Walk of Life and Love

Life struts slowly, so slowly.

Love is patient, no need to rush.

His steps are slowed,

his legs are tense.

Our thoughts are much;

piercing as thorns.

Life bears weight.

Love holds much.

Such heavy wood,

dormant on his shoulders;

nailed to his palms.

Life falls, yet life rises.

As love shall be, normally.

He fell and slipped,

yet strode along.

Dirt of wisdom

scarring his skin, our life.

What is life?

What is love?

He answers in a simple strut;

a final struggle, a final step.

Who am I?

Walk American steps 

Upon the cobblestone

of a Portuguese village.

Strut those Portuguese struts

across the paved road

of American land.

Which am I 

Which do I walk?

Hold the duties

of family, of name,

in a land of future

land of opportunity.

Achieve a goal

of success and career,

in a house of love,

house of culture.

What am I holding?

Who am I?

Within You, Within Me

Hold thoughts within the sights 

that bind us as the universe.

Sights within ourselves

that keep us sane within insanity.

Life has yet to part with in the souls of such wonder.

Have against us no resistance,

for the wounds of hatred's steaming breath

shall leave no scalding mark upon us.

Within you, within me, within us.

Smell the morning treasures of such love.

Awake is not yet a life 

without the dream living before it.

Such dream, such dream.

Hum

Humming music

hold my thoughts in place.

Strum, beat, strum.

Forbid my confusion.

Thoughts stay, stay.

Hum, Hum.

I am not confused.

Such an enemy, defeated.

Thank you.

Obrigada.

Humming music.

Taken for Granted

Muddy surfaces

of the earth's bronze skin

swim in the rain.

Smell the wet grass

after its morning shower.

Sunlight's smile

pierces each cloud

of marshmallow white wonder.

Bathe in the yellow mustard

of our morning star.

Swim in the breeze

that rushes through 

noons of summer's wake.

Winds like the mother earth's

restless sigh of midday.

Do we deserve such wonder?

Save Love from Death

Scream from within the soul.

Heart ripped into shreds.

Listen listen, does not listen.

Why must suffering come.

Cry tears of fear and confusion.

Lie awake in silence,

Tears shredding the skin.

Stop Stop, is not stopping.

Why must I continue this.

Patience holds no virtue,

to what my heart expands to.

Explode within thyself.

Such watery ripples of fear.

Quiver gently, quiver much.

Seek the dark closet.

Hold it in your palms.

Escaping me. Escaping me.

Why must anger be so harsh.

Tear at the insides.

Run. Run.

Break everything.

I love you.

Yet I hate the way it is.

Why must love

require pain and suffer.

Why does grass seem soft,

until the soft blades pierce at your heart?

Has to Be, Must it Be

Lay awake with such ecstasy.

Such passion.

Eyes hold me against 

the love that binds all.

Wrap such smooth skin

around me always.

Inner chest yelling

Pleading into the night.

Sight is blinded, so gone.

Closer until breaths combined.

Heartbeats combined.

Love is for eternity.

Gasp at the surprises.

Such pleasure.

intertwining the endless veins.

Inside and always there.

Provide comfort, warmth.

Inside where the skin upon my flesh.

Gasps at such power.

A leap of my chest.

Grope at the words

that cannot be found.

Love.

Has to be, must it be.

Never Ending Night

It tightens.

Hard.

Rough.

Such rope.

Much rain that streams 

down the marked path 

of god's handmade flesh.

Much rain that accumulates 

in the depths of my organs.

Confusion overlaps itself.

Sleep child sleep.

hold the night upon thy bosom.

Stars laying as peepholes

against the world's closed eyelids.

Day shall come.

Night shall pass.

Rain shall bring

the greener grass.

Do Not Lay Down

Aging ideas.

They lay in the purgatory

of my high fevered thoughts.

Heavy, heavy stones.

Pull at the center of my being.

Tug down and aid gravity's dull and painful pull.

It longs that I lay my cheek 

intimately upon it's hard surface.

Pull, Pull.

Do not lay down.

Hear the words splattered

upon such walls of my aching skull.

Such words sprayed 

upon the walkway of my thoughts.

Cry in terror!

Only the deaf can hear the pain.

Run until the ends of time.

Forever Highway

Catastrophic cries from within.

Long road that never ends.

There is panic growing,

it grows under my skin, my veins.

Such confusion binding me

to the undecided grounds of decision.

Where is he?

He is beside me, always always

but he isn't there.

Alongside him but not with him

What to decide, what to decide.

Confusion.

Long highway never end.

Keep me going until the rope burns

the skin on my wrists.

Keep me going until

confusion gives up on my 

tired catastrophic scene.

Tears From Our Stage

Run.

Fear the clouds of war.

Have torn wounds reopen

upon the stone of god!

Why?

I hear the hiccups

from a weapon's satanic cry.

From a language of hate.

Riddles of unwanted humor.

Play marionette play.

