December's twilight, soft and gray
Twinkling lights, a festive sway
Christmas magic, all around
Yet, melancholy's gentle sound

Memories of laughter, young and free
Children's wonder, eyes aglow with glee
Reflecting on the tree's shining *****
A bittersweet reminder of life's fragile walls

Eleven winters past, a loss so true
My father's absence, felt anew
December's joy, now tinged with pain
A heart remembering love, and love in vain

In this season of sparkle and light
I search for wonder, a fleeting sight
A glimpse of childhood's untainted delight
A respite from sorrow, on this winter's night

My heart finds solace in the love that remains
Among the bittersweet feeling it still conveys
The softness of the season's lights eases the pain
Amid the merriment of others in these Christmas days.

because she carries
the weight of the world
on her little shoulder. As she
grew older it only doubled. So,

she built herself a bubble
and lives inside of it. It's
round and the walls are
made of chocolate. No floor

or ceiling is there. No couch
or armchair. She's suspended
in the air. Here she dabbles
and she doodles. She eats

buttered noodles. She drinks
pansies and peppermint. And flings
her lines to print. She never did
marry. No one wanted Carrie.

That which can be described or uttered
does blemish what's the greatest splendour
residing in the deepest labyrinth of the heart
it can't be drawn upon -- this wonder

of wonders whose abode
is beyond the ken of the seeker-
it's the sanctity beyond all sanctities-
the mystery known to no discoverer

A WOMAN IS CRYING

in the next room
a woman is
crying

a moon
perches upon
an hotel sign

unmoved
as a new millennium
dawns as bright as neon

the woman
still crying
her unknown despair

shifting silently
from one century
to another

human grief
unchanged
from age to age

a woman
is crying
crying

*

New York with one century becoming another and in this one moment on the threshold of a new age...a woman cries her own private grief...a sorrow that has no name but seems to be the grief of all ages now and to come. I never discovered the reason for such sorrow and the neon coloured it blue and yellow and then red.

On our way into
Santa Anita one day,
an old man had tipped
over in his wheelchair.
There was a pool of blood
beneath his smooth head.
I was with my Dad.
He was around the same
age as the poor injured man.
I was 12.

Seeing that man, and watching
the blank stares of the apathetic
crowd gathering around the
man, and the blood, and the
fallen wheelchair, I knew that
nobody would win, and the
horses that ran were the luckiest
of us all.

my street on four wheels
where they don't move
their feet. And screaming like
a banshee, howl. I sit on

my deck and scowl at
the silence they stole. Ugly
trolls at it again just when
I'm billowing in my reverie. They

massacre a memory. I can
not hear the robin sing over their yelling
and bantering. So, I make my way
inside. But I'm still attacked on

all four sides by little people
amplified. I'm a bird in a cage. It just
gets worse with age and spring. I can
not escape the hollering. This was a quiet

street. Now it's a riot of little feet shouting
inanities, calling it play. It's a black cloud
on a sunny day. There's not enough
chardonnay to make the noise go away.