hacking the cloud
to paint the sky

- code in words
gets the color
down between the lines -

beneath the verse -
perfectly - poetically

- subversive.

r ~ 10/19/14

maybe it was just bad timing
maybe 10 years from now,
we'll meet again in one of the most cliché ways.
maybe I'll be sitting on one end of a coffee shop
and you'll be sitting at the other
and I'll be drinking coffee
and you'll be drinking anything that keeps your eyes open.
I'll see you but pretend I didn't,
I'll take the napkin that was once sitting under my coffee and place it in front of me,
I won't write down my number.
I'll write about how my coffee matches your eyes,
dark brown coffee sweetened with a little too much sugar.
I'll write about the last time I saw you,
and how you said you'd never grow any ****** hair
but now you have stubbles resembling cinnamon bun crumbs swept across your face.
Maybe, just maybe, I'll look up from my napkin, and see you looking at me.
Maybe I'll see you looking at me the way Gatsby looked at Daisy.
Or maybe you won't look at me at all.
Maybe I'll just crumple up this napkin and throw it away.
(But I kind of hope I meet you at the garbage can, seeing you throw away a crumpled coffee shop napkin with scribbles all over the back.)

The sky is a sea of ashes
An enigma of flame
Red orange light clashes
With the blackness in its frame

The air is brittle, its essence is dry
Like the smoke off a fire
Whose embers are about to die

376

Of Course—I prayed—
And did God Care?
He cared as much as on the Air
A Bird—had stamped her foot—
And cried “Give Me”—
My Reason—Life—
I had not had—but for Yourself—
’Twere better Charity
To leave me in the Atom’s Tomb—
Merry, and Nought, and gay, and numb—
Than this smart Misery.

Relief.
A rush of it comes
As the words tumble out.

Because the words are true
And the feeling is nice
Which is precisely why I'd choose you every time.

It was always you
You were always the one
That I was going to pick
To give all my love.

I would've given birth
To you,
Endured whatever
Mothers do.
Instead, I did
What Dads do.

I rocked you
Til my future shook;
Watched you til
I couldn't look.
As you changed,
I changed too,
To do the things
That Dads do.

You were bathed,
Dressed and fed;
I loved you so much
I was saved.

If there's credit,
Well, I get it,
For teaching you to read.
I took the blame
When you got bored
With school's ABC's.

I followed you
In all your roles,
Your teams,
Your solos,
Your trips,
Your shows.
First to clap,
Last to sit;
I taped it all,
From start -
To finish.

I taught you
How to tie a lace,
Ride a bike,
Golf and skate.
When time arrived
For you to drive,
You learned
On standard,
Never stranded,
You came home alive.

Your highs
I took in stride,
By example taught
Humility's pride.
Your lows,
I couldn't internalize,
I dropped my guard
With my eyes.

When Dad's do well
It's a double edge,
The future wedge.
The world
Revealed
Desired you too.
I don't dismiss
What mothers do,
But when Dads do well,
Both lose you.