The Other Man
What comparison can be made
to a man with lines written on his face,
his feet forever displayed?
If only my birth could have been delayed
So as to hide me from his shadowed grace.
What comparison can be made?
He walked as if his name will never fade
From book, or clime, or empty space
His feet forever displayed.
Next to his, my work is a chthonic shade
Locked in a forgotten place
What comparison can be made?
His name written on the day
The ink of his pen with blood replaced
His feet forever displayed.
His undoing, an enemy’s grenade,
a poem written with force and haste.
What comparison could be made?
His feat is forever displayed.
Stories, Legends, Myths, or History
What was inside is out again
like a story gone too long unsaid
It might be hard to put back in.
Mother arrived to tuck me in,
her kiss removed monsters under the bed,
what was inside is out again.
The mechanic arrived like a seraphim
The engine, having been shed,
It might be hard to put back in.
The doctor informed them without a grin
the patient having long been dead
What was inside is out again.
He died alone, but without a sin
His body emerged from death unled
It might be hard to put back in.
The sword grieves, but not the pen
Many wonder if the word has bled
What was inside is out again
It might be hard to put back in.
The Party Line
I hate parties where you have to wait in line,
She invited me to one,
as a gesture of interest,
because she likes me,
because it might be fun.
An assortment of French cheeses
Skewered with tooth pick American flags
as if some tiny astronaut
Left a mark with his tags,
fill a plate.
Well dressed caricatures
with Brobdingnagian hands
Trade stories like stock options
about head shrinking bands
of self-help, tofu and bran
guru types fresh from Japan
Or some more exotic place
Like Mattapan.
I contemplated French kissing
An electric outlet,
that three pronged savior,
When the topic of politics,
under the guise of animal behavior,
hidden within the debate
about evolution in the school system
arose at our table.
I would’ve if I were able,
But we were in the center of the room
drowning in well-meaning
mostly harmless,
Humanistic,
But otherwise useless crapulence
That some spelunker,
Dubbed as authority by the Post,
A shining armored debunker,
pulled from the anis of history
and supported with polls
taken of 100 people
Like the Family Feud.
Survey says I’d rather be home
with a movie I’ve already viewed
just so she will fall asleep
On my chest, because she’s bored.
I want to be alone, I want to be alone
with her.
Reflection
Outside my window
The moon I often write about
Is amidst an Eclipse.
Imagine: Men have walked on her.
To Give a Name (An Ode to my Unborn Son)
It’s 3 a.m. and I hear my unborn child cry
on the shrink wrapped baby monitor
looming over a cup and a tea bag sucked dry.
A half opened book lays on its spine,
A book on SIDS too frightening for such an hour
A nightmare too real for my mind.
The book in my hands; a book on baby names
Is opened to “D”, who knows what for,
Because one decision still remains;
Will he be strong, or smart, or kind
With mathematics or philosophy
Written as poetic line,
Running through his heart, or in his veins
in his eyes or in his mind
and will his name be a highlight, or a stain?
Will it be apt or prophetic
will it define him before he’s born,
Both meaningful and aesthetic?
When he says it will their pride,
Or shame in his eye
when he asks a girl to be his bride,
To take his name, to take our name?
Will he be chastised
For its lack of fame?
On my death bed will he say:
“Its all your fault,
My life turned out this way”?
More importantly will he be right?
Is his fate in my weak hands,
Cradling his name tight,
At such late hours of the night.
Moonglade
Mirror in the sky,
forever barren,
passing us by
Foot prints like
sandscrit on your side.
Your face shows the sun,
forever outshown,
light from a gun
your image on a lake
doesn’t take our attention.
Reflection on the fly
we see our face
a million miles wide
you look the same
as the flame in a woman’s eye.
Haiku XXXII
Known this road too long
Being lost implies a home
Lucky we have signs.
Haiku XXXI
We fall to ascend
Gettin’ high and Gettin’ low
like waves, simple waves.
He Never Spoke…
His voice, captured in ink
Knows not time on the letter
Too old to fold.
His thoughts could do no better
than to leave his mouth and sink
through the paper he gave his life to.
I had just told you, I had just said
my father was a silent man
His word sold for gold
A tongue tied Calaban
Emotions trapped in his head
like a cave. I had just told you.
What else could I have thought?
His hands were bigger than my world
too bold to hold
a sinewed story to unfurl
about a lesson too important to be taught.
I never knew what to do.
Now a letter, one of maybe thousands
written for the woman’s ear,
a soul to make whole,
Praises she could never hear
Deafness, decreed by the Lord’s command,
struck her when she was two.
That same beloved woman died giving birth
to a boy, too young to be without a mother,
They stole my soul,
No tears from father. He knew I would be worth
the sacrifice of the other.
She was the reason I was never spoken to.
Now a letter tells me this, after he had died
an old man, joining his beloved wife,
too old to behold
He’d been waiting his entire life
“Amen” was all that I replied.
The first word I said that was true.
While Driving Home I Whitnessed a Crash.
Snow is pure but it is cold
and it falls.
Its not like us, its new and its old,
Its not like us at all.
It doesn’t mind being in a whole
it gives it power
to stop being a flake and assume control
with an avalanche.
No single one can take credit for the squall
so they are innocent.
Snow isn’t like us at all
it isn’t cognoscente
it doesn’t know the difference
between chosen and natural.
When it falls it doesn’t feel the wind
it doesn’t think freedom is vital
nor being questionable,
nor time passable,
nor nature unknowable,
It doesn’t wonder about the immortality of the soul
it doesn’t despair over its fall
it is pure white but very cold
No, snow isn’t like us at all.
