Tag: life
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The Last Ride
The Last RideThe highway hums beneath us, a silver ribbon unspooling, stretching time, five hours folding into salt and horizon. She sits beside me in the old Chrysler— the Town & Country, once dignified, now a relic of polish fading into nostalgia. The wood paneling still whispers of its golden years, though the lacquer has…
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A Son’s Lament
It’s been over thirty-five years since I felt your motherly touch, and I no longer try to shape a garden of sorrow. Instead, I let the new grass flame, its green distinct from the old cold fire, whose embers tighten their ring with each passing year. I find joy in the crepe myrtles unfolding into…
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Slamdance 2025: Banr”: A Heartfelt Exploration of Love and Memory in the Face of Alzheimer’s
Movie Info: After 40 years of devotion, an elderly couple faces a heartbreaking farewell—he succumbs to a heart attack, while she battles Alzheimer’s, trapped in a cycle of fragmented memories and a desperate search for her family, as love fades into unrecognition. Review: “Banr,” directed by Erica Xia-Hou, is a touching and deeply emotional film…
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They Live/They Die
There is a song that will never benot one of a crooning summer breezebut of smothered dreams in dirty streets—Those buried in shrouds of leavesplucked from maple trees,couched in green moss orin lovely silks on soft downy beds will never know thosewho died on a freezing night, a bottle by their side ora needle in…
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The Moon in Cancer
Exhausted, endured,my veins touch the moon’s hope—this faded celebration that keeps clinging to possibilities beyond—amongst these pallid faces,silent companions,the burdened looking down this sterile room,pale walls,who surrender to sleep so easily,unheedful of this moon childlistening to only the comforting whisphersjust ahead.
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Not Touched but Moved
Death has left its imprint on me so much I don’t know who is touching me inside anymore.Certainly it’s another presence,a voice apart from God.Or is God the sum total of all my known deaths?My soul is an oarless canoe afloat a lake of tearsseeking both initiation and response to steer it. Every death is…
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Lines Written After My 69th Birthday
I don’t get the feminine luxury of being twenty-five again every birthday past fifty.For a year I must live with the snide joke that my actual age is a congress of crows position illustrated in the karma sutra (page 69).Biologically I feel ten years older. Facially I look fifteen years younger. Every year there will…
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Just So Simple
It’s simple- how to live, that is:live and die each day. Strive to live each morningas if it was the first:pull the colors around you to something that lives beyond the eyes. Treat the world not as Adam:something to be touched, named, collected, defined—but as Eve:the sun as an ingenue something young, innocent not to…
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Dust
The young can not write about dust.They know only it accumulationson floors, shelves, dirty panes.Only the old know its subtle contours,the futility that comes with just moving it around.They know that the sun and stars are dust,schools of ash that follow all life’s currents andthat blossom the new fields under Grandfather Mountain.They bend with the…
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Death Milad
As I get older I don’t dread death coming closer. It is closer. It will come as a newborn:seeding so long in me, that I would chide it for taking its time. I will not scream when it head comes out my body.I won’t even be amused by such a Hollywood trick.And when its held…
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My Thalassophobia
I play with the sand, crush it to a globe ofsun dried golden particles,until the thing in me that is the ocean calls to release it to the tideso full of the incessant sorrow upon sorrow of other’s tearsforced daily to kiss the shore-its roar constantly reminding me-the ocean hates the land-the ocean does not…
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Marriage
After his deep illness was over he laid his body on hers—the length of his body on hers—all the sleepings, awakenings,fights, teacup and coffee mornings,their talks about everything and nothing,the plummets, the joyous-awkward silences—and with a tear, she beared his weight— until it was gone.
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The Things Is…
(after Ellen Bass)The trick is to love life,even when you have no stomach for it-even when your life crumbles to burnt paperin your hands- your throat choking in its ashes,embers turned tearing diamonds,weighing you down in grief’s obesity. “How can a body withstand this?”you will ask, cradling your facein your palms- your ordinary facenow, no…
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American Sonnet for My Roomba Soul.
