That Day

When the trees are etched hard

Against the pulled-tight cold-blue sheet of sky

On a hot midsummer morning;

When to exhale means to feel the painful loss of blossoms'

Killer-soft invitation;

Remember that on a day identical and still too recent

My heart was smeared across the ground like

Silent-screaming tar

By your choice to turn, to spin, to cyclone away from me.

On that day of excruciating clarity,

I was stripped of the ability to ever again enjoy

A day like that day.

Winter is now my home.

A Little Sanity

Little things - faces in letters,

Attitudes in numbers,

Miniscule crevices on the edge of a coin.

I look at these things, these little things,

To distract myself from the larger things,

The ferocities and atrocities of life.

As my mind slowly spins

Out of control and into the very, very tiny,

Very odd world of insignificant flaws

That nature, I really believe,

Put there to catch the side-view mirrors of our eyes

So we can survive a head-on life-collision,

I realize that if this is insanity,

If I am truly out of sync, out of touch,

Out of my mind,

Then I have found my own normalcy.

My own quiet beach in a dawn that parodies sunset.

My own little world.

How nice.

Find Me

 

Find me.

Please.

I’ve lost myself somewhere, nowhere,

Surrounded by shadows

And they point at me.

Accusingly.

They know where we are, so why don’t I?

 

Find me.

Please.

Search me out, seek my soul, my breath,

Before both are stolen

By these shades,

Blades.

They cut my essence, so how do I fight?

 

Find me.

Please.

I’m forgetting myself here, in this place

Surrounded by a vacuum

That pulls me inside out.

Shout.

Let me hear you so I can reach in your direction and away from this void.

 

Find me,

And tell me who I am.

Night Shift

 

Outside, a siren cries trouble.

Inside, all is quiet,

Save for the gentle breathing of my sleeping child,

Her soft mouth half-open in a pout

From her cheek pressing into the pillow.

 

I kiss her hair, breathing in her child-smell,

And smile my love.

I whisper to her how I feel,

And, still asleep,

She murmurs, "I love you, too."

 

Outside, the siren has faded,

Been replaced by a distant train roar, the sound

A bass counterpoint to the haunting one-note melody of its whistle.

Inside, inside me, all is quiet,

Save for her breathing and my own long sigh of contentment,

And now I, too,

Can finally sleep.

FOR THOSE WHO ARE APART

 

Poems for Those Who Have Been Separated by Emotion or Circumstance

 

 

ON A WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

 

As one day becomes another,

All become the same

Except this one.

 

As one memory fades into another,

They share the same old name

Except this one.

 

As one moment tells me I am alone,

The next confirms it, too,

Except this one.

 

As one thought is unforgiving,

So the next says, “Don’t be true”

Except this one.

 

This one thought,

This one moment,

This one memory,

This one day –

Our day –

Speaks of something special, something real,

Something that will never go away.

 

This day is ours.

This memory is sweet.

This moment is filled with you by my side,

And the thought that comes from all of that

Says, “Forgive – stay true”

For no better reason, time, memory, or fact

Than one: I love you.

 

 

REFLECTION A YEAR OUT

 

I remember the day when our love became a solid, unchangeable reality

That gave immediate birth to eternal commitment.

Do you?

 

I’ve counted each day since with the meter of gratitude

On an unstoppable clock, its sound of silent remembrance chiming out that day

When it passes.

Do you hear it, too?

 

I’m here, you’re there, and between us in the gap

Stand love and tenderness, reminding us to remember.

I do.

 

And I’ll never forget it, never stop loving you.

Will you?

 

 

PRISONER’S BIRTHDAY

 

I considered baking myself into a cake and having myself delivered to your cell,

But assuming I survived something like that, you might have to share me.

 

So I thought instead about folding myself into a really big card and having it mailed,

But even if I could pull that off, I might get damaged by the Warden’s letter-opener.

 

That left me with just one option –

A visit, this card, and us alone for a little while.

That made me smile.

 

 

TO A PRODIGAL SON

 

We all make mistakes –

You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last.

I’ve made plenty, and so has your mother.

No one’s exempt from that human ability

To screw things up royally.

 

But we are also capable of doing things right –

There are many things you’ve done

That were not a mistake:

Good things, right things, and you know what they are.

