I've noticed something
Over the past few years.
No matter how hard you close your eyes
It doesn't stop the tears.

My understanding of things, important things, has left me.
It doesn't make sense, to make sense of this
How can it be, how can this follow a plan?
There is no plan, no divine decree or meant to be.
There is no reason, not for this, not for this.
Can we ask, or dare we, who hurts more, who hurts most
It doesn't matter.  Heartbreak has no calculus
Apparently hurt, fear, isolation, loneliness, desperation, anger, and retribution don't either
I wonder if that's the the lethal parade,
and what's missing?
Abuse, neglect, weakness, genetics, propensities... Or just evil
Evil makes it simpler.  Evil makes sense.
I need someone to blame, i want someone to blame,
because I'm angry...
And I want to make sense of it
No wait,
I'm sad and heartbroken and bewildered,
     at the senselessness.
This just won't make sense.
But, I will awake tomorrow, my life, my wife and son and daughter, in tact.
What's left then,
     when there's no moral,
          no lesson,
               no purpose to it?
Just to love and mourn and feel, and cry...  For a while
It's hard to know, when there is no sense.

In shadowed light
Through filtered lens
I saw a glimpse
of fathers end.

Of daughters rise
Emerging glory
Stepping boldly
Into her own story

Not yet written
But past a draft
A lovley story,
Fore and aft

Only in audience
I watched her depart
Finding her own way
Directing her own  heart

A nostalgic sadness
For ego's caress
Not letting go
Of old address

But applaud I did
And ever will do
To honor what's past
And embrace what's  new

Her story's my story
If lesser role
Tis the way of things
To salve the old

I saw a glimpse
Of her hopes and dreams
Laid bare to all
Yet to all esteem

And now 'tis me
Who will find my place
With joyful heart
For her embrace

More than a smile, or a kindly glance
More than a greeting or a shot at romance,
More than a gesture of good will or assist
More than my eyes  whose gaze you resist

You'll not be a part of this dull human race
Or notice the anonymous, child's face
So what that they seek a human touch
You're not interested, or at least not much

More than this extended hand
More than the beauty of the land
More than the senses waiting to reveal
More  than the heart wants to appeal

It must be important for such sacrifices
To decide that yourself alone suffices
Surely engaged in some lofty unknown
Absorbed, sustained in your own "cell" phone

From my first cry
Mother's embrace, father's joyful face
Medicine says its for air
But for me it was for joy
I already knew I was blessed

A place really home
Tonka toys, Christmas joys
Where my heart stayed
And summer lingered
I grew up loved and blessed

Created two measures
Bug and kitten, we're smitten
Depths, heights, tears, joys
Holding on, letting go
Sacred duty, honor and blessing

And 28 years loved
Best friends, make amends
She gets me
I get her
True love, my blessing

There is no equity
My share, is unfair
There's no accounting
For beauty or love
Or all my blessings.

Poems
are to be quietly
silently whispered
over fires made
out in the chilly cold

Shared, with shifty eyes,
trembling fingers,
trembling voice,
trembling lips,
shaking hands

Reverently whispered
so that the wind
catches the words,
tosses them away
so no one may ever
misuse them again

Poems are to be shared
hiding away
from the world

i fear
that you have become
my favorite song
i know your words by now
i know the chords
and i can sing along
i’ve even begun to harmonize
and i can hear you everywhere i go
i’ve learned your shape
your phasing
your balance
i hum you softly in a crowd
i scream you loudly in my car
you are always in my lungs
on my lips
in my ear
and my fingers can find you
on any surface
brilliant enough to resonate
something slightly resembling your pattern
i replay you
over and over again
i fear i will grow immune
to the masterpiece you are
the score all too familiar
so i will force myself to stop
i will indulge myself in silence
in books
in statues
in television screens
but i know you still exist
you always will
and i will still recall you well enough
to play along one more time
despite the sour notes i’ll hit
and you will fade from my memory slowly
but i will always
always
remember the hook
the swell
and the nostalgia of the first time i heard you
will overwhelm me
and sustain me

but i fear more
that you will believe
that you will always be that song
never changing
collecting dust
a fading memory
the soundtrack to recollection
but you are
a new record
each song
each lyric
each symphonic incident
every time
you are released

i want to sleep
deeply, soundly
curled up tightly
warm and peaceful
comfortable and quiet
wrapped up in sheets
of paper
covered with your words

Great hawk enshrouds tiny ring;
swallowing silence in the reflection of spring;
Your shadow bemoans my gentle home;
where wax wings and iron legs of sternness roam.
Between shattered glass and petal's dance
whose schadenfreude--makes you sound like an ***?
Oh, what a ******* intellectual chore
when even poetry doesn't make sense anymore.