Hey Dad,
It's been some time since we last spoke. I miss you, still. I'm writing to ask that you pass a message on to Mom for me. She never was one for sentimental stuff; but you know that, already.

Tell Mom that she is missed by all of her children; we miss her especially on this, her first Mother's Day away. I will miss not calling or seeing her. I missed sweating over what to get her this year. I miss her voice those times when I just needed to hear it; the first time that Noah had an ear infection, those times that I needed to know what was wrong with my roses. She always seemed to have the right answer no matter what. Just like you.

Tell Mom that I'm doing well. I've stopped drinking. I know she never liked that. Tell her that Noah is graduating from High School next month. You both were always so proud of him. He misses both of you very much. You should see him now, Dad. He's as tall as I am. As tall as you. He has grown into a good man; he is a lot like you in many ways. Noah sends his love to you both.

Well, I just wanted to say hello, and ask that you tell Mom that I love her. Tell her that I understand. It was time. She missed you. You were waiting up in the high pasture for quite awhile.  I'll let you go, now. I know that you two still have a lot of catching up to do.

Hugs to Mom.

                         Love,
                         Rick

r ~ 5/11/14

I ask you moon
what good does it do
losing sleep regretting
all of the stupid ****
you did, time wasted
when I could be listening
to the wind whispering
poems in my sleeping head
instead of thinking about
my own death, hell, I may
as well be writing my name
in the water, my prayers
to women knowing they
can never be read, any way
I go, I’ll go in peace because
these words, I know, will be
unknown, so let the waves
take away what they will
let the tide say that I tried
I lived, I loved, I swam
a long **** time; I tired.

Far into the night
I spied a long dead star
like that dark light
I saw through the pane
of your window,
like a signal for me
that it was all clear now
to move on to another exile,
another woman, another
island to banish myself,
another liaison with dawn.

I’m trying hard to be teachable
But everyday remains much the same
Where the ending is unreachable
And the beginning seems just a game

Rain is pouring down in that dark place
The wind is howling for me to leave
Without a light I can’t find a trace
Give me something to make me believe

Please take this burden from my shoulder
And shine a light that will help me see
I want to learn as I get older
That you will always be there for me

Liebe immer...
Love always

r  9Jan14

I want her to rise up again
like when she lifted her blue
skirt looking at how brown
I am taking off my shirt
and there are somethings
you learn if you were born
on a farm where I watched
her shadow in the middle
of the night overlooking mine
in the dark where we hid
from the light listening
to the wind, that sad poet
of the unknown pulling back
the dead eyes of those singing
sweet songs in the long night.

The moon wades the sea
and lifts his curved blade

to cut loose the tide
tied to the shore

and it's high time I listen
for the secret word

that tells me to turn
out the light and go home.

I could live forever and still
never forget your face, unlike
the other girls who I knew
I was too old and ugly for
but there you were, dressed fit
to **** in your black beret, short
shorts the color of a forest, a Che
T-shirt cut above your navel, a
ragged copy of the Manifesto
in your back pocket, like a bandanna
to cough in, playing the cello
so well in all the cafes around town
a mournful sound like the wind makes
at night when I go to visit your grave.

I'm not quite sure
when the dark thought
first came to me;

it crept up softly
and quietly, like a black cat
in the garden of night;

like a light through a crack
in a door opening slowly
and too soon; or perhaps

a drowning man in the deep
waving back at the moon;
too far over his head.

So long, love,
say gnite honey,
I'll go pull a stump,
so here I am, the field
of night all around me,
crazy, sad and lonely,
what love there was,
like a bee on a rose
buried in the year book
of past attics, you never lost
my shadow because I
never had one beside you,
though you did lose a ring
once, or twice,
you were like a woman
holding mirrors
over the spring, there
are screws
in the window sill
never sunken to hold
a pane, you don't listen
for me in the rain
anymore, you lie yourself
back into the one
you think you love, cruelty,
cruelty, cruelty, that's all
you've ever known, my love.

I like to trace the lines
and the golden fine hair
right there in the dip
above her hips and her ****
like dust on a guitar
that needs playing.

I once was in a place I loved
but left. Let me tell you why.

Friend, I won't give you any of this ****
about vision quests or fields to plow.

I just ran out of patience and time.
And reasons for staying. Anyhow.

That beautiful ghost of a woman
of mine said I don't love you, BOO.
And I was gone. So long.

