There’s a room filled with art

that all the world can see.

It has no doors,

no entry fees,

no pretentious curator

to patronize you.

Its walls connect horizons

and are lined with canvases

with empty faces,

and we cannot see their beauty

nor their flashy paints

because we walk on by with our heads down.

There’s a room filled with art

that all the world can see.

Every piece is displayed the same:

at eye level

dangling upon showcase sheetrock—

an amber bulb

affixed above each frame,

but we never notice their spotlight

or read the fine print

scribbled on their attribute labels.

We don’t engage.

We never ask,

why their pale complexion

or seek the stories behind their pasty fabrics

because we walk on by with our heads down.

There’s a room filled with art

that all the world can see.

Every Canvas is a memoir

sealed behind the brushstrokes

of road-tripped panoramas

fading into a falling sun,

silhouettes of love and loss

crossed out by

life’s lateral lines,

and geometric placeholders

for friendships ended too soon,

yet not one bystander

stops to turn them over,

to observe the splendor

of life’s delineations

drifting off their varicolored edges,

because they walked on by with their heads down.

There’s a room filled with art

that all the world can see.

An exhibit

free-falling through a vacuum

bound for a black hole,

and you too are on display.

Like the others,

you hold your gaze at eye level,

concealing your beauty

behind that dismal face,

and you pose

for the crowded boulevards,

soaking up the city sweat,

tasting the stench

of its civic halitosis,

forcing a smile

while eagerly awaiting

their precious praise

like a feening addict,

but they never engage.

No one steals a look

or lifts a brow.

No one cares about you.

You’re not entertaining enough.

You’re not pretty enough.

You’re too fat.

They’re too busy for you.

So, they just walk on by with their heads down

bumping your shoulders as they pass

as if you're a ghost

who’s already been forgotten

before anyone

ever knew you were there,

but you are there,

-

-

-

-

aren’t you?

The day before my birthday

This challenge ended

To judge my wordplay

And cleverness defended

Tasked with a long poem written

To change the world or just one life

OK, you can say I've bitten

To meet criteria that suffice

So here it lies

A poem about nothing

And the space it occupies

Further exam says I'm bluffing

I've got nothing to say

And a meter to say it in

Be it take a night or a day

I just do what I've been bidden

I can drop names of import

Like Jesus, Nietzsche, or Freud

Or even God as a last resort

Or deny Him to the void

As long as it sounds deep

It will get some attention

From the literary sheep

Who thrive on pretension

I want to please the ones who like Shakespeare

And wax iambic—I amb what I amb

To make the statements that soon disappear

They're written temporarily in jam

For those who like Dickenson

I can choose a meter for

A singsong Caruso, like Robinson

Gilligan and more

For ee cummings fans

I ups so many floating words say

Punctuations all **%^%

And sensibility's defrayed

And once I wrote a limerick

That was--like this poem--a trick

It didn't mean a thing

And couldn't help from being

A poem written by a prick

And haikus lose me

In terseness and in nonsense

Too few words to see

And free form is just

An excuse

To vomit jabberwocky

And -ish from my jibber

As I pine about truth and justice and

The American weigh

Your options carefully

Writing pall-mall and willy nilly

Until I can throw in

Someone like Camus in the mix

It's just absurd!

If you read this backward

It can certainly serve

As a self-righteous op-ed

Of opinion that strikes a nerve

You just can't beat

Pithy and laconic

But this poem can neither meet

Metaphyzzy or ironic

Yesterday was the 4th of September

Labor Day for expectant mothers

The day before my birthday

Cooking dogs and burgers with others

One day we'll all be dead

And history won't remember

The cow we grilled or us we fed

On that 4th day in September

But words and rhymes are cheap

And come easily without fail

The bullshit in long poems is deep

When everything's on sale!

An emergence,

the glimmer of ignorance

Hope unmarred,

a dance with clear,

but careless steps

Yet, somehow–

nurtured disappointment is

sewn to elusive nature,

balanced webs spinning

fables within the strangest

of dreamscapes...

