I wanted to write you a poem yesterday
But something along the lines of alone
Left that feeling washed away.

I wanted to write about how I'm here for you
But I guess you wanted something clearly new.
I was stressed from what words to use
To hopefully paint colours to your blues.
I could write of your smile
How it shined lights from a million miles
How your eyes were the right shape and colour
And they could stare into souls, pass the exterior covers.
How you appeared in my dreams
How you were beautiful
And ripped interlocked fingers like seams
So the sunrise and you had something in common.
Your sense of humour and words
Are to be envied by those who lacked.
Keep on shining

I remember you'd carry me on your shoulders
Watched as my clothes and smile got older,
I remember you held me in your arms,
To drive away the meaningless harm,
I remember cancer erasing your strength
And your hair became shortened in length.
I remember that my first word was your title,
Father,daddy,dad,pa like I was at a recital
But it was less Margaret Atwood, more shakespeare,
Because there was no happy ending to be had here.
I remember the way we wilfully fed the fishes,
But then I remember your back with all the stitches.
I remember you telling me you loved me in your final days,
But things that I've come to remember, are all but a haze
Because the things I believe I remember are stories
Told by mum, and I'll hold them to way past my forties,
Because I have nothing left of you except your DNA.
All the stories of us I've come to appreciate,
But...
What was a four year old really suppose to remember?
Is there really a Christmas miracle every December?
Come January, will I be able to walk any farther
As a man without ever knowing or having a father?

I feel like a folded symbol,
inside the chipped-cherry boxcar
that is my damp, June mind.

A fetus seizing in the womb,
hooked up like a cheap monitor.
A foreign strandedness, wrapped
by a boa of dark country back roads
and sterile air skipping across grass.

If I stop, If I sleep
the sweat seeps from my pores
like a sterling grey squad,
oxidizing in the fog,
swimming around headspace,
guns melting with claymation cheeks,
howls into the night, darling deadbirds.

I am now happy and remember
only other happy memories.
Over a decade of depression
and now this.

I feel unfinished, unwanted
by the quickness of life.
I feel like a grain
caught in a gust so swift,
I may never adjust.

I, the empty-headed boy,
causing jet-black glass
to appear on sand,
to remove my footprints,
and incase them, phantoms.

Slumping over their shopping carts
like porpoises on parade.
Baskets overflowing with
fritos, doritos, and sugar-ade.

Reckless the dream that changed
what they couldn't,
to swim through foil bars
soaring from cash to vein.
Girl with scissors, cutting hair,
to reach a new brain.

Sofa-living, so much thwarting
thoughts of inadequacy.
Streams of image, money
-- and American Honey,
I think you are fine
the way you hurt.

Zip code 99123
Worst school systems
Boomerang effect
I know it truly is awful
It is the land of hopelessness
It sure as hell isn't
The Promised Land
But blue skies
Grey clouds
Hot summers
Frozen winters
Secrets
Community
Love
Lies
Jealousy
Complete bliss
Tied in with a blanket of anguish
Settled like dust
Those who live here
Those who leave here
Those who always return here
Remember
Forget
Either way you can't change
The history of our hearts
It can be hellish
It can be worthless
And true, there is absolutely nothing going for anyone here
But it will always be my hometown
Electric City
Zip code 99123
Just above the ****** dam
Because my home
Is where my memories
Of lessons learned lies

Saw  a  obituary  in  the  newspaper
of  a  long  lost  friend.

I,t  hit  me  off  the  page.
Like  an  arrow  through  my  heart.

Keith  Wilson.  Windermere.  UK  2016.