You were born five years before the Spanish Civil War that would see your father exiled.
Language came later to you than your little brother Manuel. And you stuttered for a time.
Unlike those who speak incessantly with nothing to say, you were quiet and reserved.
Your mother mistook shyness for dimness, a tragic mistake that scarred you for life.

When your brother Manuel died at the age of three from meningitis, you heard your mom
Exclaim: “God took my bright boy and left me the dull one.” You were four or five.
You never forgot those words. How could you? Yet you loved your mom with all your heart.
But you also withdrew further into a shell, solitude your companion and best friend.

You were, in fact, an exceptional child. Stuttering went away at five or so never to return,
And by the time you were in middle school, your teacher called your mom in for a rare
Conference and told her that yours was a gifted mind, and that you should be prepared
For university study in the sciences, particularly engineering.

She wrote your father exiled in Argentina to tell him the good news, that your teachers
Believed you would easily gain entrance to the (then and now) highly selective public university
Where seats were few, prized and very difficult to attain based on merit-based competitive
Exams. Your father’s response? “Buy him a couple of oxen and let him plow the fields.”

That reply from a highly respected man who was a big fish in a tiny pond in his native Oleiros
Of the time is beyond comprehension. He had apparently opted to preserve his own self-
Interest in having his son continue his family business and also work the family lands in his
Absence. That scar too was added to those that would never heal in your pure, huge heart.

Left with no support for living expenses for college (all it would have required), you moved on,
Disappointed and hurt, but not angry or bitter; you would simply find another way.
You took the competitive exams for the two local military training schools that would provide
An excellent vocational education and pay you a small salary in exchange for military service.

Of hundreds of applicants for the prized few seats in each of the two institutions, you
Scored first for the toughest of the two and thirteenth for the second. You had your pick.
You chose Fabrica de Armas, the lesser of the two, so that a classmate who had scored just
Below the cut-off at the better school could be admitted. That was you. Always and forever.

At the military school, you were finally in your element. You were to become a world-class
Machinist there—a profession that would have gotten you well paid work anywhere on earth
For as long as you wanted it. You were truly a mechanical genius who years later would add
Electronics, auto mechanics and specialized welding to his toolkit through formal training.

Given a well-stocked machine shop, you could reverse engineer every machine without
Blueprints and build a duplicate machine shop. You became a gifted master mechanic
And worked in line and supervisory positions at a handful of companies throughout your life in
Argentina and in the U.S., including Westinghouse, Warner-Lambert, and Pepsi Co.

You loved learning, especially in your fields (electronics, mechanics, welding) and expected
Perfection in everything you did. Every difficult job at work was given to you everywhere you
Worked. You would not sleep at night when a problem needed solving. You’d sketch
And calculate and re-sketch solutions and worked even in your dreams with singular passion.

You were more than a match for the academic and physical rigors of military school,
But life was difficult for you in the Franco era when some instructors would
Deprecatingly refer to you as “Roxo”—Galician for “red”-- reflecting your father’s
Support for the failed Republic. Eventually, the abuse was too much for you to bear.

Once while standing at attention in a corridor with the other cadets waiting for
Roll call, you were repeatedly poked in the back surreptitiously. Moving would cause
Demerits and demerits could cause loss of points on your final grade and arrest for
Successive weekends. You took it awhile, then lost your temper.

You turned to the cadet behind you and in a fluid motion grabbed him by his buttoned jacket
And one-handedly hung him up on a hook above a window where you were standing in line.
He thrashed about, hanging by the back of his jacket, until he was brought down by irate Military instructors.
You got weekend arrest for many weeks and a 10% final grade reduction.

A similar fate befell a co-worker a few years later in Buenos Aires who called you a
*******. You lifted him one handed by his throat and held him there until
Your co-workers intervened, forcibly persuading you to put him down.
That lesson was learned by all in no uncertain terms: Leave Felipe’s mom alone.

You were incredibly strong, especially in your youth—no doubt in part because of rigorous farm
Work, military school training and competitive sports. As a teenager, you once unwisely bent
Down to pick something up in view of a ram, presenting the animal an irresistible target.
It butted you and sent you flying into a haystack. It, too, quickly learned its lesson.

You dusted yourself off, charged the ram, grabbed it by the horns and twirled it around once,
Throwing it atop the same haystack as it had you. The animal was unhurt, but learned to
Give you a wide berth from that day forward. Overall, you were very slow to anger absent
Head-butting, repeated pokings, or disrespectful references to your mom by anyone.    

