Death is not the final word.
Without ears, my father still listens,
still shrugs his shoulders
whenever I ask a question he doesn't want to answer.

I stand at the closet door, my hand on the ****,
my hip leaning against the frame and ask him
what does he think about the war in Iraq
and how does he feel about his oldest daughter
getting married to a man she met on the Internet.

Without eyes, my father still looks around.
He sees what I am trying to do, sees that I
have grown less passive with his passing,
understands my need for answers only he can provide.

I imagine him drawing a breath, sensing
his lungs once again filling with air, his thoughts ballooning.

I write to you
in the darkest spot
of the room that holds me
far away from you.

I write to you
despite the heavy chains
that tie my thirsty hands
and heart and veins.

I write to you,
my long lost love,
with the candlelight
from a thousand miles away.

And with every word I write,
and through tears and cries,

I wish
          I hope
                     I pray.



//A

“I hope I keep you up at night,

with spiders in your head.

Crawling through your tired brain

with all the lies you said.
Did you hang me in the closet?

Did you bury me in dirt?

You and I, you see, we share this beating heart of hurt.
Some of us are tossed aside,
sun bleached on the road.

A lie, a broken skeleton, to lie without a home.
A serpent twists through empty eyes,
winding through the nose.

I will live forever

in the ink  of written woes.”

3:27 a.m, Thursday, March 26, 2015
- j.d

“What if we go on,” he said, “only to more pain and despair? What if we go on, only to find a horrible end waiting for us?”

“Then it is not the end.”

Holy water
   cannot help you now

A thousand armies
   couldn't keep me out

I don't want you money
I don't want your crown

See, I've come to burn
Your kingdom down.

I'm incapable of writing poetry
When it comes to when I'm happy