for me
  
    ever since my mother died
    on the day spring began
    eleven years ago

my joy over the annual reburgeoning of life
also evokes the memory of death

I know
death is unique and final
     spring is eternal

but all the lovely flowers sprouting forth
always remind me of my mother’s love
of flowers and all other natural beauties
like sea shells  pine cones  precious stones …

maybe it was appropriate
    after all
for her to leave this earth
when it brought forth new life again
    bursting into renewal
as if to compensate us
for our loss

over the years
life leaves its traces
on our bodies, our souls,
in our memories

    the moment when a broken twig
    just barely missed the eye
    of a cavorting child

the first time promises
turned into cheats, betrayal, strife
adding injustice to the loss of trust

    the day when suddenly
    you could not read
    the writing on the blackboard any more
    and needed glasses

the time when playing the piano
got so painful that you had to stop dreaming of a pianist’s career

    love’s first elations
    followed by despair and disappointment

some lucky instances as well
have kept you kicking & alive until this day

    crashing through the old glass door
    mostly unharmed
    with your first scooter

during a summer job at the steel mill
seeing just your leather working glove
    and not your hand
disappear into the hydraulic power press

   getting away with just a crick in your neck
   when your idiot friend caused a car crash
   that left only small pieces of your glasses
   in the wreck

out of them all
the scars of loss
    or threat of loss
are such that never die

    your little son saved
    by last-minute surgery

sitting at your daughter’s bed
for several days
until high fever finally abated

   your mother’s unexpected death
   on the first day of spring

the slow and dreary suffering
your father bore with desperate pride
a few more years

all these engravings
   and many more
written by the flow of time and space
are waiting just around the corner
    from your daily living room
mixed in with fonder memories
of joyous time and wonderful events

together they have shaped
the person that you are
your life, your world

which you still try
to understand

Trials under an unfamiliar roof,
under foam board ceiling panels,
I thought I knew love,
I knew nothing.

It's a tidal wave on unfamiliar seas,
on a boat I don't know how to captain,
I'm a stranger to the concept,
and the concept is a stranger to me.

You think you feel it,
but you would know.
You think you know,
but you don't know till she comes.
A tidal wave,
and everything before is like playground love.
She's everything and you're nothing without her.

I want to write about life,
about sunflowers and oceans of grass.
Mountains towering over the skyscrapers,
nature towering over man.
The elixir of love and the joy of the sun.
I want to write about opening doors,
light at the end of the tunnel,
life outside,
outside this,
but I can't help but want to write about the pain,
the discord in the notes of my life,
the beer bottles across the room,
lined up in a row,
a long row.
It's 3am and I'm eating a bag of cheese puffs,
and I hate myself.
I look down at myself,
the lumpy shell that is my body.
Looks like jello stuffed in a plastic bag that's about to burst.
I know it can get better,
I know it can.
Unfolded clothes blanketing the floors,
pockets of trash and missed opportunities,
where am I?
How did I get here?
What went wrong?

It is nighttime.
The stars glimmer
in **** near
infinite distances and
directions,
sending out
static signals
that we may never hear,
emitting light,
we get to see
long after
they are deceased.
I would give you these
burning things.
I would send you safe
sparkling dreams
of space travels
and grand adventures.
If my hand could stretch
beyond the horizon
of a black hole
I would reach out
into the gravity field
and gift you
the unknown.
For a small smile
or merely the hope
that one day
past your pain
you will laugh again
and find sweet dreams
I would give you eternity.
But for now
all I have is poetry.
So, I give you the heart
of my words,
they are yours
to do with as you please.

How could I forget
the morning's sunrise,
the evening's sunsets,
tangled in bed with you?

I always wished that
there was a way
the breath you
breathed in to me,

could be kept forever--
keep me afloat forever.
You gave me life,
a gift I cannot return.

In the June mornings,
the sun burns bright
and calmly wakes me
from dreaming of you.

Whilst the warm nights
are my heart's torment.
Sleepless turning,
unable to watch you sleep.

i walk into the kitchen
to the smell of mornings when you were alive
and it brings tears to my eyes
and a head full of memories
it reminds me of salty eggs
and letter shaped pancakes
it shatters my heart
cause that's the first time i've smelt that
in over two years
cause you stopped cooking when you got sick
and then the pancakes and eggs weren't there
so there was no warm kitchen
just stress of doctors and death
but i walked into the kitchen at 7 pm on a thursday
and i could've closed my eyes
and still imagined you there