Tone
Saturday, March 25, 2023
poem
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
poem
Triage
This one has already died
This one won’t survive the night
This one needs a blanket
This one is just sad
This one is fine
This one will live
This one looks ok
But is torn to shreds inside
This one could use a breath mint
A change of clothes
This one needs a long hot shower
Someone to bring him an extra pillow
This one it’s probably too late
This one lost me when I tried to look into her eyes
This one tries to drown you in her eyes
This one needs an IV
This one just needs held
This one could use a calculus refresher
This one just needs the right book at the right time
This one needs a mirror
That one is the reflection
Get this one to the OR
That one to a nunnery
This one to the dispensary
That one to the train station
One way tickets to the other
Side of the world
This one was supposed to be me
This one is actually me
As for the rest
I just don’t know
Let someone else decide
poem
The 12th Draft
Sunday, March 19, 2023
poem
Lifelong Friend
We spend the bulk of our lives
Alone with the person
No one else really knows
The one who sits with you
As the March snow falls in feathery ash
On the other side of smudged bedroom windows
Over time the distinction between
Yourself and this person blurs into one
But it's only an act of self preservation
To ease the pain of always
Having to say goodbye
To your oldest, truest friend
Every moment is a secret little death
But he always comes back to life
Before there’s any time for lamentation
Such private farewells are best deferred
Until the final days when it’s obvious
We've both come to the very end
And even then it’s easy to run out of time
Bidding adieu to the glowing embers of a world
We both have loved
What does one say then?
Who breaks the silence?
Who gets hugged?
Sunday, March 12, 2023
poem
From Darkness
A photon experiences no time
Trillions of years traveling
The vastness of the universe
But instantaneous.
Light of my life
Tiny eternal flame
Time belongs to darkness
Surreptitious moon like a shy boy
Watching you shine from the other room
Timeless radiance
poem
The Funeral Disruptor
The funeral disruptor was at it again. Driving his car through the All Saints Cemetery Saturday morning with the windows down, blasting Gangster’s Paradise. The small groups of people in black gathered around rectangular holes were collectively aghast. He stopped his car at the biggest gathering. He put his sunglasses on and leapt into the grave. Laertes come hither! he shouts, brandishing a broken off broomstick. No one finds it amusing. Hearse rhymes with curse, he shouts. He zig zags evasive maneuvers around a couple of beefy pall bearers and makes his way to his bass thumping car. He does this every weekend. He claps his hands, he speaks out of turn. He slams the heavy old doors of cathedrals. Why do you do this, an exhausted priest once asked. The funeral disruptor just smiles. He leans in and whispers something in the priest’s ear. The priest’s face lights up in sudden recognition. From then on they become partners. They go in halfsies on a souped up hearse with tinted windows and high end stereo woofers. Half the time it’s Gangster’s Paradise blasting from the speakers, the other half Mozart’s Requiem. Sometimes the priest is Hamlet, sometimes Laertes. They take turns.
Sunday, March 5, 2023
poem
Scene III
poem
Op Note XXXVII
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
poem
Every mother deserves a song
Written for her by a son
It’s the least we can do
After all they’ve given up
And all they’ve been through
Better now than after she’s gone
Kathy was always my biggest fan
Shrieking go! jeff go! as she
Raced up and down the touchline
Of the soccer pitch when I was seven
That first game was my actual christening,
When I heard my given name for the first time
And realized I needed to become that….
Couple of clarifying points:
We called it a “field” back then and “sideline”
Not “pitch” or “touchline”
We were basic
We ate leftovers
Did Saturday morning chores
I wore polyester sweats under my green shorts
With white stripes down the sides
Orange slices at halftime
Once, mom brought Shasta
As the post game drink
Even though the coach
Was a regional sales rep for Coca-Cola
It was a lot cheaper
And we didn’t have shit.
No one would have noticed
If not for the Steven, the coach’s prick son
Nothing since has changed
She’s still rooting
For me to be my best
Just not so screechingly.
I haven’t exactly had the world’s
Biggest cheering section throughout my life
(to be perfectly honest)
And when she’s gone the bleachers
Will be even quieter;
An empty seat looming
Down in the front row
With the game still on
And me out on the field,
Improbably still playing
Because what else
Am I supposed to do?
I don’t see her as often as I should
And when I do we don’t talk much,
At least not too meaningfully
The best I can do is hold a seashell
To her eyes and try to describe what I hear
Most of what I say to her
Loses half its meaning on the way
Even this poem is only half written
I’ve spent half my life pretending
I didn't notice her expectant gaze—
Playing the part of the very busy good boy
With important things to do.
But I've spent the other half
Slipping out emergency exits
Of once desired places
I didn’t want to be in anymore,
Running down dark haunted alleys
Gathering enough discarded fragments
Of unexpressed love to put in her poem.
This is the half I’m still writing
poem
Sleepwalk
Lately I have been having
Extremely busy dreams
There is so much to do
I wake up completely exhausted
As if I hadn’t slept at all
Then the day starts and off I go
This place and then that
A series of endless tasks
I get nothing accomplished at all
Sleepwalk in and out
Of shadows hiding from the sun
Saving my energy for all the work
The daytime moon has left undone