I see them still,
From time to time,
Their goofy smiles,
Their laughing eyes.
Still hear their *******,
Their growled complaints,
Their farts in the night,
from five bunks down.
The relentless joke telling,
The brotherly jabs.
Still see their sad empty eyes
When no mail from home arrives.

Oh and the lists of things
That they would do,
When back they'd go,
Into the World,
Added to daily, always growing.
Get that new Camaro,
"Set them tires on fire!",
Cruse the strip back home
and pick up chicks.
Put on their Class A,
And strut down the block.
Find that foxy girl from English class,
And make her his wife.
Tell his old man,
to actually "*******!"
We were but boys,
Too eager and green,
Posturing and playing at being men.
What I wonder, would they have become,
Given the chance to grow to a man?

Young lives cut short by ballistic pain.
So now still they linger, boys they remain,
Night visions left in the mud and the rain.

be still,
           be the small silent
                                        calm

be quiet,
       be the small watching
                                        mouse

be pliant,
               be the seed
                         spinning on
                     the wind

be memory
                  be the glint in
                             the wise old
                elephant's eye

be wisdom,
                 be the paradox of
                             the monkeys
                      three

be kind,
            for kindness needs,
                               to never be
             lost or neglected

be strong,
                 be passionate,
                for the world needs
                                strength
              and compassion
in order to grow.
                

but above all,
                      be love.....
            and allow love to be...

in all it's ....
        wonderful,
          guises and capacity's

and these my son,
                are just some
    of the steps

       in being a better man.....

lachrymose: suggestive of or tending to cause tears; mournful....given to shedding tears readily; tearful.**

make no dithering,
wily excusing or explaining,
among this band,
I count myself
a brother and a man

eons ago shed the
reptilian skin masculine,
my six-shooter now a manly
cheap Bic ballpoint blue-eyed pen,
used to fell forests of egos,
mine, first foremost and ever last

every write that sore tries my heart,
lives hard by a stream replenished,
by freshly born, yet stale, recirculated
salt-mine tears, salt, mine, tears,
that include those storing and storied,
some preceding and some succeeding,
and some spilling
even as
this story told,
here and now,
is in the hearth,
forming and fulfilling

if man enough that you can cry openly,
then man enough to write good poetry,
this then, this be the simple and finest
line I ever wrote,
line I ever cried

5:20pm April 20th,
The Year of the Tear