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I have a poetry book on amazon.com. It wasn't that difficult to do it myself.

Cantos 1

Love to read your personal works. What poems were important for you I

I found a nice suspense story on the internet. Here it is: Story of a monk: A man is driving down the road and! breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night? the monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.The man is disappointed but thanks them anyway and goes about his merry way. Some years later, the same man breaks down in front of the same monastery. The monks again accept him, feed him, even fix his car.That night, he hears the same strange noise that he had heard years earlier.The next morning, he asks what it is, but the monks reply, We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.The man says, All right, all right. I’m dying to know. I f the only way I can find out what that sound was is to become a monk, how do I become a monk?The monks reply, You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of sand pebbles. When you find these numbers, you will become a monk. The man sets about his task. Some forty-five years later, he returns and knocks on the door of the monastery. He says, I have traveled the earth and have found what you have asked for. There are 145,236,284,232 blades of grass and 231,281,219,999,129,382 sand pebbles on the earth.The monks reply, Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall now show you the way to the sound.The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, The sound is right behind that door.The man reaches for the knob, but the door is locked. He says, Real funny. May I have the key?The monks give him the key, and he opens the door.Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man demands the key to the stone door.The monks give him the key, and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. He demands another key from the monks, who provide it. Behind that door is another door, this one made of sapphire. So it went until the man had gone through doors of emerald, silver, topaz, and amethyst.Finally, the monks say, This is the last key to the last door.The man is relieved to no end. He unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door he is amazed to find the source of that strange sound. .. . . . But I can’t tell you what it is because …..You’re not a monk.

Heyo, as many of you know, I write lots of lyrics. Well my band has just recently put some of them to music and recorded them. Here's the link to my Youtube channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSkybax?feature=mhee#p/u Enjoy!

On this thread I'll be posting my shorties. Keep in mind, a lot of this was generated out of a write's group I was in that had loose "assignments" for each meeting so that we had something thematic and/or encouraging each other in new areas. So the style may seem all over the place at times, but rest assured, it is all my original stuff.

