Category: Uncategorized

Sorry ya so damn scared
Of boys when they learnt
Ya jus left ya lessons

Ya all padded up once mo
All pretendin nothin happened
Out a order, they thunk?

Music then sweat, not right
Angry boys takin it out
Again and agin, once mo

ya quit, no mo

No melody’s-music, piano or lesson
Ya voice, step not
In class or on-field

Fri night’s Coach kept a-askin
Wouldnt say a nothin, you, no–
Not gonna face it, no–

Like I had to, me
Like it did us, last night, us
Both all again aging

Us watchin favored Opry
Me seen that tear, yours
Cryin out, man-tune too far real

coulda been me up-there yonder
if hada them lessons, once I
jus real good once a piano
back then, a-uh football feller forever-feared

I don’t want to die but I’m glad that one day I will
I’m just so tired
I don’t think death is like sleep
I think it’s more like being nothing
And I don’t want to be nothing
But I’m so tired of being something
Of being anything
I want to watch life pass me by
I want to stand still
I want to be an observer in my own story
I am tired of moving the plot
Is this all there is?
All there will ever be?

I don’t want to die.

But I’m glad that one day,
I will.

As the grass grows thinner
And the summer trees turn red
The sweet dew that once moistened your lips
And the hallow words of I love you
Slowly fade away

Our minds and souls were connected
In a sea painted blue

Almost as if the rain that fell that day
Was never gray

Yet if you look around the corner
Behind the sea painted blue
Hidden where most people don’t see

Is a calm scarlet sunset
So peaceful indeed

The smiling faces of us
The memories of you and me
Painted behind the sea painted blue

The memories are slowly morphing into dreams
Still as lucid as can be
Yet we know it isn’t real
Just like you and me

Like a peaceful melody
Hidden behind the sea painted blue
Is a peaceful melody

A scarlet sunset
That now haunts you at night
Turning as mono as can be
Dripping down the arms of a sinner
Washing your hands clean

I cannot let it be July again,
So my suicide date is set to June 30th.
I’ll write you one final love note darling,
For I’ve learnt that it’s just courteous.
I know you’re figuring out how to erase me,
So slowly you’re rubbing out all our memories.
And I don’t know why you treated me
Like a placeholder, like I’d always stay.
So give me a sign or a reason
Of why you couldn’t have been better to me.
For I don’t know what punctures my chest more,
I don’t know what makes my heart contract faster,
The fact that the whole time you were pretending I was her
Or the fact that our contract ended like the rip of a plaster.

You cannot live through it again,
So your suicide date is set to day you forgot to tell me.
And I know if you depart, half the blame will be on me,
For I wrestle with the penitence of denying you the right
To decimate my unconditional admiration and fight.
And it tore you in two, darling it shows all on your face
That you strive to strike me back, can’t leave me with grace.

Now your narcotic behaviour is ripping my seams,
And rusting the gold that used to tie us together.
I always thought it would be us, forever.
But how naive I was; your grail was to leave us severed.
And I truly wish you the best, I truly wish you’d stayed.
But with the thought of love, I’m back to being afraid,
For it was only your shade that I would have painted and framed.
And it was only for you that I’d let my walls cascade.

I dreamed of Icaria.
The waves lapping peacefully
No screams to be found
Anon, just tranquility and
Effervescent ethereal enigma
To breathe

To soar above the waves beneath the
Sun no fear, no restraint to breathe
Made of the waxy strings, life
To know it is precarious and
Not care.

And when I fall –
Because I will fall –
I want you to find me
In the sea, the waves
Devouring your screams
As you sob over my corpse.

The water runs red.
Paradise lost.

What is it like for your creation’s
Creation to be its downfall?
To be a bird that soars
Among the clouds and watch
That human bloom, boom
Into your domain?
Out. Down.

And when I fall –
Because I will fall –
I want you to find me
In the sea, the waves
As the haunting water
Laps at my feet knowing
Not what has occurred –
It reclaims. What was never yours.

