Two weeks in the ground,
and the family’s dried up
so he carries them home-
his bride’s dead shrubs.
“Oh, he loves me still,
still, he loves.”
She places the black blooms
in the front room, unforgotten
she admires the dry petals
crisp like starched cotton
He eats quiet, sleeps fast,
and leaves with no kiss,
to tend stones and bones
and she tends his.
“Oh, he loves me still,
still, he loves.”
Roses need not open red
with petals silk to skin.
Beauty is, in life, in death,
where it is seen akin.
Throwing decisions over my shoulder
Grains of salt to the fates
Waiting and watching and working
I can’t concentrate
On the weight of these days.
Brooding inside me, in my neurosis,
All the pieces fit,
Falling into my obsessions,
The passions I won’t submit
And who will acquit me in my guilt?
One day more, one more week,
And I know how to fight
Addiction with distraction
Ignore what incites
But I’m not contrite enough
to marathon.
Darken the lights and dim the senses,
These days are long, and senseless,
Feel the same old something different,
Something deliberate or irreverent
To break the ice and crack the dam
Or wash away what I am.
The weight of beauty
drooping low, dropping childhood
into eager palms
falling petals
Raindrops of time
small explosions, quiet accumulation
incapable of maintenance
or preservation
Born again,
functional, complete,
afloat on the surface
of recollection,
the seeds of beauty reborn.
Perhaps I would, I will,
Not for my pride,
But to spite you, still
Caught inside.
Impossible to shake free,
Tangled in the breath and touch
And yearning of memory-
Every break a crutch.
Maybe one day
I’ll do whatever must be done,
To hear you say
I am your one
and only regret.
He broke in my soul,
Played the loot,
The petty thief stole
And I took no pursuit.
I’d learned defense,
The jab and trance,
But not the pretense
Of the offensive stance.
I dropped my guard
Scuffled my feet
Over the shards
Of my parried retreat
And he knew me, or else
He got lucky, I guess,
To read my tells
To let me confess
Secrets and sabotages.
It was all we knew or wanted to know,
Bouncing on beds,
Singing along, to hardly known songs,
Whatever lyrics jump in our heads.
We loved with our all our guts
Not the skin on top
Our laughter shared was love declared,
And our promise not to stop.
When simplicity of soul and
Innocent intentions
Spawns love, it’s made of
Stuff beyond adult conventions-
Breathless and helpless,
Ageless and selfless.
All night home
and the sorrow sat in my chest.
It didn’t force my feet to run;
I found in sadness some rest,
And you were there.
You were sad,
and you never should be.
There was some distance
Woven into our sudden proximity,
But it didn’t make us.
All these miles
are wasted hours of waiting,
to be other than I am,
to overcome the berating
that gave me flight.
The storm in me
keeps me off the coast,
and it isn’t the winds of memory
that keep me engrossed,
or pull me back
But the shoreline view-
All the smiles, the embraces,
the new wrinkles forming
around familiar old faces
I am missing every day.
Silent and snow-dusted,
Slumbering on their feet like sheep
White in the moon,
Huddled together to sleep.
Too innocent to fear the harvest,
Too old to anticipate delight,
They stand shoulder to shoulder-
Invincible tonight.
And their entire world is ever green,
But for the falling snow.
I concede to the chill to see
The wonder and mystery bestowed
No child outgrows.
I set my jaw, my resolve,
No more poetry
Nonsense.
I sent a clot downstream,
To dam the torrent of words
Raging.
But the headaches come one by one,
Linguistic lobes fed by throbbing vessels
All the words composed,
All waiting…
All left undone.
These are the days of ease,
The days of the Sugar Maple
And the Butternut trees,
The Walnut and the Hickory.
My young saplings grow as these,
Little roots, little branches, little bark,
Until they’ve grown, and put off leaves,
And leave me breathless in the breeze.
Should I never get to see,
Another limb stretch to the sky,
These days are hidden treasuries,
Of maples and of memories.
viewingcamelot 