I seldom saw you angry and it was mom, not you, who was the disciplinarian, slipper in hand.
There were very few slaps from you for me. Mom would smack my behind with a slipper often
When I was little, mostly because I could be a real pain, wanting to know/try/do everything
Completely oblivious to the meaning of the word “no” or of my own limitations.

Mom would sometimes insist you give me a proper beating. On one such occasion for a
Forgotten transgression when I was nine, you  took me to your bedroom, took off your belt, sat
Me next to you and whipped your own arm and hand a few times, whispering to me “cry”,
Which I was happy to do unbidden. “Don’t tell mom.” I did not. No doubt she knew.

The prospect of serving in a military that considered you a traitor by blood became harder and
Harder to bear, and in the third year of school, one year prior to graduation, you left to join
Your exiled father in Argentina, to start a new life. You left behind a mother and two sisters you
Dearly loved to try your fortune in a new land. Your dog thereafter refused food, dying of grief.

You arrived in Buenos Aires to see a father you had not seen for ten years at the age of 17.
You were too young to work legally, but looked older than your years (a shared trait),
So you lied about your age and immediately found work as a Machinist/Mechanic first grade.
That was unheard of and brought you some jealousy and complaints in the union shop.

The union complained to the general manager about your top-salary and rank. He answered,
“I’ll give the same rank and salary to anyone in the company who can do what Felipe can do.”
No doubt the jealousy and grumblings continued by some for a time. But there were no takers.
And you soon won the group over, becoming their protected “baby-brother” mascot.

Your dad left for Spain within a year or so of your arrival when Franco issued a general pardon
To all dissidents who had not spilt blood (e.g., non combatants). He wanted you to return to
Help him reclaim the family business taken over by your mom in his absence with your help.
But you refused to give up the high salary, respect and independence denied you at home.

You were perhaps 18 and alone, living in a single room by a schoolhouse you had shared with Your dad.
But you had also found a new loving family in your uncle José, one of your father’s Brothers, and his family. José, and one of his daughters, Nieves and her
Husband, Emilio, and
Their children, Susana, Oscar (Ruben Gordé), and Osvaldo, became your new nuclear family.

You married mom in 1955 and had two failed business ventures in the quickly fading
Post-WW II Argentina of the late 1950s and early 1960s.The first, a machine shop, left
You with a small fortune in unpaid government contract work.  The second, a grocery store,
Also failed due to hyperinflation and credit extended too easily to needy customers.

Throughout this, you continued earning an exceptionally good salary. But in the mid 1960’s,
Nearly all of it went to pay back creditors of the failed grocery store. We had some really hard
Times. Someday I’ll write about that in some detail. Mom went to work as a maid, including for
Wealthy friends, and you left home at 4:00 a.m. to return long after dark to pay the bills.

 
The only luxury you and mom retained was my Catholic school tuition. There was no other
Extravagance. Not paying bills was never an option for you or mom. It never entered your
Minds. It was not a matter of law or pride, but a matter of honor. There were at least three very
Lean years where you and mom worked hard, earned well but we were truly poor.

You and mom took great pains to hide this from me—and suffered great privations to insulate
Me as best you could from the fallout of a shattered economy and your refusal to cut your loses
Had done to your life savings and to our once-comfortable middle-class life.
We came to the U.S. in the late 1960s after waiting for more than three years for visas—to a new land of hope.

Your sister and brother-in-law, Marisa and Manuel, made their own sacrifices to help bring us
Here. You had about $1,000 from the down payment on our tiny down-sized house, And
Mom’s pawned jewelry. (Hyperinflation and expenses ate up the remaining mortgage payments
Due). Other prized possessions were left in a trunk until you could reclaim them. You never did.

Even the airline tickets were paid for by Marisa and Manuel. You insisted upon arriving on
Written terms for repayment including interest. You were hired on the spot on your first
Interview as a mechanic, First Grade, despite not speaking a word of English. Two months later,
The debt was repaid, mom was working too and we moved into our first apartment.

You worked long hours, including Saturdays and daily overtime, to remake a nest egg.
Declining health forced you to retire at 63 and shortly thereafter you and mom moved out of
Queens into Orange County. You bought a townhouse two hours from my permanent residence
Upstate NY and for the next decade were happy, traveling with friends and visiting us often.

