'Til Death Do Us Part

Would it kill you, just once,
would it take all of your power
to put your dishes in the dishwasher,
not the sink?
Obviously the machine is ready to receive them,
to why not spare me the ten thousand stoops
to place your endless stream of dirty dishes,
used once for a sip of water that you didn't even drink
all the way, in the slave machine.

And would it endanger your life or strain your manly strength
just beyond the point of aid to take your shoes off at the door?
They are covered in mud that you tramp across my freshly mopped floor.
I even used the Pinesol to erase the smell of yesterday's lavatory explosion.
Now look at the tracks you left behind,
dirty boot prints that smell of grease and gasoline.
How about next time you scrub the floor
and I trample on it with my army of rhinos to completely destroy
your hopes and dreams of a job completely done?

And for heaven's sake, please,
even if it takes your last ounce of willpower and pride,
stop throwing your dirty laundry in my face,
on my freshly cleared washroom floor.
You only wore those pants for five minutes
to go get some cigarettes from the gas station at 34,
so why are you telling me they are dirty?
Oh, I forgot, your manly grime.
You just want me to wash them so you can defile them one more time.
That's beer I smell on your shirt no doubt,
 but I won't say a word about it,
seeing as how you wouldn't care.

Perhaps one of these days,
I will purposely break my own back
so that you have to hire a maid and all your money
would be sucked up into the endless dishes,
dirty floors, and clothes that she would have to wash.
Just because I am your wife doesn't mean I'm free slave-labor.
I said I would love and cherish you, care for you and submit to you
until death do us part, but this wasn't part of the job description.
Perhaps it is time death did us part.

Summer Goes By

Hot summer days pass so fast,
when you are making fun with tires and grass.
Play a blade of grass like a flute in the meadow,
and watch the bugs come crawling in lines to hear you.
They applaud for your spectacle and ask for an encore.

Then make a tire roll along the ground though it has no car to push it.
You become the car and the engine and the transmission that push it.

So run as fast as you can or it will run away from you
and fall down again. Dream you are racing along a dirt road
with friendly rivals to win a golden trophy at the end of the finish line.
Then summer days go by too fast.

Geppetto's Toyshop

A hunched old man whittles at wood with a dull knife
that is obviously too small for his large, work-worn hands.
The block of wood is smooth, well-finished, but unplanned.
Behind the counter, the shavings fall,
with bits of power and resolve in every curling ball.
Greying wood, once black and ripe,
now rots in the sun outside,
and the lack of life inside.
Chocolates five years old sit in boxes on the counter,
not on display, but still for sale.
Mice squeak in the back corner of the room where little plush dolls,
sewn with a tight stitch and stuffed with feathers
and dirt stare back at the old man with black button eyes and gruesome smiles,
forever fixed in that one position.
He doesn't care though.
His project is almost complete, and it is amazing to see,
that even though the knife was not fit, the block was so big,
and his hands to frail, and little soldier boy stands,
painted and finished grandly on the counter,
looking to the old man as Pinocchio to his father,
and the old man stares back as Geppetto without a fairy
to bring him back to life.

Imagination

Many frantic cruelties occur to the flesh of the imagination

And the imagination does have flesh to destroy

And the flesh has imagination to sever.
It can burn at the steak like a withc of old,
or feel the sting of the lash like the slaves
who poured their life into the great buildings
of great men, too small to work miracles on their own.
The imagination isn't limited by pain, but is affected by it.
It isn't destroyed because of heat or branding,
but it is forever implanted with the reminder of a crested soul
that sought to choke it out for constant pleasure
and torture all that is good and whole.

Colors and Hues

In a field of wildflowers of every
color, shape, size,
it is hard to notice the beauty of even one.
When grouped together in a mass of color,
the mosaic blots out the individual hue.
The daisy might be white, or red, or blue,
but I will never notice until I stop and look.

When laying in a field of wildflowers,
it is very easy to see that one little raindrop,
still clinging for life to the leaf.
One droplet of water that strayed
too far to the left or right in its gravity drop,
and lingers on the petal of a pink Gerbera Daisy
as it gently bows under the weight
of a thousand more.

In a field of wildflowers,
one must take time to notice
the little things or else
they just become colors and hues.

From the Highest Peak

From my peak, I look down into the valley below,
where at the foot of the mountain leans a lake,
blowing as the wind whips its face across the glass waters.
I live on a mountain, but my mind is often in the valley,
where sheep come to drink from the lake that fills
with rain water and run off from the mud of my mountains roots.
I think the clouds roll faster over if I stare at the valley below,
where I see the shapes of shadow animals racing the green turf.
The race is exciting and moves my day along.
Days on the mountain move slowly by, not because they are boring,
but because I am so close to the sky. You don't notice the change
in astronomy from the mountain like you do from the ground.
Sometimes being too close is a curse that man alone must know.
On the valley floor, they wish to join me on my mountain
so they could see the land below, but on this mountain,
sometimes I wish I were below,
so I could see the sky above with more clarity and love.
But here I will stay and here I will cry as time holds me green
and dying though I sing in my chains like the sea.

Man's Best Friend

A dog barks from somewhere down the trail. 

The trees lining my way look down and judge the mut 

for disturbing their peace. He doesn't really seem to care that much

It is disturbing sometimes, how oblivious dogs are. 

They hunt and climb, fetch and wag, all for the sake of man.

Why would they want such a best friend? 

Haven't they discovered by now that all we do is call them stupid animals

when they don't do what we want them to. 

We aren't their best friend, but they aren't ours. 

If they were, they would know when to cut us loose 

so that we don't drag them down with us

 and force them to become 

an exiled child in the crackling dusk of

the underworld, the stars blighted.