The truth is this,
Every monster
You have met
Or will ever meet,
Was once a human being
With a soul
That was as soft
And light
As silk.

Someone stole
That silk from their soul
And turned them
Into this.

So when you see
A monster next,
Always remember this,
Do not fear
The thing before you.
Fear the thing that
Created it instead.

On those 2:00 a.m. February mornings, when I get up to ****, death is in my
creeking bones.
As I thumb through memories in the old family photographs, death smiles back, in black and white.
He hides in the shadows of the lined up pill bottles, like toy soldiers on the nightstand.

But when I lie in bed and look for pictures in the smoky stucco ceiling, I see coffins and funeral pyres and I close my eyes and grin, because my friend conquered death and took the
fear out of
the grave.

I Wrote You

I wrote you at the time you went away
I wrote you letters each and every day
I wrote you when the sun shone bright
I wrote you in the candlelight
I wrote you.....
Though you did not write to me

I wrote you when the frost lay on the ground
I wrote you when the snow came falling down
I wrote you in good time for spring
As the birds began to sing
I wrote you......
Though you did not write to me

I wrote you when the air turned sweet and warm
When skies were red at early break of dawn
I wrote you as we gathered grain
I wrote you when it gave me pain
I wrote you......
Though you did not write to me

I wrote you as the North wind cruelly blew
I wrote you for I still remembered you
I wrote you underneath the tree
Where you swore you would marry me
I wrote you......
Though you did not write to me

I wrote you when my heart had lost the will
I wrote you then and I will write you still
I wrote you with my dying breath
So lost to love, even in death

I wrote you....

I wrote you....

Though you did not write to me

If you miss me at the midnight
Then talk to the sky full of stars
and feel me in the moonlight
I'm with you, don't make tears!

If you need me in the morning,
Then just look at the rising sun
and I will be with you, darling
when you usually go for a run.

If you feel me in the afternoon
So you come to the lake alone
and enjoy my voice in the loon
Bring the love back, nothing's gone!

If you feel like singing with me
then just sing with the crickets,
You can read me with some tea
in the evening, like other poets!

I pretend that your poems and 
my poems go
slumming in disguise;
carrying on in dark doorways
of riverfront bars—
tipsy, telling secrets,
spilling out into the sweet-smelling
night,
libertines 
more in love 
than they were before.