Hard earned lessons found

sinking, sinking,

sinking as the world

demands too much

Even through the bliss

of honeysuckle lips and

jasmine nights, delicate

curvature pulled taut

by the absence of time,

there lives a yearning

for completion, to be fastened

to the wholeness of strength

and its complexities

and though the open petals

glisten sweetly in

the softlight of the moon,

though the grip is firm, desperate,

it knows where peace will lie--

the fates do as they please

Bound to the spinning of the

wheel, daggers nick limbs,

expose bone, and forces the angel

to fall, weeping, mourning,

as grace dissolves into the sea

The North Star mocks with the way

she defies the moon and darts

hopelessly from the sun

But time, slipping through

crooked, calloused fingers

its granules catching beneath

splitting, deficient nails, cares little

for the trivialities of

honeysuckle dreams and the way

hopeful hands tremble

within the clock face

Nature, the ageless coquette

succubus, seductress,

ferocious in her passion

opens herself, promising peace

within the warmth

of her earthen bed

Rest, she whispers,

Time won't find us here.

There was a

moment.

Singular in time and

floating.

Motion derived attention,

growth and

speculation and then somehow,

some intention.

And then that moment,

broken,

was divided into spoken tokens

past down then at one time

written, collected, inspected

corrected

perfected,

then collected and written again.

And so that moment moved on

and as a dustbin does

it fills with forgotten aspects

things that were not

important enough

to write down.

And so that moment, all grown and

performing itself as a shadow

watching itself now

reenacting the process that brought it here

hastily searching,

security skirting

noticing death is flirting and

working its way into

anonymity within its own mind.

lost.

In a sudden the fullness of itself became so heavy

that it buckled, and pieces,

which were once attached firmly

were shaken loose and scattered

in seven directions

as it came to its knees

under the total dominion

of Culmination.

Dust then, but still time flies

and moments pass on grabbing one another

playing and recognizing

dancing and creating

and oh, that symphony

which was once just played by one

harmonizes with itself and explodes

and grows again.

exactly the same.

And so there was a moment,

however long it seemed

however large

however varied

it filled and burst along its seams

designing its own death

and delighting in it

as tomorrow always is

to eat up what just happened

turning it to what it all becomes.

That moment, challenged to exist,

uncaring of consequences

containing all things yet somehow

still created,

as there is always Something Greater,

the Designer Of The Future,

the Founder and Constructor of the moment.

Something made to be so full

so heavy and unstable

that by its very nature

must

collapse.

The water must be worried

For tides to carry on

Must only for a moment

Be what I see beyond

Yet in my darkest hour

Can my eternal rest

Be forever wanting

This burning in my chest

And thus I carry on

Without moment to spare

For my eternal wanting

Does leave me safely there

To where I find another

Softer vision lies

And where I find another

Has kept me cold and dry

Yet it could be my brother

This darkness in my mind

Or it could be the cold

Where shadows do I find

And still the fate goes on

What waters do I keep

From silencing the wrong

And ushering the deep

Now here in my sweet vision lay

A shadow from the deep

A cloud to touch my sorrow

And call me from my sleep

So I drift above

Lest ever should I drown

To claim what I forsook

And fill my golden crown

So there shall I remain

Til ere does slumber take

For reason or another

Until next I wake

Check your heart at the door, you won't need it where we're going.

Dark laughter drifts like smoke as the fire paints your mind in black.

You're alone, can't you see that? They don't want your beating heart

Unless it's on a tray that they can study from a distance.

Oh yes, they'll say, in their frigid, apathetic tone,

Disaster's on its way, and there's nothing you can do.

Pretty words oozing from a heart you hold at arm's length

Will only feed the flames that are lapping at your feet.

Oh no, they'll say, but it doesn't sound sincere,

What a shame that the world that chewed and spat you out

Is getting stomped on by the people who cooly meet your eyes

And tell you there'll be nothing left to laugh at or to cry.

