet to carry me
Letting my mind wander along the path
Until I could barely see
Relaxing into the unknowable, un-seeable
Trusting my senses, allowing my mind to run wild
Observing fear and relinquishing its grip on my heart
Breathing and walking through what is

I am on the edge of aloneness

Stepping cautiously forward
Looking out over the abyss

I’m scared I’m going to fall to a painful death

Maybe I’m just afraid of flying?

Just forget everything I said!
Forget about me
I don’t exist anymore
I am a war hero in an unmarked forgotten grave
Buy a crimson poppy next year
From an old man in the street
Who wears a moth eaten uniform
Tell him how you really feel
About death