echoing images pass through aged eyelids.
through deadened nerve and grey matter.
leaving themselves in limbo.
hanging in air.
floating.
captured only in fleeting stills on pages.
unrecognizable.
clouded in murky after thought.
"Remind me again of who that was," it begins.
"Do I know them," it continues.
and with confused silence it ends.

Is it worse to continue to remind someone of what once was
than to just let me go?

I remember you tall.
Running marathons with ease as the
Portland breeze was my only relief as I
Staggered behind to a crawl, you – you

You turned back,
Picked me up and said the blisters on my
Feet showed a need to push harder – to attack and I –
I wanted to keep going. To fight through tears and blisters

Sitting in the corner of your office.
Small firm accounting. Where I had my first
Toffee, you excelled at numbers, serving rich and crass
You smilled, sipped your coffe, flipped through pages fast
One day, you went to the store. You
came back empty-handed, like a child forgetting a chore, you
you looked confised, but your wrinkled smile didn’t fade.
At least, not until you
At least, not until you – you
You
Forgot my name.

A life is a collection of memories
And hopes
And for you – for you
-for you that was
Fading

My fear wasn’t as loud as
The “nope” I was saying

Like all
My well wishes could stop
The ***** you were slipping
Like – like

Like I could have the audacity
To force you into
Into staying
Your gray beard, your
Coffee staining your shirts and
Your jackets
Weighing heavy

The tracks
My
Tears were laying when your

Your last word to me was “hey”
Trying to stop
Stop my crying in vain

Now
These jackets weighing
Weighting too heavy on grandma, she
She put them on my shoulders
The soft leather
Felt more like a
Boulder, my
My
My arms
Slipped through the sleeves,
Sleeves crawled at the wrist
Funny, I remembered you
tall

Memories
Broken memories
Lifeless before me.
I don't remember them.

Imagine
Not being able
To remember who you are
Your mind
Slowly falling apart.

I try I try
Piecing together
Memories
Strange places
My family
Strangers in minutes

Friends,
Nameless faces.

My mind won't go
to sleep
These faded lights
What remains
Within me.

Imagine,
Not being able
to form a sentence.
Unable to dress yourself.

Memories
Sweet memories
Foreign places.

**** it who am I?!

Faded lights,
I can not see
I don't want
To be alone.

Please please
Don't be angry
Stay with me
I can't fight alone

Help me
Stay with me.
Don't let me go
I need you

My name
It slides from the tongue with ease
So simplistic and overused
Will I ever hear you say it again?
You haven't known me in too long

My eyes
The emerald green orbs
That glisten in the light
Are they still beautiful?
You haven't seen me in too long

My hair*
Those long dark strands that flow
With your insistence of moving it out of the way
Do you still want to see my face?
You haven't answered me in too long

Your name
It seems so contradictory
To the half smile on your face
I wonder if you still feel yourself
I haven't known you in too long

Your eyes
The dull beads that sit steady
Trying to avoid the worried gaze
Only to look right through me anyway
I haven't seen you in too long

Your hair
Short with an angelic glisten
Just the way you hate it
Your curls have been taken away
Like the many other parts of you
I haven't recognized you in too long

**You haven't recognized me in too long

Her face was eye catching,
A round face smiling at him.
Her lips curved beautifully,
Like arched bows aimed to release,
But he couldn't  help but wonder where he'd seen her before.

For he knew that smile,
He did,
He knew he'd seen her before,
Somewhere,
Somehow.

It was Elena

The love of his life,
His soulmate.
His Pretty Woman, Sabrina and Allie.
A woman who surpassed both Athena and Scheherazade in wit and beauty.

He flashed a smile.



Her face was eye catching,
A round face smiling at him.
Her lips curved beautifully,
Like arched bows aimed to release,
But he couldn't help but wonder where he'd seen her before.


He just couldn't remember.

people remember not what you say,
but how you make them feel.
my words are not much, but
... they are all i have.

i've been cursed with possessing a perfect
memory. you are cursed with reading but
not understanding. or maybe i just can't
understand
how you don't care.

we are at once ill matched and perfect:
i remember both the syllables that fell
from lips, and the spirits they evoked...
while you remember nothing.

