I Am

I am white

White as the driven snow

White as the Whale

White as your brother’s face

that time he drank the H₂O₂

We laughed

I am American

American as apple pie

American as Eliot

American as your brother blown

bit to bit screaming for his god

We cried

I am a student

Studious as privilege

Studious as Caulfield

Studious as those college boys

being peaceful patriots

We thought

I am human

Human as reason

Human as the Christ

Human as Prometheus bound

bowels bread for birds

We died. 

Apathy

Turgid brine, crashing itself against the shore,

A million drops sprayed to the skies, like

Angry words sputtered from feverish lips. Gulls

Scream, the rumble of distant thunder

Sending shivers through every living thing.

Even lonely rocks cower from the black, shaken by the break

Of crooked seas heaving endlessly,

Black breaker, white crest, at war with earth and sky.

A man, among the rocks

Standing, feels their trembling, tastes blood and salt.

Life, they say, is full and passionate, and free,

But here the taste of blood on bitten lip

Only tightens the crushing emptiness within.

He sees all, is all, bright blue eyes now

Black and dull with ache.

Yet all is silence -- violence deafened by a vacuum

Frustration.

The Cenacle

Those days the sun was warm on my face,
Seeping, golden, through the window, curtains
Drawn back to welcome the light.
Those wooden floors were my world, dusty and cold,
But eager for the light, eager for that chance to shine
Again. And when that shaft would break free of clouds
And come streaming in, I would stand in it,
Feet bathed in warmth, wondering.
Was light composed of particles small enough to pass through glass?
And this light really here with me, in my world?
Perhaps, then, it could brighten my panes, glassy and dark
From the lonely winters – hopelessly dreaming
I step forward, countering despair, ready to be bathed
Head and foot, reach out to touch the glass,
But my hand, shocked by cold, shrinks back,
And my eyes refuse the light.

untitled

You must begin again, they said, and still
He wanders, squanders money, has no will:
His heart refusing what his body needs
His head a fantasy of selfless deeds.

I see him sitting there, a weakened man,
A scar upon his chest, yet smoke in hand –
And momentarily I grieve –

But, suddenly, I realize his life,
The sullen eyes, the aged heart, the strife,
Is not so much his burden as his crime
When so much nothing comes from so much wasted time.

Asking a Shadow to Dance

How do I slow dance?
No one beside me, no one to have me,
No one to hold me?
Love, what do you say?
Holding out for better times?
Sad boy!
No more of that brooding,
Thinking, not trusting,
Pick your head up, look at the stars
They shine!
Oh! I don't belong here. We don't belong here.
But come, no shuffling for us.
You take my hand -- We'll run there!
Spinning, jumping, singing, grinning,
We'll dance. And I'll follow
You to the ends of the earth.
To the stars.
And then, only then,
Can the likes of us slow dance!

Chemical Reaction

Too bad you could never feel
-- O gentle fire! --
Without being burnt.

North Face Glades

"The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake..."

She stopped writing, that very moment.
Snow falling on pine, white ash to cover
And silence the emptiness within.
Subconscious realization that words had lost
Their power.
Even the echoes were forced to fall on deaf ears.
Were you not ten feet from me?
Somewhere so close in those winter woods?
Yet you heard nothing.
Calling for you, lonely, desperate for your words --
Mine, hardly breathed, before they fall mute
With the weight of the falling snows.
There is beauty here, she thought,
But even that thought was barely a whisper within.
The cold and dark will come again she knows -- is coming --
And then she will be sorry for loving the sound of silence,
Sorry for imagining herself, momentarily,
Part of its life, part of its death.
Can't wait then, can't stay here
Slowly becoming a citizen of Pompeii
But it is late. Too late.
She moves on, words left to the trees and to the falling snows.
Left Powerless. And she --
She writes no more.

Cardinal Crisis

:: for Shannon ::

We missed our cue!
Then we missed our queue!
And where once there were many,
There then were few.

~

Death of a Grandmother, Birth of a Nephew

Today --
The world goes on as
The boy becomes a father and
The father becomes an orphan.
Today -- The girl, unsure, feels nothing
Conscious of the souls, one entering,
One exiting, never knowing the other.
Full of emptiness.
Today -- The daughter, distant, struggles
With the knowledge of the sister,
Searching for sorrow in the death of a mother,
Yet finding grief at the birth of a son.
And the world goes on toward
-- tomorrow.

Chaos Comes Again

Say anything but say what you mean to say -- write anything but write what you need to write. A thousand words, a million, don't stop now, write them all down. Joyous words, colorful words, sad words. Words for all the anxiety held captive in this crazy brain. Words that mean everything, that could never be said and say everything that could never be felt. Love, Tears, Joy, Games, Goals Winning Choking Crying Yelling Breathing Breaking Mistakes. Colors -- red, blue, forest green, grey, white, black. Hold my hand don't let it go. Show me the way through this crazy world. I know I can make it on my own, but I'm not sure I want to. Oh my God! You know i want only You if I could just see it clearly. But I don't want something I cant have. I gave that up a long time ago. I gave up that childhood dreaming long ago. You realize at some point that there are things you can have and things you cant and that's just the way things are. The way things are are the way things are And the way things are is not found in the stuff of dreams -- Ive been too tough to go on for nothing. Hold my hand and don't let go.