lachrymose: suggestive of or tending to cause tears; mournful....given to shedding tears readily; tearful.**

make no dithering,
wily excusing or explaining,
among this band,
I count myself
a brother and a man

eons ago shed the
reptilian skin masculine,
my six-shooter now a manly
cheap Bic ballpoint blue-eyed pen,
used to fell forests of egos,
mine, first foremost and ever last

every write that sore tries my heart,
lives hard by a stream replenished,
by freshly born, yet stale, recirculated
salt-mine tears, salt, mine, tears,
that include those storing and storied,
some preceding and some succeeding,
and some spilling
even as
this story told,
here and now,
is in the hearth,
forming and fulfilling

if man enough that you can cry openly,
then man enough to write good poetry,
this then, this be the simple and finest
line I ever wrote,
line I ever cried

5:20pm April 20th,
The Year of the Tear