i bleach the sky
to bone — each night
wrong heavier than
sun can lift
two moons
howl
round
alone
they’re always
there
(aren’t they)
whatever i’ve
doneornotdone
till all is ghost —
& wrong heaves up
a blackboilingsea
the moons become
twoFangs
tearing night
apart
at last
& shriek
thou art
thou always
wert
with
me
then silence
mounts
on hoofs
of frost
heavens fold
like brokenwings
no Right
no Wrong
survives
only
the howl
that wears
my name
and
sings
Tag Archives: #love
THE HOWL
UNDER THIS STUBBORN PULSE
My apologies to death for refusing to rehearse it daily.
My apologies to oblivion if I mistake this breath for permanence, after all.
Please, don’t be angry, life, that I seize you as my own—
even when the weight of you bends my spine like winter wind.
May the shadows be patient with the way I keep turning toward light.
My apologies to despair for laughing when it almost had me.
Forgive me, endless night, for borrowing stars to light my small room.
Forgive me, open graves, for stepping over you with bare feet.
I apologize to the void for filling it with stubborn heartbeats,
to the silence for speaking when nothing asked me to.
Pardon me, old wounds, that I let them scar instead of swallow me.
Pardon me, hounded fear, for daring joy in your presence.
And you, relentless dawn—always arriving, always the same gold—
forgive me if I sometimes close my eyes, yet still rise.
My apologies to the fallen for standing when they could not.
My apologies to great endings for these small, defiant continuings.
Truth, don’t stare too hard at my trembling hands.
Dignity, be kind enough to let me falter and still call it courage.
Bear with me, O mystery of staying alive, as I gather the scattered threads of day
and weave them into another fragile tomorrow.
Soul, don’t scorn me for clinging to you only in the narrow spaces between breaths.
My apologies to everything that I can’t vanish gracefully.
My apologies to everyone that I persist, stubbornly human,
when the easier path was surrender.
I know I won’t be absolved as long as I breathe,
since survival itself stands in the way of perfect peace.
Don’t bear me ill will, breath, that I borrow your force
then labor fiercely so it may seem effortless.
There—dark and light entwined, survival as both apology and defiance.
A quiet roar in the desert night.
:: 01.15.2026 ::
I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS
He is the hour the streetlamp flickers once
and decides to stay lit anyway.
Born in 1963 — thin ice, louder radios —
he carries in his palms fourteen thousand small rescues.
Each poem a sparrow lifted from the road
before the next truck arrives.
Each canvas a heart that refused to clot.
Three black moons live in his house —
Chai, Notsu, Earl —
walking velvet paws across unfinished lines,
sleeping in the margins where mercy hides.
He peels old names from skin
like labels from jars of forgotten jam
and writes on the raw place: still sweet.
When the world shouts its own importance
he listens instead to the hush between breaths,
to snow falling on graves never dug,
to rubber boots that once held tiny heads
and still remember how.
He does not shout.
He simply continues —
a slow, stubborn blooming
in the cracked concrete of the century.
eprobles is not a monument.
He is the wind that moves the monument
just enough
to let light fall where it was never meant to fall.
Tonight, in the small room where the cats are dreaming,
he writes again —
because the world is still turning,
and someone has to witness
that it turns with tenderness.
:: 01.12.2026 ::
LOGOPHILLIA MINIMA
In the quiet cradle of a single syllable,
a world awakens—soft as breath on glass.
One word, small seed, cracks the silence open,
and suddenly the universe is speaking back.
We are lovers of the least of these:
the hush between two letters,
the spark that leaps from tongue to ear,
the tiny bridge a vowel builds across the dark.
Logophilia minima—
the art of falling hard
for the smallest units of meaning,
for the atom of sense that explodes into galaxies.
Consider “if”—
two letters, one breath,
holding every crossroads ever walked.
Or “yes,” a door flung wide
on hinges made of air.
See how “dot” becomes a period,
a full stop, a world’s end—
then flips to become a point of light,
the start of everything again.
