"55 years,” she said, “That’s a long time.”
She couldn’t know the length meant nothing
What mattered were the moments
We did unforgettable things together.

Unforgettable only to us because they were ours
As we walked, ran, and fell through our youth
Burning past loves that were not
And challenges that were
All of which left movies in my mind
Of what we did when the future was limitless
And all that happened in the years it narrowed
Turning us into flawed men who
Tried hard nonetheless not to be.

55 years of who we were together from then
To today when a voice on a cellphone
Said, “He passed peacefully.”

I find no peace in this and
I will tell him so when the time comes.

The petals which had been so red
Are browning now and bow their heads
The limbs which held the greening leaves
Are garish colors now instead.

Everywhere that I can see
Summer is prepared to flee
From cooler days the autumn brings
Before the winter's frigid sleep

I stand among the morbid scenes
Of the dying beauty Nature gleans
By calling back what She bestowed
To the earth with summer's heat

They'll rise when springtime melts the snow
I wonder if the same is so
For me once I am put to rest
I wonder, will I even know?

She carries the weight of simple things
Forgotten people cannot carry for themselves:  
Where to sleep, staying safe,
How to eat enough without selling yourself.

She works in an office smaller than a closet.
There is a picture on her desk of the day they opened.
She stands between ragged people and
Smiling politicians wearing suits in an election year.
None of the suits has been back since, but she is here
Working among the lost souls and feeling guilty
For going to a home with heat, a bed, and food.

She remembers best the ones she loses,
And the rate of what she thinks of as her failure
Would drive her to quit if it were not impossible
To forget the next one who comes to her may be
The one who needed her most.

I looked away and you were gone.
Though I can still feel you here,
Smell you in your clothes,
Touch the things we hold dear…
But you’re gone and the only place
I can find you now is in my dear and
Painful memories of us.

I am only an echo of who we were
Bounding from the sharp edges of this life
Searching for my source, which is
The love we share even now.

How can I stay here without you?
And yet I must for there are
Others who would look for me
With the same terrible longing I suffer now.
They will suffer soon enough and need no help from me.

So I will live for now and pray for the day
When I will be again with you.

A quiet moment gathers itself around me
As I stare at pixels looking among them
For something great and compelling to write about.
But there is no wisdom tonight, no passion,
I am even empty of the need to cry for change.

I grow so tired as the quiet closes tighter,
Drowning out life by calling for sleep.
I drift  away and dreams of great themes come to
Me like old friends calling  to talk over coffee.

They are around me and we laugh,
Some make me cry, others...
Well, there are others too and I feel in tune with them
As I  never am awake.

They listen to me judging the worth of my insight.
Some smile, others chuckle and scratch their heads
As I try to fit in knowing I never will
Even though I will always try.
God, I love what I think I can make of them.

There is a nudge on my thigh,
They fade away as I wake then they are gone.
There is only me, the empty screen and my dog
Whose world is defined by where I am,
He brought me back to toss his ball.

My themes are lost in Morpheus' mists
They will be back one at a time and I will write
Inadequately of wonderful things with high meanings

Until them, I make these crooked marks for you...
Because, it seems, my world is defined
By where you can find my words.

He sat at a table in a suit that didn’t fit.
His shirt was open, a tie stretched across the void.
His eyes were forward, scared
Hands on the table gripped together so they didn’t shake.

The eyes that looked at him were not friendly
Most focused on photographs in easels
Showing what had become of a girl who made a bad choice
Then came back and made it again and again until
The power to choose was no longer hers.

A woman in a black robe sat above him reading
Then raised her head to look down,
“Do you have anything to say?”

Now they all looked at him as he rose,
If their stares had power he would have been dust.
Behind him one poor woman wept
In a room pressurized by silence.

A man stood beside him, leaning away.
The monster swallowed once gathering his power
To twist their thoughts as he had the girl in the pictures.
He made himself weep then in a shaking voice said,
“I loved her to death.  She was my everything”.

But the woman in the robe was that day deaf.

He’s hooked to tubes and monitors;
They speak to him hoping he will hear.
People test and probe reducing
Him to an experiment in a bizarre
Science fair where the best result is disability.

They cry for him, hope for him, pray for him
As the machines, hum, pump, and chime
To keep whatever he will be now alive.

I cannot see him there, but I remember
Days on football fields when we were young
Nights at dances with girls who teased us
In the clinches and sent us home alone.

He sold me my first car and we got old together
But not gracefully, not us.
We struggled against who we were
Trying to be who we thought we could become.
Failing and succeeding as we went;
Always friends who sometimes fought.


So much I remember as I lay here,
Safe until it’s my turn, and I wonder if he
Remembers who we were in that awful place where
They pray and hope to save what’s left
Of a good man’s life.