Indivisible

Prolonged agony
Cemented in foundations
Of nations
Marking in blood
Every lie that degrades
Dehumanizes
The Abels we have caned.

Twilight Concert

The midnight blue Gretsch

Held in delicate but calloused fingers

Mirrors your hourglass shape

But in a grotesque Picasso-esque

Exaggeration of the hips

Hips that could never slide

In or out of the Skinny Jeans

Suffocating your legs

Soaking up spot lights’ heat

Which is washed away by the cool

Summer breeze that plays with your hair

The way you play the strings 

Samoan Ink

amidst the slums

of a technological wasteland

an antique store clings

to a Main Street 

that is no longer Main Stream.

subtly fighting for affection

between the samoan tattoo

and vacuum repair parlors.

Francis of Assisi

Consumed by a thought,
You took poverty to wife
Inheriting her dowry
Of want and ignorance.
Spikes of conviction
Nailing your hands 
To a cross of loneliness 
In pursuit of the divine.

Whiffle

life is a shorthanded game
of whiffle ball;
three defenders covering
nine positions.

running frantically from left
for the ball that drops in center
right over your outstretched
fingers.

Calling to You

The stubble chinned,

Back bowed,

Walt Whitman

Emerging from the shadows

That envelops his rundown

Haunted shanty

Comes to feed

His host of disciples

The bread of life

Soaked in sour milk.

The supper waits

In cracked, dirty oil pans

Poisoning as it gives life.

His flock of followers

Perched anxiously betwixt

Two lines of power

Shedding the remnants

Of yesterday’s sacrament

In a modern art spackling

Atop the shiny sedans below.

The sheep know their shepherd

As they descend in mass

Surrounding the peddler

As he sells his wares.

His yard in shambles, his neighbors

Furious, he gives freely to his only friends

As they console his loneliness. 

Hourglass Wax

Clothes Drip
Off your Shoulders
Like Wax near a Flame

Rolling Gently
Meeting with the Floor
Then hardening