Returning

Starting again,
On a fresh morning,
Come back
Like a friend abused.
And it breaks me.
Apples rot adn on them
Bruises fester deeply;
Cuts leave scars
Tearing the grey flesh open:
Past rest presents
a suffering
And storms sag grey
In corners of dusty rooms.

Believe me, I'm Happy

Trees.
And lit up behind, they seem
A golden shelter of leaves.
The more wintered
Clutch the sky
Like withered hands
Of the old;
Holding on to a cause - lost,
Unknown.
Then the intolerable pile
Of human misery -
like old clothes
cut off the dead -
Sits undaunted
In clouds like
Smoke.

Wild Nights

While at life's tavern
I sullenly drank
A toast to dreams
That died.
The landlord pulled
More frothy ale
And spoke to make one cry.

Self Diagnosis

I draw boxes when I doodle;
I wonder why.

War Poem

With his last will and courage
He captured just enough ground
To be buried in.

Sucking the marrow out of life

Yes, I too drink in the wine of life:
But sometimes I must piss...

Old Photos

Folded around its fraying edges

Sun-stroke blurred and beaten

Forever captured; two faces gleam in

Looking back: one, a boyish me

And the other a youthful you.

There I sit – in hopeless forever

Hugged into the crook of your elbow

The bottoms of your trousers – too wide –

The space between us, lengthened

Like shadows in cool evenings.

I don’t recall the moment when

But it seems too sunny to see

Like driving at dawn

With the news always on

And I hear her “look at me!”

As I repeat now

With small bodies eager for moving

But then, as her finger pressed

I was already looking away

Even now I think I’d

Drop

From that bridge

And then, if not now, I knew

You’d save me.