You’re gone at last, so at last I can think.
Insulting! Humiliating, not to be able to fire back,
As you put me once more on a mental rack.
It’s no wonder that I want a drink.

But by now I want so much more than strife.
I want to scorch your villainy with shame,
To crush your “triumph” and ruin your name,
And make you watch how you poison life.

Yet I am stuck beneath your wealth,
Undone if I demur in the least.
You spring upon me, a mental carnivore’s feast.
While I resort to stealth.

My father watched your villainy from the beyond,
from the so-called “Heaven” in which you planned to meet him,
As if that will ever happen! As if he would want to see you!
Is enlightenment part of the afterlife?  You should hope so.

But since you finally let go of your empty  life,
I do not miss you, don't mourn you or feel that confusion
That people say I should, that I'd be torn with strife,
No, no! Not at all—I feel nothing at all.

Winter Storm Warning
For tonight, chance of snow:
Chance of conditions you do not know.
"Friday night, snowy, windy,
May last ‘til Sunday,"
Maybe one day,
You’ll be laid low.

Pack all the supplies you can,
Into a bunker or four-wheel drive van,
Throw in some extras, like a tire that's bare
And tell your kids, “Let’s go.”
But where? You pretend to know.

"Anywhere, anywhere I don't care!"
Away from the house with the giant tree,
That might fall and crush you, mother and me.
Away from power lines crackling on ice,
They’re explosive and electrocution's not very nice!

Up from Cape Hatteras,
Barrels the storm,
Where we’ve heard horror tales
Of strong gales and anxious watch,
Do we trust our lazy guts or the isobars?

On to New York,
Where they never quail
In the face of danger
Though the winds might wail,
Past Block Island with towering waves
To the Sound and the fury and gale.

We grit our teeth and batten the hatches,
Tell stories of worse weather watch to soothe,
Keeping voices low and emotions smooth.
Yet weather folks, hysterical, predict our fate,
Willing the worst, making us wait.

This time the flickering power stays on,
Our street isn't flooded
And the roof's not gone.
"All that fuss for nothing!" say the young and brave,
While you have that same dream of an old, rogue wave.

All of my life I waited
For you.
Walking on a path sometimes,
Or wandering in a mountain wood.
Even escaping to the tropics,
To let the sun burn my desire for you
This way or that.
But each time I looked behind,
There you still were,
Not fully formed at first,  
But a shadow.
Or sometimes light.
Then there was a sense
Of possibility, hiding in the air
That shivered around you,
But caused my course to veer  
Ever so slightly toward you,
Like ancient footprints in rock,
Deciding for me.
I never believed in Fate
Until I met you,
Standing in the doorway
Of a cottage, outlined  
With October’s warming sun.
I did not see your face then
But I knew.
And decades after
The same certainty abides,
Alongside any other gales
Of emotion or  
Temperate joy.
Around you a brilliance
Hovers in my soul.
Where you walk
Beyond my sight,  
My eyes still see you
And my love  
Follows in your path.

we were poor
but not deluded

and when
van morrisson's
"brown eyed girl"
comes on the radio on
that worn
old
brown rug
my brother and I
started tapping our feet
shaking our heads
to the music and
our sisters are smiling
at us and
our mother is laughing
at us

and all we needed was
laughter and love
a prayer and a song

turn up the radio