And all the while the power's being blindly tossed about,

While screaming matches hurl the blame as if it's burning like the sky.

And ever cool, calculating, the clocks are ticking down.

And the faceless somebody's are counting down with them.

Five.

They'll take all your fear, what courage you're keeping

And throw it in a melting pot with what sense you might be holding onto.

Here, have some stimulus. You like that? Keep going.

That's right, let your thoughts slip away with the rest.

Four.

You're running out of time, they're telling you.

Shouldn't you be doing something? Not sitting rotting above the ground.

They're yelling at you, and your heart's beating faster,

But you can't feel it, someone's guarding it closely.

Three.

What are you counting to, again? It's been a long time since you started.

The clocks should know, they've gone on forever. They're whispering to you to find what you lost.

That's right - that heart, that strange, foreign object, the one they dissected and told you was useless.

Somehow you miss it, though you're not quite sure why. Your mind is begging to go back to sleep.

Two.

It's broken in pieces when you find it again, and it hurts to put it up to your chest.

All that screaming is awfully loud, and it seems to be pointless if you listen to the words.

Maybe it was better when your heart was on a tray, when you couldn't see the flames that were crawling up your legs.

But now you remember why the clocks were ticking, waiting for the day the heart would return.

One.

I'm afraid we've reached the end now, the clocks have all gone silent.

The heart is crying, oozing words that no one wants to hear.

Maybe a solitary heart can pull this mess together.

Certainly it can try before all is dead and lost.

Find the other hearts out there, I believe that you can do it.

Whisper in the frozen air, it's not too late if we just try.

Whisper in the faceless masses that we can live and breathe together.

But who can hear a whisper, really? Among the shouts and ticking clocks.

"Maybe in some parallel universe we found each other.....we are meant to run toward one another....chances are, I'll never know." Erin Van Vuren

Darkness lingers

Before the dawn

Of awareness and revelation.

I stretch out my hand

And touch the air.

I can feel it:

The curious vibration

Of a parallel universe.

*

From the other world

You step in, a seeming

Vision but not quite reality.

Yet, when my eyes

Reach yours,

I know the secret:

You are trespassing

Into my orb of time.

*

For endless moments

All thought is suspended,

I am transfixed

By your gaze.

Longing suddenly encompasses -

I desire it all.

Still, I know you are mine for

A mere macrocosm in time.

*

Time's vibration

Crescendos, settles, and flatlines.

You know it, you feel it, too:

Here, wrapped within

Our private cosmos

We love enduringly and

Know each other to the depths

Of our souls.

*

But of a sudden,

A celestial flash of light,

The earth shudders anew.

You are gone and

My heartbeat falters.

Like grains of sand

Through splayed fingers,

Our time together has vanished.

*

Whispers, echoes –

Nothing more –

Remain in the dawn's dim light.

The brief eclipse

Of love so divinely felt

Mere moments ago

Disperses in the morning air.

You aren't even a memory.

*

Parallel universes and

Star crossed lovers?

Still, we can't recall

Each other’s visage,

Cannot search high and low

Throughout the universes to find

The ultimate destination:

Indescribable, unfathomable love.

*

Thus, a moment is suspended

In the span of our lives,

The rarest opportunity

Evaporates swiftly

Much like the morning dew.

We are none the wiser

Nor will we ever know

The gift of love we missed.

He’s married now and I’m okay with that

I’m not the evil type of ex.

I scroll through his Instagram and think that together they look wise

Just a little bit older than I.

And maybe that’s the reason behind why there was never a you and an I.

I was still in my twenties when we met.

Her name is something like claudette.

She’s closer to your age and she’d already gotten you to wear a flower in your suit jacket pocket.

Your picture is the one hung around her neck in a golden locket.

Your mother’s diamond band is now sitting on her finger.

Hands around her waist the photograph together you linger.

He’s got a car now and place of his reached all those married man milestones.

The ones that with me he postponed.

