In a spiraling descent
through the black hole
of depravity,
the damned begin to believe
beauty and truth
are myths of old
that never existed.

Free falling
through an endless cloud
of soot over diseased lands,
the damned cannot help
but hold on to meaningless 
fictions of a better world
that does not come.

But there are a few
damned souls
who look forward
with a fighter's heart.
They understand pain
is the gateway to struggle.
Within that confrontation
beauty is revealed
as hope.

Such a small spark of light
can easily be lost.
But the fighters who hold on
hard enough and long enough
find the strength of truth
in their courage
to trudge on
and live again.

Give me the fight,
the hard blows
between honest men
and determined women
who lust for that mad taste
of blood and cum.

The fight that blossoms
on behalf of struggle
is what I call beauty.
An old widow's thoughtful stare
is beauty. The worker's tireless
calls for solidarity is beauty.
A priest who chokes up
while delivering the last rites,
that’s artful beauty.

The beauty of the fight
is a resurrection of the spirit
that can no longer remain dormant.
Without the fight,
there is no true love or true sex,
no appreciation for the stars,
nor is there a cosmos to explore.

For all the poetry written
about flowers, trees,
and ocean waves,
real beauty exists in the eyes
of the struggling soul.

The honored fight all their days
to breathe, feast, and pray
on their own terms,
and to die in peace.

I made the mistake 
of grazing through my old poetry.
Surprisingly, a tear came.

After a moment passed,
I reminded myself
the mourning process
always leads to discovery.

As sadness fades,
each of us stumbles upon
new people,
new adventures,
and new frontiers.

That's the cycle.

To scrape our fingernails
across the fleeting things
that once defined us,
is to know regret.

The only recourse
is to stop the futile resistance
to change.
Allow the unknown
to cascade over the soul,
the way hot city water
flows from the shower head
and down the spine
after a hard day.

This is not an endorsement
for passivity.
Quite the opposite.
The good fight
goes on.

Close your eyes, baby.
Push all in
with the courage
buried deep inside yourself,
and then get ready
for what comes.

In the silent calm,
before all Hell breaks loose,
gaze up at the stars.
Give the imagination a chance
to consider
what this next life
will bring.

To this day,
the people are taught
hard
that obedience is honor,
silence is courage,
sleep is for others,
and to weep is weakness.

80 angry years later,
after a lifetime of wasted shits,
each of those people lie down
on an old mattress
and die.

For certain,
this is the most common
of all undocumented
sins.

my father
was just a man

as i grew
he grew

we were living
for the first time
in a world
still unfolding
before us

as my son grew
i grew

because the world
had not completed
its bloom

now
as your son grows
you grow

perfect dreams
sprout from the soot
of imperfect worries
neither of which
can be realized
upon turbulent soil

therefore
i forgive

perhaps someday
you will forgive

i already know
a time will come
when he too
forgives

I parked the car
in the middle of the
George Westinghouse bridge,
stepped onto the concrete,
and then gazed
over the edge.

In the air,
specks of history
floated easily
under a streetlamp.

Inside each forgotten jot
exists a universe
without time
that I would never enter
or see.

I would have to settle
for this universe,
in this time,
and try my damnedest
to make it
all the way.

There is no love
without pain.

To sever oneself
from struggle
is to thrust the spirit
into the dark void
of oblivion.
In this numb space,
the thirst for purpose
can bring about thick temptations
in malevolence.

The cure
to such reckless abandon
is pain,
from which
one may return
to love.

Lovers with soft lips
exit without warning
washed away in summer rain
But their passions
are organic
alive within us
until the final
breath

The damned among us
are quite easy to see.
They cover their stench
with thin veils of perfume
before they slop and snort
through the greasy troughs
of young blood
and aged regrets.

In such a landscape,
one might begin to believe
all is lost.

Then I see you–
your clothing stained with sick,
your face dirtied from soot,
and your eyes exhausted
from the fight.
I am reminded
beauty knows no bounds,
and no matter how hard they try,
a courageous spirit can never
be put down.