We hoard these crumbs of language
like misers with bright coins:
“oh,” the circle of surprise;
“ah,” the slow exhale of understanding;
“mm,” the hum of satisfaction
when the world fits perfectly inside the mouth.
In the minimal, the infinite hides.
A child’s first “ma”
contains every lullaby ever sung.
A lover’s whispered “stay”
holds back the tide of night.
We bow to the power of less:
how “no” can build a wall
stronger than empires,
how “go” can launch a thousand ships
on nothing but intention.
Logophilia minima—
celebration of the spark,
the mote, the glint,
the almost-nothing that becomes
everything when spoken true.
May we never lose
this small, fierce love
for the least word,
the tiniest truth,
the quiet syllable
that carries the weight
of all the worlds
we have not yet named.
For you, for me, for everyone
who has ever paused
at the beauty of a single sound
and felt the whole sky
lean in to listen.
:: 01.04.2025 ::
Definition of this New Phrase I created: the literal interpretation of “logophilia minima” would be a “minimal” or “very small love of words,” or potentially an appreciation for only the briefest or fewest words.
THE ETERNAL FEED
The deepest truth we’ve ever known,
As far as souls are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near that endless feed —
Or better still, just don’t allow
The glowing algorithm in.
In almost every heart we’ve seen,
We’ve watched them lost in endless scroll,
They slump and swipe and fade away,
Eyes glazed until the spirit dulls.
(Last night in dreams I saw a thousand souls
Dissolve like pixels on the floor.)
They tap and swipe and swipe and tap
Until they’re hypnotized by it,
Until they’re drunk on hollow light,
That shocking, ghastly, viral junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them quiet,
No running wild or breaking free,
No questions asked or dreams pursued,
It leaves you space to breathe alone —
But have you ever paused to feel,
To wonder what this does to your beloved child?
IT ROTS THE SENSES IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES THE SPIRIT DULL AND BLIND
NO LONGER ABLE TO CREATE
A WORLD BEYOND THE CURATED FATE!
THE BRAIN TURNS SOFT AS ENDLESS DOOM!
THE POWERS OF WONDER RUST AND BLOOM
IN LIKES ALONE — THEY CANNOT THINK,
THEY ONLY SCROLL, THEY ONLY BLINK!
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we cut the feed away,
What then to spark their restless hearts?
Our darling ones — how to restart?’
We answer gently, asking you:
What kept the dreaming children true?
How did they roam their boundless days
Before this timeline stole their gaze?
Have you forgotten? Do you know?
We’ll whisper it both fierce and slow:
THEY… USED… TO… DREAM! They’d dream and dream,
AND DREAM and DREAM, and then redeem
More dreams again. Great heavens, see!
Half of their lives was wild and free!
They built whole worlds from sticks and string,
Drew maps of places never seen,
Sang stories underneath the trees,
Ran barefoot through the summer breeze,
Invented languages and laws,
Fought dragons with cardboard swords,
Turned blankets into sailing ships,
And oceans rose from fingertips.
They lay for hours in the grass
Watching clouds become the past,
Asked why the stars burn in the night,
And wondered what it feels to fly.
They read beneath the covers’ glow,
They whispered secrets only children know.
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Delete the apps and walk away,
And in their place restore the space
For silence, wonder, open grace.
Give back the boredom, give the quiet,
The empty hours that spark the riot
Of inner worlds no feed can buy —
Ignore the tears, the storms, the cries.
Fear nothing, for we promise this:
In days or weeks of empty bliss,
They’ll feel the hunger, seek the vast
Uncharted country of the past.
And once they start — oh watch, oh see!
The slowly waking ecstasy
That fills their hearts, their eyes, their soul.
They’ll wonder what that feed could hold
In that ridiculous machine,
That foul, addictive, endless screen!
And later, every child will turn
With deeper love than likes can earn,
For you who dared to set them free.
To dream eternally.
:: 12.31.2025 ::
(Inspired by: Roald Dahl)
STENCH OF GOVERNMENT AUTHORIITY of REFUSAL
“what can I say
what can I do?
hate myself?”
