i think i have written this before
i know i will think it again, again

when...
do those classy ladies
with hepburn smiles and frowns
get close enough

to give a chance for a say
in the whole matter of
tugging a sliver of heart out
every time they walk away

and the worst part of it all
is when they do come near
and it is finally made known

that they think and dream just the same
making me love them all the more

beauty is skin deep,
any further and you scratch something
utterly unknowable to the wearer

so how could one hope
to ever know the nature
of those classy hepburn ladies

just know they wonder
how you keep so chipper

a mess can be beautiful:
dreams are a perfection
and we are moving in.

when the years pass with only a change in date
and the last thing you said to a friend
was how wonderful their christmas card seemed
after four seasons of no words to speak of
the time has come, when the sunset falls short
of waking you each morning as it used to
if your teens are gone, and your twenties rolling
have the best years been lived out too?
and the first and best love is all you have ever had
and you hide from life behind your idea of living
but you are bitter and know it, feel there is no change
other than to move, to go, to see, to feel differently.

that one blanket kind of cold
where you’re afraid to move
lest the seal be broken.
and the pores are soaking in
the lack of body heat
laying next to you tonight
yesterday. tomorrow.

The Earth frees itself from Winter;
The roots of ice slowly release.
A promise of mercy fulfilled -
Yet the land remains cold and dark.

Brown grass of Fall's chill peeking through;
Sun's warmth still blocked by the damp, cold.
Earth's Winter scars come into light:
The ice burns of the cruel cold.

The thaw guarantees no healing;
Spring must come, and with it her growth.
Gray still looms; the sun, slow to rise,
Stirs, awakens, tears still cold. Alone.

Winter, she's pulling back by now;
The wounded Earth still wincing, pained.
He will heal, he must thaw somehow,
But Winter's scars run deep. Remain.

im umzug & krawatte

strauss am herzen,

augen zu.

schuhe geputzt

flugkarte in tasche

grinsen.



suit and tie on

bouquet across the chest,

eyes shut.

shoes shined


plane ticket in his pocket

beaming.

*note: this poem was inspired by a student suicide on my university campus two years ago. the idea of dying with so much before oneself would not get out of my mind.

I won’t smile one smile

till I see the pain die.



But when I hear death scream

I’ll laugh till I cry.

Take my red,

Take my head.



Take my eat,

Take my see.



Take my life,

But leave my be;



It’s all I’ve got left of me.