there she goes again

fuck me if March isn't approaching

22 years and I still don't understand

how I got there

how I got here

time stopped the year I spent crying

in the shower

doing dishes

in the car driving to work 

I've evolved into a functional human

more or less

some days less

Iris

I grew up with them in the yard. No real garden, they were just always there. Got mowed over, bloomed, mowed, bloomed, all through my youth. When my older brother passed, we put purple iris on his baby blue casket. I remember the day, what I wore. The surreal distance engulfing a soon to be sixteen-year marriage. The minutest things. But I can’t recall his age, He was thirty— and I was thirty—. It’s been nineteen years and  twenty-one days.

Out the window I see purple iris in my yard, abundant.

walk it back

their story
to ether passed

mooring

gone are they

the holders of her past;
to ash one or two
to dust the other

one still walks about
never to reach
and the final?

new recollections
immersed is he in making

while she wanders
loose in the world


"Here I go when I don't know why
I spin so ceaselessly..." ~ Dancing Barefoot, Patti Smith

on husbands and brothers of which she has neither

sieved through

too loose a grasp

she held to

frayed strands

and she gave

none too gently

handled was her heart

 never beloved

always wrung

and she gave

the balance always

your way tipped

and she gave

beloved she held

you till the giving

turned to the dying

and she gave to him

her last care

once, we were warriors

shat-

tered  reformed

re-

formed joy dip-

ped

in sorrow

she lives

in light

where they rest in dark

in youth we three fought

for our place in the world

to identify as self

to proclaim I am here

I exist

please love Me

amidst the others

and so we sought

once,

we were warriors

“The light was brighter...” High Hopes, Pink Floyd

in the white space

when she was
a girl
the white space
welcomed
like a lover
she fought
hard to overcome
a sense of self
defeating
her arch nemesis
Mother

Sister sought escape
in a man in a bottle
in a needle

Brother got away
to a space
where poetry never lives

and the littlest lost
in a walkabout
within
a body of bones
flesh, sinew
in a mind that never
calms
in a heart that
bleeds

then the leaving

on the eve

of the morrow

of fifty-one

and fifteen years since

we last spoke in tongues

your eyes wide then the leaving

Happy Birthday, Brother

passed into ether

Once, we were young
we three

and the world was less in us

than we were in it

mucking about, we dreamt fire
and fought ferociously

we grew, digressed

broke bones, pulled sinew

joints required for walking
birthed

crashed

shattered hearts

found our place
along the peripheral
betwixt hours

in those lost days
when once, we were young

and I mourned
mourn still,
as you pass into ether

I am the son and the heir

I had known you once…

you were a budding hope

an Echo

that never took?

that let go too soon?

And I had known you twice…

A solid, clear knowing

my life was in the wrong place

at the wrong time

thrice..

when my brother lay dying

did I make the right decision?

and perhaps another

tall, slim, laughing eyes

only the Portuguese have a name…

for mourning things that never were

Saudade

life is bigger

In fevered dreams

I had always dreamt

            of sitting

in long grass on a cool day

feathered braids falling

            lightly

Buffalo grazing

While you were dying

I found solace in myself;

within me

the strength of a Nation gone to war.

learning to breath

Twelve years dead

            Two years numb

            Ten years living

                        AT the speed of light

                        UNDER water

Finally,

            a slowing

            a learning

                        to breath

            a knowing

it’s okay

always glad to remember

Ten years had got behind me

I’m always glad to remember

even if it means crying

never were taught

When I said I would live for us both

I meant free and untamed

I meant doing

things and learning and growing

These days I only mean

in goodness, in living right

in a way we never knew

never were taught.

nearing nine years

Nearing nine years,
there are days when the tears
are not for missing you
but for the realization
of my failure
in thinking of you
for even a single day.

in the starlight where she wishes

in the starlight where she wishes

she walks about with him
behind her gray-green eyes behind
her crooked smile

he rattles like a gris-gris sewn
beneath her shell of flesh beneath
puckered scars

she let him burrow
she let him rest

she let his shadow linger
in the starlight where she wishes

Vacation, March 2002

the time was taken
for the sake of taking

and lost
to your last breathe

your men
on the pew behind me

gray rain
rich greens

the days
too heavy.

in the garage

Robert’s papers were in a box
in the garage
near a make-shift table
on which were my skates
older than the child
I never had.

Still
what were they to anyone
save for him, dead,
or me, half-alive then.

I drug around these things
heavy on my heart

lost them
when the house sold

left some
behind a purpose

told them stay.

I miss my skates
I miss my brother more
I do not miss those things
that made my heart sore.