You were proud of me 4 days sober
you made me a quesadilla in my honor
you loved me greater than before
and I told you I wouldn't drink tonight
but honey
I'm sorry
I lost the fight
and I know you won't be mad at me
yet it was that light
that I'll miss, as I try to type this.

This was a fishing village
when people were speaking
the king's English, dead
like the fishing industry
Now the tourists have accents

Truth be told
this was a fishing village
long before that
But we don't speak about
what those folks spoke
Something Algonquian
or another dead language

When the tide is out
I walk the shore and look for remnants
Pottery and stone tools, and such
I find a lot of plastic
and bottles, plenty of those
We've been a drinking people
for a long **** time

Once, I found a child's shoe,
sodden and filled with sand
It had a blue lace,
still tied, and a smiley face
as the tide was going out
Kind of sad, really.

r  ~ 8/28/14

Cringe
to the whiskey
to the bad tattoos
to the radio music
and to the absence of Molotov cocktails
thrown against the tear gas

I lay in bed
for a couple of hours
as cruel thoughts came creeping
to my dread
to share the mattress with me
so I said
"I'll get up"
apparently to eat bread
and to look at pictures
of newly-weds
and to smoke
and to sit on the toilet
and to read
all so I could get
cruel thoughts to subside in me
for a little sleep
and wake up dead.

A bird flew overhead today,
maybe it was Wednesday?
yet it was a sight to see
flying high and free
flying toward the sea.
How it doesn't get lost I'll never know
perhaps it runs away from the snow?
It barely flapped its wings
and it had small little rings
that wrapped around its leg,
probably to show its rich and doesn't beg.

Love,
what a difficult subject,
yet a stream of consciousness
could help understand what is felt.

Was it love or abuse?
Only time could tell---
perhaps love is
in part
using another for gain, and accepting the pain,
till another time when both love a'gain.

The sun shone and the birds were out
today gave reason to shout
no doubt.