Too much
food flying
on the lazy susan;
round and round it goes;
better
take while the taking
is good.
It’s good!
Chopsticks snapping!
grappling with white
and fried rice,
chicken, steak, shrimp.
Red, not white,
poured twice.
Nice!
It passed him by how much he spent to card tap happenings
old school drunk home found wrapped on the mat again
Take it back sacks honour cracks hes grappling tryna build facts past just like he clasp vasline
How's a man last with the past world grasping him
Stuck and holding fast only things flasks masking him
Sorrows or the horrors of his making turn directions
Choosing life or exit signs emergency protection
Last glass was half assed let's make this one a winner
No rent goodbye when roof is sky a bentos pie for dinner
Tryna lean to something just to calm his own beliefs
Knowing that to pass the time
he sleeps as light release
Hauling gravel.
A bath filled with seaweed.
Burbles near the stars.
While seeking.
Mental illness is one.
Grappling hooks turned inwards.
Very grave like a bowl of coffee grounds.
Smells ground.
As I grab a speech bubble which can translate anything.
It doesn’t pop.
All I say is-
Gloop.
And the mental illness stoops lower.
It’s in second place, while I’m in third, and guess what? My least favorite movie is first.
Sometimes there is togetherness,
But other times everyone is busy and focused on their own paths.
The one in turmoil is alone struggling through their darkest hours,
The individual in distress is alone seeking a path to redemption,
Messages go unanswered,
Calls remain unreturned,
The one grappling with recurring challenges is deemed unserious,
while the person battling their obstinate monsters is misunderstood.
They walk a lonely road filled with hope,
drawing strength from a family of friends and their own spirituality.
May 9, 2026.
When reading heralded lines
I feel I am betraying
a poetic brotherhood
that seems, always, to be
making much of little:
a scrap, a comment (about a bird, perhaps --
or a comparison of a worm in the dirt
to some far-fetched abstraction.)
The humanity we all should share feels
sorely lacking. And clumsy, pathetic
grappling to elevate the lowly
to a semblance of earned achievement
(and not succeeding)
demeans us all.
"Mea culpa! Ibi dixit."
(I too am guilty. There, I've said it.)
I want to sleep.
Even a crumb of a nap.
I have flashbacks to an old blanket being draped over me.
It could be death or something more.
I wish there was such a thing as a sleeping potion.
For that side of my brain.
Which twinkles like being lost in the sewer.
I want a sleep sandwich.
There’s nothing like a cool sheet grappling with me.
And I’m the opposite of a cool sheet.
It’s not that I’m tired.
It’s that if I had a wish it would be lost in sleepy-heaven.
I could be tired someday.
I’m not a vampire or werewolf.
I’m just full of sleepy blood.
It could be death or something more.
She dropped a droplet of sleep from her eyes.
There was nothing as I hit the ground.
deliciously dignified distinguished dignitary
enthusiastically elevated Edward Canary
ferocious foxiness flummoxing a field faerie
gravely grandiose grappling gripping Greg and Gary
high-spirited high-brow handling of Helen and Harry
infamous idealism inspiring Inez, indignant and airy
juxtaposition juggling jumble tumble of Tom and Jerry
killing kind thoughts once held by crazy Kerry
THE GIFT
Given a gift so undefined,
my life to win or lose.
Told, "Accept your fate," "capitulate," but
quit wears another man's shoes.
Diminished down to nothingness,
quadriplegic, useless, frail.
The respirator blocks my voice.
My body's now my jail
Days into weeks, weeks into months,
grappling insanity.
Barely alive, and trying to fight, for
sake of my humanity.
Dragging my brain down memory lane
picking my life apart.
Epiphanes, oaths, and promises.
The world for one fresh start.
Etched so deep, each time I weep
when Freebird starts to groove.
Playing along on my air guitar
when I felt my fingers move.
Tears are pouring down my face.
My life in every word.
My fingers missing every note.
I am my own freebird.
Then the work begins, so arduous.
The battle still up hill.
Nothing in this world will stop
a man with iron will.
I kept all oaths and promises.
I own my life again.
It didn't just make me stronger,
it made me a better man.
Trauma.
It’s like blobs in eternity.
Grappling around with trembling or not.
Trembling or nothing.
A nothing day.
Just a nothing type of flower bud.
Just a do nothing burden feeling.
Scrambled clouds happen to me.
