- shades of gray

Is art not art unless it is brought into the light

Into mainstream America to be critiqued,

Over understood, and misinterpreted. Is art not

In the dark in the darkness of a person's soul

Their beliefs, their insecurities, their happiness

...Harlem Renaissance...a revitalization

no

only someone from the light stepping

into the darkness.

We are the dreamers who dream up

Everything that is real

We spend our days together at night

Playing silent songs in thoughts out loud

It is hard to think blankly

Of what tonight's plans are for tomorrow

And of how tomorrow mocks the past.

To be redundantly original is lately getting old

Yell softly, I want to hear you

When I don't listen.

The diminutive love is largely apart of my life

I omnisciently know nothing

Of death before existence.

It is hard to pass life's easy test

When all you can see isn't visible.

With everything I am nothing

It all makes sense when there is

Confusion.

These are the still hours

dry hours that are neither

succulent and made for sowers

nor decrepit and withered.

They are the tacit static hours

that do not crumble and decay,

but the still time silently devours

and leaves a soulless peripatetic day.

It blankets everything with yellow snow

the color and consistency of bile,

but does not stir in the wind's blow-

stagnates accepted in the cracks between tiles

There are ever fewer stirs-

plants seeds and herbs.

I clasp to the soft grey security

I block out my own curiosity

I knew it had to be a dream

For the previewed past had been seen.

Stationed in the Ivory Tower

Elapsing limbs linger hesitatingly

Flashbulb halo weakened in a dither

Indirectly embracing reality.

Transcending the ordinary plain

Failed attempts to go further

Absorbing the diluted terrain

Depravity entering a murmur.

This One's Free

No charge.

On the house.

Admission is

Only literacy,

Or perhaps

Lunacy.

There won't be any

Magic,

No tricks with silver

Stockings and

Wizards wands,

no boxes and saws,

No chains and locks,

No fancy craftsmanship,

Only truth,

Pure and simple,

Eloquent truth,

Told by a simple student

For all to hear.

The Square...

Plaza life, with neon and fury

That we look like half eaten Jell-O men.

We feel like we look,

We taste like we feel;

We battle green leaves in the divine

With our conformist bow-and-arrows

And our blood -stained, sinful spears,

But the vineyard,

Where we were once children of the light,

Where cherubs rest and the innocent

Continue to weep, is still closed.

The competition begins.

A battle to the death atop a platform in front of peasant onlookers.

Just for one night to be in the spotlight, to have the lights bounce off my face,

And light up the way the sun wakes you up in the morning peeking through your window.

To have the cheers that are cheered to echo through my mind,

The way a preacher recites psalms every Sunday at mass,

With such power and confidence.

I want the sound to echo through the arena,

The way the Romans' cry echoed through the Coliseum at the sight of every slaying.

But I'm not a fighter, but a gladiator where I must fight for survival.

And I with my four comrades.

The power of us five cannot remain souly one individual,

Yet the five of us together as one would be unconquerable.

So these four other colossal titans and myself will rise to the platform.

Let the lights bounce off our faces.

Let us stand out like we own the word individuality,

And gaze throughout the arena.

Not for the peasants but to see for that split second below us.

Step on the platform and not fight for fun.

Yet fight for survival.

We'll stand with all our pride and gaze out amongst the screaming onlookers

Who came for blood.

We will shine as winners and stand higher than kings.

The reward no greater than the pleasure of performing,

In front of an onslaught that we so painfully went through.

We will over come all odds and prove the other warrior's wrong,

And put down the critics and shine like gods.

Steel silver seams

webbed between

by yellow topped spiders.

Mother earth maimed

through concrete skin

spills mud,

bloody and brown.

Spinners switch shifts

and become spunners,

caked appendages scurry to break,

stamping bloody trails

on clean flesh.

it was a may-day phone call of

misery and my two phones were ringing

off the hook, like brothers trapped in the

same sad dream and the passion fruit lipstick

smeared all over the walls reminds us

that tomorrow still exists

(i don't know if that's a good thing)

and the love and the lust for life

has been shattered like the window

of the store next door while the baseball

bat is out playing games with

INNOCENT

little children. innocence is often hidden, buried

deep with treasure (its all fools gold)

and i must admit i had to have

been pretty stupid to fall for the

TRUTH

like those magazine ads that tell

you not to smoke and in the background

the publisher is puffin away on

a joint like there's no tomorrow

(but there is, we already established that)

lies are the part of the story truth

forget to tell ( pass me that lighter would ya?)

and i guess black and white don't

exist, the world is just a solid shade

of gray...

The idiosyncrasies of man

Gave birth to the injusts of the world

That pales and glistens sickly

In the light of God

It would have been better that

Mother earth had a barren womb

Than to spring up the fountain of life

That man turns to death at every turn

The hypocrisies of man gave birth to pain and suffering

which "lower" men endure

It would have been better that

pure blood of Indians smash

white mans head against rocks

than to put up with his cleansing

that destroys the life of Mother earth.

It would be better that I didn't exist

than to carry on the legacy of man

Lost in youth

Unable to be found

To be returned to.

Joyous recollections

Leaving a smile, yet

Fading over time,

Shrinking frame by frame

Falling asleep

hoping to wake in a place that can never be:

The past

Embarrassing experiences

that turn into laughs

Happy moments

that leave tears

A vision left behind

With so much guidance for the future.

A lesson learned,

and not wanted to be left.

Healed and hurt by time.

A memory.