I Am Defender

Against the throws of war

I am the defender of my heart.

Poisoned arrows with sharpened tips

soar with accusations dripping down their silvery lips 

ready to puncture my every pride.

But I am the defender of my heart.

When lovers complete the idea of me 

with incomplete ideas of me, 

a hollow shell of my actuality 

is animated 

and mocks me like a cartooned parody.

I am the defender.

A patient heart is a determined heart,

not waiting, but patient. 

Indeed wading, patiently, through thick 

and sticky scores of sluts, tramps,

and hooligans, all waiting with bows and arrows in hand.

Here I stand, the shield, the man,

the only defender of my heart. 

The blade sheathed in me is sharp and quiet, 

can reduce a loose tongue to a 

removed one, and will pierce the ears of 

any fortunate enough to hear what truth I speak, 

or stab, for my blade runs deep.

And it must. Because in me, my soul has trust. 

I seek within, beyond the moths and rust, 

between the unsettled dust, 

beneath the copper crust. 

I am the defender.

When chicks play games and lick the names 

of the many men they've fucked and bent, 

I write the boards and bar my chords 

pressing ink to page while burning sage.

Needless to say, the nights are solitary 

in my home. 

I thrive by candle light, 

fire helps me write, 

the flame insist that much burns inside of me. 

The pain, the shame, the 

misery, all melt off like calories.

I exercise the defender in my heart.

I have friends in many places, some wear 

two, three, four, and five faces. 

Some are copy cats and rely on traces 

to shape their lives and like glass blown vases 

are full of hot air. 

Speak your peace or let your words rest peacefully, 

because only deeds can be 

resurrected successfully, 

and the groundsman gave the keys to me, 

I run the graveyard shift in to the early morning. 

Would you believe how many thoughts are buried in this cemetery? 

Six feet beneath actions, respectfully. 

Where is the love you ask? 

Well where do I start? Begin where it ends.

I am the defender of my heart. 

Heart Drive

"Click...Click...Click...."

The music had hushed, Elliott Smith was quiet.

iTunes was working, but not working.

The time marker crept along, keeping time, but

no there was no sound except the underwhelming whirring

of the fan in the CPU and the slow, eerie,

"...Click...Click...Click...Click..."

which I had never heard before.

"Some thing's wrong." I said, grabbing the mouse

and selecting pause on the play options menu.

Quickly I selected

Start/Shutdown/LogOff

"Please wait while..."

I waited for a long minute before deciding

something was definitely wrong and used my index finger

to quicken the shut-down process.

The clicking ceased, the whirring quieted, and

another long minute passed.

A hopeful index finger depressed the power button and

the familiar high whistle of the fan blew again,

the motherboard chittered and chattered to life,

gears and gadgets creaked and clanged, and

the computer came to life, much like when any

man or woman wakes from a black sleep,

stretches and twists the body, preparing him bones and flesh

for the working day ahead. And though all these start-up sounds were familiar,

one sound stood out like a jewel in the sand, or

a dark spot stained against a flood of light.

"Click...Click...Click...Click...Click...Click...Click..."

"Fuck." was the preferred expletive.

LogOn/Start/MyComputer/

"What the fuck is 'Drive F?'" It was not the drive I was looking for.

The drive I was looking for was not there.

I was looking for Drive H: Seagate

At least the clicking had stopped.

I unplugged the hard drive from it's mount and "Bum bum..."

the cheerful and dismissive sound of disconnecting a unit from it's port

chimed loudly out of my studio monitor speakers.

"At least it's being recognized..." I thought.

Carefully, I plugged the drive back into the slot, docking the unit to the CPU.

A cheerful and welcoming "Bum bum!" was pronounced along with a haunting

"Click...Click...Click..." from the little black drive.

I was starting to get scared.

"BZZZZZZ BZZZZZZ" shook my phone, and a blue light indicating a text glowed on and off.

"It's over... It's done..." I quietly announced.

My Mother busy with her crochet needles and yarn sat quietly on my bed,

her ears tightly cupped inside a pair of my headphones, listening to a YouTube program

streaming to her phone.

"10 years..." I thought.

"10 years of my work, my memories, my time, all erased; lost."

I thought about all the times I had fantasized about this happening,

losing my work, that is,

what I would do, how I would feel.

It was nothing like I had thought it would be.

I was painfully calm.

I didn't scream, I didn't cry, I didn't punch holes in the walls, I didn't

brag about it on Facebook,

instead, I accepted it.

Tracing the footsteps of my memories,

I traveled down many hallways to doors that had long been shut.

Pictures and art from high school; gone.

Pictures from the road trip with my estranged Father; gone.

Pictures of my lovers; gone.

All the late nights, every minutes, every hour, every trace of anything I've ever produced; gone.

My writing; gone.

All the music I stole; gone.

My memories; gone.

My time; arguably wasted.

Still, I did not scream. I did not suffer from any inverted orgasm.

I did not writhe. I did not quiver.

Instead, I responded to the blue flashing light and

joked about about how not all hope was lost, just "most of my stuff."

Twenty-First Century

Life can be so scary

especially when you know you're gonna die

wake up and work for hours

at a place you hate, and you're left wondering why

Life can be so stupid

when all the tables turn against you

been building this machine for ages

now it wont work, no matter what you do

My friends are changing

they're folding in on themselves

My family is aging

My memories are fading away

And I just want to be

I just want to be

I just want to be a loose screw

There's no need to be

no need to be

no need to be attached to the rules

Life can be so boring

just nine to five, five and nine, and nine to five again

I don't sleep

No time to dream

I wake up in the middle of the night and scream

I don't eat

I don't drink

I don't think about much

I just look around for the next available do-hah

Is it a problem

Or is it a solution?

I got problems

I need a revolution

Twenty-First Century

Twenty-One centipedes

The coins for your laundry and you

are the same thing

Reach

I sent off on a leaf
escaping the reach of my branch
drifting further from my tree
hoping to grace you
allowing the ends of my rigid veins
to trace you
your soft cheeks reside inside of me
and are deeply rooted
hidden, protected

Mutant Children

LAST night, we were all mutants on some great migration. All of us young, hungry, high-schoolers, high and on a mission. We were going to diners, buying movie tickets, shooting lasers from our eyes and hands, riding bikes faster than light, tracking our speed on global placement systems. We had ice cream and smiles on our faces. We were young mutants! And everything was as it should be. But, from who were we running from? No one would stop us if they caught us, we are not a force to be reckoned with. We're children! We are your children! We rode motorcycles and drove cars over dirt roads. Our hair long and untamed danced as we danced. It was all too real.

And before that, we were human. We were sitting around a television drinking tequila. "MAN SHOT" I would call out and the short and small, half-ounce shot glass would be replaced with a tall colorful shot-and-a-half glass. "I hate you, step bruh.." muttered from his lips, the birthday girls brother. And she was a lesbian, as was her man-dressed girlfriend. Butch and proud. Short and loud. The drinks were poured. The men and the women-men drank stoutly. "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY I GET HIGH IF I WANT TO!!" she shouts!  Smoke was not present this night, nor mirrors to tell us illusions and stories of vanity. We were of celebration. We were beautiful. The night grew tired and us tired of the night and we, the brothers, took our leave. And we were talking about girls. About girlfriends present and past. About appearances and realities. It became an honest talk, one too honest for my inebriated state and my body decided for me that now is the time to sleep. And I was home, walking up my stairs, keying the door knob, locking the gate, shutting the door, quietly removing all of my clothes, and rested with the tequila warm in me. My little girl cub crawled her furry paws up to the bed and lay with me. And we became mutants.