Gagging
Muffling your screams
Another secret to keep
Shhhhh.

Give sorrow words,
Shakespeare wrote.
Lest my heart
should break.

So I tell her story to the Indigo Buntings
as they craft nests of
beautyberry and Indian blanket
in a field abloom with life.

They listen.
I think they know
my little girl who was Light
though her voice was silent.

She is in the green glades
they tell me, where swallowtails
flit between bee balm
and trumpetweed.

She sings
a sweet melody
with the wood thrush
and the nightingales.

Give sorrow wings,
I write.
Lest my heart
should break.

i

Fragile.
Withered fingers grip the side of the chair
As old as she. Almost as worn.
Forlorn features zero in on me.

‘Does it always happen this way?’
She says, as she looks away,
Past me and to what her future brings-
Things didn’t seem as bad as then.

I can’t nod, though she sees
From how I look down,
That I intend to.
We all knew that this was it.

The sun always nods.
Mocking the strength I didn’t have –
Downwards into the darkness,
But rising again to the zenith.

I could never bring myself to follow.
Whilst it may die,
It rises again soon.
The moon doesn’t get to be forever –
Nothing does

“How we live is how we die.” Pema Chodron

Since I was a child I’ve been obsessed with death.
I had insomnia for a year when I was three due to nightmares
of my mother dying and leaving me

alone. I’d walk downstairs in my long nightgown, Chrissy doll
in tow, nervous fingers twisting tangled hair to make sure she was
there, reading in her favorite chair or watching TV with Dad.

I remember reading in bed about the life of Anne Frank hiding
with her family in the secret annex, a girl and diary-keeper like me.
But Anne was hunted by hungry Nazis only to die of typhus

at Bergen-Belsen before being freed. The story hit hard for a girl like
me due to my genealogy; inherited guilt and horror from my German
immigrant father and relatives who defended atrocities.

In middle school, I decided I’d be a medical examiner like Quincy,
M.E. on TV. I saw myself working on cold bodies in the morgue
with nothing more than a tape recorder for company and capturing
my brilliant commentary as I put death in order.

To prepare for my future career, I convinced my best friend Eileen
to accompany me to find neighborhood dead things. I’d find sticks to poke
them with while she stood back at a safe distance. I needed to get a close look
at their grizzly innards. She’d shriek with disgust when I did.

I created a game with the same friend and convinced her to play the victim
in “Serial Killer”. I placed her in the front seat of the car in her garage and shut
the lights. Her shrill cries inspired me to grab gardening shears, then I leapt
on the hood with cat-like finesse yelling, I’m gonna slit your throat!
We played this game once.

As an anorexic adolescent in my first college semester dancing on the edges
of self-destruction, I had to take the bus home from upstate New York to be with a friend
to bury her father who died from lung cancer. I was so distraught that when I got in my
mother’s car to go to the wake, I drove

it straight into my father’s where it was blocking the driveway. He was watching
me reversing and came running barefoot in a white T-shirt shouting in German for me to stop
before impact. I sped off without making eye contact, not wanting to be late.

For much of my adult life I’ve been trying to make peace with death. Chodron
says to view life’s end with a mix of curiosity and sense of adventure. So, here’s
the vision I’m manifesting for my crossing-over:

Mom and Dad idling at Death’s curb in a baby blue white leather convertible.
I leap with ease into the back and we go cruising down a scenic coastal highway
while blasting a Best of the 80s playlist to my raucous welcome party.

On the way we wave smiling to the somber Nazi’s doing roadside penance
in the shadow of the stoic Redwoods where they listen to the lessons given by the massive
sunflowers from the ancient book of compassion How to Raise a Heavy Head.

