He told a story square and strong,
Then lived within its borders;
Restricted possibilities
But with a certain order —
He never saw again the stars,
The mountains or the sea —
Then died within a narrative
He’d made a
Prophecy
Category: Original Poems
Casual Cruelty
11 trips around the sun
And troubled by no conscience,
I dealt in casual cruelty
But saw no correspondence
In what I did with what I felt.
That strange future horizon:
How everyone’s been bullied,
But no one ever
Was one
To share is human:
There Comes A Time
The choices we most poorly make
Are oft the most defended,
And yet we know what truly breaks
Is never really mended.
There comes a time when we must face
That circumstance is master,
And that we either slow live love,
Or die a little faster.
To share is human:
Don’t Touch the Power Lines
You can love what the power brings,
But don't love the power;
It destroys all who dare to touch it,
And laughs at you thinking
You will be the one to tame it.
Power is a necessary poison,
But a poison nonetheless
To share is human:
{ … the heart that was }
the walls of metal,
caves of steel,
that we made warm
with our four hands
are now returned
to what they were --
and there is nothing
strange in this:
that fabric, love, and flesh
should make
a living something
out of mineral and dust.
what is this light of loneliness
that brings to bear
significance
of things that passed
unnoticed but for those
who lived within this space?
tell me again
why everything
is singing in
the heart that was
and calling out for someone
who won't answer
To share is human:
That’s Not The Way The World Works
Wanting isn't having,
And getting isn't free;
Belonging's circumstantial,
Like knowing where to be --
The things we think that we deserve
Aren't owed to us, yet hence
We think we can create a dish
Wihout ingredients.
The's not the way the world works, child:
Not every nip's a tuck --
For much of what we think we earn
Is little more than luck,
Or blessedness, or happenstance.
In actuality,
We struggle disproportionate
To our
Morality
To share is human:
none remember
felt so much, always too much,
none remember, none recall --
losing the capacity to
feel now at all --
telling the stories of
how it was then
to fewer and fewer who care
or who can --
this is the pattern,
repeated again:
the way of the aging,
both women and men
who once believed strongly
though life was then hard,
in promises kept, and
a welcoming yard --
to find themselves faltering,
staggering, sleeping
with fewer and fewer
of things left for keeping
like autumns with family, friends,
and a sky
that shone on us all without once
asking why
To share is human:
The Other Me
I sometimes see the other me,
The one (I think) I used to be,
Who lived in rooms with fewer things
And suffered deeper, sharper stings.
I see him sometimes out to eat
Where pleasure, although rare or fleet,
Was always full experienced
Though less than quite luxuriant.
I feel for him: his wayward heart,
His strong ideals, his halting start
To all that life might give, or not,
And what he had with nothing bought.
The other me was kind, and cruel,
And lost in search of hope for fuel,
But who knew love and songs and friends
And leapt from fault to quick amends.
I sometimes hear the other me,
Him laughing with expectancy
For lives I've never lived, and won't,
And what he will both do and don't
For all we are and were is one.
Our choices? Guesses, and when done,
Leave us with joy and grief in gift
For lives both known and yet
Unlived