We don't come back from this.

Everything is different now.
Food tastes bland.
The air and the water are laced
with the iron tinge of blood.
Trust, gone.
Romance, murdered.
Love is the impossible
memory. 

All that remains
are orgies of rage
and sex and violence.

A sadistic thirst for
gratification
has planted its black roots
in this society.

Pleasure is found
from images of
piles of burnt limbs
that once belonged to toddlers
and infants.

Such depravity
paves the descent
into forever darkness.

In spiritual death,
there is no rebirth.
The soul, mutilated
and beyond intervention,
cannot sprout life again.

We don't come back from this. 

In dirty sneakers,
we walked those old streets
to spread the art and words of rage.
Abandoned buildings.
Punched out windows.
Broken concrete staircases
upon hillsides.
Such degradation signified
an uncontrolled
collapse.

All we had left
was the raw energy
that pumps solely
through the fiery guts
of the young.

The suits, the bigots,
and the men who'd given up–
all of them tried as they would,
but we never let them steal
our independence
or creativity.

That was all
we had.

Inside magic stores
and head shops,
we begged proprietors
to peddle stapled photocopies
of homemade zines.

Inside those pages
blood-soaked words
surrounded by crooked photos
of graffiti
lied in wait
to exhale truth
into the twisted faces
of readers.

In those years,
creativity was survival.

We never asked for much.
A buck here and there
was the most we could hustle.
Financial security,
we quickly learned
would not be found in this life.

Still, we demanded
a sliver of relevance.
That fleeting form of respect
really did help to ease
the pain.

I've learned
phenomenons rarely come
to the passive.
There is no wait list
for the extraordinary.
When a man knows
his time has come to thrive,
he steps out from the shadows
of familiar buildings.
Hands in empty pockets,
he looks into window reflections
for a sliver of self-worth
and he seeks dignity
in the way he strolls down
smoky roads.

I once knew
a dame with legs
who really lived well.
She had a bit of a gut,
laughed at awkward moments,
and she could never quite kick
the Marlboro lights.

That dame hid nothing
from the rising sun.
Children received love.
The elderly got smiles.
In humble strength,
she cursed to Hell
the users
who tried and failed
to climb on.

On the walk home
every evening,
just as the sun descended
behind tree-lined hills,
that dame asked God
for another chance
to chase perfection.
She did this with a fleck
of smokey hope
exhaled after
each breath.

Dear, friend–

To seek approval
from the rapacious mobs
is a suicidal endeavor.
Do not give them the tools
to bankrupt your mind
or defile your soul.

Stay free, my friend.
Explore this short life.
Fight injustice, inhale beauty,
and create imperfect art
on your terms.

Enemies will seethe
for your ruination.
This cannot be avoided.
Therefore, you must be prepared
to defend yourself.
But do not be concerned
with their depraved opinions
or their twisted scowls.
Such misery is merely
the opposing universal force
to a steadfast devotion
for truth.

The mob's contempt
for emancipation
contrasts a purity of spirit
few understand
and even fewer possess.

That's the power
you have. The passion
inside of you runs hot.
It ignites dreams in others
and it has gifted me
a reason to go on.

Do not relent,
my friend. Be free
to the end.

Your friend,
–Gav

Behind closed doors,
the mediocre
enshrine the limits
of acceptable
life.

Consumed
by confusion,
cowardice creeps
through their corroded veins
as they fall victim
to ravenous hungers
for control.

In wave
after wave
of orderly violence,
it's the mediocre
who vilify
the exceptional.

Gratification
is the hot load
of condemnation
raped into the throats
of free spirits
inside prisons, factories,
and graveyards.

Therefore,
the pursuit of truth
is the most dangerous game.
This is balanced,
as the discovery of new frontiers
becomes the adventure
of a lifetime.

Every such odyssey
begins with courage.
However, breaching the limits
of acceptable life
is a subversive act.

The exceptional
must commit the soul
to defiance,
escape the clutches
of the mediocre mob,
and forever embrace
the limitless horizon
of the outcast.