The quiet night
calls reflections of
children laughing.

Their smiles
as wide a canvass as
this world has to offer.

Big eyes full of wonder.
Discovery in every step and stumble.
Love seems obvious and everywhere.

Children hold the essential root to
the power of God's love. The ability
to accept the grace of faith.

Listening to the whispers of innocence;
our babies roll, stroll, crawl and talk.
Never once fearing the blunder; trusting that
we will be where we are needed.

In the Grace of God's universe to live on faith
is heaven.

Live as children do and happiness is yours.
Trust the whispers buried in your heart.

Whispers in the Dark

Making whispers in the dark.
Leaving hurt without a mark.
By the limp in your smile
I see;
your heart still aches to be.

In the love that drew you near,
hidden beneath the threat and fear.

The world you hope to build;
will fall to dust as dreams are killed.

Seek the ring that holds your fate;
don't despair as you create.

Know that you are ever great;
justice true will compensate for the
ill and awkward state that hinders
all that you'd demonstrate.

Live the life that
draws your love.

Faith throughout in
the Lord above.

Like New Snow

Like new snow
or a wave of color in
spring; love has it's own season.

Hold tight and
savor the flavor;
feel your life
change.

Like new snow
playful and bright;
love has a season.

Beautiful Woman

Beautiful woman,
you stir my soul;
I struggle
to recollect
my role.

All the while
I think of you;
I see your face
and the things you do;
hear your voice brushing against
my ear.

Emotional eyes
fighting tears of fear.

In the heat that
passion brings
on the wings of
sexy things;
in the aisle where
drinks are stored
straining against the glass that's
poured.

The gift,
the glow,
that
lover's share.

Begins again
with every stare.
Magic made fresh
by mutual decree.

Beautiful woman...
I best let you be!

In the quiet calm,
in the crisp night air,
the silent longing is present.

All that chance
has ruined, brushed
aside and trampled; will not
go quietly yet.

Beautiful twilight
before the dawn seems
peace has come to call.

Like the leaves in autumn,
raked and bagged.Pitched aside
emotions stuffed and denied.

Opportunity always
too much to consider.
What if the birds of spring
did not return?

How should the chorus
greet the band?

Always that which is
destined for discovery imposes
it's will into your life.

Without You

Without you the night sky
seems dull and vacant.

The scent of the lillie
pales where spring born harbingers
are absent.

Over and again I walk the
path that led to you; yet still
I weep.

In the hushed rooms where
romance grew; only bitter
recognition cloaked in longing.

The celebration of your smile
is dark and blurred by the
overwhelming drone of reason.

Curse that timing is often
a cruel master. Too short,
too long or just plain wrong.

In the stilted quiet of another
night; I sit holding firm to your
closeness.

Without you
there is no fear
of the encroaching
darkness; for I shall
seek comfort in your glow.

Without you
I hold fast to
my dreams; and weep
not tears of sorrow; but joy.

True

Innocence lost amongst the
dirty little secrets that
hide the true nature of man.

Willing arms hold tight
to flesh covered dreams
destined to meet disappointment.

All the world is covered
in the sorry adaptations
that past themselves off as life.

When the curse of
a delicate hand and gentle spirit
leaves strong hearts broken and bitter
one can only woo the will of fate that
might bestow a glimmer of hope to an otherwise
wasted and ruined existance.

Life can be sorrow!
Love can be battered and broken!
The spirit guides; whether we follow
only time will tell.

Walk with me today;
for I may not ask again!
Hold me today as the sun
fades from the sky; I will not
hurt you; for I dream that you might live!

