I'm in love with someone's daughter
living in the shards of a broken home
Cutting herself on two year-old letters
These are moments she can't fake;
reasons to feel alone
So used to abuse, her tears start to shake
I hold her close as her head starts to ache
"I love you too much,
so I can't let your heart break."
She said, "I know you love me,
but you've made a mistake."

I never meant for anyone to be my pulse.
I promise not to step on your feet
if you teach me how to waltz.

I saw the old man circling the tree trunk
Weather beaten skin, bent gnarled hands
and piercing blue eyes

He seemed to study every knot and crack
in that ancient timber

Then without a word turned and picked up hammer and chisel

The wood chips then began to fly and like confetti on the ground lie soon in heaps some ankle high

Occasionally he would stand back and look but never once a rest he took

Mallet strokes both hard and soft some from under some aloft fell there with unerring skill always busy never still

Long into the night he worked now by the light of an oil lamp and so the tree stump 'neath his hand then became a work of art

At long last he stood and turned to me and said three words " that'll do lad"

I approached to see just what he'd done and there I saw the perfect rose every petal and leaf in place the slender stems in the breeze did sway

With no plan or picture he had made the start
And created the perfect work of art.


So what is creativity? Well that's your next challenge.

No love poems because they've been done a million times. This time something unique

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.

i still try to remember
to take my boots off
at the door

my feet are wet
from walking in the rain

i leave laetoli footprints
on the pine floor
-like the first man

trying to walk upright
but can't seem to
get it straight

There's a lot of empty space
in a house
so full of quiet

wishing for thunder.

r ~ 9/5/14

///

In my springtime,
when moonlit was falling from her(moon) height
mother was lip syncing the lullaby
and I turned to sleep
It grew a sweet dream of summer
that was created too many stir of dreams

Then I can remember,
when every year,
late autumn had come,
I kept my kite on the blue sky
that was floating with drifted clouds
and I was awaking again with a big shout
sometimes I had seen supernatural shadows on the evening sky

If I address my adult young
When the mystic purple camellia were blooming
the grasshoppers were rounding
and the beautiful shrubs of white flowers were dancing
with the gentle breeze,
I was wandering in the ground
then the bees were humming around
when I painted her wild beauty
and it seemed me as a sweetie

I know you say me a dreamer
but you don't know,
my grandfather was a farmer
and my father was a sailor
who was sailing away his life into the blue ocean

After then day by day I grew older
yet I have locked all those lost in a folder
and taken all those responsibility in my shoulder
after then I had fallen in too many doubts
it was again the too dark cloud’s shout
who are those dark clouds?
how did it melt and bring the tears!
how the petals of roses grew wither!

Then I drafted,
crafted
and drifted all of my dreams
then a train had come to my known station
and carried me again from the dark to light

Again I have made a dream
and I sing a song of spring
after then I take a sad song
and try to make it delighted
that certainly it makes me rolling,
and moving towards the sweet summer
but again the monsoon has blown
towards the dry leaves of murmur
and slowly and slowly,
it has swiped me toward the sound of banner
that was passing through my life
///

@ Musfiq us shaleheen

My son runs, wrapping arms around
my nebulous waist.

"l love you, Mom!"  He squeezes tighter,
as if letting go would be his black hole.

"I love you, too, " I squeeze back, absent mindedly.  (Where is the cream? I need coffee.)

"I love you more!" he breathes, without pause.
He gazes into my eyes,
searching my planets.

"Oh no, that can't be true," I retort.
I forget the coffee, his eyes are starlight.

"I love you to infinity!" he exclaims,
staring harder.

He wants to sail the Milky Way with me.

"Me too," I reply, and remember oxygen tanks.

I'm speaking in light years, and I hope the sound waves will catch up to him.

His face cracks into a million years of forever, before he lets go,
dancing across the universe of our livingroom,
his solar system intact.

At least for now.

I sat down with you
In the coolness of the night air
Watching you sip Dr. Pepper
After a long day's work
I listened to the sounds of summer
Watched a few stars twinkling
In the jet colored sky
We were happily chit-chatting
About this and that
We were all together
Just us three
Oh, those summer evenings
Gone forever
Only shadows remain
Touching my heart

**~Marian~