Then things started to change. Heart issues (two pacemakers), colon cancer, melanoma,
Liver and kidney disease caused by your many medications, high blood pressure, gout,
Gall bladder surgery, diabetes . . . . And still you moved forward, like the Energizer Bunny,
Patched up, battered, scarred, bruised but unstoppable and unflappable.

Then mom started to show signs of memory loss along with her other health issues. She was
Good at hiding her own ailments, and we noticed much later than we should have that there
Was a serious problem. Two years ago, her dementia worsening but still functional, she had
Gall bladder surgery with complications that required four separate surgeries in three months.

She never recovered and had to be placed in a nursing home. Several, in fact, as at first she
Refused food and you and I refused to simply let her waste away, which might have been
Kinder, but for the fact that “mientras hay vida, hay esperanza” as Spaniards say.
(While there is Life there is hope.) There is nothing beyond the power of God. Miracles do happen.
 
For two years you lived alone, refusing outside help, engendering numerous arguments about
Having someone go by a few times a week to help clean, cook, do chores. You were nothing if
Not stubborn (yet another shared trait). The last argument on the subject about two weeks ago
Ended in your crying. You’d accept no outside help until mom returned home. Period.

You were in great pain because of bulging discs in your spine and walked with one of those
Rolling seats with handlebars that mom and I picked out for you some years ago. You’d sit
As needed when the pain was too much, then continue with very little by way of complaints.
Ten days ago you finally agreed that you needed to get to the hospital to drain abdominal fluid.

Your failing liver produced it and it swelled your abdomen and lower extremities to the point
Where putting on shoes or clothing was very difficult, as was breathing. You called me from a
Local store crying that you could not find pants that would fit you. We talked, long distance,
And I calmed you down, as always, not allowing you to wallow in self pity but trying to help.

You went home and found a new pair of stretch pants Alice and I had bought you and you were
Happy. You had two changes of clothes that still fit to take to the hospital. No sweat, all was
Well. The procedure was not dangerous and you’d undergone it several times in recent years.
It would require a couple of days at the hospital and I’d see you again on the weekend.

I could not be with you on Monday, February 22 when you had to go to the hospital, as I nearly
Always had, because of work. You were supposed to be admitted the previous Friday, but
Doctors have days off too, and yours could not see you until Monday when I could not get off
Work. But you were not concerned; this was just routine. You’d be fine. I’d see you in just days.

We’d go see mom Friday, when you’d be much lighter and feel much better. Perhaps we’d go
Shopping for clothes if the procedure still left you too bloated for your usual clothes.
You drove to your doctor and then transported by ambulette. I was concerned, but not too Worried.
You called me sometime between five or six p.m. to tell me you were fine, resting.

“Don’t worry. I’m safe here and well cared for.” We talked for a little while about the usual
Things, with my assuring you I’d see you Friday or Saturday. You were tired and wanted to sleep
And I told you to call me if you woke up later that night or I’d speak to you the following day.
Around 10:00 p.m. I got a call from your cell and answered in the usual upbeat manner.

“Hey, Papi.” On the other side was a nurse telling me my dad had fallen. I assured her she was
Mistaken, as my dad was there for a routine procedure to drain abdominal fluid. “You don’t
Understand. He fell from his bed and struck his head on a nightstand or something
And his heart has stopped. We’re working on him for 20 minutes and it does not look good.”

“Can you get here?” I could not. I had had two or three glasses of wine shortly before the call
With dinner. I could not drive the three hours to Middletown. I cried. I prayed.
Fifteen minutes Later I got the call that you were gone. Lost in grief, not knowing what to do, I called my wife.
Shortly thereafter came a call from the coroner. An autopsy was required. I could not see you.

Four days later your body was finally released to the funeral director I had selected for his
Experience with the process of interment in Spain. I saw you for the last time to identify
Your body. I kissed my fingers and touched your mangled brow. I could not even have the
Comfort of an open casket viewing. You wanted cremation. You body awaits it as I write this.

You were alone, even in death alone. In the hospital as strangers worked on you. In the medical
Examiner’s office as you awaited the autopsy. In the autopsy table as they poked and prodded
And further rent your flesh looking for irrelevant clues that would change nothing and benefit
No one, least of all you. I could not be with you for days, and then only for a painful moment.

We will have a memorial service next Friday with your ashes and a mass on Saturday. I will
Never again see you in this life. Alice and I will take you home to your home town, to the
Cemetery in Oleiros, La Coruña, Spain this summer. There you will await the love of your life.
Who will join you in the fullness of time. She could not understand my tears or your passing.