Obliged

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Long legs
and silky breast
Comfortable hips
and pleasing sighs

Hair, eyes and lips
all centered and carefully
clipped

Hungry stares
at geometric views
coming and going

Wishing and wanting
Staring longingly into
The crystal stillness
Of true blue shining lights

Wondering woefully
As you walk
Seeking to know all that
You need in order that
I might be of service

Share my fantasy
As the tide rushes to
The shore

I cannot be without you
Without the scent of your hair
The feel of your chest
Pressed against mine

In the serene silent
Embrace we are all that is

Holding that moment
in perfect clarity
drawn against the
Bank of that which is forbidden

You have made your mark
Upon the very core of my being
For that I am obliged

AsK ME NO QUESTIONS:
AND I'LL TELL YOU NO LIES
by
Chester Jackson
Without ceremony, He was dead.
On a cold, gray day in January of 1996 my life long brother was laid to rest in a cemetery in Jersey in a plot shared by my mother's sister. The irony in this is immense as these two volitile personalities could never seem to see eye to eye in life.
My brother died on January 24, at home with his mother. Quietly death eased up to him and he was gone. As the news reached my conscious mind I felt the hopelessness that death inspires. Controlled tears streamed gently down my clenched jaws. I strolled stoically across Lenox avenue and up to 140th Street to where my mother lived. The security guard and the old women who stood watch at the entrance looked at me curiously. On the elevator, I took long deliberate breaths as I anticipated my mother's face. My wife met me as I opened the door. My mother sat composed and sober. That is her way. My wife held me as I tried to force anguish to come. Strangely, I had thought that the pain of this moment would be greater than it was. I was numb, I was already accepting and I had played this scene a thousand times in my head.
My brother lived his life like a race to self destruction. In the last weeks of his life I felt that we had come to a better understanding of one another. I remember sitting in my mother’s living room, in the portion occupied by my brother; staring at the splattered blood on the ceiling and walls. Blood that shot from his veins as he injected heroin.
On a dilapidated futon stretched across the center of the room my brother laid staring at images of our life in his mind. His hair was unkempt and matted. He paused a long time to consider when last he’d bathed. His face was gaunt and sickly. His eyes seemed genuine, although I’d forgotten how to read them over the years. We talked about the possibility that he could have contracted the HIV virus. I was generally skeptical where his aliments were concerned as he was a practiced hypochondriac. As he lay weak, frail, thin and listless I feared that this time he may be right. A few days before this conversation, he called me at home to ask if I would accompany him to the hospital emergency room. I was busy with my own life and told him to call an ambulance. On this day, he explained to me how three of his friends had gone to the hospital unaccompanied and died in a matter of days.
He wanted me to bare witness to the hospital that he had people in this world who loved him thereby making him an unsuitable candidate for the conspiracy to euthanase the homeless. This is the way my brother thought. He decided I believe, that he would just stay home and await the end. Whatever it was.
We laughed about the unpleasant aspects of suicide. He always could make me laugh. I remembered how much I used to enjoy being with him. He reflected on past deeds with sadness and confusion. It appeared that he couldn’t quite grasp why people in his life had done things on his behalf. In my heart I suspected that he would have out lived us all. I was wrong.
In recent weeks he’d asked me for money to get “Straight “ . Indignantly, I responded, are you gonna do drugs until you die ? He said simply,” no, that's not my plan ”. I realized that he asked more out of habit than anything else. My brother was afraid to die, just as he had been afraid to truly live. He hid from life in the comforting confusion of a Heroin induced haze. I spent many years running away from understanding his pain. It was knowledge that I was not sure I had the courage to bare.
My mother and I often speculated on what demons drove my brother to an early grave. Perhaps, the way my brother and I came to be brothers played a role in his untimely demise.
My mother is a pure heart. She is a genuine giver. At a time in her life when children by natural child birth were not possible anymore she took my brother from a friend of a friend. He was days old and in need of the only thing she could give him, a mother. He was the product of an extramarital affair that transpired while his mother’s husband was incarcerated.
Five years later another friend of my mother's would offer her another baby. I came home at a week old. The woman who bore me remained a part of my life until her death when I was twelve. She had always been my “ aunt ”. I remember her as a sad faced woman who never seemed happy in my presence.
My mother worked long hours in a New Jersey factory to feed and clothe her children. She never contacted the authorities for fear that she would lose her children. She struggled through the break up of her marriage and continued to raise her boys on her own.
When you grow up in the shadow of some great secret the power of that secret is awesome. As a little boy I learned that nothing was guaranteed. Unconsciously, on some level I came to realize that mother was all that stood between me and this dark shadow. I idolized her for the obvious sacrifices. I determined to bring nothing but good and praise into her life. I learned to feel only that which was safe. I wore a smile with the conviction of a circus clown. I laughed when appropriate and was silent when unsure of the proper edict. I built dreams so grand that the universe in all it's darkness winked at me through the twinkles in the stars.
When my brother became a teenager he discovered ways to make his pain go away. He learned to seduce women. He learned to be the toughest kid in the crowd. He learned to ingest chemicals that made it possible for him to feel normal.
Certain memories linger in my mind like old friends. I remember my brother coming home from a boy scout camping trip. I can see his face as he carried his pack and canteen. I can still feel my heart racing as I ran up the block to greet him. I remember his smile as I struggled to carry his pack the last few steps home.
I remember him standing down a bully with such confidence that it made me proud to be his brother.
