I can't count the number
of times I was told not to cry
by my father.
He'd say “real men don't cry” in
a sand-paper voice,
turn and walk back into the kitchen.
I think I was 14 or 15
when I discovered poetry:
one big pulsating
heart beating against the
chest like the roar of a cannon.
It's raw, more jagged than
a broken nail on a chalkboard,
a rusty nail contorting itself
in the wood.
But there's a certain
music in it too-
like the singing
of a jay.
And sometimes it allows you to cry,
a cup held under a spigot.
I normally hold those moments back
and complete the daily motions.
Yet eventually the levees break
regardless of the thickness of your concrete.
It pours from the hole.
The sentences get moist,
and the ink transforms into black mud
and the page turns
into a crystal clear blue lagoon,
letting you see what lies
in the trenches.

I stumble into the morning ritual like
clockwork and press my face so far into the sports section
that I can smell the burning black ink from the printing press.
I shovel eggs and bacon
down my throat in such a manner that when I kiss her, the grease from the bacon leaves
a slimy residue on both our lips.
I do not stop to admire the way
the sunlight coming through the window hits her hair,
or how her smile
releases a thousand butterflies housed
somewhere between my stomach and my heart.
Work calls and I'm late so I rush out the door
and give her the generic “I love you” I've
mouthed for years, but she's crying behind the door
-I can hear it as the lock clicks. And the mailman
comes and the lawn grows and the children
grow up and graduate and she never truly knows how I feel
until it's too late, until she draws her last
breath at her deathbed
and looks at me with large full moon eyes
that say nothing more than
“Who Are You?”

Pretend that you're a poet
& sleep beneath beer-stained sheets
Pretend that you're a *****
& lay down in the streets
Pretend that you're a Buddha
& delight in the peace
Pretend that you're a preacher
& drain them like a leach.

Pretend that you're a soldier
& cry when no ones there
Pretend that you're a lover
& kiss her when shes bare
Pretend that you're a housewife
& start to make a list
Pretend that you're a prisoner
& stare into the abyss.

Pretend that you're homeless
& and beg beside the road
Pretend that you're an alcoholic
& wake with guns to load
Pretend that you're a poor man
& sleep upon the floor
Pretend that you're a rich man
& you won't have to pretend no more.

When the summer of our youth has passed
and the bane of winter draws near,
we sit alone in opaque rooms
and crack ourselves a beer.

To the north we look with glossy eyes
yet to the south our mind wanders freer
we laugh and smile and grimace and weep
and crack ourselves a beer.

We think of days of wonderlust,
of scenes of timeless cheer
of children playing in the rain
-and then we crack ourselves a beer.

What happened to the upbeat muses?
did they take and destroy their lyre?
we wonder where the bluebird went
as we sit and crack a beer.

We haven't seen him for a time
and because of this we fear.
The gourds of innocence broke and leaked
and so we cracked ourselves a beer.

And with them chipped
we quaffed long and deep and into lands we steered
destined for hate and war and poverty
and so we cracked ourselves a beer.

Instead of honeysuckles and wafers
we feasted on bloodied deer
and watched our parents fight and die
as we cracked ourselves a beer.

Trees of mighty oak that hoisted forts
have fallen in the clear
as have the mounds of Geronimo
while we cracked ourselves a beer.

And so our friends have left us
our lovers are nowhere near
last seen flying away with the bluebird
because we cracked ourselves a beer.

Looking back on it now,
after the wars & the peace & the wars,
I wish I'd never met you.
Imagine what your life would have been like:
you would have finished graduate school
and gotten a cushy job at a large bank
and worn those **** office suits of secretaries
that show just enough cleavage to make
the boss wish he had more ******,
and your sales for the quarter would have
skyrocketed like a smooth stone
fired from a slingshot and you would be
as happy and content as you were
in the age of innocence,

And you would pass the field
where I lay sometimes on your way to work, staring
at the seas on the moon-wondering
why they look like closed eyes-
But alas,
-things didn't work as planned.
We met and fought and made peace
and now we spend our nights together
in that lonely field,
staring at the face of the moon,
eternally wondering why He
doesn't smile back.

I miss the crinkle smile
lines slithering up your
cheeks like canals on
the Martian surface-
evidence that life was once there.

Or the way your laughter could penetrate
the depths of my dead skin like
harmonious frequencies
erupting from a kitchen muse.

And where your hands touched
so did Midas follow;
and where your hair spiraled
out of your face in pinwheels
so did galaxies imitate.

The bed is colder now that you
have stepped away.
I miss the depressions in the sheets.

Oh yes I miss a lot.

But most of all I miss
what I never thought i would miss-
the ability of your lips to create
the sweetest music I’ve ever heard,

a thousand lyres playing in unison: I love you too.