alas I leave a place
so long endured and enjoyed
and learned my studies and my friends
who’ve grown with me as I have with them
and shall never see the majority again
as we part ways to strengthen- like a stem -the foundation
of the future which will blossom like a large carnation

Today,
beauty cut through me
awe came a bleedin
stardust slipped from my eyes
dark-hued clouds dissipated
At last!

Hope, grace, peace
move closer
warm my skin

Life spent in the LostAndFound
left a pain-print on my soul.
Drunk from the unhappiness,
I threw the innocence away.

Oh joy come nearer
I’ll hold and cherish thee!

i work with this girl who is always

working hard

sometimes all night long, often on the weekends.

she drinks lots of coffee and laughs loud and desperately

but i think she is happy in her small way

tonight her friend asked her to hang out

she said yes, until she remembered

the “optional” work meeting she had agreed to attend.

sorry friend.

 

but i think it’s better for her that way.

i’d hate for her to find out how much of life she misses every day.

 

I sit here, planning out my students’
future for the next 6 weeks;
it’s strange to exercise this power
over what fifty people will be
reading, thinking, and doing;
power to mark and label each person as
failures, slackers, average, good, or excellent;
power to influence what opportunities will be open
to each of my students for their futures;
I am not only the master of their future
for the next six weeks, but I am the master
of their futures for the rest of their lives,
in which every moment will be influenced
by what I do in the next six weeks.
Do I feel exhilerated or scared by this?
Mostly just unprepared.

within poems to strangers is said more clearly what

is felt than can be spoken.

written and floating in space not real maybe unread

but better than thoughts kept silent and alone

 

 

i don’t mind getting wet in the rain

food off the floor is just fine

i swim in the schulykill

wash my hair once a week

i don’t care for combing

or shaving much

and my favorite shirts all have holes

 

people say i should care more,

should take more care.

in return, i wish they cared

more about other things.

more about others than things

 

car scratched and dented

with bumper dragging and headlight gone

i will care so much forever

trying to smile with windows down moving fast

 

 

Re-arranging dirt:

So simple, yet so much to learn

Thick, sweaty leaves

Lazily weigh down branches

Aloof and thirsty

dealing with bearded
folk is like dealing with
chester the molester
(who clearly is clean
of chin but mustached)
who is no molester at all
but rather a man of extreme
listlessness
confused because he has been
single for much too long

but the man with the beard
married (as usual) but completely
living like he’s single
these people are the antithesis
of what we call
“whipped”

and while they see it as freedom
they’re wrong.