New Ocean

Grief comes in waves
Like so many oceans
Swallowing you and spitting you back out
Forever a miserable Jonah,
Whitewashed skin but black inside.

Like sandpaper on wood
Or so much skin
wearing you away and thin
Till you have no face left to show
Until you begin to loose memory of who you were
And are replaced by the torrent and bleed of loss 

This terrific jungle
A brave new territory
You had never imagined in your worst
Nightmare
and had dreampt of antithesizing
In your wildest imaginings.

Left only with the buzz of a million insects,
The mosquitos of your soul
Feeding off the pool of what is left inside
Propagating

Until your sorrow is
So perfectly complete
Every nerve fiber on end
Agitated, restless in your exhaustion
Waiting for night
And larger beasts.

Unexpected Guest

She finds Regret at her table,
An unexpected guest.
She realizes she let the word slip
On the street
He must have overheard
And invited himself for dinner.

Now he sits, undenied
Indefatigable.
With once and future kin.
Strange company
In a setting so intimate.

Wrinkles

Our Wrinkles are the Remains
Of a thousand Days gone by
The wear of Handshakes
Sunshakes
The days spent on
Beaches, highways
More exposed for our times with the moon
We bear our recollections with honor.

Synapse

Pain perceived can persist only for so long
Then it stretches, bends, breaks.
Thus lacerated it wilts,
Flutters down
Numbness following in pain's place
Welcome release,
More lack than presence
And I feel no more.

Untitled

The paper is hard
The pen is cold
Trouble is
I'm never alive with you.

I would never love you if I had to
I only love you because
You are who and what I chose
And now you are all I have

Beauty

A geometric plane
Hill, rock, tree, blade
Working on memory
It purveys me
Large, looming
I'm unaware
It's looking at me
Preying on me
Drawing me in
Distracting me
Keeping me from work
And pulling me to play

Inevitable Spring

It had been a long winter
Now it was breaking,
Spring-breathing
With the sounds of bird-song
And daffodil scent on the air
Melting piles of snow
Slowly reducing to grass and mud.
An inevitable feeling of spring
Is upon us.

Dripping Identity

Words, words and more words
Dripping down out of an unfiltered sky
Composed of everything I was and am and think I will be

Large puddles forming on these city blocks
Nonabsorbent, they turn me away
To wash hope and dream into gutter

There are no trees here to nourish,
No grasses or wild flowers to reach root down
Or petal upward to receive a reviving drop

Just one large, subsuming lake
Diluting me, polluting a one-time purity
Washing me out to sea.

On Chicago

Oh Chicago
City of bright lights
Big Shoulders
Irascible drivers
Impossible parking
You have been many faces to me
You were there when I stood
Facing the icy wind, and cried
Remember when we stood at the shores of your lake
And spoke of the deaths of our fathers
And I threw my green hopes into its depths.

You've bitten me with your bitter winds
You've watched me grow and age
From the inside out
Crumbling as I go
Against your sidewalks and skyscrapers

Leaving traces of myself everywhere
While you, invading my memories
Plant yourself firmly within
With a hundred summer concerts
Patio dinners, final exams
Snowstorms, floods, Sunday services
The music of your soul,
The background to my life in its messy meandering paths
Singing me from life to death and back.