Woodsview

I spent days without spending

in a cell full of elephants

and two brothers who meowed

      at themselves.

We shared a home not our own,

of our own choosing,

only escaping

to suck in the smoke of the streets

I had the English key

at my disposal,

and what did I dispose?

Life is waiting for periods

a structure to hide in,

a circle drawn around us,

an obsession with things larger

      than us,

the elephants, circle of time, 

unending returning hunger,

an expanding universe

trapped within the mind.

Cosmic Perspective

The entire universe 

can fit into our skulls.

We see through light and time.

We are 13 billion years old, 

      I’m told.

We’re as old as the star dust

in our bones.

We’re small-

smaller than the invisible things

that crawl upon our skin.

We don’t see them, 

they matter not.

Does the universe see 

the little things?

      Oh! but they must!

            They do!

the little things,

the kind acts

of miniature beings.

Do we matter not,

are we not matter?

Primordial Traveller

Life started with the leaving footprint

of a man treading across the stars.

He jumped from planet to planet

leaving life in his footsteps,

the mud on his boot from his

primordial world. 

He leaps from planet to planet

and life echoes in his wake, 

and death too,

death was his gift, 

the crushing force of his foot pressed,

so we do not have to wander

and leap forever through eternity,

but merely exist, 

and know that we live 

because of those primordial footsteps

and will one day follow

onward, into the cosmic abyss. 

Parrots of Men

I speak because I was spoken to

An echo of an original thought

Like the endless asking 

of a child “Why?” 

A pattern of sounds,

woven pictures,

and guiding scriptures.

The squelch of mud men

shuffling our feet in the Earth

to spell out an S.O.S in the sand.

The squawking parrots' speech

to the sky.

“Language is a bird,” 

floating on air.

Silence is truth, 

and every word a lie.

Talking to hear ourselves, 

talking to find our way, 

talking our way into existence.

The parrot is a “parrot” 

because we said so, 

but it would be so 

by any other name. 

Language,

the ultimate act of plagiarism.

Talking to fill space

shouting from mountain tops

the voice creating chasms 

an echo on the precipice

of difference and dissidents. 

The Good Ol' Devil Made Me Say

If you say that “Man is good,” 

the Devil’s Advocate would have me

say that “Man is evil.”

I need only speak of our 

nightmares,

our dreams in the dark, those

fears and demons

behind our sleeping eyes.

I need only read the headlines,

words printed in a black ink

tattoo, perpetually changing

upon the page.

I need only remember 

words branded in our history books

(that we are the sons and heirs to)

“War, murder, bombings, 

shootings, massacres and mutilations.

Those evil words,
those words we live with.