In these words I cried,
A thousand -
millions tears,
That I am sincerely,
Honestly -
and always will.

In these inks,
Stories are told,
The secrets,
I choose to tell -
perhaps not.

Pages - wasted,
Memories - fades,
Surreal realities,
Everything moves -
In a pace
I can't adapt.

The cover,
Can't hide me anymore,
Thick or thin,
I am fully exposed,
Feelings, tears and heartaches..

The creaking of that old chair is all which they could hear,
''take a seat'' he said and move it near,
he would tell a story of which he was very fond;
it included a bike, an old friend, and a huge duck pond;
He spoke these words time and time,
no remembrance of telling it but, once more would be fine,
He chuckled and chuckled at the top of his lungs
telling of his friend and how off his bike he was flung,
With a smile, he glanced at the family around
a sudden moment of silence;
'' Whats your name?'' he frowned
A nervous laughter from his daughter he heard :
But the man? he just stared.
Unsure of these people who once more came to visit,
''story telling is my job, so your problem what is it?!''
His voice he projected, confusion portrayed;
great sadness in his family, but by his side they stayed.

Perhaps it was too soon
but time will tell me that
it was the right time when
it got loose out of my pocket.

The agony of the lost ink pen
given to me by my grandfather
is not that it had a thick nib
that glided though sheets
of stories, gave track
to trains of thoughts.

The agony is that, I wanted
the pen to be the living proof
in his posterity, or mine
that he was a good man, and
only grabbed by the ills of habits
and inability to control one's mind
did he speak bad with others.

I had a hard time, gulping the loss
like the hardened blob of mucus
too difficult to shove down the throat
but too difficult to push it out.

But then I had no other option,
I could sulk in the moment for long,
or I could imagine that these poems,
are what would show him a good man,
despite his odds of the world against.
I'm the ink and the ink pen
and not what got lost.

For this body too is borrowed,
expenses not more than
what bought the ink pen.
Of course grandfather would
probably get angry if told.

So the agony of the lost ink pen
is that it got lost, but also found
by someone. May the person
find good use of it.

I wish I could be a book
I could send myself to you
in envelops and postcards
over a laconic lifetime
rungs of ladder climbed
waded through like the push
of legs in the water, over sand
chewing on the words you sent.

We, are a family now,
some privileged in the boundaries
of grandiloquent bags and pouches,
some forgotten in the drawers
before relocations,
versions of a person’s state of mind
over time, we make history books
capturing people in the making
of an indistinct next moment

sometimes we carry our own praises
outsourced by the wits of our writers
like love they did find not in the other
but their own selves, blind still.

Does your reader pause too?
basks in the glory of an empty wall
staring at nothing in particular?
I wish we had will and means
to write ourselves on ourselves
so that we could reach other and do that.

Instead like our creators, we are
dilapidated ruins of yellow bodies,
left to live and die on dirt and air
once they are gone, aren’t you scared
of death?

Seeking Reply
Letter A

Orsemas Caldwell
was a curious old man
who lived deep
within Elderwood forest.
Everyday he'd gather
branches and boughs
to cook his dinner
and warm himself
inside the drafty,
dusty cabin
he called his home.

I clearly remember
the night he invited
my wife and I over
for biscuits and tea.
We left our car
at the entrance
of the single-file
footpaths that led
into the darkened
shroud and stillness
of his forest.

We sat at an ancient
wooden table covered
with the inscriptions
of hundreds of writings
from decades past.
I remember his wrinkled
trembling hands as they
set down the tea
he had dried for us,
I believe it was chamomile
with a hint of lavender.

We talked about a great
many things, but nothing
made his eyes light up
like when he told us
about his wife, Percilla.
They were ministers
at the old baptist church
until they retired to their cabin
in Elderwood forest.
Young lovers again, they'd
lay under the trees and laugh.

He showed us her picture
and smiled remembering.
I could hear in his voice
the sweetness of their love
and a longing for reunion.
I don't remember much more
than his words that echoed
in my head as we drove
back to our modern day
amenities, holding
one another's hands:

'Don't let one thing
come between you.
You are one flesh,
you are not two.
Don't let children,
or money, ambition,
or your vocation
come between you
and the one God gave you.'
This is the memory of
Orsemas Caldwell.

wake up its all the same , I guess I have to leave , and then it all changed , when I had a dream

(Lucifer) : you tired of this **** ? I know that life's a *****, start off with the razor , slit your ****** wrist

blood everywhere , looking in the mirror, I see now how things are , my visions getting clearer

Lucifer: Say goodbye , it's now time to die
They never cared for you you were a waste of time

One last cut , made sure the blade was deep ,no more of the pain, I'll have eternal sleep..

The day we roared with infinite jest the
larder packed tight with provisions burst.
So much canned meats, tinned, pemmican
hardtack we had stored knowing our
journey north would be sufficiently trying
that sustenance would prove difficult.

The slog.  The slacking day when you rolled
off the sled, creviced.  Your voice booming blue
crystalline as we see, no escape.  Trapped and
the cans I hurl into the hole.

Hours I read to you lipped, curled into a
snail, a shell, a crocus of yellow
a dread of
finishing the story and saying to you there is
no
more.  So you cannot tell, when the pages have ended
I make up confabulate truth and fiction
embellish.  
Pretend the story line marches
forward decades and we are in the Amazon;
You’ve discovered
that the water
that seemed
guileless is crocodile filled.
They bite hard and
you can imagine.

All primary colors on the
floes, all glacial movement, slow to melt, fast to burn through
the colors of our arctic rainbow.
I had primed the lamp the last night, before that dawn, before
the ride in which you fell.  
The wick trimmed and each
consequential action of the day I placed
hanks of hair
neatly side by side into banks of snow.  
Under my cracked tongue is
a bump that rolls
mole like cyst.  

Partner of my travels to this cold realm, your self shelved.
Below:  Did you hear me whisper?  Asking why today
have I become.  
The whispered promise of holding
upright against the dark.  I thought.
It would be magnificent.  

Not even fanfare.  Or aurora borealis.  Or flight.
Yes dreams of flying.  
Yes dreams of ahah so it is after all.
I thought I would recognize the moment of unleashing.  
What makes the special now?
If I whisper Abandon I might hear you echo in the ice.  I might see your
boot, attached to.  A glove alone, unpaired.

The story they lived, the story they tell is one of each husky,
one by one, no longer.  Starvation and then there are none.
But we are in the Amazon, and it is a scorching hot day and there is
much to be explored until you fall into the river and get bit.

I take it all back.  
You laugh because I add flying monkeys which is
us pretending that we’ve explored
this terrain which looks like a bed
in a room and a chart.  
They cannot
stop your bleed, and so we begin again.