For those who suffer from schizophrenia. Roughly 50 million worldwide.

                
Do Not Judge the Owner of Stained and Crooked Teeth


Do not judge the owner of stained and crooked teeth
He may be free from suffering and experience peace
May the mind that occupies my trill cold cranium
Concoct that same round quality he may know wide
From calm and heart, full as pods with seeds of maybe

Of monks or Victorian adventurers from church to trail
Of mahoganied Royal Geographic Society lure
Forget about regret, loneliness, the desperation of hurt
Forget Freud, discussing the heavy burden of Can’t Know
The underbelly of insects when shocked/afraid to die

Women, hopeful, bellies ripe and sunlit upon. Poems
Spilling into the stream of canyon where carved enigmas
Like Havana’s jazz, sequoiadendron giganteum stands
Words crooned confidently through chambered branches to
Optimistic gardens of sky where amniotic sacs loose floods

Philanthropists, fresh fruit and conscientious objectors
Fan firestorms of past where peace evolved.  Men:
Ascetics in their thirst, fed lame birds til they grew stuffed
Under thunderheads by the riverstones and reeds
Walloped by rain ‘til their down degenerated into internet

My teeth have fallen out, kicked away, I’m scared
All I’s.  All me’s.  Bald spots.  Why are they snickering?
Where is the poor man now?  Being born upstairs with rags
This is the part of the poem where I ask you the question
Yet you’ll never respond, reader.  Never respond

                  But this is where you pause, and move on

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