I remember the look in his eyes when after a heated argument I screamed at him in frustration, that he was nothing and that he would never be nothing. The pain in that moment has stayed with me, as I saw the words impact him with the force of a mallet.
I can hear his voice calling my name, Chet. Hey Chet.
In my house we learned that some things where beyond our control and therefore not worth being verbally addressed.
I can only imagine the anguish that my mother suffered as she pondered when an absent mother would return to claim one or both of her children. I was thirty years old when the blinders where lifted from my eyes. My mother sat on her bed and handed me a wrinkled piece of paper that told me that I was someone else's child. She wished out loud that she had not lived to see this moment. I could not bare the look in her eyes and quickly stuffed my feelings and set about comforting and reassuring her. This was a monumental moment in my life. I was born again. I was finally able to look at the circumstance of my life and make sense out of the madness. I was able to walk out of the shadow and begin to see. All the years that I had spent wondering why I felt so incomplete and out of place crystallized in my mind. I realized then that I was not the one with the problem. I knew that all along there had been something unseen stalking all of us. The realization that it was real was staggeringly liberating.
Childhood is a remarkable period. The new person absorbs what the world has to offer like a dry plant; sucking in the water as fast as it's roots will take it. For my brother, the world held danger and no sense of future. For me the world was a place best lived in cautiously. Fantasy the only safe place to dream. If you asked no questions there was less chance of a startling discovery.
My mother’s greatest fear was that one day we would realize that she was not our birth mother. She believed that this knowledge would somehow invalidate the lifetime of commitment that she had made to us. She was wrong.
Adoption has become my life. The fantasy and the reality. In fantasy history can be undone. In reality the pursuit of the fantasy keeps us going. In October of 1990 I took a position as a Family Life Advocate with Downey Side ... Families for Youth. The Regional Director at that time was a friend I'd known from college. He knew I was unqualified and perfect for the job. I spent the greater part of two years following him to agency meetings and conferences. Eventually, I began to meet the children of foster care. The children that I could have been, had not a quiet, little woman followed her heart. I convinced myself that the calling I felt had something to do with homeless children. In November of 1991 my wife and I took a 16 year old boy named Robert as our son. In July of that year we had also been blessed with the birth of our first birth child Brandon. Shortly thereafter, Robert's birth sister Eboney, a 14 year old foster child that he had been separated from six years prior came to live with us.
Visions of happily ever after quickly danced out of our lives. The hole in my heart grew larger as I realized that all was not resolved. The calling that I thought would make me complete only forged new cracks in my fragile self image. The damage done by life in the shadow of the secret was not erased by the revelation.
Robert was a man sized boy from whom the foster care system demanded too little and we expected even less. I was a man working through the pain of a boy from whom the world demanded so much and I had learned to expect so little. Eboney was a little girl thrust into the role of a young woman from whom we demanded so little and expected too much. As the fantasy began to unravel my wife and I struggled to remain firm in our commitment. The introduction of children into our lives sent everything spinning wildly. The precious time together that we had cherished became scarce. The needs of the family began to supersede the needs of the individuals.
Resentments grew as we all lost something that we had hoped to gain through our becoming family.
From Robert we learned that he could be ignored, when the tension rose he simply retreated into his shell until it passed. Eboney on the other demanded attention. She appeared only to respond to confrontation. She pushed and prodded until we were forced to corral her. She’d step out of bounds until we would rein her in. We lived our life in cycles, there was quiet and all was well, then we would discover some transgression that demanded a response. On mother’s day of 1993 my wife was informed by Eboney that she was pregnant. My Wife was three months pregnant with our second birth child Geneva. Geneva was born in October of 1993. Our granddaughter, Charisma was born in November of 1993.
There was great rage in my house. In retrospect, the pregnancy was an important moment in the life of our family. It forced us to address the status of Eboney in our house and lives. We moved off the emotional fence and got her fully involved in our lives. Many feelings have been expressed and repressed during our first five years together. The lessons have not all been pleasant nor easily learned.
Adoption for me has become a very personal crusade. I’ve learned that family life in all it’s imperfections is work and best lived in the light of reality. I have forged a new family and expanded on the old. Finally, the pieces of my shattered origins are suitable for reconstruction.
In January of 1958, I lost my family and gained another. In the years that would follow I searched without knowing what I had lost. In March of 1991, I discovered what I’d lost and the tools for healing were within my reach. In January of 1996, I’ve lost another piece of my life, but gained new insight in death to the meaning and value of life. A brave woman dared to give herself to children that might otherwise have suffered the horrors of total abandonment. Her motives where simple. Her commitment sure and steady. The results, one son is dead after years of denial and self abuse. The other has grown to manhood and continues his search for self fulfillment. In the final analysis I remain a work in progress. As is true of all matters of the heart time teaches those strong enough to learn.
The power of adoption is the willingness to commit oneself to another. Not to an ideal, for that is short lived. Not to a loved one because a love is built over time. The children that we choose to bring into our lives are strangers that over time we will grow to love. The power of adoption is that willingness to claim all that comprises the many facets of a human being. Whether the child is 3 days or ten years old is irrelevant. The true power of adoption is not in the outcome but in your willingness to commit to the process.

