One of my grandfathers fought in the Korean War,
The other was a naval pilot,
They were both terrible men

the final day approaches
more quickly than any
chicken on a june bug
this is the first time
my great grandfathers aphorism
has resonated so deeply

i implore them
each and every one
ask me
ask me anything
i can help you embrace
what your unencumbered peers
treasure
what guides them to a bright future
and its absence in you
to something far more dismal

despite my rationalization
my soft realization
i hold out hope

for you, proprietor of un criadero de caballos
stable full and ahead by a nose
for you, avian veteran
star college running back in the end zone
for you, pop artist
changing galleries with colorful violence

its soon out of my hands
grains sliding through my grip
onto your desk
with which to build
a magnificent castle
or to blow back upon the earth

ask me anything
if i dont know we can search
for truth
and then Truth

im told times up
dont drag me out yet
let me finish this lin..........

Perhaps these moments were warnings,
or random firings of a turbulent universe:

The first time we were alone together,
at a coffeeshop in the center of the city,
I saw a fish being beaten with a stick
until its spine broke and it died
then put in a plastic bag and sold.

The second night we met
I got so drunk that I woke up wrapped
in your blue shirt. It smelled like you
and it arose unfamiliar shame in me as I
sat in the dark and inhaled off it.

You lost a pack of matches the night
we drank all the money in our pockets.
So we lit our cigarettes off sputtering
candles in the dirtiest bar I've ever seen
and you still wouldn't kiss me.

You fell asleep with your head on my breasts
as the sun rose on the spring equinox.
A poet would have thrown it out
for the sheer predictability of it all,
but I sighed and ran a hand down your back.

Our grandfathers could have gunned down
each other at eighteen, two in several million.
Perhaps if they met on a battlefield in France
in 1943, they could have spared me the
moment I felt my love break against you.

The cracks remain, history predicted us.
Perhaps that was the biggest red flag
of them all.

I would have this girl, she would have a black bmx. We would ride chest to back, my hand prints burning on her shoulders. As she wore her brown raybans, she would call out to the cars nearby, she would howl like the mutt dog, and race after tailpipes. I would love her slender hips as they twisted over the seat and her legs tinted by the sun as she pulled tricks no two-bit dollar whore had never seen, just to catch some sun. It looked like she was thirsty for the heat, and she was packing it, whooo-whee, she was packing it. And I loved her from her helmet head to her scuffed cons, from where she had put the brakes on, just to turn around and kiss me in the rush hour.

Anything to have you near, girl, I would tie streamers to my wrist to make it look like we were flying as we rode past the world. I would stand back and hold my arms high, wearing my scruff deep headphones, and a tie to clip her heart to. She wore her grandfathers cap, on her days off the ramp. It was too cliché to wear what the others wore, and she soon too became an article of clothing, many tried to copy and clone. We would lie on the grass, chipping beers bottles and picking daisies, that she would string around my wrist, promising to one day buy me a sidecar.

I tied a plastic rose around her handlebars, and left it for her to find in the morning. She woke me up with a kiss and a cracked mug of tea and told me we had some riding to do. I climbed on the back of her, and tied my arms around her charity shop tee, tight. We zipped between traffic and I told her ‘its a lipstick jungle out there’  and placed my nose behind her ear as she sought out new paths for us to sneak down. When the evening drew closer we found each others hands, and kissed parts of the skin that had arrived pink with the sun, and melted every so slightly into each others hips.

And then the wind came, it threw us off the park and past the roads. She left in the morning dressed for different days. She came home caked in mud and I washed her hair in the bath as she lay with her head in my lap. I told her tales of battles on ships, and stories of fighting, surrender and rising again in the new light of day. At nights we sat by candlelight and sipped vodka wearing lilies in our hair. We sat ink to ink, in bed and watched forgotten movies and laughed till we cried from the sham of it all. We understood each other, her pants hung low from the moment she moved to the time she stopped. Her, my girl, the one with hat and the black bmx; She was my street fighter in a pavement world.

I have forgotten my Grandfathers face,
Crinkled eyes and sour drops.
Would He forgive me if He knew?
This thought invades my mind.
Sinks into my veins.
Nips at my nerves.
Will I be as forgotten as my Grandfather?
Will no one remember my candies?
My eyes.
Will there be no one to remember me?
Would I forgive myself if I knew?
   That I hadn't lived enough to be remembered.

I have to much faith, and even whe im told im being a fool I don’t listen because I have faith in you

And so many times you’ve let me down, to the point where im begging you just to come around

Just to be my friend, you always said your there

I guess this time its different, this time im too much.

I blame myself for asking in my best friend to allow me to trust.

That bitch on the phone was more important, that test more deserving.

Preaching listen to the living before they become the dead

Here I am begging you to listen but instead seeing how I was just being taken for granted

I curse at myself for letting me get like that, so attached that I need to talk to you when im alone

it feels like you don’t care, even though the evidence it stalking up against you

“this is when true colours are shown”
“you don’t have money this week why do you think hes not around”

I still wait, because I have faith

Your skin is marked with black ink, your grandfathers said just have some faith and you will understand

I don’t think you’ll ever understand what its like to put someone before yourself

You keep everyone as a opition and I guess that’s my fault for making you a priority

Why would I expect something like that?

It might say you’re a man, by the year you where born

some man you are treating women as pray

Bringing them close and saying sweet words all the while just  to satisfy your hunger

Then come and preach that we are just not animals but something more, jumping on everything we see is disgusting

But I have faith that one day you will see

The hurt you cause and one day you might grow up to the man I know your destined to become

Everyone speaks and says that you’re the bad one, and that im blind if I cant see that the money is the main reason we share so many memories

But I still maintain my faith in you

My heart is big and maybe that’s my fault that I wont walk away when something good went wrong

But I put my faith in you that you will pull through at the end

Then again I was always good at playing pretend

I remember when people left their doors unlocked
Today that is how you get robbed
I remember when neighbors took care of all the children on the block
Now neighbors are too busy to get involved
I remember when children knew not to talk back
Today children accused parents of child abuse
I remember when Fathers made sure their children didn’t lack
Today fathers can't find a job
I remember when Mothers cooked meals from scratch
Now meals come ready made
I remember when Grandmothers would sew all the school clothes
Today Grandmothers party with their children
I remember when Grandfathers would take their grandchildren to the fishing hole
Today Grandfathers are hard to find
I remember when at school children pledge allegiance to the flag
Now pledge allegiance to the flag in public is a crime
Look at the trade that was made
I remember when

The houses of my Babylon lean upon each other.
They will not fall, not until the last hard hand
quits the last hammer, not until misfortune
loses prey, not until the least last child
is gently packed in wool and sent to play.
Sooner will you hear their see-saw hinges wail.
Will you then ask of them a song of home?

The windows of the houses of my Babylon
lay bear the walls around them. Who but gray
grandfathers marking time press their noses
to the glass? The visions of their lonely vigils
fade, half life unrecorded, shadows on parade,
whispered secrets kept secret. You will never know
with what intent they overlook your passing through.

Rain tears on the windows of the houses
of my Babylon, the bath of unattended panes
dropped free from heaven. They will not wash
clear. They will ever wear the haze of tainted air.
You think this stain the mark of unrepentant sin.
Who, then, gives the absolution of so many
brown-burned fingers that will not scrub up?