And I wonder if together it all should have been ours.

Wait a moment, that voice in the back of my throat sounds a bit dryer.

I need a drink to sound a little less sour.

Claudette, yeah that’s her name, that’s what I see in your instagram post.

She should get a medal I would have never been able to get you to wear that couture.

I’m not the evil type of Ex.

I’m the type of ex that he can still run into on the street.

Without the meeting being too bittersweet.

On the cobble stone ones, with the red booth across and the black lamps that form a line over the bridge. The one’s where we used to kiss.

They’re he’ll introduce me to his new wife.

Say I’m an old friend; someone from the past.

We’ll passively discuss our professional life.

I’ll stand and smile and ask if he still likes that ice cream they used to sell on the street where 1st and 3rd crash.

He’ll say he hasn’t had that in years.

That he prefers to indulge in beers.

That he didn’t even know it still existed.

And I’ll recognize I’ve been put in my place, the details of his life I’ve been prohibited.

That him was the old one, and I don’t know the new him.

That’s a truth that’s a bit grim.

Once he was my best friend.

Now we’re stranger’s he’s just a guy I’ll use to know, in the end.

And then I’ll grab the hand of the man I’ll call boyfriend.

And together they’ll greet.

Two men who once had me.

They talk of there tales

To him he’ll quietly challenge.

He’ll ask me if with him I’m really happy?

Does it matter?

The men will talk.

While us women look at each other in a sort of denial.

We aren’t friend or enemies, we know we’re somehow connected through the wires.

In a way we’re family for the man between us together we’ve lived the same life.

Her in reality.

Me in the 3-D virtual simulations of sim’s village’s that together we constructed.

I think we will both always think it could have been us.

Not in regret.

Just in fact.

We talk and then you go forward and I go my way after adhering to this social contract.

My new man’s hand I’ll grip a little harder.

I took everyone’s advice.

He’s a lot younger than you.

But he lacks that sort of maturity that you always had.

I’m not saying I regret it.

It’s just a fact.

My neck I hold a little higher.

Trying to tell myself not look back.

Alas, I’m weak.

Over my man’s arm I look back.

He wasn’t any stronger.

His hands are wrapped around her back.

But his eyes were glued to the nape of my neck.

There are flicks of grey in his hair, and creases in the corners of his eyes as he smiles at me goodbye.

We don’t get a second chance and that’s alright.

We’ve made our choices.

It’s our plight.

So we’ll stick with it, because to people like us vows mean something.

We get married, buy houses, make babies, and live our lives in denial.

We’re happy; in this version of our life portrayal.

We don’t always think one one another.

Only on the days we do…hmm.

In a few years we’ll flock in the same friend circles.

Suddenly in full control of our past urges.

Then we’re pressing that blue follow button following each other on instagram.

When were together I’ll no longer need to down two capsules of diazepam.

You aren’t really an ex anymore.

Your are a friend.

You aren’t a stranger.

And sometimes I wonder if in that there’s danger.

But then again our spouse are best friends.

Next thing we know where in your wife’s dining room eating pork roast with wine, how very adult.

I don’t think we would have ever believed this to be our result.

We make fun over the fact that you and I used to be a we.

I’ll fake a gag when it’s brought up.

But I catch you cutting your eyes at me when we laugh.

You look at me and not your wife.

But she doesn’t notice that.

Which is funny because she was the one who was supposed to be older and wiser.

That’s why in the end you choose her.

Claudette.

You’ll have a son and I’ll have a daughter.

We’ll raise them to be best friends.

You and I will dream about them getting together.

It’s a stupid dream really.

Just us trying through them to live vicariously through.

See I’ve never been the jealous kind of Ex.

At your wedding I danced.

You kissed my cheek at mine and offered a toast and that wasn’t just by circumstance.

All these years later the summer of us ;was just that.

Now, us four sit best of friends in your winter flat.

You and I won’t ever touch.

Or look at each other with lust, of that I can’t begrudge.

