REM

Lateness has caught up again, as it does
Quiet allows for too much thought
Even so-
the wind will blow, the blinds will twitch

When was the last time he saw her?
How does the chorus go
to that song
that sticks in her head…?
Where did I say I would be
by this time of year?
Evading the solitude of a crowded sleep
and keeping rhythm with the blinded windows

The clock in the foyer chimes
It's almost time to wake up again
Or wake up, at least.
We’re all still trying catch ourselves





(January 21st)

1000

Two figures are posed, smiling
They suspect one another
But a flashbulb goes
And they are captured forever
As “friends”

Two figures embrace, nervous
They need each other
Then a flashbulb goes
And they are captured together
As “lovers”

Two figures ……..Click.

(one more memory to take reality’s place)

Stare into the lens and lie.






(January 13th)

Fathoms

They were just learning to tread water
A pair of brothers, looking toward a father
Who let himself get lost in the tides, giving in…


So two little boys are left wading
In a sea of grief they can't know to feel
And yet no one can tell them
“How”

They will have to learn how to swim on their own
Develop a new way of breathing
Pull each other to shore
And all they want to hear is
“I love you”

So two little boys are left standing
In shoes they know not how to fill
And all that anyone can say is
“I’m sorry”

But sympathies do not fill shoes
Nor holes in hearts
They cannot salvage the lost
Or answer the questions they will have as Men
that He was supposed to answer


A pair of sons, left to keep treading, looking, remembering—wondering.





12-25-08 3:01 am

Merry Christmas, my darling one

Winter Snow… drifts and sways
Turning me into the child I so longed to be.

Winter Snow…sculpts and forms
Shaping imprints of your love for me.

Winter Snow…quiets and eases
Holding each other in awed hush
As ice dances silently

Winter Snow…reflects and refracts
Lighting what we can’t always see.


Two become the Forest and the Trees
If only for a moment…

Let it fall on us, let it fall, and thus,
It will always be-
Our Winter Snow.





12-18-08 at 5:23 am

Cursed, are the Children?

Selfish and indulgent are the young,
Complaining of life’s slings and arrows
That were disguised as love and boundaries

Hardened by the labors they saw
And resented.

Wearied by the privilege of innocence
Angered by the future of culpability
Drowning in the wealth of untapped resource

Youth isn’t wasted on the young
It’s carried.
A cross to bear.


“Oh, to be old and powerless,” sigh the children
For heavy is the head that begins life anew.







10-6-08 at 12:34pm

Haunting the Dancehall

In a symphony of things you cannot change
but will not forgive
Rage builds slowly, toward a crescendo in Hate.

(The Chorus Begins)


Anger croons about the smallest of injustices
waltzing with the skeletons in your closet
They sway, taunting, down a macabre lane of memories
fleshing out your demons, giving substance to their grip-
so begins their deceitful dance

Watch, as the dead whirl around the floor…

1 and,
2 and,
3 and,
4.

Mistrust is rhythmic, lulling you into a fury
and as you accept a spectral invitation to the ball,
you forget that the dead can dance Forever…


1 and,
2 and,
3 and,
4.

Listen, as the band keeps playing the same
old
familiar
song.





5:47pm 8-28-08

Novices

In from here to eternity, I wonder:

Can we let go and hold on simultaneously?
Can we grow up and not apart?
Is always indicative of forever?

Fidelity and finality
Restlessness and respite
Oaths and omissions
Scared and sacred
It’s more complicated than you thought.

Fractured pieces of stranger puzzles, you and I
Due to deepen and splinter on unseen edges
That will come
To pass
It’s more fragile than I thought.

And yet:

Nothing can tear asunder what we are joined together
From here to eternity.









7-22-08 4:19 am