I am old and have seen so many dawns that their beauty has no wonder.You see, my God doesn’t need to be perfect- just right more times than not, and not repeat his/hers/its creations so much, for me to be totally happy.The only thing that still amazes me is that I can navigate the dark…
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Rollercoaster
When I was young I use to workout my death every time I rode a rollercoaster.I would give myself a glittery gold stickerfor not giving into the fear of the ascent,another if I did not pukeon the first big drop,three if I didn’t fall out raising my hands on turns.I would walk off feeling dizzywith…
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Sonder
I watch my shadow disentangle from the light to plead for its life with the oak’s penumbra and the rising sun, the stride of leashed dogs, bicycle wheels and othersilhouettes, evaporating in the park’s heat. In the artificial lake beyond, a one-man sculls theunobscured water, its paddles leaving clear streams behind.Five strokes later the craft…
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Amongst the Monuments
One day I will commit the greatest heresy and spread my father’s ashes over my mother’s grave.I will sit, with them and all these other named and nameless cloud covered bodies stretching to the horizon—a final gesture, maybe, but surely a goodbyeto how they came to this place, and how I must leave when the…
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Relax
Look, it’s inevitable,bad things are going to happen.Your dog will die before you,probably both your parents too.You’ll leave the refrigerator openand the chicken will go bad and your wife will chew you out for it.You’ll wash the colors in the wrong temperature and they will shrink to the size you wore when a boy.You’ll give…
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Fat
As I undress, I watch my flesh swell.I notice the sheaves of my hips,my marshy belly rivered with surgery scars—and I fall in love with the acreage of my life.The four years, that I unraveled into cancer,I do not miss. Nor the weight of my happinessshriveling into a stick man- vacating skin and bone turning…
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Remembering First Snow
The snow in its gloaming has been heaping field and highway with deep, white silence.The pine, fir, hemlock are draped in ermine,the poorest twigs ridged in deepest pearl.From the shed’s roof a rooster crows and stiff rails now down, flutter to the ground.The silent father listens to the noiseless workof beating snow birds whirling by.…
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Gills
When I was a kid I convinced myself I could breathe underwater.I even dreamed I would join a lap of cod and swim all the way to Antarctica. I would never get tired of navigatingtides, forging rivers, crossing gulfs. I was sure if I did surrender to the waters I could not be drownedor become…
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Oblivion
Sprinkle my ashes in an unknown spot, neglected by everyone but you. Let those who forget me, forget me. My death won’t revive their utter lack of life, relieve their petty jealousies, hates. The tribute of an unknown walker spreading my dust is honor enough, living in your secret oblivion, my joy.
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Walking Along the Bay Beach at Night
The dusty stars above, the stars in waves besides,where the very sand is dust.The bay is the nightinseparable from the starsand the winding coastline,the brilliant creatures tide-linedin the black sands swirlsas we walk in their darkness—star ash, beyond the life watch,the dusty light of their spiralaway from the swish and spill,the other walkers walking back,holding…
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Song of the Air
The dying fisherman stares at the sea gray as his hair, cap and clothes-knowing the day he freed the tangledmermaid from the kelp, and how she spoke of the brine and slid back into the waves. On this last day of his nothing, she appears- and he hides behind the mast so she would not…
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The Oven Bird
The song of this ugly bird fills the kitchen and escapes through the window, this thing that could only gobble in life, teaching the tree one to sing. Note: There are two birds being referred to: the first- the turkey in the oventhe second- an actual bird species, the ovenbird.
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Clarity
Joy rises in feathered swirls on sorrow’s wings, above the illumined dusk— the grieving heart of all living things.
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Rattlesnake
I tasted rattlesnake once at the annual Wild Hog BBQ held at the old Ocohopee fair grounds.It came in inch thick fork stabbed slabs on a Hefty styrofoam plate.It did not taste like chicken.The hog, however, was sweet,tangy, full of saucy squealing death,and nothing like chicken at all.Back home, my grounded sister,punched me hard in…
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What Remains?
What remains left of holidays if the days of the week dissolve and stop fading into seasonscars refuse to travel on tarmac& shopping centers become empty& our unharvested crops return to jungleWill we live backwards livesrevel in a smaller world to inhabitwith more birds and seen starsfind bliss in ordinary existence
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A Secret Poem
He buried her kiss.For thirteen months it stayed hidden.She did not knowit was lying there.He did not tell her.When it was time,after she fell asleep, he dug the kiss upand pressed it into a little box he especially madefull of cotton.He walked to the garden,dug a two kiss deep grave under her favorite tree and…
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Heavier than Age
Morning heavier than ageleaves the birds weighted to the limbs, unable to break out in riotous morning song.In the distance— a church bell,people in black creeping around-“Heaven. Heaven,” in their earsfor the poor soul laying beneath.They wish to hear only the sea.The old sea. The new sea. Any sea— to catch their tears, drown their…
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A Small Post Christmas Miracle
He watched his grandma create this wonderful thing stitch by stitch, just for him, in her remaining free time.He was mesmerized by the looping and pulling, the unraveling skeins meldinginto this beautiful blanket of many colors.By November it had started showing flashes of his favorite hues: blue, green, yellow— black stitching separating into squares.He imagined…
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After the Cure
I came back and I could see through the pane it had fallen, this leaning tree that grew pridefully close to the house,roots torn from earth in the winds.When all others died, it had survived the heat and blight, all the cold night winds, but not my separation, cure, return. I cried for its sorrow…
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The Blind Man’s Spot
My hands touch the flagstones of your tomb.In this world of persistent shadowsmy feet go numb walking to this spot.I hear the wind scuff the white granite all aroundossifying thedirt, blood, stonebelow into my nostrilsand lungs. I sit on the benchnear youalmost seeingthe specterof birdsstopping their prolong flightinto the comingstillness of night trees,never really knowing…
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Chalk
They traced their chalk hand first; yellow, pink, gold flowers second; memorized the white ridges of that good dog paw mold from the vet third; all the accretions, good and bad of the pastel outlines of life’s hopscotch fourth; copied dutifully the chalkboard forms fifth; leaving only the final one drawn by others, the one…
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Practice
The day’s practice arrives:awakening knowing one more day stretching arms and toes until the deadness fades, breathing in life until you are out of breath,cutting off the words in a hopeless conversation,playing the scales over and over,until each day ends and sleep comes againand the waking dawn orders us to practice again.