Corpse found,
mostly decomposed by
the time the smell
could no longer be
ignored or
disregarded with a
homely
shrug or
blamed on wild animals;

barely any skin tissue left,
nose cartilage gone,
eyeballs gone;
just two bleak holes
gaped and
horrible:
macabre raisins
dangled from
shriveled tips and
sagged stems;

gone the
gooey intricate
biological machines
inexplicably
driven to operate
the organism’s ability
to perceive surrounding space
and matter,

or make faces like
“Surprise!” on your
grandsons third birthday

or give a
stone cold,
hardened stare
(Inspired by Clint Eastwood, no doubt),
gripped drumsticks in hand
and a mullet (unironically)
anointed with the blue
dollar tree
bandana and
arms bulged
out of a sleeveless
denim shirt;
gone.

No eyes, just
umbrous depths of
barren holes,
spanned boundlessly over
horrific voids,
bottomless pits,
and
volcanic blood spewed
and vomited out of
repulsive hollows;

characteristics of a
decomposed corpse in a
‘95 Honda;

just tired
parts rotted and
decayed
in a junkyard in
Idaho;

a bloated miasma,
silent as a rock,
emitted cobalt, ocherous and
putrescent green
mists, that
obscured the windows;
they towed it
not
knowing that inside,

my Uncle
Dennis,
youngest child of
nine, wasn’t finished
decaying

Just another
greedy mouth and
innards destined to
pang with hunger;

Uncle Dennis
survived the
stomach punches and
turpentine his father forced
down
her throat to
stop the thing from
being born;

“a convict, junkie,
and
unruly
drug addict”

they muttered as they cast
their eyes
downward at the
metal table
where we drank
Michelob Ultra,

my aunts despondent
eyes,
swollen and hostile holding
back tears
that she
refused to let flow.

No tears
for

the drug addict.
The thief. Loser. Dope user
and a wasted life,

drove up a mountain road on
a late spring Idaho day
and found a
quiet spot; surrounded by
tall Western whites, subalpine firs and
towering ponderosas,

in the pines
a branch fluttered and he
looked up to see
a song sparrow hop
for
a fleeting moment,
and then he saw nothing
after that

In the fading light, I find my place,
A life full of colors, love, and grace.
Moments like whispers, dancing so free,
Echoes of laughter, sweet memories of me.

I think of the years, the good and the bad,
Times of joy and moments that made me sad.
I’ve walked through valleys, climbed mountains so high,
Sipped from life’s cup, watched time slip by.

Sometimes I regret, like shadows at night,
But every mistake taught me to fight.
In each hard lesson, I found my own way,
A story woven from choices each day.

I’ve loved and I’ve lost, felt the sting of goodbye,
But the warmth of your hands, oh, how time does fly!
The smell of fresh rain, the rustle of trees,
The laughter of children, the soft evening breeze.

My dear wife, my partner through all the years,
Your love has been my strength, drying my tears.
I remember when we danced in the rain,
Laughing together, forgetting our pain.

And to my daughter, with dreams shining bright,
You’re the joy in my heart, my beautiful light.
I think of the days we built castles of sand,
Your giggles and smiles, always close at hand.

And my son, my brave heart, my pride and my joy,
Your laughter and spirit, my sweet little boy.
I think of the nights we read stories so near,
The wonder in your eyes, so precious and dear.

As I reflect, the Vishnu Purana speaks,
Of the struggles in life and the pain that it peaks.
Not like millions of spiders, but a weight on my chest,
A journey of the soul, searching for rest.

Life ties us close to the edge of our end,
But in every heartbeat, I find a good friend.
So here I lie, feeling the weight of my days,
In the quiet of dusk, in the soft evening rays.

I’ll hold every heartbeat, each breath that I take,
For life was a dance, and my spirit won’t break.
Fear not for the silence that soon will be mine,
For in my heart, I know, we’ll always be fine.

I am Hindu, and I truly believe,
In a world beyond this, where we will not grieve.
A century whispers, “We shall meet again,”
In love and in light, where no sorrow remains.