Like a blinding light... 3130201

One of the complex gifts that I am offered regularly as an advocate in older child adoption is a front row view of the delicate balance between what I espouse professionally, what I live with daily and the images and lessons learned in my own childhood. I work in New York City and I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Like many parents who spend significant time away from loved ones I like to think that the time I spend at home I make good use of. As a result of having to spend significant time away from my family I have learned to notice the subtle and not so subtle changes that creep into our family life. These changes are not always profound however occasionally I am stopped dead in my tracks.
This night started out like any other. We were finishing up our meal and settling in for the evening. Recently, Karin and I had decided that the children are old enough to have a few simple chores assigned to them. Geneva our daughter is eight years old and growing more beautiful and grown up everyday. Brandon is ten years old and stretching steadily skyward, maturing instantly before our very eyes. Geneva’s dinner chore is to set the table. She has taken to this task with the grace and elegance of her mother.
Brandon’s chore is to clear the table after dinner. He accomplishes his task with the grace and elegance of a waiter with tickets to Cats; a waiter who has already missed the opening curtain.
In any event, the kids agreed that these were reasonable chores and they really hadn’t given us a great deal of grief about them.
Brandon was clearing the dishes from the table. I rather innocently suggested that he rinse the dishes and place them into the dishwasher. This was definitely not a part of the original agreement and Brandon pointed that fact out to me. Shocked, I stated in no uncertain terms that as his father I didn’t need his agreement. My thinking was so what’s another ten minutes or so at the sink. Brandon would not be moved. With the calm demeanor of a practiced attorney he simply refused the additional chore and made his case plainly. “ No Dad, that was not what I agreed to do...” he stated. “ you said, I would clear the table. You didn’t mention anything about rinsing the plates and loading the dishwasher. ”
As I stood face to face with the emergence of my self-actualizing child I was floored by the sheer brilliance of his free will. My initial instinct and inclination was to reach out and punish this impudent child with the rage that my shameful childhood experience had taught me. If I allow my grip to be loosened now how would I get him back into the box? Things would never be the same again! Reflex cried out for me to strike down this assault upon my authority with a fury that I was strangely no longer committed to.
For a split second I felt impotent and small. In the intensity that clarity can bring all the exposure that I had feared washed over me like waves at the beach. I was center stage caught in the glaring lights of my own one-man show. My son smiled past the “no” as if it were his right. He didn’t stutter or stammer not even an instant of hesitation. Instinctively sensing his father’s discomfort he patted my shoulders in a consoling manner and moved on. My wife and daughter continued their dinner conversation as though no crime had been committed. Yet here I sat still waiting for the familiar cycle of Loss–Rejection, Anger, Disappointment, Depression and Shame to play itself out. My L-RADD-S cycle has long been my established modus operandi whenever the “real world” clashed with the images in my “perceived world”. In the imaginary world of “Father Knows Best” his children never voiced, uttered or otherwise exhibited any sort of disobedience, not in thought nor deed. Television had not laid the groundwork for dealing with this occurrence. In my childhood no was not an option.
