The things I whisper to myself:
You are not entitled to my thoughts
You have no jurisdiction over my actions
You cannot control my emotions
and yet,
I have to apologize to myself in secret for apologizing to you out loud.

they say to give in secret
and so I do
you say I'm not giving
it makes me sad
when I do give
and you praise another
for my hidden efforts
you say I don't give
but I'm giving in
to self doubt
and I'm this close to giving up
so if that's not giving
then I don't know what is.

I am impatient
Too often
With conversations
These days

And i can't
Say the reason
Out loud

But if a body
Could hear
The conversation
Going on in
My brain

Well, I guess,
It might make
More sense.

John and Tuesday slipped away,
I remember well the day.
Working in the garden,
Just a few corners away,
That Tuesday.
I was planting, turning spades,
Adding compost to gaunt soil.
John wasn't in my thoughts Tuesday.
Not like today.

The garden thrives.
The splash of water
Transports memory's eye.
We sit outside The Trout,
He reads to Paul and I,
Below an Oxford sky,
Under cap and pint:
*Think where man's glory
Most begins and ends,
And say my glory was
I had such friends.