It’s Done

What’s done is done;

the words are written.

You chose them,

so now own them.

I’ve heard that before

and it resonates to my core

but let me whatabout it some more.

We one to another are linked,

our stories inked

before the plot lines settle

and we work up the mettle

to face what’s been peddled

to us as What Is, and What Will Be.

We love before knowing the cost;

we commit when we think we can cross

the high waters of indifference and loss.

No one chooses the sadder ending at the start,

yet no one predicts a fix for the broken parts.

In the meantime

At the same time, but elsewhere.

Either our lives anchor this line,

or we run parallel

with no cross purposes

but no overlap.

How do we close the gap?

We bide our time

but cannot abide the interval

that both lags and draws taut.

We move forward in the strangest tandem,

unclear if the terrain between

can be traversed

before something transpires

in the meantime.

Home

Like the ocean’s roar lives inside the conch,

my home is inseparable from me.

Though I remove myself to a farther shore,

it does not claim me

re-name me

try as it might to tame the me

that knows the green of these hills

is a foreign hue,

the swell of the sky is a different blue.

The night may serve up the same stars and moon,

but I don’t see them when you do.

The me looking out through these eyes

at these skies

can’t be fooled–

there’s only one home

in these bones,

and it’s you.

Closure

Closure

sounds like a word

shut up in a box

sealed nice and sound

and set out of sight

on a shelf in a space

that doesn’t get light.

That’s how it sounds,

but try as I might

my heart can’t contain it;

my head can’t remain in it.

The end of a thing

is not the end of suffering

or buffering:

there’s more fight left in it,

a lack of courage we can’t admit.

Lacking courage to admit fear

to permit love to cover it.

Or maybe

I took your words and ran,

saw that look and decided then

to fossilize a bitterness.

Make it a slight of my own design:

Throw it on a wheel and shape it,

give it story-form.

Fire it in a kiln to bake it,

hardened to the core.

Set upon the mantel,

A victim’s fragile vessel.

Or maybe, there’s this:

Not every sling and arrow is meant to be

directed at me intentionally.

Maybe you had a bad day,

and I was only in your way.

Leave-taking

In the morning,

I stand in the door frame and lean out,

bared to the elements and the traffic,

and watch as my son leaves for school.

He waves to me twice,

once at the outset, once at the corner turn.

Each time, it squeezes my throat tight with joy.

This gesture unbidden from a boy

of sixteen.

He can’t know how much it means.

He has no time for sentiment,

so I write these lines—

lines I know he won’t see:

On the day that you go, and keep going,

stop twice, and wave back to me.

Redoubtable

Love got through.

That’s the whole story.

But it’s not over yet—

It hangs on love

that breathes for two or not at all.

That bears pain and stays afloat:

beat-up hope

somehow cope

broken minds

brokered bonds

breaking hearts.

All the unlovely parts.

Love softens, then solidifies.

Reconstitutes, redoubtable.

No thing, no way

You mean I have to write a poem now?

I don’t want to do a thing

any thing

I have no thing to give.

I’ve been spent on hitting marks

marking minutes made of seconds,

made of sweat and bones.

Pressing fury into beats,

beating tears.

Gleaning meaning from code

filtered through clans and cliques

and clicks

and clothes worn to signify some thing.

But there’s not a thing left that I could

squeeze or ring

from me, from today.

And now a poem, you say?

No way.

Cold / Comfort

They played the pipe, and I did not dance;

they sang a dirge, and I did not mourn.

They put on a show, but I did not cheer.

Encore is not welcome here.

It’s rough out there,

I’m aware.

Dirges sounding everywhere.

They can try and conjure feeling,

but I will choose my suffering.

Take the mantle of despair,

its cold comfort when I dare.

Or, like the flowered tree,

surrender beauty to the air.

Something Shifted

What would you say

of a house on a concrete base

that doesn’t crumble

when the ground underneath it rumbles

but gives

loosens its grip

and surrenders to the trip.

Inside,

the pendant lights fly;

the floors rock in a sick lullaby.

Steel softens and slides

contracting to expand

in a clutch of swift seconds.

Does it make you afraid

when I say

the hard and fast will gently sway

if pushed a certain way?

I’m talking about an earthquake.

But what would you say?