Empty Chair

Who is sitting in your empty chairs,

vacant spaces and quiet stairs.

Vainly grasp an ebbing tide,

fading lanterns on a midnight ride.

As time unwinds a gate unlocks,

a beating heart the ticking clock.

Only memory is in the empty chair,

and memory that wants a person there.

Jodi Mushy Stuff

I love you because:

you struggle to know what you believe.

you reject the catechism of greed.

your made to kneel but choose not to pray.

you see only color where others see gray.

when you crawl its to feel close to the Earth.

you carry your shame and don't drag your purse.

your a Muppet that says “fuck it”.

you squish like a marshmallow and hide in the pillows.

you wear leather like a devil.

you painted your halo purple.

you know the riddle of the disco turtle.

I know you just laughed.

your face lifts up my heart.

with you I am a better man.

you keep getting back up.

elephants never forget.

-- For Jodi, 3/14/11

(Blueberry Pi day).

I could only scream

When you died
I could only scream.
My Mother my Mother
you were in me.
Wrapped around my bones.

When you died
I could only scream.
A hollow point shell
blew through me.
Drawing a barbed-wire net,

Would I had known you

My Father,
we had 38 years.
Would I had known you.

But under the bluster
and fury was a
silence born long
before me.

It would be better
for a son to
respect his Father,
and still I try
to foster it.

But, I never knew you.

Last Kiss

Last Kiss

I wonder if she knew

it would be the last kiss.

A moist tender parting,

chains of chemicals from

tongues to brain that still

connects us.

Even now, I can taste it.

The memory of her

swims in my brain

sparking patterns

of synapse and nerve

that make me ache,

as the echo of a woman

is no substitute for her presence,

and her shadow, long departed,

still reaches me.

Is it all men?

Is it all men?

Is it all men who
once their seed is planted
taking root or not begin
seeking other gardens

to once again empty
themselves in the moist
fertile ground of woman.
Not that a garden

Eulogy for the Old Man of the Mountains

“Eulogy for the Old Man of the Mountains”

You might have thought stone would stay,

wind and water so slowly sculpt the Earth

it seems the lightest caress to the

span of human eyes.

The Old Man, his granite face

watched over the valley since before

we were here to thank him.

You might have thought he would have

been there still and ever after our

short span with the world.