fourteen years tall she stands
gifted and talented
exceptional,
in front of me she grows
and... I missed it;
which part grew first?
I away from her or
she away from me?
a parent label I wear
in my lapel,
but really should I?
all the things we
should have done together
and... I missed it.
passed on and learned
acquired,
a complete heritage;
photographs
I should have taken
of accomplishments,
failures,
well... maybe not.
When did we laugh or cry
or even talk?
They
temperature adjusts our dispositions
and aggressive females who resent
male supervision, misunderstand
their rolls when braless and open-minded
they long for their own control,
their own jurisdictions;
contrite, they foster discontent,
disillusionment and discord seen as
multi-colored versions of their own shifts
in emotional moods, temperaments
brought about by years of frustration.
Waiting
waiting patiently
for a call or a word,
behind distance
a natural barrier,
feelings today are written
hours constrain loyalty,
circles constrict
into smaller variations
of our shallow past.
Between Us
between us we embrace a fantasy,
if I were to... would you?
if you were to... would I?
your glow stuffed inside a wooden box,
if it could only last as long as a summer tan,
between us we embrace precious feelings,
between us we feel the pain.
Written Down Today
I
we have written out our future in
poetic lines of discarded sentiments,
we sit in closet chairs of blameless guilt
woven inside the mind's spirit of selfishness,
rude and vulnerable our persistence grows;
II
all the words have ended up at the bottom,
never used again,
never rearranged and I live
without a dictionary -- without vocabulary,
only words I knew as a child come to mind;
III
we are walking
talking
feeling dead,
like a Voodoo spell
absorbed by the dullness
in each other's eyes,
a lackluster spirit
contained
restrained
and semi-permanent;
IV
a final version of our lives is written as
we talk at each other in critical overtones,
carefully reckless with our feelings,
allocations of love emerge like the cold
sweat of sickness on a warm summer day;
V
we continue to administer
small doses of pride,
our will is strengthened
layered with false illusions
as youth dissipates in the darkness,
we age, not so easily sometimes,
fretting about what is beyond our reach,
we sleep in separate beds of
our own limited expectations;
VI
pot-bellied old men
white haired and tired,
women whose age is tucked
inside smaller sizes share
another day -- another cup of tea
and all of yesterday's propositions;
VII
our flight towards a beacon of indifference
spreads like a grass fire, peculiar in its
shape and size and appearance...
we end as we begin... without dignity.
Cycle of Thoughts
the old man -- his white hair neatly combed
for his age walks sideways now,
limps from his war wounds and the stories
he has never forgotten to tell,
four twenties and fifteen years ago,
his crime gave birth to a new decade and
in less than ten, the nation - his nation's youth
found in their selves the spirit of a new country;
his eyes, sunk deeply in his boney face
hold back the tears of our injustices,
of slavery...
of wars...
of depressions...
of oppression... and,
of the technology
that robbed us all of our human dignity;
the old man's words run on and are slurred
coming from the bottom of his throat
as if there are reluctantly spoken,
preferring not to be heard;
the old man sits in unapproachable isolation,
his peers in their senior groups find comfort,
behind his corner table he sits and
under his wrinkled skin of his arms
rests the document...
his life in words -- as best as he can remember,
and each day he writes something new,
a painstaking -- penetrating
look into the unlocking of his past,
one day at a time, he writes
scribbling and erasing,
making sure of accuracy...
each day he writes a little slower than the day before
as his past catches up to him and his present
and each day a new day is always added
never completing the
full cycle of his thoughts.
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