There is one blessing to dementia. She asks for her mom, and says she is worried because she
Has not come to visit in some time. She is coming, she assures me whenever I see her.
You visited her every day except when health absolutely prevented it. You spent this February 10
Apart, your 61st wedding anniversary, too sick to visit her. Nor was I there. First time.

I hope you did not realize you were apart on the 10th but doubt it to be the case. I
Did not mention it, hoping you’d forgotten, and neither did you. You were my link to mom.
She cannot dial or answer a phone, so you would put your cell phone to her ear whenever I
Was not in class or meetings and could speak to her. She always recognized me by phone.

I am three hours from her. I could visit at most once or twice a month. Now even that phone
Lifeline is severed. Mom is completely alone, afraid, confused, and I cannot in the short term at
Least do much about that. You were not supposed to die first. It was my greatest fear, and
Yours, but as with so many things that we cannot change I put it in the back of my mind.

It kept me up many nights, but, like you, I still believed—and believe—in miracles.
I would speak every night with my you, often for an hour, on the way home from work late at
Night during my hour-long commute, or from home on days I worked from home as I cooked
Dinner. I mostly let you talk, trying to give you what comfort and social outlet I could.

You were lonely, sad, stuck in an endless cycle of emotional and physical pain.
Lately you were especially reticent to get off the phone. When mom was home and still
Relatively well, I’d call every day too but usually spoke to you only a few minutes and you’d
Transfer the phone to mom, with whom I usually chatted much longer.

For months, you’d had difficulty hanging up. I knew you did not want to go back to the couch,
To a meaningless TV program, or to writing more bills. You’d say good-bye, or “enough for
Today” and immediately begin a new thread, then repeat the cycle, sometimes five or six times.
You even told me, at least once crying recently, “Just hang up on me or I’ll just keep talking.”

I loved you, dad, with all my heart. We argued, and I’d often scream at you in frustration,
Knowing you would never take it to heart and would usually just ignore me and do as
You pleased. I knew how desperately you needed me, and I tried to be as patient as I could.
But there were days when I was just too tired, too frustrated, too full of other problems.

There were days when I got frustrated with you just staying on the phone for an hour when I
Needed to call Alice, to eat my cold dinner, or even to watch a favorite program. I felt guilty
And very seldom cut a conversation short, but I was frustrated nonetheless even knowing
How much you needed me and also how much I needed you, and how little you asked of me.  

How I would love to hear your voice again, even if you wanted to complain about the same old
Things or tell me in minutest detail some unimportant aspect of your day. I thought I would
Have you at least a little longer. A year? Two? God only knew, and I could hope. There would be
Time. I had so much more to share with you, so much more to learn when life eased up a bit.

You taught me to fish (it did not take) and to hunt (that took even less) and much of what I
Know about mechanics, and electronics. We worked on our cars together for years—from brake
Jobs, to mufflers, to real tune-ups in the days when points, condensers, and timing lights had Meaning, to rebuilding carburetors and fixing rust and dents, and power windows and more.

We were friends, good friends, who went on Sunday drives to favorite restaurants or shopping
For tools when I was single and lived at home. You taught me everything in life that I need to
Know about all the things that matter. The rest is meaningless paper and window dressing.
I knew all your few faults and your many colossal strengths and knew you to be the better man.

Not even close. I could never do what you did. I could never excel in my fields as you did in
Yours.  You were the real deal in every way, from every angle, throughout your life. I did not
Always treat you that way. But I loved you very deeply as anyone who knew us knows.
More importantly, you knew it. I told you often, unembarrassed in the telling. I love you, Dad.

The world was enriched by your journey. You do not leave behind wealth, or a body or work to
Outlive you. You never had your fifteen minutes in the sun. But you mattered. God knows your
Virtue, your absolute integrity, and the purity of your heart. I will never know a better man.
I will love you and miss you and carry you in my heart every day of my life. God bless you, dad.

My neighbor and I still hang out our wash,
(I, each Thursday, taking my chances.
She, according to weather forecasts, I think,
or maybe by what she feels in her bones).
We laugh at StarTribune's report of some suburban bans
against clotheslines.
We wonder out loud whose tomatoes will first turn red,
and whether cucumbers will make it at all;
this year, it's been too cool and dry
for normal progress to the fall.