My heart froze solid
like the cold ground I sleep on.

I said I love you in the field of honor
and she was like a colt, her name
like the moon caught in my throat,
she was water I held in my hands
like the canoe I worked through the river,
and she was a flash at two-thirty
in the morning of the suicidal knife,
and she was a fire of pine cones,
a butterfly that lit on the float of my pole,
and she was like the night herself.

She spreads her yellow wings
To sun and sky an offering
Gold nectar dew she brings
To Ruby-throat a'humming
Sweet song of waning spring
And lily in the morning.

r ~ 4/6/14

Farewell is a good word
it often returns

in the dark like Charon
floating by in my own
listing imagination

I hold light for his boat
and echo goodbye

like the long nights
follow days, without pain
death is only melancholy

she said you'll have to say it
soon, you know,
to your child and your wife
and, yes, even to yourself.

A wrinkle in time
       born with hair gray
  and fragile bones
       jutting against feathered skin.
Black eyes cry
           for joy that day brings.
  Child of ages sings
         to Mother Earth.

r ~ 13Mar14

Seven billion strong
and each one of us
alone in our thoughts.

r ~ 3Mar14

Sometimes I come to
while the moon is still up
i have been dreaming
way into the night
of a sad woman
in the corner of my room
sitting at a loom
weeping, and weaving
her own shadow
and my silence feels
like an intruder
to her sorrow
an unnatural light
to the darkness
she will face
for all the rest
of her tomorrows
if I could only dream
a way into her
dark nights.

It’s a short walk from here
to Sneads Ferry Cemetery where
the bored to death are buried -
I go there every now and then
and read to them a poem by Lorca
the fortunate who died so young -
bled beneath an olive tree, a fascist
bullet to the head, no pain, I envy that
his fast demise, no boredom -
or surgeon’s knife to try to slice
away the little flowers of the grave
I would take his bullet any day -
before I’m bored, before the blade
before I claim a plot, or take up space
here in this ******* boring place.

We, lost Africans
left the savanna
to follow the stars
leaving the ground
to stride with arms
down by our sides
to inherit the earth
and dirt of other lands
following the caravan
of sacred elephants
taking off our black
helmets to discover
other atmospheres
learning to breathe
here as well as there
drinking and singing
like blood thirsty
tigers the dangerous
songs of maps drawn
and long forgotten.

Love, I've forgotten
how to spell your name,
forgotten the taste,
the smell, the feelings,
all those things you
used to bring to mind;
no, not you, not her,
nor lovers now blurred
I've known in my life,
but you, Love, the meaning
and joy, the sweet pain
of one simple word that
I've not heard in so long
a time I can't remember.

Love can be like
trapped light
existing like dusk
the likes of which we can't see
physical but not optical
gravesites for stars
a waystation for dreamers
a delta to cruise through
paradise on Sunday
cold as ice on Monday
a hundred pound block on tongs
with a butterfly at its center
your temple of madness
or the Egypt of your ***
lands of mystery
an island of death
proven theories of sorrow
your lineage, children, tomorrows.

The old wives
from the mountains
used to tale us  ;)
that if you tell a lie
when it’s lightning
you’ll wake up
at midnight
spitting blood
which makes me
think I must’ve been
talking in my sleep
last night when
the storm blew through
loud enough to
shake the house
and wake the dead
so I woke up to
smoke a cigarette
and let my dog go
outside to take a ****
when I saw a rose
pretty as you please
there on my pillow
I swear, I think I dreamed
that I was the President. ;)

carved on walls
where fires burned
-indelibly etched-
the hunt and dance
our story

flint to moss
sparks ancient art-
tinder for desire

tendered flame
has seen us
***** unclothed-
an ivory venus
burned into my bones-

making fire

r ~ 9/3/14

Must we only dream
   of wise kings who know
that rivers must flow
   peacefully
so a woman can sing
   her children to sleep
and fathers not weep
   holding them
in grief too heartbroken
   to rage
at the violence men bring
    in this age
that should be long left
   behind us?

