He tried to talk her off the ledge
He loved her best as he knew how
But she was bent and turned within
And made of grief and shattered glass
That scraped and cut what had been hope
And bled her slowly out and down
The same cursed path that he’d been on
As agents lacking pride or place
The stories we in time concoct
To make believe that all’s not real
When every dream becomes a blur
And numb’s the sharpest thing
We feel
I know I’ve aged, but still I find
That I cannot make sense of it —
Reality invades my dreams,
But it should be
The opposite
the empty asymmetries of ugliness:
a we, a them, an in between --
wisdom, carried only in whispers;
folly, borne everywhere as a disease
those who believe their judgments never wrong
cannot even judge what they are seeing
there was a union (once) of self
a smattering of all involved
in pleasure mild, proffered help
and daily problems (sort of) solved
but then we came to see ourselves
a ever-constant halloween
the mask (this time) beneath face
but such as cannot be unseen
and every better turned to worse
and every crack a soon divide:
the kings and queens we were now gone
from truth’s unyielding
regicide
turn inside out and find yourself?
it doesn't work it never has --
the thread that makes each you a you
connects what was and isn't yet --
but i think we can't clearly see
the future anymore the past;
because the present doesn't yield
the light within, but more the shadow
cast by hope and expectation:
we build the world we know as much
as it happens to us
memories like buildings become abandoned
not from lack of strength but
lack of visitors
The world that's not,
The world that was --
Are ever here, inside
Because
The heart is more
Than just events,
And time's a false
Equivalence
I once knew how to lose myself:
Inside a book, a song, the trees,
An autumn day, a summer breeze,
A carnival, two deep brown eyes,
The restless friends with whom time flies --
My heart lived on a wider shelf
When I knew how to lose myself.
I once did not the whole world feel,
Just each thing that I saw, or heard:
A distant train, a mourning bird,
My mother humming in the yard,
The shuffling of each last card --
The day seemed so much less unreal
When all I felt was what I feel.
the evening glow sinking into the bay
as he and his father walk back across
decaying wooden slats meant to be a path
but now more a series of paint-flecked splinters
and through a torn shirt, mosquitos
bring their persistent request for dinner
as he swats them away with tiny hands,
struggling to keep up with his dad
through a bent gate and into a yard where
shadows try to form shapes in the dim light
of the small yellow bulb by the back door
past the green plastic mat that reads "welcome"
and he washes his hands on tiptoes
listening to his mom singing a song to his
baby sister, who is ready for bed in every
way except sleepiness
and if he had his way, she'd have a bigger room,
a real bed, and more than the one doll, and his mom
would have a shiny lamp to read by, and his dad
wouldn't have to leave for work at 3:45 am
but he does his best to make them proud,
putting away the dishes his mom washed and
thinking about how he will learn and work and how
they will buy whatever they want at the grocery store
