At the sin bin
***** windows
Hold the freaks in
Vacant eyes
Conversation
Strange expression
Dark and dimly
Lit the aura
In its sad eyes
Sick and tired
Always sleeping
Ever dire

Hiding away
As the rains run high
Lock me away
No more to run from my mind

In the courtyard
Cobblestones (and)
Brick and mortar
Water falling
To the stone floor
From the brick walls
Trees that darken
Leaves have fallen
To the cold stone
Wilting flowers
Frowning further
With the hour

I’m locked away
As the clouds blow by
Hiding away
No more to run from my mind

The silence sang to me like no song could.
I stooped. I was half alive, I was alone, I was searching for relaxation.
I was looking for freedom from the nervous, shaking bundle of stick my body had to offer me.
But that’s alright, I tell myself. There’s no use being indignant.
“Your grandfather’s died” I heard through the phone.
I grieved him years before his passing.

Relief came over me as I awaited grief in silence.

What was more alarming was the manic girl in the corner with burn marks up her arms running treadmill, spinning bike pedals faster than light, with no care for how she exhausted herself.
The slap of her feet hitting the floor and her gasping.

More alarming yet was the woman in blue hospital pajamas chanting in a yell “nurse, nurse!” all day and night, after she had beaten her head senseless against a steel wall. I grieve her loss of cognitive choice

I had no time to prepare to grieve either the manic girl or the woman in blue.
In loss and in love, grieving is a process that starts from the beginning and can carry on past the end.

I can choose to endure.
Pain has neither the choice to cease nor exist.

Pain is stronger than me because pain doesn’t wince at the sight of me. My grandfather’s strength lives beyond the grave.
I won’t grieve what carries on.

The silence sang to me like no song could.

I was born to carry stones
I was hatched in hospital by ****-poor parents
In the country my grandparents fled to for refuge
I can never stay in one place;
I said “home is but an imaginary space above the cloud.
The universe is only a projection of the mind.”
But, what is home? I wondered
I questioned whether I had been there
But I knew I had seen many others there
While they sit down drinking their favourite drinks
Or chewing and swallowing their preferred meals
As they walk street themselves or in droves
Home
Walking stark naked down the hallways
Quiet echoing in the walls always
Lest I want to make some racket
No one there can dare to stop me
The pictures I like hang on the walls
The records I buy stacked in crates
Spun as often or as rarely as I like
I throw a fit of rage or cry
In sadness or confusion or pure elation
No evil minions there to eat my bread
The plants I planted are in the garden
Just the way I rooted them to earth
In a manner pleasing to me only
It’s my obsessive/possessive nature
It's broken but at least it's mine

I was hatched upon this earth
A day before all time
I was made to toll the earth
For all of humankind
Watched all the centuries
Of horrid humankind
And now I seek satisfaction
To ease my wasted mind

The seventh born son of God
The glory to be mine
I was called but chosen not
Nor were the glory mine
Cast out of heaven
With a third the lot of man
Cast out of heaven
By my own dear father's hand

In the courtyard
No birds, no bees, no beasts, no life
Dying flowers, dying plants, dying trees, thinning air
Red brick on crooked cobblestones on a poor foundation
Crummy TV showing bunk shows for people with free time
Scratched vinyl floors with water stains breaking apart
Seats taken by empty frames with empty minds
I’m waiting on friends who don’t know their way
If they don’t arrive, the day will remain the same
Nothing
Sitting
Drowning in the grey

I hope I never go back
Knowing I will have to anyway
It smelled like a welfare office
Like stale *** smoke
Like old cigarette butts
Like mildew stained clothes
It was a “scent free zone”
So said the sign on the wall
But I’m telling you
There was a lot of scent in there
For a place not meant to stink
Probably because it was
After all, a welfare office
Where you take your number
Off the roll at the door
While bureaucrats take their time
Wait till you can’t sit
To have them tell you
“The forms are all online.
You apply on the computer.
There’s nothing I can do.”
At one time, it was an insult
To tell someone their job
Could be replaced by a computer
But now it’s happening
It’s no longer a ridiculous statement
It’s not even funny anymore
That the livelihood of humans
Depends on machines
The days they call you to their desk
To tell you - you have a cheque
Those are the good days
When the sun holds still awhile
To let you feel its warmth
A short-lived sigh of relief
That’s as good as it gets
When the people who hold
Every dollar you own
Are loyally subject to machines
You’re on a fixed income
As the saying goes
But too small an income to ‘fix’ jack all
You can swallow your pride
But the guilt keeps coming back
I must have looked terrified
In the security camera footage
Life is a garden
But it smells
like a welfare office

Today is a day to celebrate, not to be taken as a given
 Nor take for granted the gift of this our mortal life
  To praise which is to pass from here onto life eternal
   Don’t you know? It’s a mother who forms the endless circle
    Where the circle begins and the circle should end
     She opens a door with a key held only by her hands
      Calling upon angels of heaven to grant her a soul
       She has known me from before the first kingdom
        When the Father brought light to our existence
         Even then, she knew my flaws to their very essence
          She welcomed me without an ounce fear or reservation
           In humility, in obedience to the Father, in loving kindness
            By our Creator’s love, by mother’s choosing, her bravery
Today is her day
                                                                ­                         My mother’s day