she takes care of you
and you are embarrassed
   because you want to be free

she pays for your studies
and you resent it
   because you want to be independent

when you are flat on your back
she flies in for the rescue
brings you home and nurses you
   back to life
and you hate her for it

because you know
you can make it on your own
   but will not do it
until
she sets you free

            * *

seeing
my father waste away
is painful

not so much
because I may look through a window
into my own future

rather because
his dignity has become
so frail
dependent on body functions
he has trouble controlling

it was difficult enough
to live with aching joints & back
and only one third of heart power

after the stroke
breath is even shorter
eating has become a challenge
walking is impossible

no go at all
without the little pipe
that blows oxygen into your nose

he tells me
he appreciates my daily visits
I am glad

trying to cope with the pain I feel
watching his deconstruction
smiling through unshed tears
trying to encourage him

to get up to eat
and grip his spoon
firmly

        * *

Polished and refined,
With death I have found
A life below ground
A place I can call mine
Destruction and evil deeds
A breeding of pure hate
Is all that I can create
Out of all these heartless seeds

I punch them in
To the deep sullen dirt
Water them with vengeance
And a sprinkling of hurt
Tonight is the night
I find what dwells below
I don't have a key
But I can bargain with my soul
As I place it into these seeds
I am but reeds in the grass
I'm letting go
Only Heaven knows
The blackness of Hell's wrath

I plant my lifeless soul in this plot
To groom it as it grows
So slowly that nobody knows
It's the place the devil goes to rot
Watered with tears, warmed with fire
And as time stands still, never changing
This fruition of evil continues growing
Until the depths of hell can go no higher

Then it will bloom
A flowering gloom
Growing out of control
The ground will harden
In this here garden
Fertilized by my soul

Tree, I have come to shelter and with the rain to weep
I am soaked, barefoot with mud running through.
Soft the moss, cool and cold
to soothe my heart that bleeds.
Our waxing nights of love and moons
now fallow, a field that burns.
****** our hollow bed
of haunting, silent screams
too soon the fiery devil
too far my lover
the spring.

He walked the streets a begger
they buried him like a king
he played a six string guitar
he wore no golden ring

She had the voice of angels
survived a valley called death
then fearing no evil
she passed every test

They wrote the songs with sunsets
they walked the line together
they stood in a ring of fire
in love they burned forever

A seed is planted at the first mark
You always remember the start
You have to quench the thirst
Poison ivy is growing in my veins
And I dig them up using thorns
Red like roses, soft as petals
Skin meets the sharp metal