Standing all alone
Shoreside boy
Has choices to make
(“Growing Up” – 8-7-2014)
Tag: Choices
Catching Flame
They couldn’t say what started the fire
But the two of them found themselves
In the middle of it
The dry kindling of their desperately dull lives
Caught flame
Burning
Out of control
And she didn’t care
For once she didn’t care what
Other people thought
There were no other people
There was just her
And him
And this bed
And feeling
And he, he had tried
To do things the right way
He wanted to live
Like this, like now
And she was warm and wild
And he found it in himself
To give her everything she was wanting
And the fire raged
And roared
And destroyed everything in its path
Lapsing finally, in the early hours
To nothing but
Smoke
And the charred remains
Of what their lives had been
To share is human:
Black Rock Ring
Filling Station
Once
A woman and her husband
Stopped at this place
She, eight months with child
He, thinking about walking out
And the drive had been a tense one
Old wounds reopened
Fresh hurts on display
And an old couple was there
At the same time
Laughing while they pumped gas
They asked her when the baby was due
She said, “One month.”
The old man asked her husband
“Are you excited?”
“Nervous,” was the reply
“Don’t be. Just remember:
Loving someone
Who loves you back
Is the greatest thing in the world.
And your child
Will love you back.”
Forty-eight years later
The woman is no longer young
She stands at this abandoned place
Her young granddaughter in tow.
“What is this place?” the little girl asks
This place?
This is where your grandaddy and I
Decided to stay in love
(“Filling Station” – 8-15-2014)
To share is human:
Nevered
He was so rapt in yesterday
He mortgaged his tomorrow,
The moments all collateral
Against which he could borrow
But found, apace, they’d slipped away,
Their fragile cords all severed —
For we must “now” while there’s a now,
Or else we’ll find
We nevered
To share is human:
Imperious
She made the laws, and he could stay, or not.
It was her game, and he a pawn or rook —
It wasn’t quite a trap; he wasn’t caught —
But more strength than he had was what it took
To change his part within her plotted book —
And so he was obsequious and fawning
And did as he was told, while she sat
Yawning
To share is human:
That Door
If that door never opens
It’s locked for good one day;
And dreams, and jobs, and memories
Just up and go away
That door is watched here, daily.
They count the times it swings:
And if the number gets too low,
They’re on to other things
Then one day, we want choices,
But all of them seem poor –
For things were better, once, but we
Just never used that door —
If that door never opens
It’s locked for good one day;
And dreams, and jobs, and memories
Just up and go
Away