Don’t Dump – Goes to Ocean by Rich O. I stared down before me at a pink mass of gum in the crosswalk. It still glistened from a passing tropical shower. The apparent moistness belied its character. As I straddled my bike at the intersection, waiting for the light to change, I wondered: Was it a relic, spat out long ago and disguising itself as fresh by the dampness, or was a recent reject, bitterly and patiently waiting to avenge itself by becoming a nuisance on some innocent victim’s shoe? Either way, perhaps it too was a victim. Clearly it had been quickly and carelessly cast aside as boring and in-the-way at the first sign of its losing its flavor (no fault of its own, mind you, that was how it was made!) People can be so thoughtless. Doesn’t matter now, I reminded myself. Move on. The light turned green. I began to resume my bike ride. Just as I started down on the pedal, I heard screeching tires rushing up from behind me. Every muscle in my body instantly seized and a chilly spasm rippled up my back. As the wave of tightening muscles reached the base of my neck, I felt hot spike of pain shoot up my into my head. And I saw the sky fall, dragged down by the sun struggling to get into my view. I saw trees whoosh by and birds flee. I heard awful sound of bones crunching and flesh ripping, and yet I felt nothing. The scene kept rolling to the side and then through a clear, darkened window, a face frozen with fright came into view. As our eyes met, I tried to focus, to make a plead to tell me what’s happening. But the hood of the car decided to answer with a swift whack. That part I felt. And I must have reflected the terrible grimace of horror of the driver slipping out of my view when my head took a nasty bounce At this point my body was just along for the ride because I felt no control of it – just an ugly sense of odd twisting and snapping shapes resembling arms and legs, and gruesome shudders and ripping vibrations from inside ( I guessed). Now I mentally cringed as the pavement rushed up toward my face for its share of the melee. WHACK-CRACK! Another score on my skull. But at least there was no more movement. Stunned, and obviously in deep shock at so many levels, I peered out between half-opened lids. I followed small rivulets of crimson fleeing my body from some pile of pulp perversely posing as a pillow between my head and the road. It was my ear, past tense underscored here (hey, maybe it was still there... after all, wasn’t it my ear that was ringing?) The only thing free to move – my blood – decided to flee the scene and made straight to the gutter, gathering bits of amber plastic and bird bones from other hapless accidents. Evidently, I was not the only one to fall victim here. And then I saw it. That wad of gum. Now who was the mess in the crosswalk? A giggle erupted as gurgles as I stared at it. A good Samaritan lady ran up and when I saw my comrade, the pink mass eagerly grab onto the bottom of her shoe, I erupted into an explosion of choking and coughing up blood. My eyes closed as I fought off blackness. There’s so much I wanted to finish, I thought. As I tried to make a quick list, I faded. As abruptly as my view had changed from vertical to horizontal, the scene changed again – back to an early May morning twelve years ago... The sun begins to bathe the room, taking the bite off the coolness as I prepare to leave for my Chemistry final exam. I feel at ease, being well rested after a rare full night of sleep. I mindfully pack my knapsack, noticing an acuteness to my senses – I hear the fabric brush against the books, and distinguish each shadow and its angle cast by its folds. From the radio, the I listen to the words of a news report – not comprehending the sentences as much as savoring the pitch and roll of the speakers words and equally aware of the gaps and spaces between the words that separate them. The room slowly takes on a brighter, and warmer glow. Aware that it is sunrise, I give it no special consideration. My surroundings become brighter still and the warmth reaches through me and into my bones. “Strange...” I think, because now I am aware that this warmth does not come from the window but from inside of me. The brightness grows and it is getting so bright I lose sight of details of the room and now the warmth radiates outward. Oddly enough, I continue to pack and hum to a tune started on the radio, but it is not me. That is me packing, but I am somewhere else... something else. I am illumination and existence. I am in the center - which is at once no place and everywhere – there, also sits the Buddha and hangs the Christ; they are one. I am the Bodhi Tree and the Calvary Cross and eternally suspended in that the Moment of liberation and sacrifice, which are also One. Present while beyond, I feel tears stream from my distant eyes and taste their salt on my far away smile as way over there, I open the door. I never move but he continues to class, a golden wave of energy pulsing through an ocean of light, space, and time. He hums while I ring, he walks as I float, he lives and I perish - all at one instant and yet eternally. Together we arrive - he takes the final exam, I am the taking of the final exam. The flame that ignited and infused fades out slowly and my soul is slowly poured back once more into its vessel. For a moment, I was released and I just knew. For what felt like a few hours, I was free and abided in truth. However divinely awakened I felt then, I eventually awoke mundane. THUMP! My eyes were still closed and yet I could still see it all.... Someone riding me? Another embracing and kissing me? Oh, I thought, back on the street. Whoopie. And these chuckleheads were trying to give me CPR. That guy from inside the car – he’s on top of me kneading my chest like some perverse Home-Ec project, while the gum-shoe woman propped my head and tried to breath for me. She only paused to rest her head on my chest. She then ducked her head aside as the uninvited hero, melodramatically held his hands clasped on high as if in a desperate prayer, only to bring them down hard onto my chest. THUMP! Then a dull thump. This time inside. I felt a lazy, half interested throb in my chest. I cursed it. They wanted to start what they finish. I wanted to finish what I started. I wanted to return to that May. The light of that distant day was an ember down in my soul that I could still feel. Encrusted with the debris of my experience, it suffocated without the divine breath. I tried to inflame it every once in a while with quiet sitting, mindful chanting, and contemplative prayer. It never flared, but I could only take comfort in the suspicion that it still smolders. Recently, I doubted that it was even there at all. God and I weren’t on speaking terms for the longest time. I resented that one-night stand, as it were. God came into my soul and then left, as that quote best says, “leaving a God-shaped hole in heart.” I had spent the last dozen years trying to fill that chasm with prayer, meditation, lovers, shrinks, books, and bottles. Nothing worked. That sublime, ecstatic bliss, that ambrosia called Grace eluded me for so long. And now.... Now?!?! No, not now. Always. The memory reminded me of the eternalness of every second. I would not be leaving things unfinished, because they were forever starting, forever finishing. Everything I did was there next to everything I didn’t do, next to everything I was yet to do. My mind gates burst open and it all rushed in.... gushed in — filling all the voids, down to every crack and crevice that ached open. All this time I had always thought it was that God-shaped hole in my heart. But as I eternally died on the street and forever floated in my mother’s womb I saw... It was revealed... a God-shaped Whole. I was a tiny, delicate Rich-shaped bubble adrift on karmic tides in the Ocean that is God. V > Pop! < ^

This was after leaving the hospital when my (now 6 year old) sister was born, as I love kids I do ponder whether having one would be for the best we are 20 years apart so hopefully she will appreciate this one day... http://memoirsofamanicmind.weebly.com/remnants-of-emotions-lost.html

Karma's form of irony http://memoirsofamanicmind.weebly.com/book-of-karma-part-iv-irony.html

Here we go...a nice clean wall for you folks to mess up. Go nuts, people.

