there's no poetry between us
in the inches of soil and grass that add milage to the distance
there is no tragic stanza
no iambs to recount and consider
no melody
my heart has a break in it
a faultline unabridged
your spaces are defective.
there's no poetry between us
i don't think there ever was

Cradle the memory of love
For one sad day it will pass
Like a cold and lonely dove
Lying broken on the grass

No matter how hard thy plea
No matter how gentle thy sway
The hands of time
Only travel one way

Charles Casanova 10/26/13

They're not undoable
but they are reversible
if you stop and realize

that braille on your skin
meant for the blind
cannot be read
by those who cannot feel

shouting at deaf ears
will only rob you
of your voice
and drown out anyone
who cares

There is no way
to take away
inflicted pain with more

Each day is like an empty page
And you choose what to write
Your choice of story, art, or song
To fill its pages white

That’s what I told you, but you laughed
You said you saw no cause
To ponder foolish metaphors
Much less sit down and draw

And as I watched you walk away
I recognized your crime
You filled your page with glaring blanks
And called it killing time

If he loves himself
more than you,

Then he is only one,
not two

We should have learned from Jericho
but we keep building walls
to keep out and hold in
with fleeting form
what we seek
to call our own

And when they come tumbling down
we wonder what we could have done
and what we will do now
that they are what
they have always been
before we build again

To suffer pain
caused by another
is more harm
than should ever be

To heal and find
greater safety
is more difficult
than should ever be

But inflicting pain
in return only
adds to more
than should ever be

He put the moon in my hand
     long before I knew
          the measure of its weight

          It felt like almost nothing
     as if floating
above the reach
          of my fingers
    

               It had no special features
          to reward my wandering eyes
     as they continued on elsewhere

And there seemed to be no reason
     to keep it in my grasp
          so I soon returned it
               into my father's hand

                
                       But afterward I felt it
                resting in my palm
          growing heavy and then fading
       in phases without sequence
or boundaries of time

Barely perceptible
     like shadows pulling forward
          it guides me still

               Leading me past emptiness
          lifting me past hope
     rising highest in the darkest hours

I see its face again