Why

While examining the why's
(I want to know the reasons
my writing has ceased)
I see a tendency to give up
trying to relate an experience
you can not relate to
whether through pity, or envy,
or simple forgiveness
and so it drifts away
from the volume of my life experience
and the memory seems out of place,
almost mythical,
wandering restless in the fog
no longer even looking
for a place to land.

Trying to Relate

While examining the why's
(I want to know the reasons
my writing has ceased)
I see a tendency to give up
trying to relate an experience
you can not comprehend;
whether through pity, or envy,
or simple forgiveness.
And so it drifts away
from the volume of my life experience
and the memory seems out of place,
almost mythical,
wandering restless in the fog
no longer even looking
for a place to land.

For Emmalyn

Consider one apple, fall's bounty
tucked into a bushel of them.
And though much like all the other apples
it is individual already, cover and core.

Now think of this day, one you'll not recall
owing entirely to your new-formed youth;
your next breath, that quick sip of air,
ordinary, yet not, because it is yours
and you matter.

And so you were born
without knowing the date,  or why,
but the particular joy surrounding your arrival
and the swelling of hearts drawn to you -
you'll not understand until new life
springs from you.

And you have the experience
of your first apple yet in store.

Untitled

What is left behind

when crossing a frontier? 

Pain and melancholy? 

The tears of loved ones
who see a search for forgiveness
in rheumy eyes?
At the precipice
I feel the world changing.
Or is it me?

The Storm Within

Though formless I am battered
tossed for long ages
torn within by raging forces
incomprehensible conflict unknown to me
dwelling in dimensions of madness
the blackness fighting to engulf
my shattered fragments of rainbow
whiteness of incredible intensity
writhing in this malignant gloom
I am lost

Fears

I acted out of old fears
and it left me fearful.
In the ensuing loneliness,
I became unsure, isolated, fatigued
.... Oh, I was so tired.
And at the end of the day
I brought you my fear.
Seeking relief I put it at your feet
and called it love.
It was not.
And neither was the beating
my spirit failed to endure
because of your fear.

Parsing Thoughts

Only a few birds are still speaking

the troubled ones, I think, 

as this dusk settles to dark 

and I am left
to look about aimlessly 

and emptily seeking what can be said

for purchase against the unsayable.

And as I might attack a block of ice 

with pick and mallet 

I prize apart the compressed, 

the mass of my obdurate brain,

picking loose the skein of thoughts 

before compressing them anew, condensing,

distilling phrases to word.

Fear

Anger

Pain

Sin

God

My tragic capacity for self-deception 

with the limitation of language,

a driven force required 

to overcome these mantras,

I now see my words a simple finger 

pointing to the moon,

not the moon itself 

and the mallet life's strongest force,

Love