It's not me looking out from the mirror,
and hasn't been for too long to remember.
The eyes that look out from the glass,
the face they lie in,
the tales they tell,
and the lack of life within,
are lights from the grave,
a path for the dead to walk among us.
I see the monster inside,
as clear as a sunlit day,
but he hides in the mirror,
and he's hidden from family,
and he's hidden from children and friends,
but he's never hidden from you.
You left when you saw him clear,
ran from the terror,
ran from the rage.
How long before the blood
washed from your skin,
and the death smell left the room
you lived in,
or has sleeping with the Devil turned you 'round,
turned your very soul to his,
turned you.... too?
I see you still,
as you once were then,
before the fear was in your eyes,
and leaving was your salvation.
I remember love,
and tender whispers, late,
in bed,
and I remember when it turned,
when the stranger came to the room,
and stayed,
and how he made you cry.
I look in the eyes in the mirror,
no longer strange to me,
but then no longer me,
and try to name the man I see,
looking out from the reflection there.
For me, he only lives in the mirror,
it's still the man I was,
when I look from within,
but for you I'm the man in the mirror,
I know that's the man you left,
as he's all that you could see.
I don't cry for your leaving,
I cry for me.
JC 2009

It was a walk to the largest tree,
deep into the woods that ran along the brook,
where it shadowed the rocks that surely God had made,
just for sitting under it’s limbs, out of the sun.
Was the walk always this long, he wondered?
No, probably not, when play and mystery lay at the end,
not memories of  all that’s gone.
The sound of the water singing through the stones,
filling the pool cut through the shale,
was the same, but more so,
without the screaming of children swinging from the rope,
it seemed so much higher then.
Bobby swung the furthest, always…
He was the first to go, and not return.
And Lenny, god he could run,
before he sat in a chair for the rest of his life.
And what made Jimmy, who always swam,
“like a fish” we said,
place the hose in the window, start the car,
to die in his garage, alone, with a note,
a note that just said “goodbye, I’m sorry”?
And here I am, looking at the tree, once again,
where we all truly lived for the one and only time,
before the world found us.
But the tree still stood, almost waiting,
its roots deeper than my life.
I looked where the rope used to be,
could still see the worn ring around the bark,
and fondled the rope in my hand…
thinking maybe one last swing to the pool,
before one last swing.
The breeze whispered through its limbs,
And the shadows ran along the banks of the creek
where children used to play.
                                                     JC 2009

You never know when the key will turn, when it will appear in your hand, and into the lock of a door long closed. A slight twist of the wrist, and the door now opens to a room kept in the dark, filled with shadows. You enter, reluctant, and the cobwebs part, and you leave footprints in the dust from now to then. You see the pictures once again, of long dead friends and those that killed them, and those you managed to even the score, side by side on a mantle of memories, placed there long ago. And then the door closed, and all forgotten, until the turn of the key. How it appears and why, are questions without answers, but it always fits the lock, and it always turns without effort, and what lies within is always the same as before. Sadness in a long gone face, or a name, or a place you never wanted to see again. A mirror hangs on the wall, but the face within is a younger you, with eyes too cold for the years upon it, and a smile that speaks of death delivered, too hard for a man so young, yet there it was and there it is, hidden until today, and yesterday, and other days when the lock was turned by the key. You’ll leave again, and close the door, and lock it tight… until the next time. You never know when the key will turn, only that it will, again and again, for the rest of your days.
                                                           JC 4/3/07