Tenacious dandelions, spread as stars across green-earth skies,
drive in spike-like roots, take hold of earth, and won't let go.
Kids squeeze bunches of stems in tight fists
that will open only to release the buttery bouquet to Mom
who hurries to put them in water, in a crystal vase,
wondering how soon she might mourn both flower and child.

While hanging bright, white unmentionables (some somewhat tattered)
on our clothesline, I, unembarrassed, remember my mother:
   with one clothespin held in her mouth
   and half a dozen more in her apron pocket,
   (thus needing not to walk over and over again
   the east-west path to the back door  
   where full supply of pins hangs on the ****)
   she does her woman's task with flair,
   spacing each garment so as not to block the sun or air.

You'd think she'd held some tool to calculate
where the sheet would best allow the breeze to circulate
or where to place each pillow case and sock,
so each would recognize and meet their mates!
And I know she theorized regarding how to hang those socks,
always with the toe pointed upward, so as not to show,
when dried and worn, a crease or ever-so-slight evidence
of the pin's pressure displayed for all to see
on the exposed ankle,
as if that might be a matter
worthy of shame.

Skinned knee, tree-barked knuckles,
fights in the long grass pal.
Friends so long that we've our own,
private language
(which renders these public outpourings
largely irrelevant)
and can go years, now,
with no contact
yet never really be apart.

Last Christmas we hooked up,
marvelled at the passing of time,
and you recalled that the last time we met
I gave you a book of my poems.

"Did you read them?" I asked,
and brilliantly, unembarrassed,
you replied:
"No.  I looked at the first one,
saw that it went over the page,
thought: 'Oh, that's long -
I'll read that later,'
but I never did."  
And we laughed uproariously
as I seldom do with anyone else.

But I know
that long after every other copy
has been thumbed ragged,
misplaced,
passed on
and lost
your copy will remain
pristine and safe
on your shelf

Because although you have
no more interest in poetry now
than either of us did at the age of eleven,
you'll look after it
because your pal wrote it.

It’s nights like these;
when the sky feels raw-quiet
and the moon hangs so low-heavy
and pulpy, parchment yellow,
dripping and left to sun-stain and disintegrate
against dull ghost stories
and stinging to-do lists.
This is when I feel it- the fracturing.
You’re out of sight.
I’m out of mind.  

I crack the window,
blink loose stars out of focus
and send them shotgun galloping
across the flat-hum pulsing,
tin tinged and navy evening static.

The North Star needs new batteries.
He flickers and sways but won’t
extinguish. He is soft and solemn-
a lazing, dazing anchor whose fraying rope
weaves bowline knots
and hitching ties
into each inch of my drying hair.

Every strand of the night breathes itself into life.
The pieces are softening and shifting,
howling and crawling.
They become young men planning,
flexing at high tide and daring
each other further out with each set of waves.
They are posing, pretending to be
what they think the word ‘reckless’ means.

They are throwing their bodies into surf
and wailing.
They are crashing hard
and violent
against the shore.

They are shaking out golden limbs
and rubbing bloodshot eyes.
I watch bruises bloom and gashes erupt a flash
of crimson before salt water clean and stung.

They are flashing gleeful smiles
and throwing taunting screams across
whole seas while diving back,
quickly, elegantly,
into the same rough surf
that just spit them out.

Maybe they’re proactive,
maybe things hurts less when you
know where the hurt will come from.
Maybe the game isn’t to stay lovely
and bright and whole;
but to know pain’s possibilities so intimately
that when it comes time for you to break
you can do so without shattering
completely.

Nights like these;
sitting cross-legged with a blank
page open and an aching, reeling,
sickly-warm ribbon sprouting from my molars-
I get it.

Streamers wave proudly across
my body.
They grip and simmer,
they wind tightly around  
organs and bones who
gave up their hiding spots
and surrendered their secrets
the first time I let him come in.

The strings are bright and knot themselves tight.
They tether my windpipe,
weld each rib colorfully between sternum and spine.
They coil down and tie off;
thick, swaddled and bobbing, bowing
themselves regally around my coccyx.

Nights like these I have no armor.
Where is my skin?
I stir and rattle to even the slightest shift of Earth.
Exposed and quaking, I body-map bolts of light.
The light is tap dancing over lungs,
igniting blood and ricocheting through the summer camp,
arts and crafts hysteria fusing my anatomy.
It plunge pastels deep into the marrow of my bones.
The room is smoky, my gut splashes about, electrocuted.
I stop feeling tired.