But when were laughing I know it’s to me you look.

Not Claudette.

And every Sunday you’ll stand at that ice cream stand where you said you never went.

You grab ice cream for two.

I know this place you often frequent.

I know now you never really became a stranger.

Falling in love with you of that I’ll always be in danger.

Our lives haven’t been the greatest.

But neither have then been the worst.

We won’t ever know if we would have made it in reality.

I was in my twenties.

And you were in your late thirties.

Maybe it was best this way

Us always loving each other, but never being able to call you and I; ours.

We were never the jealous Ex’s.

You’re just my best friend.

And that’s how I know we were really the best of lovers.

Because even without the perks of love.

Each other we’ve always thought the world of.

So let’s sit pretending were only in brotherly love.

You with your wife.

Me with my husband.

Our kids on our laps.

Eating off our plates, the scraps.

Us pretending to sip the wine we chug.

Out of our coffee mugs.

Let‘s finish out this life as the best of friends.

And hope parts of our lives have been reincarnated in the eyes of my daughter and your son.

Even this young I can kind of see a spark.

But maybe it’s just me dreaming in the idea that we could be if they just loved one another.

Girls, they’re beautiful. The ones that shine on our favorite magazines,

And are on the front page to show what beauty really means.

They seem so flawless, so slim, and their skin Sunkist

but even the most desirable woman could never check everything off the checklist.

Big butt, big boobs, skinny waist, pretty face.

Hairless, careless, still have no whereness and THAT is the truth about being a girl.

When we’re at school we’re told to keep our head down and only speak when spoken to. They say cover your shoulders, you're distracting people but the real question is who?

It’s 90 degrees and boys can go shirtless,

But when a girl where’s a skirt outdoors then she’s asking for it.

Why are we asked from such a young age,

What boys we find cute but didn’t you just slam my desk and say,

“Look young prepubescent girl

Cross your legs or the boy's thoughts will be in a whirl.

I know you’re too young to know why there’s a difference between girls and boys

But I don’t want you to grow up and not be used as a toy”.

As we get older schools brag about how good they are about dealing with rape

But as cases pile up they’re still more worried that Cassy has a vape.

They give us sappy excuses about how it’s all about what we were wearing

And they try to use that as an excuse for really just not caring.

If lesbians can control themselves in locker rooms that are enclosed

Then men should be expected to control themselves when I’m fully clothed.

It's cold outside.

I'm turning nine and

the air is too still for even dull breath, but

I manage to slice my throat on ice shards as I scream.

We have no time here,

not for winter,

not anymore.

There is no ice,

only February

(every year it's warmer.)

White dust is falling,

settling upon my scalp.

The ceiling plaster crumbles beneath violent feet and

I'm about 11 and by now I know:

the snow never makes it

to the ground.

only I do.

I've learned to walk on my hands.

My blistering feet stain the hardwood.

Smoke rises

and I have grown tired of

charring my shoes on the floor.

At recess the air's a bit cooler,

farther away from the iron hearth.

Not everyone's world is on fire but the flames never seem

to leave me for long.

All the wood chips are damp with melted snow

and I want someone to chase me.

I terrorize boys;

take their sneakers from their feet.

They don't care about me, but I

am smart enough to know by now:

leverage is required to get what you need.

There is a gaping hole in my gut,

my father left it there,

it's on the brink of caving in and I

do not have enough flesh to fill it.

Please, lend me yours.

I beg.

I need them to know

that I

am something to be desired.

I need them to want

to pour themselves into me to

save my collapsing self.

God knows I alone,

am not enough.

Ice melts to glass now

distilling in my throat

and its sharp edges

(as opposed to another's flesh)

have filled the aching void

behind my ribs.

It all comes crawling

back up my esophagus as I force

the weight to peel off my skin.

Can I make them want me if I shrink

small enough to be a child?

I sink my body in the muddy ground and pray it freezes over

but the angels went extinct with the snow and

I continue to grow older.