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Dogwoods
The rusted tips of the dogwood petals, fall after fall, indented to the shape of crosses, leaving bloody crucifixes after bloody crucifixes.The collected light, felt wounded,drenched in a suffering beauty, the kind the soul draws as perfectly straight.The red berries, past ripe are now wine. They stand naked in the air in lovely shame,past innuendo,…
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A Discovered Graveyard
(After Robert Frost’s In a Disused Graveyard)The dead come along the living unexpectedly,their grassy treads kicking upon their stonesonce upright now downturned in the weeds.They just wish to rest in peace, away from these stumbling fools that wound themselveson weathered marble letters written large: “THE ONES WHO LIVING COME TODAYTO READ THE STONES AND GO…
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Truths
Three things that are silent and true:the twilight hour,the plummeting snow,death beneath every window.
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Remember the Grass
Delight in the cool grass,its elusive, delicate, shy,brush on your face,tingling arms, bare soles- for one day you will be too far beneath even its touch.
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Serenade
Down the beach, the strum of guitars, congas,the rhythms of life knowing its longings.The come on is intense. It sweeps me along.Yet, I pause. The sea has deceived me before. It calls out with a jaunty chant, “I love you.”Its greatness sings from sun to moon.“I’m not asking you to run. Walk slowly,Take your time,…
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the spaces she left behind
they turned brown before you arrived by the time you came on them swiped the dust off turned the pages they were crumbling you never looked at the rest surrendering them to silence you could lie down again now there was nothing between you now the rain was beginning outside or was it just the …
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Beautiful Flashes of Life
Grandma Clara knew this day would come,so she put on her favorite blue & white dress.She had been waiting for this, for a long time.Clara switched the television channel to the one her grandkids watched all the time.She pulled up her wheelchair, stowed it neatly in the corner. Clara didn’t want her son/grandkids, stumbling over…
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Earth
In May, he planted potatoes. He drew the furrows with a five teeth rake; filled in the holes, the long patches with ash mixed with sprouts; buried them deep one by one until the clean wore off his gloves and the ash covered them gray; until they absorbed the insipid, musty smell of earth and…
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An Old Garden
(After Richard Aldington’s Aux Vieux Jardin)Today I found an unknown garden in the woods.I do not know who carved this still pool fringedwith reeds amidst a forest browning for winter.Who decided to protect it from the tearing air,tended it to suckle water from dark clouds.All I know, it blooms with great delight, apartfrom the diverse…
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Rainy Day
Only the rain moves,nailing the houses into their own coffins. In childhood daysthe rain sailed down alleys.merrily sweeping motley papers, leaves,once, a tiny pink shoe—everything, to the sea, a rollicking circus calliope. Now the rain, the iron rain,lets the sky place itstombstones onevery single roof.
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Juanito’s Dream
Juanito grew up with a velveteen rabbitin his hand and a gun by his side.On his sixth birthday his junkyard owning Dadgave him a clutch of rainbow balloons.He climbed the rusted skeleton of a Cadillac, held the beautiful Mylar to the sky and prayed to be taken to heaven.The answer was the sour tasting rain.On…
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Dust
I find it easier to collect dust than move it around from feathery place to place.Dust is history. It holds the flavors of myself.Dust contains my words.It sits on my mantle adding more specks every year,life upon life on death.I see God in its ashes—He is dust and Dust is everythingIt swirls in endless ribbons…
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Down Swing
I’m too old to swing in the air,let the wind blow my hair wild.I have grown beyond childish things. Gravity-time has chained me here.Now, I hold all of my fears dear,huddled in all my tears to care.This cheap pipe playground has rusted,lasting just one trusted summer.Childless, I’m not my mother’s peer. She exists all dead…
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Sunflowers Flash Bye
In my car, I speed by a field of sunflowers following the light as the sun follows them, their life with me over in the flash of an eye, leaving only remembered halos in the shadows of buzzing bees whose journey, like mine, will be over by day’s end.