I, too, have done some things right.

 

The best thing, though,

The most right thing - and which I’ll

Never, ever consider a mistake -

Was having you.

 

 

FROM A PRODIGAL FATHER

 

I figure I should have communicated better with you over the years;

That if we’d somehow been more connected,

It would have made all the difference between where you are

And where you could be.

Maybe. I really don’t know.

Anyway, I’m communicating now, and mostly because

I think you need to know how much I miss you,

How much I love you,

How many times my stupid silence was an assumption

That you knew these things.

So if stubbornness, emotional stupidity and self-absorption were crimes,

I’d have been locked up instead of simply walking away from you and your mom.

Maybe they should be crimes. I really don’t know.

But what I do know, son, is

How much my heart aches because you’re there and I’m not allowed to see you;

How much emptiness surrounds me and hollows out my soul because you’re not here.

You’re my child¸my pride, my hope, my heart, things I knew but denied way back then.

Saying, “I love you” every day for the rest of my life

May not compensate for all the days that went past with those words unspoken,

But I think…I hope it’s a start.

Maybe.

So. I love you.

 

 

REASSURANCE

 

Please don’t fear, my darling, that I’ll give my heart away

Before you make it safely back to me.

That will never happen, and the reason why is this –

I just no longer have it here, you see.

 

I gave my heart away to you a long, long time ago,

And figured you would keep it safe and true.

So I’ll never give my heart away, because it isn’t here –

It’s where it should be: right there, love, with you.

 

 

 

GONE TO WAR

 

Looks like the same old block,

Same old cars, people, trash cans;

The sun, moon, and stars are the same,

And so are the clouds and the smog,

But somehow it’s all different

Because you’re not here.

I miss you with open desperation, my friend.

Please do whatever it takes

To keep yourself safe as you do dangerous things

For the sake of the rest of us,

So you can come back –

Until you do, nothing will be right.

 

 

WHEN YOU COME BACK TO ME (A Lonely Man’s Woes)

 

My underwear is pink.

Damn.

I have to go buy a new set of pots to replace the burned ones.

Damn, damn.

My favorite shirt has an iron-shaped scorch-mark on the back.

Damn, damn, damn.

It took me an hour to get the curtain out of the vacuum and fix the stupid rod

(After cleaning up broken glass…)

Damn, damn, damn, and damn!

 

Although I don’t know how you managed all the washing, cooking, ironing and cleaning

Every day,

What I absolutely cannot handle,

What I find infinitely worse than embarrassing undergarments,

Burned cookware,

Scorched clothing,

Or even a mechanical interior decorator that really sucks,

Is waking up every morning in a cold bed

And going through my days without you

Because I failed to appreciate your heart.

 

I miss you, and even though I can dream about you,

It’s far from the same as having you by my side.

Forgive me, my love, and be assured

That no matter what I might look like by the time you decide to give me another chance,

Under the badly-laundered outfit and weird–looking hair (please don’t ask),

Is the man who loves you more and more every day.

LOVE'S SEASONS

FLASHBACK

 I must not reflect too hard,

Yet to reflect not at all is beyond

What I can control.

I cannot avoid the backward glances,

The trances

That take me far away in memory

For moments at a time.

I am here still.

You need call my name only three or four times

To get my half-attention.

But please do call me.

These excursions leave me too weary

And cost too much.

 

 STEALTH-GUIDE

 Tell me if you will,

If you can,

What hand it was that guided me that day,

That enticed me into the place

Where he was.

“An evening together?” he asked.

“I do not know you,” I replied.

“Yet. What do you say?” He smiled.

So tell me then, if you will,

If you can,

At whose bidding I responded to his enquiry with,

“Yes.”

 

AGAIN?

 A prince must be handsome,

A dream-prince more so.

My dream-prince, well, beyond description.

But he – he is almost…

Ugly.

“May I see you again?”

Oh, too soft a heart, that again says,

“Yes.”

 

THE PERFECT NUMBER SEVEN

 There is a purpose for everything,

A time, a season,

A reason.

So eight full seasons pass;

Eight centuries making history in my mind,

In my heart,

Because on the journey over the emotion’s peaks and valleys,

I have once again discovered love.

Eight million new awakenings to love

In all its forms.

Eight.