The perceived Loss of my God given and absolute authority, control and power “should” have been unacceptable. It was strangely liberating. My ten-year-old son’s Rejection of the notion that his father deserved and demanded unyielding obedience; “should” have sent me into a rage. The concept was unimaginable both in the childhood that I knew and in the mind’s eye of the idealized adult father figure that I thought I had become. There was however, no rage not even any real Anger. The moment left me reflective and slightly melancholy. The Disappointment, Depression and Shame were all strangely absent leaving only the words and the reality. Curious how the things we sometime fear the most can serve to spark or rekindle the development of our spirit and contribute greatly to what John Bradshaw called our “soul work”.
My ten-year-old son had stood against his father’s will and in an instant left the patriarchy in ruins. He expressed no disrespect; nor did he infer or imply any ill will toward his father. This moment was about a child voicing a different perspective on an issue of minor significance. I realized that after the initial impact had worn off my baby boy had begun to move away from me. This bittersweet slice of reality hung in the air like gun smoke. I was witnessing the demise of the illusion of my fatherly omnipotence. Wonder of wonders I was free of that mantle and my world did not collapse nor did I die a thousand deaths. I was free!
It took me several days to fully digest my feelings. The adequacy of my response from a division of labor standpoint is debatable. I also spent many hours realizing that for me no small matter had transpired. The issue was not my son saying no to his father; rather it was the strange realization that it was okay. This was the first time he flat-out refused to do what I asked him to do and that was o-k-a-y. I lost nothing in his eyes and gained much by accepting and respecting his budding independence. My wife sat smiling sweetly as if to say “welcome to the club”. In the traditional role of the American father we often miss out on the priceless incremental developments that mark the various stages in our family life. How we accept the inevitable nature of those changes can have monumental effects on all of these pivotal relationships.
The interactions with my children, and my spouse hold exciting new possibilities. I am free to be husband and father. I can define the parameters of my relationships based on the real desires I hold for my life. The symbolic liberation that I imbue this moment with serves to usher in a new frame - work for all my future interactions. Now perhaps I can begin to assert and challenge some of my most entrenched personal beliefs and assumptions. Like many husbands and fathers outdated and unrealistic notions have held me prisoner for years.
When there was no father figure present in my life I looked for answers in fantasy. As my mother struggled with her own issues and the ever present issue of putting food on the table, a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs; she was not equipped to supply what I needed in this regard.
Finally, I can turn the channel on the television version of fatherhood that has helped to keep me locked in a box that offered no room for real life. In real life I want my children to know that they have the right to be heard. I want my children to know that I not only love and cherish them but that I respect them as unique and wonderful human beings just because they are. My “Father knows best” baggage that had seemed too familiar to put down is old and played out. I know now that I can create my own model from this point forward. I know that on some level I have already created some of that as I have played a part in raising children that know they have the right to be heard.
The following bit of wisdom I gleaned from the movie Rat Race that I recently watched on VHS with my baby boy, one character was trying to convince another to take a risk and join in the race “good things happen over time, great things happen all at once.” Like a blinding light shot through a crack into the darkest corner of my consciousness my ten-year-old son said “no” and freed us both forever.

Mother calls to me,
yet I will not answer.
I see dread in mama's eyes,
yet I will not be warm.

Mother loves me in her way,
which has taught me to love in mine.

Little boys grow
to be men who act as boys.
Boys that learn to
act not feel.

Boys who seek shelter
in idle mischief and malevolent fun.

Alas, all the worlds a mother's fault
at least in the eyes of her son.