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Parrots Call the Colors of a 1000 Names Remembered
They meet everyday in the vermillion walltender colors of viridescent and lapis lazuli thatcaress the blood before it stains then fades,calling the colors of a thousand names rememberedThey drop their cracked seeds to be mashed into the mud of the cobbled street belowpreening each other’s feather to a quiet array,moaning softly, butting heads in ritual…
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The Squirrel Holds Tight the Acorn
When I looked again, the squirrel with the acorn was gone, perhaps vanishing behind the trees.Minutes later, I noticed her gray shadow.She moved to me then ran the other way.In her fright, she did not notice the car, and the car did not notice her. For the driver, the squish could of have been another…
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Magnolias
The Japanese Magnolias lean into the cicadas chirr,into the every shadows of the day,before returning back to the very open airthey keep to themselves before they die.
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New Year’s Eve Comes and Goes
A friend I’ve know for but a year came a knock, knock, knocking at my door.He was cold and thin, and even though he wanted in, I did not open the door.He was once such a grand delight but now he was so so such a bore. Knock, knock, knock, his knuckles rappedagain, again. I…
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Mirror, Mirror
The light Light the in the mirror mirror in the casts its casts it light lights, on the light not the light that has been that’s been cast away, cast away, that reverse reverse that to what is which is too real. real.The looking glass proclaims only the life that is in its light. Life…
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The Water Calls Us Down
The water call us down.She names us and we call her ours. Down we goand we sleep.Awakenedwe remember- that blue pool-the one with no bottom.
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The Last Tree
The last tree sheds its leavesin the barren dry knowing the breezewill breathe its revival.
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Sheltered, I Am Now
No terror seedsin my soul. The gentledust of my mother remainsall around me. Her old comfortssnuggle away any regretsuntil our heavens meet. Not soon,but soon enough I will remain with you.Why will I decay in the crypt when only smoke can rise to joy?That cloudy mass that rises from burning,burns tears beyond the wear of…
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Nourishment
The buried placenta knows not the suffering of the womb,only that it once nourished.
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Getting It Right
I try on my death suit regularly, and even after my cancer surgery, it’s still too long in the arms and legs..This year I did manage to find a comfy pair of shoes in a size 9 1/2that don’t make my toes numb.in a few years I will come into a nice inheritance and will…
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Side Effects
In my dreams I ride bicycles. In life, I once knew how to ride them.Now I am old and side effects have my feet missing the pedals and falling down.
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The Boy Who Dances in the Light
Shout into the eyes of sunlight of the boy who dances in the light. Every dragon’s death foretells this child onto even the smallest realm. The Phoenix is an ally to the boy who forges worlds. The stars proclaim his shine this boy who dances in the light. He is the…
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Oncology Nurse
Every touch is a devotion, every soft phrase a prayer to life, to continue living. – A nightingale, a dove gowned in heavenly blue a ministering survival chant. – Thank you and double checks are abundant. – They minister consistent kindness for they live among the blasted. – There is no sniping, no rivalries, just…
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The Nacre of Cancer
I have no taste for whiskey, although it seems over the years I have developed a proclivity for cancer, for building the nacre into pearl. It’s funny how one can live with death scooted to the borders, listening to it rap the door with sub-audible gusts that only your dog hears and barks at.…
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Catacombs Know No Smiles
Catacombs are full of bones snuggling in the disgrace of others. Hipbones piled on top of skulls, the absence of lower jaws denying the departed a smile, the eternal existential joke of insulting the living with the knowledge of their ultimate end. Femur, skull, femur skull is the monotonous pattern of the Paris catacombs.…
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Death Is Like No Movie I Have Ever Seen: The Trailers
At the Miracle my young brother saw death for the first time in a shark called Bruce, Jaws swallowing the onscreen boy on the raft in a chum wave that rippled from the light, a death that drenched every body in the shock of a nature devouring everything it sees; in an illusion real enough…
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I am deaf and not your simile
I am deaf not deaf, not small d death as some people like to say, but little d as in leaf, as in small l life, even though, you have to drop the l and add the d, for all of us to get and end there, although neither is usually capitalized unless it refers…
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Death is like no movie I have ever seen: the commercials
The movie of my death has not been made but it will suck, get O stars, a thumbs down, the bad final review no one will ever see or care about, not because the life wasn’t glorious- it was- but because death robs life of glory and action, and movies are called motion pictures for…