From the Neighbor to Someone

Somehow I would rather put up my mitts and fight you, not to hurt you, but to see how far you would go swinging playfully at my face, than let you see me naked. Somehow I love you most when you look at me with those mischievous eyes and lie to my face, than when you are playing with my hair and humming gently into my ear. I think that if our eyes never met, I would not consider you more than a servant...a long lost friend, maybe.

If you meet me tonight, just as I have asked, expect that I will have already forgotten these words I am writing. You will have to come forward and tell me your name. You should look deeply into my eyes and tell me that I have sent for you again. It is not out of pity or boredom that I call on you like this. I have been waiting. I have been planning my escape. It is in my desperation that I love you this way...our way. I am not sure you understand what it is to look into your eyes.

I lost myself to your looks. How ironic, no?

Losing to you,

Mary

On Beethoven Listening to Cannon Fire

Is it so hard to believe that pain will come when you least expect it?

We often subject ourselves to sadness or inexorable, unrequited passion, even to the darkest of thoughts. It is in this curious way that we prepare ourselves for supreme tragedy, loss, and uncomfortable bliss - all of which need to be felt and then grown out of before we should consider our words more than child's blather.

The Old Man Is Crying

The old man is crying.
It’s only a little, but still
It makes me wonder if he should.
Why tell him not to?
He’s from a slower time
Where roadkill and sad news lingers.
You could not fast-forward or rewind then.
He sees a sad and wonder-filled world now.
Let him cry.
People have to yell at him.
They have to yell to reach him.
1925, that’s where he’s from.
He remembers when there was always a deeper hurt.
His first love leaves with another.
His virginity, gone with another.
His wife, gone with another.
His children, gone with another.
Eventually, he tells me,
You stop getting so hurt.
You just remember the hurt you felt.
And that’s why he cries.

The Curious Few

A beautiful sky
Dynamically blue
Fills with wonder
The curious few
Glad to ponder
A minute or two
How far they would fly
In so happy a hue

You Are Setting the Table

I am no man to stand up

To my feelings, initially disruptive.

I am a man to write it down and wonder.

Your face, in dealing with labor,

Proves beauty to be so rare

In the face of another.

You work, taking my thoughts

By surprise with the innocence

Of strong things, serious eyes,

Pursuits of which I value

More than the infatuation

That is the love of something new.

You are not new, but rather timeless

As sighs beneath sunset or sunrise,

That familiar perfection in the face

Of good dreams, where hours after

You stay under the tide of romances,

Affections, and well-taken chances.

Maybe my overcoming these feelings

By way of bold action is in contradiction

To my nature to crave

That which is out of reach

Or taste that which will destroy me.

I may need help,

For you are setting the table

And I am making much of you.

Note to my child on his or her first day

            I’m only 25 years old and it’s summer right now, but I imagine that I have learned a few things so far as a person with nearly 20 first-days of school.

            Keep your head up in every situation, whether you are wrong or right or unsure. Smile at people, especially if they look lost or sad. Not everyone is going to like you. People are going to treat you badly, and at some point, you are going to get hurt. That’s kinda the point of life. It’s hard and you are not really going to fit in.

            Some people will like you, though. They will like you for who you chose to be. Those are good people. Some of them will be your friends. Others will just be good people to you.

            Be good to the teachers and faculty you see. They are brave, lost, scared, loving, and hard-working, lazy people. Respect them for trying to take care of every child in this area. It is not easy. Your grandmother poured her heart into the lives of children just like you and me. Treat teachers like they’re trying to do that.

            I’m not sending you here to make friends or get good grades. I’m sending you here so that you can learn. Making friends and grades are parts of learning, but so are bullies and failures. I’m sending you away from our home so that you can learn something outside of where I teach and care for you. I hope that by doing this, you will learn to care for and teach yourself one day. Go learn something about something.

            I love you so much that I will allow this pain and happiness into your life. These days will change you, lift you up, and try to drown you. I pray you will reach out to me when you need a father and ask if you need a friend.

Loving you before love will bring you to me,

Dad

No One to Retrace My Steps with Me and Ask If I Remember

It can't be said that it can't be said,

And I, for that matter, would rather instead

Wake to the basics which fascinated,

Like cherishing burns and returning to bed.

The light in the cave overlapping the mind

As dreams, ever-tapping, come up from behind.

Bedded by a slowness of thought,

I empty my shoes of reminders.

spider in the road wandering between

slivers of woods in velvet dark green

like tentacles gripping hard against stone

warning of danger beneath what is shown

the shadows in flight swollen ignite

the moon the road and charming delight

black cage sways burning above me

bizarre as voices that echoed they love me

sweat on the mouth and mud at my feet

a hug from behind as only you’d greet

whisper my name your breath gives off heat

you flee to black water through fields of dead wheat

Then again, there is no again.
A glance at the face of the state that we're in,
Lost now forever to predilection
And dreams that dissolve just as they begin.