The fine art of failure comes naturally to me
don’t know if it’s genetic, or some voodoo curse,
stumbled so many times, you just wouldn’t believe.

I’d be lying if I said I never did grieve
metaphors fumbled, images over-nursed,
the fine art of failure comes naturally to me.

Put my missteps in a jar, a basket of coarse weave,
in a pine casket carried by sleek black hearse,
stumbled so many times, you just wouldn’t believe.

Could give in, put up my pen, enjoy the long sleep,
but to give up and not try would be even worse,
the fine art of failure comes naturally to me.

One day, sober and of sound mind, I’ll see
hard-fought success overflow my purse,
stumbled so many times, you just wouldn’t believe.

What will that look like, victory? Verse free
of artifice, scans like still water, lines taut and terse,
yes, the fine art of failure comes naturally to me,
stumbled so many times, you just wouldn’t believe.

There’s a man I greet each morning,

At the rising of the sun,

We nod in solemn acknowledgement,

When our day has just begun.

We rarely speak to each other,

Just take in a quick and quiet gaze,

How many years have we done this?

At the starting of our days.

But lately I’ve been noticing,

Some changes in the gent,

He’s lost his youthful vigor,

And I wonder where it went.

I note the deepening lines,

That gather ‘round his eyes,

I note his unspoken introspection,

And I hear his drawn out sighs.

His hair on top is thinning,

And his cheeks they seem to sag,

I see some darkening spots upon his skin,

And his motion seem to lag.

I wonder how it happened,

And how sudden it all seems,

I recall his earlier moments,

When he had fewer worries and oh so many dreams.

I watch him scrape the foam and silver,

From off his knobby chin,

He seems to realize what I’m thinking,

As he gives me a knowing grin.

“You know you’re burning daylight!”

We then say together,

As I glance out the nearby window,

One last check upon the weather.

Then one last quick inspection,

Of my friend there in the glass,

As we turn our backs upon each other,

And go to our daily tasks.

I didn’t ask to be born
and I wasn’t born, really.
Cut from my safe haven
by the cold stainless steel
of a surgeon’s scalpel.
I’ve been cutting back ever since.
In the same womb responsible for my creation
I rewarded my progenitor with a death threat
a scarlet-red ticking time bomb
for a mother afraid of needles and
stomach-turned by blood, guts and viscera
even at fifty-six.
Centuries or even decades ago
I would have killed one or us both
before I even drew a tiny breath.
I don’t remember many birthdays
of my thirty-one.
I’ve seen pictures
false memories planted by photographs
I’m unsure which is more real.
Birthdays aren’t celebrated as you age
especially when you’re a man.
There are no parties, few gifts,
and really, I think we prefer it that way.
The attention can be uncomfortable
but every breath is a reason to be grateful
and to celebrate. Especially when you weren’t
really supposed to exist in the first place.
I like to joke that I wasn’t born
I’ll say I was removed, evicted,
pulled screaming from my mobile home.
We all enter the world screaming
if we have lungs with which to breathe.
I think there is a wisdom in newborns
they have a sense of the horrors that await them
the terrible frightening beauty of existence.
We know it, innately, and we scream.
As adults, we recognize life’s bitter hardships
and we know that another year
sweatily slogging through the mud and the mire-
no better reason to sing.
Here at thirty-one
I can’t decide, the way this world’s turning
should I sing, or should I scream?
I’ll do both until my throat’s burning
like a Linkin Park song from ‘03.

set upon the desk
a slight lean reflects the back
side in the mirror

I want to get drunk for the first time

Just so I can stop this feeling

I want to come to your house

Just so I can argue with you

I want to breath in

Just so I can scream it all out

I want to feel it all at once

Just so I can never feel this pain again

I want to let you take advantage of me

Just so I have a real reason to cry

I want you to be here

I want you to see me

I want you to love me

Like I’m your child

The produce aisle told me 
About society and it’s tendencies 
Every apple smooth and without blemish 
Perfectly crisp and sweet 
Technology rapidly improved 
To bring lavish to the feast 
Indeed, they were bred that way 

Clones made by grafting branches 
Genetically, deliciously identical 
Their wild sister is tart 
Spotted with hyperpigmentation 
She is small, uneven 
Food fit to rot
Though she is the source 
Of all the flavor we’ve bought

The same came be said 
For every fruit I scrutinize 
As I push my cart along 
Beautiful, perfect and 
Genetically weak 
Disease prone, cloaked in pesticide 
And erosion to survive 
Indeed, they were bred that way 

Not only in magazines do we see 
What we think beautiful means 
No wonder I am unhappy 
With my mirror image 
The truth is hidden 
By a disease we cannot see
And that no pesticide can reach 
Just like in the fruit we buy
We crave perfection 
Our own infectious blight 
Indeed, we were bred that way 

Bliss forgot how to bury
people I left. Someone’s dreams
kept the lamp full blue. They say
I vanished into laughter—

a closed river, caught water.
I still wait at the event
horizon in the moon’s dark.

Never alone, out of hope.
Out of blame, I no longer
hum between unopened glass
panels. Always the same, I

still wait at the warning shaped
like a kicked-in door, my room—
pictures without walls, a ceiling.

Poetry was the silverfish I took the life of a few minutes ago
that paralyzed me with a fear of realization that I was alone in this situation.
2am, everyone asleep, no one to call,
just me and a bundled up shirt
letting out a war cry as I lunged for my white wall
cringing at the idea of a squashed bug imprinting itself on the paint
It’s not like the little guy has ever wronged me,
but intruders are intruders.
I’m still shaking