The Bear.

The bear rolled himself up out of the water
and waddled across the road-
he was thinking deeply, as all bears should,
about fish.
I am like a bear.  I scratch myself and yawn
loudly and make great bear-noises.
The bear was a lot like a bear.
He had nothing to hold on to-no family,
no friends, just his great big paws sifting
through the water for fish.
The fish are like all fish.  Fishing is simple.
The bear makes himself known to the local
fishermen who fear him and his  mighty gestures.
He waddles a little ways through the trees,
stops, and sniffs the air-the sky is filled with
smoke from a log house down a ways in the forest
of trees, in the forest of nights.  Nights are scary
in the woods; the bear knows this.

Eyes Of a Little.

The eyes of the fire is not the fire
it burns inside of me, charring my lungs and heart.
I have found a better way of dealing with this.
I have found different things to think about.
This life is not my life.  It is someone else's.
My life is something more important than life;
the tree is growing in the backyard.
Why is life so hard?  I try and I try and I just can't
seem to make it work.  Every little thing is difficult
for me.  It's not just what I see, but what I
experience as well.  So as far as I can tell,
this life is fit for me.  I dream little dreams.  I take
books wherever I go, especially at the library
where the lines are slow.  Don't go past go.
Give me five hundred dollars, in tens and ones.
I look like I need a shower.  My mother comes home
in three days.  I haven't seen her in ages.  Where I am
is where I ought to be, it's what I want to become
that's inside of me like a light bulb going off.  I grow and I
grow just like a little tree.  The dinosaurs have come
back.

Rainbow Storm.

A man is washed upon the shore of a beach, 
His face twisted, contorted, fighting for a breath of air. 
A starfish, sunning on the shore, lays flat on the ground nearby, 
Searching for a way back in the water. 
Sea gulls scream overhead, begging for food, 
A glimpse of foreign land. There is none on the horizon, 
Save for the salt sea air and a rainbow 
That has appeared after a storm. 

The day has just broken over the horizon; light 
Has fallen still. The man gets up, wakes up, 
His thoughts are calm, ready as anything; 
His body moves like water, as he tiptoes over the 
Hot sand, as he moves with the rhythm of the 
Crashing waves. The earth is not still; his body 
Is a movement of geometrical shapes, perfect 
In every way. The ocean sings; the rainbow dips 
Above the rocks, there is no gold at the other end, 
Save for a lone star fish who flops out of the water 
And onto the dry land. 

Metaphorical Lymericals.

You shape and mold me into a man, the son said to the father.

I am not ecstatic about your plan of annihilation.

Son, he said, we are at war, and war holds many lies-

Lies inside the government, and outside, in the farmland-

These are lies, the lies that are words, and the feelings

Held deep inside.  My mother said she is like a tiger,

That growls in the night.  My father is like a tiger,

That bounds and holds its prey.  Everything is a prey,

Even the homeless, even the words that are burned to black,

The shadows that fold like lightning.  It is the night of stars,

The crying of stars-this is the way that it goes, the way it has

Always been.  These are the rainbows, the nights that bend

And break, the sadness that is inside a man, someone with a name-

His face is a mask of broken promises, a field of roses,

Of cataclysmic proportions, trying to hold into the images that

Are fresh of his words.  His eyes meet the eyes of a wounded

Warrior, the warrior that is himself-

He is burdened by who he is, and his skin folds inside-

Cars pass by me on the highway, and this is my life,

The life that people do not understand-

I hide away, inside myself, and break out, insisting wildfires,

Insisting roses are burnt of water-

He makes the money, I make the words, it is how it goes,

He is silent, and everyone fights, misery taken flight.

This is the story of words, of plays mingled with sorrow,

And how English is my first language, and words are my second-

How the rainbow appears in the sky, over our house,

Wherever our house may happen to be, and how war takes flight

And makes us believe something that is not appeared-

And how, poetry, in motion, is not burdened by the face of poetry,

And the face of mankind is different from day and night,

And how his anger is flesh of flesh, and words of words-

Winding Down the Hours.

Like open doorways, I mix and mingle, I drive soiled tears
Through linen sheets. Peace is not with me; a heart is not open,
I quietly rekindle my tears, the heartache beats steady.
I wish I could bring myself out of this stupor, but nothing
Will relinquish this pain that is held on me, when my heart beats
Steadily, the thrum thrum of my heart. Who am I. 
Shadows are thrown on open doorways; daylight moves in through
The open window, where a flower has fallen on a cold moaning
Of wind. This life is not forbidden, this love is not forbidden,
Nor is my heart, it beats like shadows and rivers,
Words are tossed into open wounds. 
Clouds move and shift;
Secrets plummet into the world like warbled voices,
Caught in an updraft of makeshift promise. I do not know how
To say this, do not know how to speak the words that claw
Inside my chest, to say the things that must be spoken.
There is only the window, and the flower on the sill-
The darkness that thrums, and a cold winter chill.