FALLING FROM THE MIDNIGHT SKY
031196

Falling from the midnight sky
I see visions of another time

I walk through the center of my fear
Not with head bowed or heart heavy laden.
I feel the power that dwells within the recesses of my soul

The potency of my ancestors flows through the blood in my veins.
I see that the gloom is merely a pause in the light

My children stand on a foundation layered with my two hands
Just as I bare the mark of my mother’s toil.
My mother shares the wisdom of eight decades
Exposing me to the courage to endure.

I see that history unfolds in the present
and is preserved through the exercise of the mind and the open arms
of a willing spirit.

Falling from the midnight sky
I hold dear my prayers and force the will to do

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When I think of you

Thinking of you is sometime
all that I care to do.

Sitting, standing, staring blankly at the wall,
a television or
out of a plate glass window;
seeing only your smile.

Would that I could feel your naked embrace,
taste your heated breath, whisper softly in excited tones
as we roll over the damp smooth sheets in perfect surrender.

All that might be.
A dream so true.
All the while
passing us by in muted
sounds
and mystical shades and hues.

Shall I share with you that vision;
or would it better suit that
we simply play.

Play
that we might not touch
the place where so many lives intersect.

In the realm where I dream
There are no consequences.
In the world where I live there are many.

No dream is without inspiration.
No love without cost.
Share that which gives you pause.
As in the pause resides salvation.

Willing Hearts and Young Minds

Willing hearts are open and
young minds freely spin.

In the center of certain
souls history stands still again.

All that has come before us
lays trails
that we might see.

Hesitation bides it's time;
while children hide from thunder.

In the passing tides of time
the fearless heart does wonder.

Standing in the face of danger;
Staring as others turn to run.
Marching forth to victory; in spirit the battle is won.

The Call to Love.

Once I wondered what meaning
my life would hold.

In the dark spaces behind my eyes
I heard the call to love.

An angel walked into my life
and taught me how to live in the light
of that love.

She sought only to share her love
with me; to walk this path with me,
to be in love with me.

That call to love drew me out of my shell
and is that which
undresses me before you.

Not being afraid to love
is freedom.

Love is perfect;
Only it's expression
is subject
to the flowing tides of circumstance.

I cannot own that which you bring to me;
only that which I share with you.

Choose to love that you might be free.

The Secret Closely Guarded

Widows weep for memories
that will not keep them warm.

Children cry from injuries
of the spirit of which they are born.

In the arms of truth, sheltered
by loves' embrace; lonely is the innocent
that longs for just a taste.

The bitter smell of abstinence.
The sight of a passing chance.
Never hearing the melody or the
heat of a first slow dance.

One day two roads may call to us
asking for the right. A solitary apple
hangs waiting for a bite.

The truth that we take stock of matters little in the end,
for the secret closely guarded is the willingness to merely begin.

Hearts open to other open hearts.
Love is the power that makes us lovable.

Share your hurts that you might be strong.
Strength is work through tears and pain.
Love is God's own voice speaking from His place in
your heart.

Love that you shall hear God's voice.

God grants that we
his children have all that we need.

In the turmoil that a freed will inspires
we sometime lose our way.

Crashing head first into the walls
in our lives we stagger bloodied and
confused from relationship to relationship.

Confused about love the meaning of life becomes
clouded and dark.

In silent prayer
amid the hushed tones inside your heart
the reason, the love and the answer.

Love draws two baths.

Bubbles float gently off the warm rising water.
Rising steadily amidst the churning ripples of the ever changing tide
the comforting caress of nature lulls one into peacefulness.

The rising flow is choked off and the water grows cool.
Sitting in the lukewarm residue of a once warm bath is
like romance left to fend for itself.

All my tears
without resolution

Gray, pallid, stillness
looming like death.

How long is long enough?
How many moments must I waste?
All I have ever known is what I fear.

My very freedom
a curse.

While the banner I wave is heavy;
I am propelled by it's weight alone.

Other's have thread this needle.
Still unsure I waver as the moment
passes.

What magic will it take to pull me through to the light?

Always asking why not me?
Victory hidden in the shade.

Sharing pieces of a complex life
in a space provided by opportunity.

