Words for You, Words for Us

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 13:00:00 -0400

I catch myself again;
Looking for you in the doorway.
Expecting you to walk
out onto the porch,
wrap an arm around
my shoulder, and hold me close
as you did when all the others
died.
Not this time.
No,
not this time,
you are not here.
Still, I won’t believe it;
my aching heart skips another beat,
my stomach somersaults, recognizing
this helpless hope for the
impossible possibility –
that you are
alive.
We have all your evidence:
an instruction set for painters,
heavy typewriters for writing
weighty words, for poetry,
for Gertrude Stein and Whitman,
Bukowski, and Kerouac; in English and
approximate French; poetry written
down on misaligned keys,
characters askew; words for you,
words for us, words because we exist;
paintings on plywood canvas;
lonely sea fences, space bugs,
spoons, and barbed wire; Your voice
making sense, or making nonsense
in our world; Workspace Wednesday.
All that you touched, and
all you created,
everywhere you've been, and
everyone you’ve loved,
bear witness to your
beautiful life.
You were extraordinary,
Frank.
And we,
we were blessed.
No,
I don’t believe you are gone.
When your soul’s fragile shell
failed, death released your
spirit to dance among the
atoms of the Universe.
You are in the water flowing
down the Gunpowder,
in the leaves of the grass
along Stonesifer Road;
riding on cool, sweet air breezes
and blue skies, breaking
August heat in September;
steeping with the Tea in Gainesville;
mixing with the soils of the Earth;
in our breath and in our blood.
For every atom belonging to you
belongs to us.
When we were young,
I would hold you tightly,
burry my nose in your hair, and
inhale your scent,
knowing you were mine
and I was yours.
Brothers.
Caught in this memory, I
barely notice the air
become still, stagnant July
heat on my skin,
rain falls, releasing an
ephemeral rain-soil scent.
Inhaling deeply,
I begin again, becoming whole.

We Must Not Fear the Angry Anthems

Wed, 23 Nov 2016 18:15:10 -0500

I do not live in fear for my life, my son, my wife, my mother, or brother.

I do not feel the violent assault, the insult of bellicose abuse because I am white.

I have not walked intolerable miles in the shoes of our black, gay, Latin, lesbian, Muslim, and transgendered brothers and sisters.

Adams County Roads

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 21:22:12 -0500

Single car accidents happen -- testosterone, horsepower, and speed limits ignored, roads winding and rolling over the land, more dangerous than sex, cigarettes, or booze; ingredients to disasters at sixteen and a half -- on icy cold winter nights.
– D.E.D 2015 © @soberboots

Poetry on Walking in Sober Boots

Words for You, Words for Us

We Must Not Fear the Angry Anthems

Adams County Roads