Is it coincidence that perfection was missed

By just one?

 

LOSS

I love to laugh in a wild array of adverbs –

Loudly, deeply, sensuously, childishly.

Only he could evoke this variety,

He who I once thought ugly,

He whose beauty I no longer dare think upon.

I still laugh, you know.

Like an empty house laughs.

Tell me a joke, make me smile

For a while.

My smile, my laugh,

Can be like cool, peaceful sunshine.

But kindly forgive the flame-hot downpour

Scalding the inner walls.

  

STEPS TOWARD THE DARKNESS 

“Do not be silent, my love!”

But silence persists

Until the stubborn self-deprecation is broken

By reason.

And love.

Not ever meaning to do so

I make him feel unworthy.

But love is stronger,

Longer…

So thought I.

 

THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF

He likes his coffee light with no sugar:

I provide that sweetness instead

By being there, he said.

When he was here with me.

When.

Such a melancholy word, “when.”

 

His idiosyncrasies match mine in number,

And I know them all – almost.

If I could forget, if I should forget,

I would.

  

LEMMINGS

Have you noticed how unwelcome memories

Are most painful

When remembered alone,

When they are not mutual;

When there is no one there

With whom to share?

Yet while I am alone in thought,

I am not alone in sorrow.

This peculiar brand of agony

Has a multitude of slaves

Like me.

And like him.

  

LIFE AT THE BASE OF THE CLIFF 

My grief has two parts:

Half is mine,

Half is his,

Combined in one heavy heart.

I am told that everything has a double.

So he, too, must carry this double-sided hurt,

Compounding mine, which increases his,

And so on.

 

Like two mirrors facing one another,

Reflecting endless depths,

Infinite hallways that are too lonely

For my mind to venture too far along

For too long.

I need someone’s hand to hold.

His hand…

But no! No! I must rip the thought of his touch

Out of my bruised mind

By the roots!

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Ah, yes. I can breathe again now.

Oh, weeding is such a horrid business!

 

MISERABLE COMFORT

Would you be kind to me?

Then speak not.

You may, all unknowing, use a phrase,

An expression or tone of voice

That conjures up a remembrance

Of my love.

 

Would you be helpful?

Then do not invite me anywhere.

You may, all unwitting, take me to a place

Where he and I once sat

And laughed

And planned

And kissed.

 

Would you show consideration?

Then allow me to read nothing –

My tear-drowned eyes may see

A word,

A quote,

An account of someone engaged in something

That we, my love and I,

Once did together, too.

 

Would you protect me from further hurt?

Then let me not think.

I might think

Of him.

  

REALITY

And so he is gone.

I feel the way a tree must feel

When all her leaves have died

And fallen at her feet.

The last time he left, I knew why.

We said goodbye and kissed quickly

But tenderly.

 

This time, he left too soon after

Too brief a return.

He left this time without saying why,

Without a kiss.

Without a word.

Without me.

 

My dreams of necessity must somehow be

Locked away,

My feelings held in abeyance.

And when I do some simple thing

Like painting my nails,

Washing my hair,

It is only for the me-half

Of the whole me.

 

He is the other half.

Perhaps he thinks he is doing me a favor.

I want no favors of that kind.

I want him.

 

ACCEPTANCE 

When a word is used too often,

It loses meaning and sounds odd.

“Closure” is such a word,

And I want none of it.

Meaningless and odd is what my life

Had itself become,

With the repetitious on-off-on-off

Of a relationship that kept bruising itself.

 

So now, instead, I have acceptance.

I accept what has happened as part of

The great Why.

 

That I have a purpose, I doubt not.

What that purpose is, I know not.

But none of it, I believe, involves him.

He has a purpose of his own

That doesn’t involve me.

So be it.

I can accept this and move forward.

 

The big strings have been cut by sorrow,

By mistakes that cannot be unmade.

All that remains is a thread or two

To remind me that even the greatest sadness

Has to have once lived in light as something joyful

For there to be contrast enough with the dark thing

It has become.

Why? Simple –

No contrast, no meaning.

And what is now my sadness in the form of a memory

Most certainly had, has, and always will have

Meaning.

 

I am at last and again

Moving with the flow of life’s crazy traffic.

And for the moment, I need no one

In the passenger seat.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 05.06.2012

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