Walking head long into moral debate,
all the while holding firm to desire.

Understanding that the complex whole
deserves our full attention we devise ways
to divide our essence.

We share compartments of a dream
each with a stake in a distinct outcome.
All the while juggling judgement and outside
consternation.

All things considered, when it's all said and done, I choose to
relish the view!

Sometime sitting in a
smoke filled bar late into the
morning hours staring soulfully into the eyes
of a wanton fantasy seems almost
magic.

Like an addict I am drawn to your face.
I see delicate touches of tenderness
draped in the sultry, sweltering heat of
a woman who plays sexy to her core.

Perfect features smooth lines and subtle curves
the heat of her prescence calls to me like a fire on a snowy day.
Basking in the possibilities while never daring to let go of the
understanding
that standing too close could burn with the fire and fury of
infidelity. Never wanting to loose that aura, standing just down wind
enough to feel the heat as it brushes by on your breath.

Sitting in that smoke filled room feels
like time laspes as we talk around what we
both so desparately want.

Ta ta for now

Truth over motive,
thoughts led to
deeds.

Love's blind ambition
selling satisfaction
for our needs.

Basking in the overflow
of passions held in check.
Wondering what the others
know; longing for another peck.

Sugar coated interludes;
seeking a time and place.
Lovers looking hopefully
for a reason to ignore disgrace.

All the hope that seems
so pure; is drenched in a lustful
sauce.

Turning from moments
where pulses grew,
afraid of the awesome cost.

I'll walk the line that leads
to you;as straight as is my way;
but cross the line I will not do the
price too high to pay!

Crystal eyes that will not cry.
A little girl's despair.

Sorrow etched across her face,
So thick she will not see;
That the bitter taste of her parents
disgrace is theirs, not her destiny.

Conflicted love and hatred;
for childhood memories marred.
Broken hearted resolutions
leave self love tainted and hard.

Seek love my butterfly,
in places that you hide.

Seek love my rightous dove
in tears that must be cried.

A frightened little girl learned lessons
beyond her years.
An accomplished, beautiful woman
sees it all as a curse she fears.

Mother's love is potent.
While father the vision is strength.
Woe the price of innocence
when childhood ends before it's
length.

Always the call.
The sound stirred
down in my soul that
sends me to my keyboard.

Hope that this moment will
spring onto the screen, alive with
wisedom and wit.

Alas the most brillant moments are
scattered between dull laborings of love
and loss.

The sound of another broken heart or jilted
dream. Please spare me another silly sequence
of trials and tribulations; masturbation is best
experienced in a passionate fantasy of one's own
making.

Alas, alone.

Always the call.
The sound stirred
down in my soul that
sends me to my keyboard.

Hope that this moment will
spring onto the screen, alive with
wisedom and wit.

Alas the most brillant moments are
scattered between dull laborings of love
and loss.

The sound of another broken heart or jilted
dream. Please spare me another silly sequence
of trials and tribulations; masturbation is best
experienced in a passionate fantasy of one's own
making.

Alas, alone.

Thinking of better ways to spend my days,
and more productive outlets for my creative energy,
should be always at the top of my list of things to do.

Like so many others with similar stories
I seem to dream without motion.
Stills that flash across my complacent mind.
Frozen images that serve to move me temporarily.

Sitting and staring at a night sky or the
blinding glare of a sunlit afternoon.
Buildings rise and fall in seconds
as I seek immortality.

Glory of the highest order,
the adoration and praise of a nation.
All bought without a single drop of sweat.

Is the fear of failure
so intrinsic to who I am that I am doomed
to walk this line of mediocrity
until the day I die?

Will it be me that sits against the wall
without a clue as to how a lifetime could have
slipped through my fingers like so much sand
on a crowded beach?

I will say it again,
and again I will turn away from the
visions of what my life could be.

I dream in still flashes of brillant moments.
Maybe one day I'll have a flash of brillant motion that might propell me
forward into a new era of acheivement, risk and success.

Until that day I shall wonder,
is it my fate that dooms me or merely a will to accept fate.

Twelve months and countless tears
the memorials, the plagues
the walls adorned with images
real and imagined.

