A friend lost her cousin a few years ago. Here is the story of his death.

The Woeful Choice

Into his life an illness came, a swift and harmful breakdown.
The doctor said the Youth would not live, muttering through a frown.
The Youth’s will to live was greater than any ending foreseen.
As his heart was on the brink, Death expecting his life to g…read more

Afterlife

I watch the people who want to tell me that they can see my ancestors
clustered around me worrying over whether I washed the dishes,
or spoke to my sister this week or polish the silver regularly. –
I don’t believe you would spend your time that way.

When I think of you, you are healed, together and in love,
no hurt from this mundane w…read more

Architects

The kids’ voices crack with anger and pain –
fathers who left them, mothers who yell,
fathers who love some other, other than this child –
in the constantly failing pursuit of happiness setting each child adrift.
Mothers who seem to be here but in truth leave every evening,
visiting a bottle of booze or a willing man.

The k…read more

The Poet’s Voice

The poet’s voice displays her soul through well-chosen words.
She can beat you with her anger and lash out with her pain.
Like a thistle, she can wound you with her barbs,
jab you unsuspecting as you weed your garden.

Where thorns on a rose contrast with silken petals:
blood red, the image and scent of roses leap into her min…read more

Get Over It

If I were a competent man walking through your door
you would see me clearly, not as some intimidating threat.
You’d get down on your weak pitiful scrawny knees
and kiss the hem of my blessed indigo blue jeans.

Instead, you watch me, like a house cat who
thinking itself bigger than its mountain peak roaming cousin,
imagines i…read more

Your poem made me think of the beach sand and here is my take on that.

House of Mercy

Tears beg to flow
I deny them egress—
the sweet-and-salty hors d’oeuvres will not satisfy.
I will wait just a moment or two,
inhale deeply, seeking grace.

The sinuous surge of emotions will pass
as small particles of water,
circling within wave forms
ride ato…read more

Studies suggest that emotions locked within muscle fibers prevent healing. To release them and to
build true strength, memories must be dredged up from our deepest hiding places. They are filled with tears.

small things

small things
things I am supposed to forget
never pass from memory
thirty, forty or fifty years since,
the welter of…read more