Poetry

Pain lives in both misery and joy, respectively
it is the volume and projection that differs among them.

Those shoes have traveled far
And borne their wearer well
To tend to newborn cries
And lift where others fell

She ties a string around my shoe
to remind me what day it is, 
I try to hold on, 
knowing right from left – memories.

I didn’t think she’d be here
for the birth of her first grandchild,
but you never know what a ghost will do

Mid afternoon, bright winter’s day
A string of headlights coming my way
The deliberate solemn caravan gives pause for reflection 

A hungry stomach
When I finish morning rounds
I’ll take one box please

At 3:00 a.m. a storm whips the trees.
I roll over, breast aching.

when you got with me I had no idea 
it could be a life-sentence you’re an 
armed robber holding me under false
imprisonment in my own body

His age and comorbidities were now rehearsed and repeated without effort daily,
His short years of existence now condensed to a list of clinical diagnoses

So now she cuts out paper stars,
stenciled onto construction paper.

Light refracted to reveal our thoughts and fears
Perhaps too much so.
We are naked to one another’s stares
As if we can no longer conceal the vulnerabilities within.

Always up for schwitz
In sauna, hot tub or springs
To rid self of bad
Humors/tumors, dread virus
–I would rather not be dead.

Whatever else may happen
to a man on his back for six months,
at least he must become expert on himself.

Cancer had chewed away half her mouth and face,
carving the soft palette, chiseling the jawbone,
cutting her cheek out, slicing the tongue lengthwise.

They turned off the lights
in the hallway and area where I was seated.
The maintenance man was working
on some problem he
was having with the lights,
so there I was,
in the dark,
once again,
like I had been my whole life.

The barricade was built on my car 
dashboard during my daily drive, 
petit Gavroche shot
in the forty-fourth CD.

Meet me after midnight
at the place all lovers go
at the edge of names and words 
and of everything we know

I am the rose in the desert,
withered for lack of rain.

Not even a fourth of possible- that’s all
your arm and you will get without it-
Forty degrees of forward.

She told me that she sat with him
At the dining table.
They had bought some pills,
Had made a pact long ago.

My mind is noise today.

The summer was hot enough
that earthworms in my neighborhood
unfortunate enough to crawl
out of the grass onto the sidewalk
fried into curled bits of brown string.

When the night is young, the moon will never fall
or sunrise into day
and for a moment, my thoughts are whole
yet rarely do they stay

I want to know one of your secrets
what you dream about at night
who it is you would die for
what you still want from this life

Please hold my hands, she said.
Is this it? Is this where I am going to die?
I am so exhausted.

My roots sink deeper than I know.

I think about you often,
My former teacher.
You died while I was
In graduate school.

I thought of thresholds—
intimations of mortality
in the undiscovered country
of lost dreams.

On my midnight pallet lying,
full of dread and stars in my belly,
I count out all the bones
I had broken in my time:

The angled morning sun
reveals the grimy streaks
on the windows
as I wait for breakfast.

There you are beyond my reach,
Separated by space and barred
From my physical greeting.

Since midnight,
no place to sleep
just a coffee machine
with no sugar or cream.

How much of me is you,
And you, me?
When I remember the first of us,
It’s just a blur of becoming.

You should know this house is
my mother’s; be mad at her; maybe
visit her at Parkview Clinic

Unlike ripples fading away,
old dreams can’t be kept at bay.

More than living. You know, our life. The path is not straight.

Dishes are done and there is quiet.
Trading my phone for stillness, I
Pour half a glass of red in an old jam jar.

There are poems I intend to write
That land on the purgatorial backburner
Never to be revisited
Because the poem was conceived
In a distinct and fleeting moment.

Do you notice me?
Do you see my soul?
Or does attire blind you?

In ancient times the knights rode out
to cheers and loud applause,
To fight our foes, those armed heroes, took up our common cause,

Do you ever feel like a shirt,
With wooden clips pinning your shoulders to the line,
Left blowing in the wind to dry,

There are days I am disillusioned,
When I am bereft of my purpose,
Alone in my office,

On a lazy Sunday,
I sit in the sun,
reading a book by the swing.
Some shadows watch over
the unturned page,

Princess bedside and stand-up telephones. Landlines. Ma Bell. Telephone booths. Victrolas. 78 and 45 rpm records. Ash trays. Analog photography.Alarm clocks. Walkman. Transistor radios.Beta and VHS. Tape cassettes.Vacuum tubes. IBM desktop typewriters. Blockbuster stores. Telegrams.News reels at the movies. Air mail and Special Delivery.Three cent stamps. Fountain pens. Oldsmobile. Pontiac. Nash Rambler. Plymouth.Spark plugs. Packard. Edsel. Rumble seats. Leaded gasoline. Rhodesia. […]

high tech and high touch
treatment scans and MRI’s
where is the high touch

I felt the ache in my head,
The cranial vessels’ pulsing beat,
My restless, trembling legs in bed,
The tingling in the soles of my feet.

“Can you please let me go?”
She pleaded with tears in her eyes

I walk past the morgue in the hospital
Underbelly on my way to the key shop,
Resigned to replacing the keys I lost
Two weeks ago.

It’s times like these, with the certainty of our assumptions, no longer certain,that bring a richer appreciation for the touchstones and the lifelines, for the heartfelt friends and the fond rituals that carry us through each day,for the ones who remind us our roots hold braided branches strong enough to bear roses, and of all the reasons, like […]

It is a long story. This is a short version: I was about to die.

I dreamt I had a garden
in the backyard of a home
that doesn’t actually exist.

When I am old, I want to look back
And feel like my life really mattered.

Epic, open, please!
Numerous charts to complete.
Will you ever load?

Beautiful life so often forsaken
Let sounds of the night gently awaken
The burning desire to live

A mother in the NICU
waiting room thinks aloud,
If God were listening

I do not understand love, as mightily as I strive

Year after year flowing through halls
A healing river of humanity