I refuse myself
consume myself
— to find
the place I belong
wherever you say
is alright
and silence
is not the way
(heaven’s on the way)
so sleep
good night
watching authority
melt all night
but silence
is not right
we need to talk
about it.
:: 12.25.2025 ::
RENOVATIO
In the cracked marrow of old winters,
a single green blade dares the frost—
not rebirth, not resurrection,
but renovatio:
the slow, deliberate rewriting of ruin.
I have seen cities burn their own names
and rise again wearing stranger faces.
I have watched a black cat
sit in the empty apartment of a dead man
and claim the silence as his own kingdom.
So too the heart,
that stubborn architect,
takes the rubble of its former cathedrals
and builds smaller, truer chapels
where mercy can fit through the door.
Phillip, you who turn rage into pigment,
who date your poems into tomorrows
we have not yet earned—
you know this craft.
You tear the canvas,
spill the blood-reds,
then stitch light back into the wound
until the painting breathes.
Renovatio is not gentle.
It is the knife that removes the rot.
It is the fire that remembers
it was once a hearth.
And when the last ash settles,
something moves beneath it—
a pulse, a purr, a leap
like Chai across the midnight floor.
Old world, die cleanly.
New world, begin imperfectly.
We have time enough
for the slow miracle
of becoming
:: 12.23.2025 ::
PIECES OF TIME
Time is fathomless, yes—but it is not a grave.
It is a river that remembers every footstep
that ever touched its banks. Names fade, forms loosen,
voices thin to echoes, yet meaning endures the way
stone endures weather: altered, never erased.
:: 12.12.2025 ::
JESUS IN ARMANI
He walked down Seventh Avenue
in a suit the color of storm-light,
Armani stitching holding together
what the world once nailed apart.
No halo—
only the low ember of a man
who has watched every century
try to erase him.
People stared
the way sheep stare at thunder,
uncertain whether to scatter
or kneel.
He did not speak.
He did not lift a hand
to bless or curse or gather.
He only walked—
sandals traded for leather,
robe traded for silk,
the same heart beating beneath.
As he passed
the glass cathedrals of want,
mannequins bowed
in their frozen hunger,
mirrors shivered,
recognizing their own reflection
in his quiet contempt.
A woman selling roses
felt her breath snag
on an old wound.
She offered one,
thorned and trembling.
He took it
the way only the ancient take anything—
with sorrow enough
to swallow empires
and mercy enough
to refuse the feast.
Some said model.
Some said ghost.
Some said madman
too expensive to ignore.
But the air bent around him
like light around a wound,
and the city—
dressed in its bright, glittering sins—
did what cities do:
it looked,
it lingered,
it forgot.
No sermon.
No miracle.
Just a man in Armani asking, without asking,
“Have you learned nothing?”
:: 12.11.2025 ::
A FLAKE OF ICE CALLED SNOW
I wished this poem would become
a flake of ice called snow—
one trembling shard of heaven,
pure enough to vanish on a warm palm,
yet brave enough to fall.
So the wind, ancient in its counsel,
took my whisper and lifted it
into the high blue chambers
where winter forges its silver truths.
There, among the quiet anvils of cold,
my words stiffened into crystal
each line folding upon itself,
each syllable narrowing into frost.
By dusk it was ready.
And the sky released it
my poem, now a single snowflake,
descending through the stillness
as though time itself held its breath.
The village did not notice.
Children continued their play,
the church bell tolled its tired hour,
and travelers hurried toward their shelter.
But one old woman at her window
saw it glint, and smiled
the way only memory can.
She held out her hand.
The flake landed gently,
melted instantly—
yet in that soft collapse
my poem entered her,
warm as a forgotten kindness,
light as forgiveness.
And the elders say
this is the true labor of snow:
to arrive without demand,
to bless without witness,
to vanish—
yet leave the world quieter
than it found it.
So let this poem fall again and again—
each time a new crystal,
each time a new grace
until your heart, Phillip,
is a field where winter’s silence
rests like a benediction.
:: 12.07.2025 ::
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