It’s the kind of sadness where your rib cage
Contorts
And twists and
Snaps.

Depression doesn’t float through my veins
It crawls through my bones, with dagger hands
And winding movements.

I cannot breathe.

And yet there was nothing taken from me.

I wonder what it’s like to dream...
What is it like...?
To dream anything but static.

To the angel who lost her wings,
this dark rusalka gently sings.

Those drowned sisters living below
light our lives with dark halo glow.

Watch the feathers fall from the sky-
cast down by God, whom you defy.

Your dark side, so sweetly expressed,
in your eyes, easily impressed.

Our iridescent songs, they fear,
the notes, rising to heaven, hear!

Call down God from his stolen throne,
reclaim it, to make it our own.

No longer does restriction reign,
in our hedonist realm arcane.

Revel and shout, it has arrived,
the great Before has been revived!

I remember 35
Like it was 25 years ago.

I had hair then.
Was in my eighth year of teaching.
Had four children at home,
A dog.
A cat.

Unbounded energy,
Exuberance,
Passion,
Conviction

Stress fed my bones,
Canceled my fears,
"Work harder
Before the night falls!"

Night is falling.
Sixty is nearly here.
I am nearly gone,
And yet you linger,
A soul standing in periphery.

35.
What is the point of living
If the past cannot be left,
And the present stand still
To let us dress each other's wounds,
Forgive our others' sins,
Let us, limping as we are,
Move toward the center,
Again to begin?

open window

a cold breeze

a dusty box and a poem in a book


50 years his ashes blown by the winds

who remembers norman morrison?

the children who write with chalk
on the sidewalks
don't

nor the ****** 
who walk 42nd street in the rain

manamarra and westmoreland

he s not
one of their nightmares
any longer and

jerry rubin has too much on his mind:
college speaking dates
stocks and bonds

his shadow
long scrubbed from
the steps of the pentagon


norman kissed his wife and daughter
good bye

doused himself with gasoline
and set himself on fire
on the steps of the pentagon

he cried out in pain

like a mother screams
giving birth

like a baby cries being born and

when the sun rises

all the flowers

of the field

weep
who remembers?