Television takes us each day closer
to so called "Ground Zero" code for
hallowed ground where many died.

We applaud their memories as hero's
chosen at random and martyed without
deference to their calling.

Children wonder why beloved parents
have not returned. Husbands and wives
gone in the shattering crash of steel and concrete.

Words no longer hold the meaning of that tragic morning
in September. The ironic significance of 911 is almost too
cryptic to ignore.

In a field where weeds grow free
an iron bird was brought down in a flaming heap
leaving only the dramatic hole in the earth
the only evidence that history passed through.

In another city the heart
of a nation's defense lies ripped apart like so much paper mache'.

A nation's heart swells with pride as a people
mourns a collective death. The loss of so many so
fast numbs the mind.

Dear Lord as we pass through
these dark days where our spirit is
tested daily help us to keep sight of
our reason for living.

Help us to remember that
your love transends the bitter
occurances that so color our earthly
realm.

We pray that our brothers and sisters
have found peace.

My mother's words
whispered past the hardened
outer shell of years
of stunned silent screams.

The wake of perceived indifference
washes invisibly across my mind.

Heart aches as old as me taste less bitter
these days.

My mother's laugh makes new the joy that once filled
my heart; reminders of a happy childhood.

Joy is he who has laughter in his past and can smile in earnst.

All the grand intentions
and honorable mentions
lead down a dead end path
no extensions!

While I could've been
what I never was will always
sound so cheap.

All the potential deeds
and supposed needs will seek
to ease my sorrow.

Shit the bitter taste
of another waste is here
today, damn tomorrow!

In a future day it'll
go my way; as the dance and dancer
collide.

For the now it's simply
wondering what if all this energy
were outside!

Another dull lovestory
full of lusty, longing loins'
ripples in the fountains
where bitter wishes
drown by day

Secrets told in innocence
trapped by the will of love.
Loney dreams seek fullfilment
and solace from above.

Walk the street with confidence
while weak and grim you feel.
Hope always victory
in the healing
use of deal

In the time it takes a new
tree to provide shade
to a small yard
in the back
of an old house

one could cross
a mountain.

Patience and time
well spent are brothers
that share the same dream and hold identitical truths.

God bless the man who has learned to tell time
that it not be wasted.

Borrowed from my neighborhood,
the skills of being men.
While in the shadows of personhood
the majority and minority's blend.

Hidden beneath the obvious,
where the soul of man resides,
the rages of bitter consequence
holds pride for it's eyes.

Strong enough to bear,
the infamous weight of hate.

Stronger still to survive,
in the shadows of social debate.
The insidous effects of a history,
deluded, corupt and immoral.

The secret we hide in it's presence;
is always just a wink away.

The misery of knowing our history,
as Americans and human beings;
is that the racism we see our enemy
is not foreign or newly born.

The hatred we read our history is not
dead or evened out.
The hatred we read in
our history is still what we are all about.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Understand that the images that flash
in our consciousness do not spring from
some vacuum without influence.

They color the "truths" as defined
by the people that shape our world.
When we become adults we can take charge
of those images and impulses.
When we begin to realize that not all the lessons we
learned in our youth are worth saving we begin to redefine
our "truth."

Redefine your truth.
Don't deny that we are all more alike then not.

Always near
within my heart
as current as the moment

pangs of sorrow's
ebb and flow
bitter feelings
fraught
with the taste of time wasted

Still longing for the reason
I turn away
away from my life
away from salvation
away from the sweet, chaotic melodies of home

Never far from the core of my soul
my spirit clings to the chance at tomorrow

For tomorrow may bring deliverance

Courage masks the face of fear
yet fear is always present
little terrors and giant dreads
roaming stithly around our heads

demons hiding in our beds
while we strip the closets bare
the crawling, scratching sounds
that come before the sleep
willing our eyes to close
shut tight
while danger dances by
praying for sweet dreams tonight
while tears our eyes are crying

the pitter, patter of our hearts
with cluttered minds denying

Quietly
I sit
still holding fast

Yet the bitterness
seems new

Quietly I gaze at the wall like still photos
my impotence flashes before me

In the darkness that failure is
lies a bottomless gorge
where thwarted will rests