Letting love lead
Is like letting the blind lead
You know you are going to fall
You just don't know when

Ours was less an Arab Spring
and more a half-hearted coup d'état.
There was no immolation,
no burning desire on your part;
no passion in the streets of you.

You stole in at night
through a window I'd left open,
a crack in my need
for something more than mere
existence.  From me there was
no resistance.

I let you lead, and followed blindly;
my voice I raised on your behalf
against all that I had known before.
Your words, your whispers
alone could incite me to storm
against the strongest walls.

Now, as summer comes
and this sectarian affair,
this spring uprising
that we called us has ended,
I sweep the streets of our debris
and wander down
the empty avenues
of you, half-hearted.

r ~ 6/5/14

I like my days melancholy.
But beautifully so.
When the sky is grey,
with the few solitary raindrops.
I stand at the sink, in the fading sunlight,
washing my two navy dresses.
A soft old jazz piece plays on the radio,
I turn the fabric over in my hands.
Scrubbing between buttons and seams,
washing the remnants of church services,
a job interview, presentations
down the rusting drain.
I dunk a lace collar into the water
it comes up dark, black, heavy
as though someone has dipped it in tar.
It's delicacy is gone,
but it's spaces seemingly filled.
I stretch it across my palm,
black against alabaster.
The emptiness is here, today,
as it is in all days,
but for a few moments,
it feels filled.

there is always somebody or something
waiting for you,
something stronger, more intelligent,
more evil, more kind, more durable,
something bigger, something better,
something worse, something with
eyes like the tiger, jaws like the shark,
something crazier than crazy,
saner than sane,
there is always something or somebody
waiting for you
as you put on your shoes
or as you sleep
or as you empty a garbage can
or pet your cat
or brush your teeth
or celebrate a holiday
there is always somebody or something
waiting for you.

keep this fully in mind
so that when it happens
you will be as ready as possible.

meanwhile, a good day to
you
if you are still there.
I think that I am---
I just burnt my fingers on
this
cigarette.

Bruised and blistered hands
from digging up memories.
Someday, child, you will understand.
When your joints ache,and your skin is creased,
you will understand.
Your hands will sting against the shovel
raw from blisters you didn’t take the time to bandage.
Time is to precious to waste here.
No one wants to greet death
without these memories by their side.
Every bruise it worth it, dear.
Never forget to remember.
For when everything has slipped away,
youth is gone,
the places and people you knew,
vanished.
All you have are memories.
So dig them up.
Brush away the dirt,
turn them over in your hands.
It will all come back.

Your hands were like summer

But your heart was pure winter

Baseball was my passion
that year when the world
still seemed like a safe place
to hang my hat.  Dad was
buying horses left and right
while Mom shook her head
and kept her silence knowing
this was just another one of
his wild-*** hairs that seemed
to get a little crazier each year.
Credence Clearwater Revival
was hot and singing songs
about rain on the radio.  
School was out and I would
go over to the creek to swim
after I finished whatever chores
Mom had me doing those days.
Sometimes I would lie on the
Devil's Bed rock next to the
little falls where the biggest
trout liked to feed and listen
to the bugler from the Army
burial detail playing taps for
that days funeral. I wondered
what it would feel like to be
the son of the soldier getting
buried up on the hill having
to wear a suit and not cry. It
always gave me a lump in my
throat. My brother said it was
a shame and Johnson should
be shot instead. I always agreed.
We all watched the nightly news
together after supper and before
Hogan's Heroes came on.  The VC
were handing it to our guys in
a place called Hue and Mom cried
when a South Vietnamese officer
pulled out a pistol and BANG
shot that dude in the head
right there in front of god, me,
Mom and everybody. I went to
bed that night and  decided that I
wasn't going to pray any more.
We lost every game for the rest
of the season and I didn't care.
I've never forgiven that officer
for shooting that guy dressed
in black right in front of me,
god, my Mom and everybody.

r ~ 6/3/14