It started when
the coat was almost new,
caught on rust-streaked spikes
of a school-ground prison…..
Patches!
Invisible at first,
an extra pocket
or designer label;
no one suspected
hidden damage.
But the scar remained,
quickly joined by
brothers, sisters,
uncles, cousins.
Then strangers
drove their opinions,
and other more physical
appendages,
through its crumpled fabric;
patches and coat
indistinguishable,
buttoned up tight
to keep everything out.

I gazed in amazement, in this same day
As I witnessed something indescribable, by any poet
A single moment, so astonishing, so incredibly real
My heart, thumps furiously at my heaving chest
My heart, has misplaced its breath
Exactly like that feeling you get
When you place your face out the window of a moving vehicle
As you attempt to inhale

Choke

I gulp
I cry
With theses dreary, dreamy, morose eyes, I watched

I find myself back here again
where most people seldom go
the kind of place where raccoons den
and muscadine vines soar and grow.

For late August the breeze is fresh
a sneak preview of coming fall.
Sun's scattered by canopy's mesh
whose looming height makes me feel small.

On this rare day knees barely hurt
yet habit makes my stride still shamble
along this trail of leaf and dirt
on this private forest ramble.

What Was Yet Is

Shards of Thai-stick dream persuade
combat fear to swiftly fade
yet take their toll on flesh and soul
before receding into shade

pounding rains coerce delusion
nudging optical illusion
fractal fingers, sterile stingers
make the mind seek dark seclusion