when in doubt.

Playing solitaire by the water,

watching the clouds move over the game,

watching the sun fade away.

The weather is calm;

the souls are at rest today.

The people are watching 

from below

as well as above.

    

Cards are running low,

the deck is getting thin.

The day is fading away without me.

Golden bows

blast open the doorways

to unforeseen manifestations.

The stars and the moon arrive.

The soul is awakened by a purpose,

and then quickly runs out of ideas.

Nothing lasts forever.

         

Night comes,

making it hard to see

characters and playgrounds

bargained by jack’s and ace’s.

The joker, a trickster and a prophet,

reminds us

that there is always a truth within a lie

and some lies help to make us feel better.

dead letters for living people

commercials.

Watching the world

synthesized digitally

51 frames per second.

Catching glimpses

of chemically oriented enlightenments

that degrade synapses.

          

Overlooking past judgments on society

for an eternal fantasy.

It’s all untouched and permanent,

where happiness truly exists.

Clean air that’s inviting and pure,

its inhabitants surrounded in a

forever state of contentment

basking in a warm and forgiving light

where someone would want to

vacation,

buy in   

retire too,

die in,

or live forever.

A fading sunset,

a glorious sunrise,

what Christmas morning should be,

what living should feel like.

Death and suffering are only

concepts for entertainment

and reasons to purchase better.

A misplaced envy swells

for that life

existing within

that second to second universe

where reality is a utopian light show.

As if everything here,

amongst the flesh and meat of it all,

is less and inferior

when compared to that grand vision.

All cumulating in a sickness,

a depression,

a void,

cast from depravation for a life,

that for a few seconds,

I’m convinced I once had;

and through my own fault, I’ve lost.

dead letters for living people

hospital bed.

Beginnings

and endings come here

with nothing such as divinity

or blessed cans of oil and incense

baptizing our souls

into eternity.

Nothing but ugly, fleshy, mortality,

the decaying stench of defeated microbes.

In brief flashes

that shatter time,

years slither away, forming milky pools

of withered age at the bedside.

Medicated synapses

are misfiring,

sending mixed emotions

to the conscious realization of an end.

Ghosts of past friends roam

the space around

the body melting under fluorescent lights,

fragile remnants of pain

and joy destined to be lost forever.

dead letters for living people

    

march 20, 2003.

Reign over me.

Emperor greed-fiend

whose name is engraved on the bullets.

Worms crawl to him for assurances

that we’re all beautiful and divine.

Hail to the god, the devil, and the defiler too.

Reign over me. Strike up the angelic chorus.

Harking on trumpets made of victims to a holy war.

Buying up the world

while the poor eat

the morphine

in the pudding

so the children won’t

remember what has been

committed in their names.

Rain fires. Reign people.

Popes, kings, and presidents.

Lunatics, tramps, and sinners.

Give of yourself for yourself!

Take what you want

and kill whomever gets in the way.

A whole land of worms

praying to be butterflies someday.

Reign future,

reign bullets,

reign fires

Reign over me, oh, sweet American dream.

dead letters for living people