when you understand my poems perfectly then,

their utility is inutile,
their usefulness is, will. always be, in the

nth  

reinterpretation, a million and still counting,
as long as you must guess at its labyrinth inner wired construct,
be pleasured by the roiled and rolled curves upon your tongue,
two lives (yours, mine), a paired wine tasting, we together,
believing in the greatness of joyous frustration

some say, as I do, the world is better for the
utility of thine own struggled understanding,
the truest combination of two way communication,
surpassed only by our at last armed embrace,
when at last we understand our mutuality of need and salve...

And when you cry, we will
weep with you.
But not for pity — not grief.
It is for triumph.
You made it.

True?
Applause.

Your hard work, finally,
paid off.
– fin.

The poet not in love
Is the violin never heard
The sunrise never seen
And the water never felt.
The fires never lit
The birds never in flight
The lips never touched
The meaning never found.

The poet not in love is
The journey never taken
The path never walked
The guitar with no strings
And the painter with no canvas.
The parent to no child
The treasure never discovered
The book with no beginning
The story with no reason.

The poet not in love is silent
And what a useless thing to be
As a poet.

What’s worse than loving you
but knowing I can’t have you?
Not the silence,
not the waiting,
not the ache that stretches across nights.

Even the stars fall quiet—
they know
there’s no sorrow deeper
than holding a love
that was never mine to keep.

I don't know what to call You.
"Father," which should denote familiarity,
seems a foreign word to me.

Can you still see me

Standing in this dark room

Talking to the memory of you

Your hand is back in my hair

The love is still there

Just like you never left

But that is not my life

I couldn't sit pretty

To let you create a pretty lie

And now I'm here and for all I know..

You may have died.

I cough words
onto a page,
and hold it up to the world.
They call it art, they call it poetry.