It is called nonexistence.
Me.
Has bubbles burbling.
Almost felt like my own.
Was almost me.
But I got eclipsed by some friendly nonexistence.
Shifted like ice cream fell off the cone.
Splattered like the end.
Endless week-long shivering.
Speckled with leftover goosebumps.
No one called all week.
It’s almost like trauma.
Continues.
Feeling tie dye blustering throughout.
Bursting with nothingness after all.
Or striking shower curtains.
Make me shake like shower shoes.
I had a little feeling like grappling hooks.
Do nothing-escape.
There is no such thing as being owed.
My belongings are packed up.
Feeling the loving feeling of forgetting phone calls.
Bursting.
Eyes sky diving!
Sparkles that most can tell you are fake.
Then I heard the scattering.
Lifted.
Embracing.
I have things that are packed and piled up.
I didn’t unpack for a week after that.
I didn’t think that ruined me at the time.
They climbed in through the window.
Human and using my hands.
Strong as me, I guess.
Padded locked rooms like honeycombs.
Wanting to be un-extinct.
False memories.
Human and jumping around.
I like to write in notebooks too.
Dashing through the hallway so fast.
A spider that thinks he’s hiding.
Nothing-connections.
Human and having eyebrows.
Grappling eyes and nothing else.
Honeycombs oozing like padded rooms.
False memories just hop on board.
Like spider-things.
Being human is.
Like lying all the time.
Sleeping other times.
And resting, never.
The padded rooms don’t morph, but I try.
Being human.
Sometimes we think it's unique.
Other times, we buzz around trying to break out.
Trying to sneak out too.
I lie.
Lying to them.
Knowing it won’t get me out.
The feeling of sticky connective tissue.
And me.
Human.
Being pulled under.
Like a lily pad going ‘boop.’
Bobbing around, then nothing.
No amount of clearing my mind will undo it.
A spider whisper.
He likes me.
Prickling like his legs.
As if I’m in a dome.
Pulled under.
There are other people who have the slobbering feeling under their hair.
Faded out.
Like a pinecone with its edges shaved.
Fingers focusing.
With gripping finger pads that do nothing.
And the kitchen is always a mess of weird things.
Bugs and things.
My edges shaved down and caved in a little.
Grappling under the ice, but there’s no water, just feet of ice.
Someone else used to live here.
He was like a centipede to me.
Everyone is like a centipede to me.
Climbing the walls.
So am I.
Always around in the basement.
Depression.
Is when you are a spider, centipede, lily pad, or pinecone.
And could get crushed any moment.
But you don’t.
I’ve lived here my whole life.
I work here.
Wearing slippers to work.
So fuzzy and nice.
My manager is tearing through.
Every word is nothing.
Grappling at every pause.
This room is dizzy.
Computer keyboards.
Pens and pencils.
Typing for hours.
And nothing goes my way.
Printing out blank sheets of paper.
Lunch.
Open a lunchbox.
I packed five slices of bread and a spoon.
Tiredness.
I think I left the lamp on at home.
So I drove to some town in Ohio.
A new life attached to me.
Two hours ago, I lived in Michigan my whole life.
And I was tired.
Now I’m totally awake.
My eyes are biting everything.
Everything burns.
Ohio is where you go.
On a little lunch break.
Everything is whimsical.
When you think you’ve lived in Ohio.
And no one believes you.
Anything but sleep.
Fall over the steps.
And invisible soup spilling everywhere.
There’s a feeling of grappling.
Eyes bulging.
Anything but sleep.
Money, crying,
Mourning,
Never snoring.
Lying down.
Can’t see much.
Still awake though.
Anything but sleep.
Give me butterflies covered in slime.
Or burning ears.
Please give me…
Anything but sleep.
I might be immortal.
And it’s because I don’t sleep.
I am anything
but sleep.
Writing when I’m alone.
A tired writing.
Terrible, sleepy writing.
So nothing goes right.
Writing is absolute.
Stains everywhere.
The stain of words.
Trembling.
Writing is gracious.
Kind and hefty.
Turns back toward me.
Like a detached face.
Writing is combing through piles.
Wailing and eyebrow raising.
Swallowing my pencil.
Horrible just like that.
I left my pen and notebook at home.
No one can bring it to me.
So I’m grappling with a magazine.
Inspiration is gracious.
Writing alone.
With the pen on my nightstand.
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