five thousand odes
hastily scratched
to capture fleeting
emotive dissonance
to sleep(unslept)
to hopes(undreamt)
to tears(unwept)
to secrets(unkept)

the waking dreamer
lost/a sinking ship
off the coast of
shallow homeward
memory/drifting on
stranger currents
ever farther from
faded ink stained
love letters(the
empty promises of
safe harbor in times
of war)

an empty bucket
on a frayed rope
tettering over
a wishing well of
lunar tears
(a desert drowning
dehydrated by
daydream dithering
dancing solemnly
on) the corpse of
damned necessity

somewhere/in this
salient sea of
sycophantic promises/
relief will come
scratching furrows
(un)poetically
until all is coated
in filth and scorn

a life wasted in
between bouts of
hopeless need
and
needless hope
a lovelorn loser
painting the world
in shades of
windswept worry

how many ways
to scream
the same pained refrain
i love you
even as i fade away
beginning
a new chapter of
verse
muttering
muffled by
too many voices
saying nothing
unheard
and gasping
in the cascade
a foolish cavalcade
endlessly trying
to make my way
to you