“Don’t say that,” I said,
for he gave me hope to dream
of a better life
Who am I to judge
what comes from your mind and makes
its way to the page?
Heartbroken hero,
you are worth so much to me
but I turn my head
Inevitably
rejected admiration—
Why do I bother?
I answer myself
quietly, shy, to prevent
embarrassing truths
Speaking in haiku
I am decoding language
to send a message
You are: a poet,
a lover, a dreamer, a
former(?) friend of mine
A broken wing on
the sparrows carrying the
last humility
in this broken world—
You are a fire, lit in black
ink and in tired lines
Your face, a canvas
etched with tragic beauty of
history itself
Your fingers, biceps
trembling with strength, the power
to know and create
Good and goodbyes to
encroached evils of the dark
You know there is more
than storms, depression—
more than this old soul can say
or see or even
Speak, in spite of this
epistolary chain of
senryu, tied with
the hope you once glowed
of, the old flame within you,
the torch to something,
to anything more
that still tastes life in all its
bitter and sweet and
salty and so sour
yourlipspucker with the loved
umami of life
and I am sitting
here, writing this letter to
a man who needs, like
all of us do, to
love and live and laugh and cry
and to feel skin’s warmth
once again. I have hope
for you, even if yours is
hiding under rugs,
swept away in the
midst and mist of foggy lives—
Smoke shall soon clear, and
the right words may not
be found, but these hands you hold
attached to your wrists
I am sure these hands
of yours will find the mirror
and remove the grays
of all your sorrows—
There is light, dear, waiting to
be recognized by
a humble man in
the desert, building machines,
building a new him.