Our sons and fathers

as wooden as

a thought unspoken by such a master.

Reality heals the wounds

that lay upon the demon's

sand paper skin.

God forgive us.

Happiness Rise Against Love?

Dreaming on a mind's thoughts.

Each thought a cloud.

Such volume that floats with inner mysteries.

Can you guess it?

Hide low for no one can see through it.

Take a guess, any guess.

Happiness?

Quite, my boy.

Yet tugging at the strings 

of my cerebrum's behind.

Are thoughts of one question.

Tis love alive?

Where is the call? The concern?

Existence seemed to perish 

as a birth of hope and eager arises.

Live it down to the day!

Call and wonder?

Or lay in thoughts. Thoughts deep.

Thoughts deep like the cloud's inner mystery.

Such mystery, unexplored.

What to do?

Ask again in time.  No answer.  Big wonder.

Tomorrow is Mine

Blue skies are winking.

Sunlight's been chipper.

Hold that head up

way high in the sky.

You have something going on.

That paper airplane has been thrown,

and it isn't coming back;

just forward, just forward

like the young man struts.

Bells are ringing

no pain, no pain.

Just the river rippling it's blue wrinkles.

See the day as today is,

for tomorrow seems to shine.

For tomorrow is mine.

Yesterday is gone,

But tomorrow is mine, so mine.

Sunlight Drone

Weighted lids,

shorter breaths.

Gravity pulls hard against

my chest.

Dull mind, dull feet.

Steps alike each sunlight.

Tired?

Only of repetitive rhythms.

Can there be nothing else?

Cement-engraved footsteps.

Of paths alike.

Dull musical that never rose.

Tired of myself

Tired of such day.

Have the moon control,

what sun has been taught.

Repeat the day once more.

Holding boredom's rough Kryptonite

against my weak skin.

Wash Rinse Repeat.

A Night in El Salvador

Sense each touch.

It reverberates the core

of my endless veins.

Such a map across my soul, my being.

Hide such fantasy.

His power overwhelms a mind so human.

Touch me,

Hold me close through such fabric.

Impossible fabric.

Legs of vine.

Knotting into an endless love.

Can you hear the thunder?

Such a thunder from deep within.

Darkness blinds what sight

can already see.

Tighter.

Wrap me in the love.

Power is endless.

Hold my thighs close, with torturing care.

Hands of caramel skin hold me.

Let not a knot so tight unravel.

Bare Feet

Overlapping scars.

Disappointments.

So many on the Earth's soft skin.

One voice so small.

Hear it?

I'm coming to save it.

That voice so small.

The soft padding of his feet.

Bare feet.

The toughened skin underneath 

such innocent toes.

Such suffering.

Hold on boy, I'm coming.

The wealthy smile splattered

across the face of a poor child.

Sitting in the dirt road.

Bare feet.

Hold them rocks.

You play soccer quite well.

With those feet.

Bare feet.

I'm coming for you Tiago.

No more dirt roads. No, no.

Green grass where the rocks are soft.

Play soccer with a real ball. No rocks.

No rocks.

Just bare feet.

Wind from the West

Seek it far and wide.

Such a wind from the west.

Yesterday?

Who remembers it as it was?

Do you see him at all?

No existence today, nor tomorrow.

Run.  Go to him.

The wind from the west.

I miss you dearly,

yet I dare not admit it to an extent of obsession.

Obsession?

Love.

I love you Rafael.

My wind from the far west.

Do not mock the non existence of me.

I exist.

As you notice when poems exist.

The words of pure wisdom and truth.

Thank you friend.

I love him.

The wind from the west.

(dedicated to a dear friend of mine)

Have it His Way?

Ricardo held his breath every time he had to listen to his father speak.  The droning tones of his voice made it hard to concentrate on what he was saying.  As Ricardo cleared the table, he thought of how he could possible snatch the keys near the doorway without his father noticing.

-Clank.

-Clink.

The plates were almost all washed.  So was the conversation with his father.  The tough skin on his father's hands were firmly grasping the skin of the wine glass on the table, as if he feared it would run away from him.  His other arm scratched absentmindedly at his right thigh.

"Once you find that girl.  There should be plenty of help so you can have that break.  You gotta work hard for what you have kiddo. Don't fool around and get a woman that can slave for you."

Ricardo blocked out the rest.  His entire focus was on the simple set of keys on the high counter near the back door.  He slowly made his way to the kitchen table.  He had purposely left the orange juice there during supper so it will be closer to the keys.  This was all planned since he was driving home from work.  As he snatched the juice with his left hand, his right hand carefully slid the keys into his sweatshirt pocket.  Then he quickly turned, placed the juice in the fridge and left the kitchen.

His father kept talking.

Ricardo checked his pockets for his wallet, license and house keys.  Then he slid through the cellar door and out through his backyard.  As he passed the foggy kitchen window, he heard his father still talking to the now empty and silent kitchen.