Ang ganda na sana ng tugtugan
Ang yabang ko pa
Abang na abang ako sa kantang patutugtugin nung kuya sa caf
Ayun, "Forevermore" ng Side-A
"Ay putang ina"
Solid.
Kahit may pagkain sa harap ko.
Ang sakit pala.
Ang hina ko pala.
Isang kanta lang, hindi ko kinaya.
Oa para sa iba.
Pero para sa'kin?
Iba.
Masakit.
Hindi ito yung mga oras na kaya ko maging matapang.

Isang kanta lang, hindi ko kinaya.
Bakit ba ako nasasaktan?
Bakit ang lala?
Mahal mo pa ba sya?
Mahal mo ba talaga ako?
Ang sakit pala.
Ang hina ko pala.

Ang yabang ko pa.
Akala ko napakatatag ko.
Pero hindi pala.
Isang kanta lang, hindi ko kinaya.
Bakit kasi hindi mo ako hinintay?
Pinanindigan ko ba talaga pagiging "laging late" ko?
O sadyang kailangan ko lang talagang masaktan nang ganito?

Isang kanta pero ibang sakit ang dulot sa'kin.
Isang kanta mula sa nakaraan mo na labis na nagpapasakit sa ngayon natin.
Madaling sabihing lumipas na yun.
Pero mahirap ding pilitin ang sariling 'wag mapaisip
Ano kayang iniisip mo nung narinig mo rin yun?
Naalala mo ba lahat?
Naalala mo ba sya?

Nanghihinayang ako.
Bakit ba hindi kita noon nakilala
Nung hindi pa ako ganito kahina
Nung kaya ko pa magmahal nang buong buo
Hindi tulad ngayon na puno ng takot

Nang tignan mo ako sa mata
At sinabing mahal mo ako
Saglit na tumigil sa pagtibok ang puso ko
Masaya at masakit
Sabay.
Lalo akong nahirapan.
Hindi ko na alam.

Sa bawat araw na dumadaan
Mas minamahal kita
Ayaw na ayaw kong nawawala ka sa tabi ko
Maya't maya hinahanap kita
Akala ko ganun ka din
Kaya lang nasasakal ka na pala
Hindi ko namalayan
Sobra na pala
Paano ba talaga magmahal?
Bakit kung hindi ako kulang, sobra naman?

Ngayon hindi ko na alam paano ka kakausapin
Paano kikilos
O magsasalita kapag andyan ka
Pakiramdam ko lahat ng gawin at sabihin ko,
Mali.
Sobra.
Kulang.
Ewan. Paano ba?
Siguro nga ganito talaga kapag nagmamahal.
Masakit.
Kumplikado.
Uubusin lahat ng lakas mo.

Ibibigay ko ang gusto at kailangan mo.
Pero sana sabihin mo
Kung sawa ka na
Kung ayaw mo na
Kung kaya mo pa
Kung mahal mo ba ako
Kung mahal mo pa ba ako
Kung mahal mo ba talaga ako
Kaya ko tiisin lahat
Hanggang alam kong may pinanghahawakan ako
Pero kung wala na,
Handa naman akong magpatalo
Handa akong masaktan
Maging masaya ka lang

Sanay naman kasi ako
Alam kong mahirap akong mahalin
Hirap din akong mahalin ang sarili ko
May mga bagay na sadyang hindi nababago
Pero kung tunay kang nagmamahal, matatanggap mo
Matitiis mo
At kahit hirap ako
Ginagawa ko
Hindi ko isinusumbat
Gusto ko lang malaman mo
Na ganito ako magmahal
Uubusin ko ang sarili ko

Sana maubos na rin lahat ng sakit na 'to
Hindi ko alam na ganito ang epekto ng isang kanta
Isang kantang magsasampal sa akin ng katotohanan
Na walang madaling paraan para magmahal

Fairy tales are how girls get to sleep
Girls who sleep sweetly next to siblings; best friends' pictures scattered about the room
their world is safe and full of love

But I have no prince, no siblings, no daily phone calls, no pictures, no best friends, no sweet dreams.
What does that leave me?

     I stop to give a homeless man a taco and to ask him about life, love, healing, karma.
Frosty says I should stop by again sometime.
I smile

     The teal green hat I bought in Japan makes me look silly;
I put it on, grin at the girl in the mirror and play with the fuzzy ***** attached to the ear strings.

     Today I look up from my tv series to watch Madeleine in her favorite Madeline shirt, chatting with her friend while casually dusting our food storage.

     The cute girl who swipes IDs manages an awkward conversation upon my every re-entry to the caf --
Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked her sexuality for no apparent reason, or pretended to ***** in the dish room.

     My mother once broke her nose doing a pushup

     Upward facing dog.

This’ll do.

I knew him because he was there...sometimes
in the morning drinking one of his sixteen cups
of coffee before I would go to school.

I knew him cause we would go camping sometimes
and the four of us and our dog would be in the station
wagon towing a tent trailer, to be set up and taken down.

