-


what do you say to someone
you love from such a distance ?

a stroke could be measured by
how far it is from the first floor
to the intensive care unit

or from the steering wheel
to the door **** of the
hospital entrance

or from your drive way to
the spot where you have to
pay for parking

or from the handset of
your telephone to his ear—

exhausted,

you can only
whisper
into it—

"i love you Daddy"

and hope this time
he can feel your
breath...


s jones
Nov 2021


.

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as if she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She has never heard of Faust, or Frost,
and she is unlikely to have been seen
rummaging through bookstores
for mementos of others
more difficult to name.

She might imagine “poetry”
to be something in common between us,
as we write, bridging the expanse
between convention and something . . .
something the world calls “art”
for want of a better word.

At night I scream
at the conventions of both our worlds,
at the distances between words
and their objects: distances
come lately between us,
like a clean break.

Published by Verse Libre, Triplopia, Lone Stars. Keywords/Tags: distance, distances, convention, books, bookstores, art, literature, poetry, chasm, abyss, divide, Faust, Frost, clean break

I wish I could
stop the distances from growing,
make my mind reside back in my body,
turn reality into a dream so it could hurt less,
feel better when I cry,
erase the borders between us so we become one,
dry the oceans so I could cross them,
fill them again with my tears
and maybe jump in,
test how deep the damage in my mind,
distance myself from crying again
and reside in a dream.

What are the changes of five years' tugging and pulling
On your mind, your face, your frame?
I have seen the years' etchings on my own face,
Felt the downward pull, the weight of years,
Seen wrinkles that had never been appear.

What thoughts you must have had in five years' time,
I cannot really know, but I have tried, and I have cried
The long nights away, and the days have lingered on,
And I have missed your serious face, and your laughing eyes,
And your fire. Oh, I have grown chill without your fire!

I know the depths to which I have plumbed, sounding answers,
But answers never seem to come, and the plumb returns dry,
When I wind it back to my weary, waiting heart.
Though my hopes drop silently into depths like falling stone,
No splash rewards my falling heart to tell me I am not alone.

So, birthdays come and go, and though we, both of us, grow old,
Still I have hope to spend, and at least a falling stone moves on,
And nothing ever really stops, so I hope on...so I hope on.
If you read these words some day, know my love won't go away,
That in every way I long to hear your voice, to see your face.

Love always,

Dad

You remind me of him and it frustrates, angers, and annoys me.
But most of all it makes me afraid - afraid to the pit of my stomach
I can already feel the sharp edges of that knife you are about to plunge at me
I can already hear myself sobbing in the middle of the night, and during odd sun hours
I can already see myself hushing myself up, to ask the air around me to kindly be more benevolent
Let me breathe
I want to live, I know right now, but then I would only want to die.
And I want to stay brave, right now I can say this, but then... I don't know
I don't like envisioning myself so crippled.

I don't know if it is the right thing to do
But I miss you.

times like these
when everything around you asks
for a step forward. up. come... believe.

and all you want to do is go back, back, back to where your heart pulls
where doubts live
but with the safety of your undeniable love.