The thing is- what I’m really trying to say,
is that I have no words right now.
There are no pretty lines caught in the twine of
my hip joints and no fiery prose laying
eggs in my spinal fluid.

There is no poem to write
about the fleshy, sour
smell of my own heart
roasting on a pyre or the hours it will take
to scrub off the charred bits of melting muscle
now staining the carpet.

This bitter heat creeping up my throat
and the sallow contraction of my
belly are not the prologue to a revolution-
my diagnosis is not a metaphor.

They are simply the tangy symptoms of the sadness
pinging around my insides and playing
peekaboo among the weeds of my broken body and sticky mind.
She will wait, biding time, for a properly rapt audience.
I whisper then whine that I’m too messy,
too slouchy, too emotionally ill-equipped to house a heart
maybe breaking,
definitely ripping, across-the-ballroom
slipping and wrecking-ball imploding.
Sadness smacks her lips and smirks.
No one rides for free.  

Nights like these I think
maybe I’ve wasted all my words;
my sentences and precious syntax and swooping rhetoric,
on lighter blows and mere heartaches.
I am a ragdoll limply stretching.
I am standing completely still, taking inventory.
I’m puzzled, though decidedly unthreatened,
by the glass-littered ground, my bleeding feet.
I mean look at the big picture:
I lit myself on fire.
I’m not worried about sunburn.

I know now that it has happened-
the hurt circulates my veins
and pumps me full of vehemence.
The act of breathing is ferocious,
I am a tangle of raw nerves.
This is the night I’m left with a heart shattered
in six hundred pieces on the floor and absolutely no poetry rising
from my pores to help glue it back together.

I said I get it.
I should have practiced.
I should have left my clothes on the sand and
ran toward the sea, naked and unembarrassed,
while diving head first into fierce undertows
and crashing with the boyish bodies of the night.

I should have experimented;
explored all the ways hurt could find me
while the beach was still mine to breathe out and yell for
without fear of being told 'no.'
But I didn’t. I kept my clothes on and my secrets to myself.

Tonight I’m a wreck and this isn’t a test.
I'm so far out, weighed down
by this boxy, heavy pain
ripening in my arms.
I'm panicky and paddling in any direction,
trying to keep my head above water
and praying the shore will appear and welcome me
once I get through this next set of waves,
through this next set of waves.

It was always a joke, phrase or idiom
It wasn't an analysis of what we did to them
The paralysis which was led by God or men
Who left a woman with a life condemned
And "he" is not found, but here I am.

I lost my arm to a waterfall
Fostered harm by something beautiful
A hand and forearm unmade musical
Water on land intersects not once, several
A band of storms lay down by that Neanderthal.

Waters splash like cymbals crash
Like whiplash from 3 cars smashed
Like fast paced life becoming past
Like a harassed female, never asked
And at long last... I'm unembarrassed.

Soft as water came, it became a hurricane
Pain blows through my veins and brain
I sound insane as I strain to explain
Doctors abstain and became inhumane
Riding the insane a-train to remain...
...a soft stream of water.

If we all died before we fell old
Consumed as we blush ripe
What would perish with us
But mold and setting mud?

Life could not be long
Nor sophisticated, for
All that thought never born beyond
The days of cocked feathers.

Our homes the wild trees
Burned or spared by our caprice
Sleep on the moss a groan
Summer in the morning the dawn

Tousled hair a-spring with salt
And the hoary sweat of the night
Eyes sharp and deep
Like pools in frothing rivers unsettled.

Muscles taught in conflict not against the world
But green competition, passion the reward
And pleasure, in sinew pushing, grabbing,
Taking what is Mine.

Our faces our identities
Our bodies our manifestos
Statements simple, ideas cut
To have sharp edges and grate at one another.

Night full of the juicy roars
Of fiery eyes consuming lovers claimed
In battle, ****** conflict
That mean nothing to time, nor for it.

Her smile a sugar suggestion
her ******* her belly her hipsherlips
Her lover at my feet.
Unembarrassed, unrelenting, undefined stones in his dead eyes.

And when lines would start to settle
And sense harden
When certainty dies like an old dog
There is no long goodbye, no sagacity gained

You cry to your last, terrified as you pass
Lost in pure droplets shed from a face
As its teeth grow too far while the mane retreats,
And the soul is killed for it.

Cruel, to let a who live past that
To watch who's spirit
Wash away and see the tide return
Gushing wine in your arms
That's gone dull and bitter from the Autumn left
Too long, too long,
Lived too long.