I knew he was there sometimes when I joined cadets and
then the militia and...sometimes after I joined the CAF,
and less when I began to have a family.

I knew where he was when we were home... sometimes,
as he was cleaning his rifles or handguns, making beer
in the wine room, carving or tinkering with something.

I knew he was there...sometimes he and mom would
argue and their voices would be raised and we could
hear them through the floor, as they struggled with
reason.

I knew he was there...sometimes he would smoke
when he drank more than he should so I would
drive us home with my new licence, before that
he would do the driving.

I knew he was there in the hospital...sometimes he
would have seizures then the aneurysm that did not
take him but made him less able to be a father
and grandfather to our children.

I knew he was no longer there over twenty years
of a slow spiral down, to where the cold, cold
lay waiting...sometimes sooner for some and
later for others.

As  he lay on the bed in the care home he was
no longer there, cold to the touch, heart stopped
struggle quit,... sometimes I miss him, sometimes
I am not missing him, he was not the kindest,
and I made him my only dad... sometimes I
wonder if that was, my mistake.

I have had it all wrong,
I wonder if my grandfather
thought that, when on a steamer
                    he arrived a dreamer
of moving west from Montreal
single trying to find a life, better,
opened and tasted peanut butter,
                                                and never did ever eat that again,
I have had it wrong, all of it
He kept dreaming and trying,
took the train to the northern Alberta,
saw his dreams take shape as he built
                 homes for other dreamers,
he met his wife, but that is a poem for another story,
he was a pacifist, he did not support, killing another,
but he sure had a temper,
           for a peaceful man, he decided to retire, and that
let him get old, I admired him for what he stood for and sit at
a desk he built with my dad.

I still have had it all wrong.

The desk is nothing special
other than the hands and
knowledge that built it
and something a father and a son
did together, one of the last things
of each other, that
would be remembered, they worked well with their hands.

Both men were dreamers.
My dad had his dreams, he mostly kept to himself,
but you just knew that they were to do with
things outside of the house.

Oh don't misunderstand, he loved working with wood,
he knew firearms, he recieved a Medal for Military Merit,
for dedication above and beyond what a militiaman was
to do, he wasn't a pacifist, in many ways he was different
from his dad and so many more he was exactly the same.

                                                          ­                    Shame, I have had it all wrong.

I was not an A student, but Gee, I tried hard,
my potential was palpable we just needed to resuscitate it from time to time,
I joined the CAF, married and had three who have amazed me,
with their strong beliefs, so different from one another, see?
I have worked twenty jobs and not one among them defined as a career...
oh and yes, I have spent time  in an unemployment line.

I am not a carpenter, like the other two could, my grandfather as a career
my dad took it on as a hobby, I am a pacifist, yes, but don't push to hard,
I might write you into a poem...  

I have written so many serious and sombre pieces,
There is already so much sadness in the world,
If planet Earth could cry a tear, standby with the tissue,
I deal with my stuff in words, I try not to hang onto them,
Rather free them like birds, Ravens and Crows with Hummingbirds and Eagles,
My soul is sore and
Animus would rather soar,
so I pour the toxins from my mind, my skin, from my day
you already know I am not perfect I sin, from my way of life,
so I pour the garbage I live and beauty as I see
it is around me for you all to read, shame on me
I have had it all wrong.

I don't have to get it right, I must write.



©DWE122013

So down, I'm drinking coffee grounds
to stay up. Pieces of bark in my

cup like a tired dog running on half-
woofs. Half & Half fizzles, sizzles

West Coast Folgers corporate doorstep.
Step lightly / hardwood floorboards.

Each creak, each door hinge "hello" couldn't
make me go. Fetch me the paper, some

poetry, a pen and a pad to write on.
To feel right on.

Lines so loose that delicates / zip-ups /
camisoles lie on the hillside

trying to poke the clouds, pop 'em,
with their tags. 100% cottonpoly-

estersilkrayon blend. Pure blend,
breakfast blend. The mug I stole

from the caf 'cause they steal from
me. Thousands of dollars every semester

for Cheerios everyday. Cholesterol doesn't
matter to me. Not because I don't care,

but because I've lowered the good kind, too.
So low, so low, the parking garage elevator

girls can't pick me up. So low on morale,
my textbook battalion would rather shut

me out.
So low that I'd let them.

I've a question
Needing resolve;
It's not as big
As the start of the universe;
Or the existence of the netherlands.
It's not a To be or not to be,
Or anything about the Papacy,
Or the question of the Trinity;
Or any other religious decree.
It's not a question of good or bad,
Or why I'm here,
Or why we're sad.
I'm not asking about nucleur waste,
Or our desire to travel outer space.
Those are big ones
I couldn't ask,
I can't answer ones so vast.
No, this itch I have
That needs a scratch,
This ***** of an itch
That archs my back:
What should it be.
What will I make,
A caf or decaf?
My great debate.