All he sees is the dark rage,
and it has grown darker with his age,
He isn't much  different now,
yet it is like I don't know him somehow,
Though my heart does now ache,
it is of love, of it I make no mistake,
It is hard to watch the pain,
and see the hope in him lost to obtain,
All that we provided was but one light,
I'd watched it dim till gone with an absent fight,
Life can be so remarkable and gentle,
especially to a mind gone legally mental,
And it is scary now for us all,
The cries and the screams that echo the hall.

SDPope

“Go,” I said,
Like it was too late but
I knew that it was not.
Slow motion, under water,
A painful sleep
Disrupted by an apologetic embrace,
Watch me let go.
It is like warmth,
Impossible to escape
But I want to stay.
Lovers together, walking,
Talking, thinking…
The most peaceful thing
I have ever seen, I believe
The sun and the water…
Every noise, strengthens the bond.
My stomach in my throat,
Time given as a gift
Like it is solid and
I hate to admit it,
But you are the opposite of me,
I can’t stand you sometimes
And you talk in your sleep.

In dreams I am so far from here
This place it gets me low
The snow, I feel it coming
To drown me in my woe

Her bare feet slapped against the pavement.
Tulle skirt stuck to her sweaty thighs.
The first drop fell.
Rain came that day.

Arms outstretched, she started to twirl.
Until the footsteps came near.
Out of time with the thunder claps and bursts of light.
She stopped and stared.

He was there.
Drenched in the rain.
Watching.
She laughed and pulled him to dance with her.

I looked at him, and told him exactly what was on my mind.
(But before I did I told him I was scared to tell him)
"I love you." And there was a pause (as if I would say more)
and he just silenced whatever it was I was going to say
by slipping me a gentle kiss and replying,
"I absolutely love you."

She puts her hand in his back pocket.
I know they're going home together tonight.

She's about as predictable as a fortune cookie (everything always ends in bed.)
In three days she'll forget the whole thing. (I wish everything in life was that easy.)

the night is
dark
a moth flickers through the light
and is gone
I stand at the doorway,
my house empty at my back
and look to the road
up which you will come
to say good-bye

tll1973

That winter the mountains were 20 feet taller
And I burrowed into my corner of the house
Like an animal

The pigeons sat in a line
On the Home Improvement sign
Their collars pulled up
In a cold there is no name for

The parking lots were sheets
Of ice
With ant hills
A tall light pole reaching out
Each opening
Lighting our ant ways
Through tunnels of snow

I called to say
“I miss you”
You said:
“It’s snowing in Chicago”
And I want to say
“It’s snowing here too, without you”

That winter things were filled
With winter
Chairs, pots, trees
My head
My dishware

That winter was a vast field
Between two people
And the hush of the winter trees
And the winter sky
And all the snowflakes that fell between them.

Sometimes the world is
    So large
That I can only handle it
    One poem at a time.
Counting each round grape
    Each pearl
One after another, obsessively,
    Like a rosary of words.

Sometimes the world
    Is so fast
I can only handle it
    One pause at a time.
Counting the moment each leaf
    Each breath
Falls in order, tumbling,
    Like the earth is falling.

Sometimes the world
    Is so beautiful
I can only handle it
    Once in my skin.
Counting each crease and groove
    Each nerve
Like it might last, forever,
    And in this poem, it will.