On the bridge
between waking and sleeping
I met my father's eyes.

So beautiful and dark,
filled with quiet trouble,
and with tender invention.

Here in this nature park
green branches reach out
to one another, embracing
the air and the sky, touching,
sending chills down each other's
bark and trunk, meeting overhead.

You, my youngest brother, have
our father's eyes, and they are eyes
of pain and tenderness, of caring
every day for our beloved, ailing planet.

Above our heads, just now, down at the bottom
of the road to Ely Ford, sycamores carry thousands
of backlit leaves, each a green window into its own reality.

Who could have known that after so many months of silent solitude,
giving up completely on the illusory version of love,
a new beginning to life would begin as clearly and simply
as the moment when a butterfly, shoulders hunched in the final stages
of imprisonment within its sacred cocoon, knows unswervingly that
this is the day to bust loose, to slowly stretch wet, untried wings,
gingerly begin to flex her coloured, powdery, armature:
learning the way trust in truth and goodness
frees one completely.

*And sheets, and sheets of white light wash over me.
Sheets and sheets of white light wash over me.

Shall I read a book,
or make a little ryhme,
but the million dollar question,
is ******* the time!
Few suggested take a walk,
grab the phone begin to talk,
another friend says try to cook,
but I gave him a crazy look,
someone advises, watch a game,
follow chelsea, they got fame,
My brothers idea was kinda creep,
he said forget everything, go to sleep,
I made my move, a second it took ,
Thanks to Zuckerberg, I got facebook !!

you know i never got to kiss him?
not even once.
never felt his lips up against mine
or  the grizzly brush of his scruff
                                          (he could never really grow a full beard)
i never got to kiss him on the cheek
or even hold his hands,
so worn and tired from hours working
                                          (or at least so it always seemed)
never rubbed his temples after a long day to help take the stress away
i could only ever imagine how he'd relax,
finally lift the weight of the world off his back
and place it ever so gently on mine,
                                          (you see, i already carry the world on my back, and since he was my world it wouldn't have weighed me down too much more)
i was strong enough to carry it, to carry him.
but i never got to help lift the burden of his life
maybe if i had, it wouldn't have crushed him..

The white rabbit leads me silently
I follow her dutifully blind
She's all I've ever known in this life
No lost world left behind

The caterpillar won't help me
Surrounds me in thick, grey smoke
Cocooned in itself as always
The truth it always cloaks

The hatter dances to no music
With the mad March hare
Intoxicated on more than tea
Through me the hatter does stare

The Cheshire Cat is plotting revenge
Grinning high up in his tree
Watching my every movement made
He's hiding the only key

The Queen of hearts just hates me
With all of her strength and might
No reasoning will soothe her
All she does is done in spite

This is no Wonderland here
No wonder to be held at all
I scrabble in the darkness to find it
The key to the only door

this is an alphabet of all the people
who have dug holes in me,
and of all the people
who are still digging.

this is a gardening guide
for would-be lovers and pretty faces
who do not even realize
that they are carrying shovels.

this is a weather forecast written
from past experience,
a reminder that winter
is not kind on crops,
no matter how firmly you pack the dirt.

this is me,
reflecting on seeds planted.

this is me,
reflecting on seeds left to die.

A,
i suppose it is fitting that the first letter
is also the first person to show me what it is like
to have seedlings sprouting up from inside you,
the first person to show me just how deep you really have to dig
to make the sting last.
you never came back to water what you planted.

H,
i’d like to say to that i ripped out your roots with my own two hands;
i’d like to give myself some credit in all this.
you don’t look as lovely as you used to.
you say i’ve grown distant.
i’m sorry.

J,
you always feel like being on the verge of something big.
you feel like summer, like a deep purple,
a bath of darkness.
you are everywhere that plants do not grow well.
and i have always felt — and still do feel — 
that that is such a grave injustice.
still, though you cannot speak the word “devotion,”
i beckon for more seeds.

P,
my greatest heartbreak.
heartbreak, though, is but a flesh wound when seen from afar.
and so i thank god for the miles between us.
i can feign forgetfulness when you are far away.
after all, what is a shovel in your hands if those hands cannot reach me?

S,
you are but a bud waiting to bloom.
and yet again i find myself so very afraid of growth.

(a.m.)

“why don’t you write a book?”

they’ll expect
a second

if consistency
and money
was consistant
see, I’d write a book

“you should write a book”

poetry is a dying art,
you’ll find a needle
every now and then
but the hay is bound
together with cellphones
and bongs
and unexpected
suicides

no one wants to hear
how sleep deprived you are
because your satin feels
like moth wings
and how your skin
feels like
a burning painting,
why cigarettes kiss
harder and how love
feels like the bottom
of a dinner plate

you’ll find compassion
and understanding
but finding a diamond in
the rough is
only valuable if
you can escape