my love
it has been a year of sharing life together
waking up together
cooking and eating together

holding hands and going for walks
brushing away your tears
laughing together from our bellies

may these words be a blessing to you and me
so we may continue to live out our vows to
be faithful and loving as long as we both shall live

I am grateful to be walking this journey with you

I lived
a life filled with futility,
where each day faded
into another.

I live
a life filled with moments,
each one humbling me
into sanity.

I will live
a life when I reach out to
others still fading
into oblivion.

my body
            wants
                 to move
                               in
                   rhythm
        to your
heart

i still spell gray
with an a

not an e
in my po-etry

does it matter
to the grammar?

hoo's to say

says the owl
to the vowel

it's a gray area.

r  ~ 10/17/14

artifacts arranged
chronologically -

flint and wood
allied with cordage -

sharp-edged bronze and iron
- a skull with cut marks
beside a copper
-tipped alloy bullet

on the shelf between
war and peace
and anthropology -
an anthology

- details emerge
in the painting
- killing is our nature
and dying

- a still life.

r ~ 10/26/14

Eternity is the web that loathing weaves and love caresses tenderly

My afternoons have been spent listening to her
And her mind-numbing jazz, the trumpets
and the trombones, the bass guitar and the piano.
I'm almost tone deaf but, god, I could feel her soul
through her songs. She has caught me
like how liquor stared back at me
with her golden stare
As the ice begins to sweat.

After school she would teach me
How to handle her instruments:
The soprano, the alto and the tenor.
The former, we would practice often at her whim;
Her favorite sax which even with a few notes,
she'd ask me to play with her.

In her own words, "You have to imagine"
"Making love to your instrument."
"Imagine me", she said.
And for the first time I heard her play
Pink panther off key.