Beneath the mango tree
death turns slowly -
creaks the branches/
untouchable - the tears
hanging low above the ground -
slowly swinging - no more singing/
beneath the mango tree.

r ~ 5/30/14

She came to us on wings of Spring
Of Marian the birds did sing
Her cat-nipped tails tells tales
Do make hearts swell
And to her a sweet refrain
Happy Birthday, Marian

r ~ 20Apr14

In the dark age before reason
warmed his sharp knife,
I took things to heart
that left scars with no wound,
like lightning without thunder
or melody, that barefoot gypsy
I fell in love with, like Night
and her moon, woman with child
sinking below frozen ground,
I learned the loneliness
of cold seasons, and the wood
of the wild cherry will **** you.

mercy-
left town
on a late night train-
running again
with no place left to go

and all tracks look the same
when the lights are burning low

mercy-
don't come knocking
'round my door
-anymore

mercy-
I need mercy-
I need some more

and all tracks look the same
when the lights are burning low

mercy-
where she's gone
i don't know

-mercy.

r ~ 9/14/14

He creates alternative facts
for no good reason
just to be an ***
what the hell for
don't ask me
he thinks someone is listening
to everything he has to say
all the lies he tells
taking pictures of himself
through the microwave
lying through his teeth
about his taxes
throwing mirrors at stones
shattering the truth
roaming his labyrinth
fiddling with his ******
while Rome burns
with little hands all a twitter
making up political speeches
while sitting on the *******
and spitting on the floor
writing surrealist poetry
on the walls and calling
them executive orders.

Mime me a river
Silver with salmon
Running forever
Clear, cold and free.

Mime me a mountain
High as Montana
Headwater's fountain
Top clad in snow.

Mime me a meadow
Lush green with lark
Holding clouds' shadows
Fast in her arms.

Mime me a time
When sweet sky was open
And slow moon could climb
Shine right through the breeze.

Mime me a river
Silver with salmon
Running forever
Clear, cold and free.

r ~ 5/28/14

a crumpled milk carton
discarded...fallen
in the gutter, another
black and white photograph

a tooth fairy smile-
something missing,..

a coldness
from the shuttered window
in the shadows
of a quiet day
...Xavier doesn't play here anymore.

r ~ 8/17/14

Rains come
Rains go
The wind blows
And so do Mondays.

r ~ 7/21/14

I call her Moon.
              Why, you ask?
Because she is light
     when my nights are heavy.

r ~ 4/24/14

A storm is brewing in the east
and a white bird is flying high,
like the shadow of smoke
from the last fires in the moonlight,
lying crossways over the bed
on her belly in dark *******,
whatever she is dreaming
its meaning she keeps to herself.

The work I do is not easy,
but it's not bad.
I'm glad to have it,
when it's all I've ever had.

I am a student of the night.
I wear a black patch
on my sleeve.

My teacher's name is Sleep,
and she goes by Dreams, too.

She moonlights by the creek
that flows like a gust of wind
through leaves I never knew,
places I've never been.

We sing songs about you, love.
This song's about you.

The Moon is like lovers -
some so full of themselves
you can't break your gaze
away, while others
are half-lovers -
here tonight, gone
tomorrow - and then
there are those -
the quarter-lovers
- you know, the kind
who shine and pass by -
slow in the short nights
- not stopping long
enough to even whisper
- goodbye, my love.

Shiny black spit-shined shoes
on the walk
in the Memorial Gardens
hurt my feet
to look at their stiffness
and his swollen ankles
in them.
His worn and creased pants
too short, belt buckle aligned
dress-right-dress
with the button fold of his shirt.
He wore
an old faded USMC campaign hat
pulled down
almost to his white eyebrows.
Almost comically.
I pitied him
in the way we sometimes do
the old who mumble,
never knowing
just who they are talking to.
I heard Inchon mentioned,
and Chosin a time or two,
and every time he said Puller knew,
yeah, Chesty knew.
I quit taking my lunch
with a book in the Garden
when he stopped coming around
and after I saw his picture
in the obituaries
with a description of how he won
his Silver Star and two Purple Hearts;
wishing now I had listened closer.
More’s the pity
I never spoke to him.

r ~ 6/27/14

That thing we had
I’m sorry that
I walked away before
giving it or us a chance
to even dance, to
become something, sadly
still, my heart
I’m happy for the
more than nothing
thing we had.

Unbroken
the surface
in morning light

lone hawk
pauses in flight

alight on a pale blue sky.

r ~ 9/13/14

A whispered
call to prayer
across the pillow
my muezzin
your adhān
awakens me
to the sun
a new day.

I rise and kneel
in worship
in supplication
I hasten to you
my confession
in adoration
I vow, I bow
to please you.

r ~ 6/23/14