What's better than a summer day?
Not a whole lot,
But there are a few things.
There's love for one,
After all, any day with love makes summer look glum.
Some argue for money,
But I just don't know,
Money doesn't feed my soul.
Family is up there,
But the sun can set even on that,
Guess a legacy isn't as immortal as they say.

I tried on several of my father’s
old Brooks Brother suits
just before his funeral,
trying to save myself the expense
of an outfit I didn't need.  

Each was too tight on the collars.
too short on the sleeves, each
crotch inseam strangled my manhood.
I had outgrown them all.

Almost all of it will go to Goodwill-
except maybe for those old coal wingtips,
(still in their slightly battered but original box)
heels and soles worn down from hospital rounds,
the leathers evenly laced, spit and
polished to a proper navy shine,
solid and smooth, enough to go from
monolithic to Marley vinyl
without missing a beat.

I could almost hear “The Great Pretender”
play as he glided my future mom
(literally,”The Beauty Queen of Fulton Burrough”)
across the ballroom floor, and then,
suddenly stop, and leave her,
as the hospital pager buzzed on his belt.

All my father- a short, balding but
approachable looking guy, with the
devil’s goatee- ever needed to win
my mother over, was Nat King Cole.
What he left her with, was Harry Belafonte
swooning his existential sorrows out to her-
“Day-o, midnight come and I want to go home.”

I smelled the stale odor of talc
distinguishing itself from moth *****,
and was tempted to slip them on,
but figured the cost to resole them
wouldn't be worth the price. Besides,
that oxblood polish would be too hard
to find.  I left them there for the next
tenant to decide their fate.

Feet shod in mud,
chasing frogs and dreams
in a world all his own.

Sweat spills from young pores,
racing currents of futures
not yet known.

Tight embraces,
soon-to-be strong arms,
swelling pride in a father's heart.

Wood and leather,
worked to tough threads—
faith stitched into his aspirations.

Grass stains on knees,
bending the world to his will,
moved by dreams.

Anthems of hope
rise in his heart,
lifting his father’s soul
to love’s high planes.

The quiet secrets
of love and compassion,
hidden by modesty,
are known to all.

He follows his dreams
through mud-soaked fields,
where slick frogs slip
through eager hands—

A world he shapes,
a world he claims,
a world his father
once called his own.

Heavy is the weapon that carries it’s victim’s blood –
Heavy is a ***** mind that eventually fills with mud;
Heavy are your eyes in a dream, like a sleeping prong,
Piercing your thoughts in the daylight; life lives short –
While the dreams we make of ourselves live long.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown,
Heavy is the crowd, hoping to see you down;
Heavy is the weight of love, to make your kids proud.

For by the blood of ourselves, the words of our tongue
Are the greatest weapons, to lift or bring others down,
Even as your dirtiest thoughts subtly attract so easily,
It comes from all being fully stained in our sin’s filth –
While your dreams are the length of your passions;
The measure you take to achieve them, lies in width.

Bearing the crown of responsibility; those below you,
Look you down, seeing your success without longevity.
Avoid the negativity, live in positivity, a life of wisdom,
Joy, & love – a legacy your young would be proud to be.

If they doubt I'm so young,
But simply agree with the rest,
Does that mean I've finally reached a point,
Where I am so good,
There's only up?
Or will I come crashing down,
Is youth my key to fame,
Will they still read me when I grow old,
And this number fades away?
When my hair thins and grays,
Will my name?
Or will I pave my way to legacy?
My ink has a clock,
I'm afraid of it ticking down.

Everything ends,
Debt collected by the light that gave it life.
Not everyone lives past the grave,
Often forgotten, memory slipping away.
I know for certain I will fade,
For that is how it must be.
Do away with my name and virtue,
Let only the raw words stay.
Yet still, when I do die,
I want a cannonade on evil,
And stars falling from the sky.

Stone lion mourns deep,
etched in grief, yet standing proud,
bravery carved wide.
A lion falls, yet duty stays,
Carved in stone, his honor sways.
For king and cause, they stood, they died,
Their silent valor, petrified.

You do not belong to this soil,
not the way they did—
feet sinking into peat,
lungs lined with salt and prayer,
bodies turning to moss before memory.

But still, you stand here,
four generations late,
hands in your Primark pockets,
mouthing names you were never meant to carry,
even as they sit inside you,
your first name stamped with their last,
a borrowed relic you never earned.

Your brother gripped the wheel like a lifeline,
right-side driving out of Dublin,
left shoulder braced against muscle memory,
like he expected the road to turn on him.
Mom rode shotgun,
printed-out censuses fanned across her lap,
highlighted, annotated, dog-eared—
a roadmap made of the dead.

You sat in the backseat,
cheek against the window,
watching Ireland unfold in slow exhales—
stone walls dividing nothing from nothing,
a horizon stitched with ruins,
the color of a postcard left too long in the sun.

Mom recited their names like prayer beads,
rolling them through her fingers,
waiting for recognition
that did not come.

And then you were there—
the grass, damp and grasping,
twined around your ankles,
softened under your weight,
pulling you down like something remembered.

The graveyard was older than the road that brought you there.
Headstones leaned like tired men,
softened by wind, by rain,
by the weight of a hundred years unspoken.
Their names smoothed into murmurs,
the dates washed into dashes.

And at every grave,
a small stone sign,
half-buried in moss,
letters chipped but certain:
KNEEL AND PRAY.
Not a suggestion. A sentence.

You did not kneel.
You touched the name instead,
ran your fingers over the grooves,
over the letters that built you
without ever knowing you would come.

A crow clicked its beak from the low wall,
watching the three of you like it had seen this before,
like it knew how this ended.

You whispered something you could not name.
The wind took it from your mouth,
tucked it into the tall grass,
laid it at their feet.

And then you left,
but the wet earth held its claim,
clinging to your soles,
like it knew you’d be back.