Do I love you?
I can't tell you
Am I happy
I don't know

Will I stay with you forever?
That's a long time
I don't know

I'm the king of keeping secrets
I'm the best since time began
I'm lost here, and I'm searching
I am me, but, a new man

Love me for the man I am
Don't love the man I was
I don't know what that man was like
I don't know the man you lost
Love me as I am now
I won't remember anyway
Don't love the man I was before
Love the man I am today

I smile and remember
Thoughts and visions
mostly blurred
Words and place
not remembered
Memories shaken
but not stirred


I'm still here in this body
Don't know exactly who I am
Was I good when I did know me
Or am I better as I am

Don't tell me to remember
My memories are dust
What once was steel and solid
Has quickly died and turned to rust

I can't love you as I once did
Tomorrow I won't know your name
You may love me now, forever
But, do you love me quite the same

I'm the king of keeping secrets
I'm the one that you can tell
Nothing in here is remembered
In this empty, aging shell

a home of unrest survives in my old town where
madness seeps through jaundice colored halls,
lapping life from rotted brains.

grim photos of grandchildren
deform walls,
but old folks don’t remember.
they wear nametags.
who am i? residents wail
for mommy, their ’86 kitten,
a bus pass from chicago or
the wrong god.

her eyes are sallow.
tunnel vision, they say.
cloudy hues without purpose.
bags under gramma’s lids hang
          like dead gangsters
and bifocals settle around her neck,
in case she gains a pang
              of clarity.

Lovely Rita,
once a fat cook is now slender as a fang.
she forgets to eat.

my guttural granny, she stutters
incoherent, mostly.
but today, she babbles
        an omen.

watch o u t
      thing s are
    g o nn a
h h h appen
  
she retreats,
deteriorating.

WE CONSIDER THEM VERMIN--
these visitors
to the rotting corpses of our loved ones.
But what if
they’re only there to say
hello?

And when’s the last time you paid them a visit,
anyway?

Well let me tell you something:
the maggots and
worms
know where we're going.

Billions of years, billions of ancestors,
busily moving
through their lives in
isolated
blips--
They’re just data now.
And did John the Amoeba, feeding on sunlight, ever think
that somewhere down the line
his great-something-grandson
would be a poet?
A doctor?
A teacher?
A football player?
Did he ever think that his great-something-grandson would
sit in his room
and listen to
the Mountain Goats?
To be honest, probably not.

Grandpa’s a stranger.
He got sick when you were young, but you
could never
remember
the name of the disease.
But it all came down to the fact that he never recognized his own grandchild—
he was an ancient basket case whom you loved
because
that’s what
you were told
to do.

You were 13 when he died,
and his passing gave you an excuse
to be sad,
which worked out pretty well because
sadness
was the most stylish emotion
at Marblehead Charter
in 2007.

Grandpa won’t be there on your wedding day.
He’ll be with the vermin,
saying hello.
But you won’t mind—
you still love him anyway.

Because one day
you'll be in his place
and your grandson will be getting married
and you won’t be there,
but he'll still love you anyway.

And somewhere down the line,
you’ll be someone’s—something’s—John the Amoeba.
And you know you would be proud.

Grandad's gone.
He's still with us, but....he's gone...if you understand me correctly.  Hasn't been with us for a few years. We thought it funny at first, till we realized what was happening. Then it dawned on us....he didn't know us anymore. Lifetime's of memories....events, holidays, pictures, kisses, hugs and laughter....and only we could remember them. When we told him about them, he would smile and stare away...trying to find them in his mind, with no luck.


When it started, he was telling me about a dog that he had heard about. A poyne setter, he called it. I told him, I'd never heard of it. He couldn't tell me what it looked like, just what it was called. When I looked it up on the internet, the closest I found to it, was the plant...a poinsetta. I told him it was a funny joke, but he got mad. Told me he saw it on a dog  show on television, it was a dog, a Poyne Setter, and he was angry at me.

Not long after that, every time he saw me, he said "Anne, can you do this for me? or Anne, can you get me that?". My name is Sarah, Anne is my Aunty. She's been gone since 1963, car crash. I'm not Anne. I thought he was doing it to make fun of me for the Poyne Setter thing. He wasn't. We were losing him.

He talked a lot about the early sixties, kept on calling me Anne. I put up with it, because for every time he messed up my name, after a short spell, he'd get it right and we'd be fine.

A few weeks back, it happened again. I  hadn't been around for a while and he sat there, looking out at the sea from the porch, when suddenly he turned to me and said "Anne...I need you to find me something". I said sure Grandad...he didn't notice.
"I want you to find me one of those sweaters they keep talking about...one of those fleece things. But, he added...I want a wool one, a nice wool one. A Wool Navidad....not a fleece navidad, but, a wool one. This time, I knew he wasn't kidding.

I told him, I'd look. He smiled, and turned and kept staring out from the porch. He always loved his porch. Full of plants out there to tend, when he remembered. Most of them were dead or dying now, which was sad because he always took such care of them.

My favorite, was always the wandering jew....he'd kept it alive for nearly thirty years now. I was keeping it alive, he didn't remember it at all. We used to joke about the name, he called it a creeping jesus....just to get me angry. Now, it was just a plant, he didn't remember.

We've lost Grandad. He's still here, but, he's gone. I hope he finds us in there some day, creeping jesus', fleece navidads, poyne setters and all.