from the moment
we’re born. The doctors
perform the ritual of cutting
us off from our mothers when
they sever the umbilical
chord.

We get cut
again, if we are boys and our
parents circumcise us
by choice.

We get cut
out of people’s lives
as we get older. Some
relationships don’t last
forever.

We get cut
on the job
when the company
is downsizing. Only to
learn no one else is now
hiring.

We get cut
from the team
from our partner’s wills
in essential –
we can’t get through life
without undergoing the knife

like the hole in her
pantyhose in rungs from her
thigh to her ankle. As the rest
of her, so mangled. Like on

fumes when the gas gauge
is down. Like her nose when a cold
goes around. Like a clock on batteries
she loses time. And as river, it's a

downhill climb. Like sweat on her thin
soft nape, or maple syrup on a stacked
plate of crepes. But as wild horses
she gallops to sea. Her honey long

hair flying in the breeze. From men,
women and jobs to woods, robins and
frogs. Like a crab on the beach she's
a hermit. If you ask her, she'll confirm it.

I seldom rarely treasure
just a moments pleasure.
But what we have right here,
In an instant could disappear.

I've come to really appreciate,
special times one can't recreate.
All the firsts that we go through,
can never be restored to new.

A sweet and innocent first kiss.
First steps your baby don't miss.
Those first words baby spoken.
First love, a tender heart open.

I don't want to jump ahead!
I want to stay here instead.
I know soon it will all be gone.
A moment does not last for long.

Moments become memories.
Never to be as keen as discoveries!
They're all that's left of what we had.
Kind of makes one feel sad.

So please do me this favor.
Take a moment; let us savor.
Let not us rush it past!
By God it goes much too fast!

climbing up a pole,
trying so hard to attach,
for my tentacles to latch on,
like a babe. So, I can grow up

and be strong. But spiraling
around a splintered post cut
my green curls, like swirls of
hair falling from the barber's

chair. If I was a sunflower I'd have
the power to ride the sky. My golden
petals waving hi. But I'm a tendril, a thin
piece of thread without a back or

head. A crisp snap of dry leaves,
a wisp of smoke billowing in the breeze. If I
was a rose I'd be wrapped in evergreen
boughs, bloom as the sun and the robin rouse.

broken boy? When you
walk in the door at night,
as you turn the key and
put on the light. Who are you

climbing the stairs, a silhouette
hanging on the wall, walking down
the hall. Who are you in the bathroom
mirror as your washing the crimson

smile off your lips, holding the razor,
with a tight grip so close to your
wrist? Who are you as slipping the clothes
off your skin, free-falling in your bed,

a mountain of cotton sheets, for
the living dead. The room is black,
as the days ahead. You left your face
at your girlfriend's door. And your

puff's stuffed in the bedroom
drawer. Who are you as the ****** sun
stabs its daggers through the window
curtain, and you don a Richard Burton

for your clients that day, spraying your
wavy hair so it lays in place. And lacing your
shoes? Pouring the coffee and reading
the news?

is so aberrantly broken
he's choken on his
words. His life is a blur
of ****** sunrises and murky

sunsets, of icy showers of soap and
umbrellas. He’s been beaten and
jammed into dark cellars, crammed
into tight spaces. He cannot tie

his shoelaces. He cannot write
his name. They try to tame him
with drugs, his mother with kisses
and hugs. But his brain is

unwired. The lawyers and doctors
she hired could not do a thing. Like
all the king's horses and men
his pieces one cannot mend.

a drop out of him. Like toothpaste
in a tube sticking to the sides
like glue. Cannot be pushed out,
even if rolled up like rug. Like my snug

denim jeans cannot be held
together. The zipper sticks to my rolling
belly, wobbling like a bowl of strawberry
jelly. Like the gunk I squeeze out of

my red, hard pimple. If I can squeeze
the truth out of him, if it was that
simple! Like a baby pushing through
my birth canal. I bear down tight with such

morale. But his head's too big to
pass. If it was easy like breaking
gas!  I'll not get it out of him. It's attached
just like his limb.