Here is a poem that i like. I looked at in during my English class: I wandered lonely as a Cloud: I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a cloud,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and drawing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the Milky Way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand I saw at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced but theyOut-did the sparkling waves in glee:A poet could not but be gay,In such a jocund company:I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thoughtwhat wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my ocuch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils. (William Wordsworth, 1804)

A guy in my bipolar poetry group on FB let met me name this picture in respects to his song "The Circle" by Sam Cat. It is dead in the middle between Simon & Garfunkel and Pink Floydd. The picture is for my "Tripping Hippie" Portfolio which were requested for posters the lyrics are on the bottom of the pics if you are into that music you will get this stuck in your head, I couldn't upload it here so if you want to here it I will gladly email it to you here is "The Sam Cat Circle" From initial sketch this was the final idea chronographically depicted Lyrics: There in the circle We sat mesmerizedInhaling the music Expanding our mindsSearching for answers Iin each other's eyesUnraveling life's mysteries Between every new line Slowly the circleGrew smaller in sizeAs each of it's members Fell victim to lifeSome have been wedded Some locked up insideA few drifted away And other's just O.D.'d and died As each new year passes Some memories subsideBut the days from the circle Stay fresh in my mindThe smoke on the waterWe were born to be wildShared a whole lotta love And some Funk 49Sunshine SupermanEight miles highWe tamed the white rabbit Yeah such was a day in the life Good vibrationsAmerican PieWe had aqua lungsHey hey, My myApples and orangesWe all played with fireSpending nights in white satinExpecting to flyPurple haze brought usThe Spirit in the skyAnd like rollin' stonesWe broke on through to the other side We rode on the peace trainYeah feelin AlrightAboard a majic busWe had a ticket to rideWe banged a gongWhile hitchin' a rideTurned a whiter shade of paleOne toke over the lineIn the house of the risin' sunWe saw the signsThe eve of destructionIn the year 2525 In Alice's restaurantThe captain did rideAnd Uncle John's band playedWhile we spilled the wineDown on the cornerIn the summertimeThe sounds of silenceCame like a landslideHere in this circleI sit mesmerizedBeen reelin' in the yearsAll day and all of the night

Sometimes secrets are kept for a reason no matter how minute they are, imposing the allure of mystique that leads to unforeseen events http://memoirsofamanicmind.weebly.com/secrets.html

This is one about the allure of tempations in a quantum physics analogy about black holes (I may have been watching some stephan hawing stuff smoking MY cigarrette) http://memoirsofamanicmind.weebly.com/what-the-horizon-holds.html

FYI Chloral Hydrate was used into the 60's as anasthesia and by the C.I.A. as well though they refferred to it as "knock out drops" because a few drops SHOULD put you out http://memoirsofamanicmind.weebly.com/chloral-ly-hydrate-d.html

Seeing to many evils of cocaine I had to walk away this is the tragedy to which is reality so few in that realm will ever realize http://memoirsofamanicmind.weebly.com/cocaine--your-demise-not-mine-walking-away-part-2-of2.html

As my generationally gapped friends say this was "back when cocaine wasn't addictive" or as our generation says "Nah I never liked cocaine but I LOVED the way it smells" well my dibbling and dabbling led to a heart stopping four times overdose and a realization on reality its extremely vivid to those that have used to warn you.

http://memoirsofamanicmind.weebly.com/recoil.html This one is an analogy for the for the physics of ballistics of a gunshot; meant to convey the fact that a fight takes both to engage in and that no matter how much one tries to detur it at a point it is death or self defense and that it will never end because now there is revenge involved this is how I see "The circle of Life"

the only politically way I know how to answer questions that desire a response as to an emotional state of mind on topics. as I really don't care half the time literally about anything, the other half tries to make up for feeling like that and making efforts to "believe in another fellow man" at least enough to incite some level on any emotion

An ode to a father figure who coincidently for other reasons was an Atheist as well. He made me though 8 years and his passing on, to get me to do what I was discouraged from doing and that is I am better than this and too good and smart not to do whatever I want. To his dying day he asked what I am doing in life? I would never answer just smile and reply, "How could you ask about me when your hooked up to half the ICU" Only guy I swear on all dear in my heart that he was too stubborn to lose his hair during Chemo-Therapy. Jim you can rest in peace now I am now longer doing any of those things, I stride daily to be that better me you always talked about (I am starting to like him to) http://memoirsofamanicmind.weebly.com/ldquofor-the-fallen-atheistrdquo.html