I wish I could have given her more.
More of my time, myself, my love.
But a man cannot give what he
doesn’t possess, unless you count
the empty promises. Of these, I have
given beyond measure.
I wish I could have loved her more.
More deeply, more sweetly, more completely.
But I hated myself too much to
truly love another. I cared, but that’s
hardly the same. And the love I received
simply gave me permission to misbehave.
Until it was gone.
Above all, I wish I had more wishes.
My father was a gifted man,
if by gifted you mean having the ability
to take a perfectly good family and
fuck it up beyond all recognition.
I often wonder what his childhood
was like – did he lay awake at night
anxiously awaiting that condemning
sliver of light from a cracked bedroom
door? Did he endure the midnight
smell of rum and coke that announced
another night of abuse? Did he whisper
to himself, “this is what I want to do
when I grow up?”
He had a gift for loving his children,
much like a pimp has the gift of loving
his whores.
The royal robes of winter’s night tightly bind me
in its blue-black grip; and shadow of majestic mountains
kneel on the banks of frozen rivers, its cracked ice,
like braided lace hemming the barren valley floors.
An amber moon spills bitter glow through naked branches
like brittle fingers clutching a button-less cloak.
Icy winds whip swirls of fog across lifeless lakes,
and on broken wings doves fall from a voiceless sky.
In a distant village, old ladies warble lullabies
to their dying husbands; soft verse cutting like
jagged blades through thick cherry smoke,
bleeding from pipes clenched in broken teeth.
The children, with bellies as round as their joyless
eyes, feed upon fermented peaches and dance
on knitted bones, playing hide and please, don’t seek.
I have walked a lifetime to return to this, my kingdom,
stretching as far as the blind eye can see.
My head is crowned in a spray of dying stars
as my spirit is drowned in muted prayer.
My hobbled feet were cut upon jagged stones -
This is my doomed destiny; my home made in hell.
Each word, a thousand times spoken
Each promise, another vow broken
like snowflakes melting as they hit the ground
your words fall coldly without a sound
Each kiss, from cold lips pressed
Each touch, just an icy caress
You hold me so tightly I can no longer breath
Your embrace insincere – I no longer believe
Each gesture, an empty illusion
Each thought, just a delusion
The love I once felt has turned to regret
And the best I can do is hope to forget
Each day, a waste of my giving
Each night, exhausted from living
With someone who hasn’t the vision to see me
I’ve opened my eyes, I just wish to be free
A Sunni mother silently watches:
overhead, a gathering of scavenging ravens
paints the dusky sky
above the broken bodies of her three children.
Bewilderment mixed with horror and beauty,
accented by the pebbles beneath her feet,
polished smooth by a flood of tears.
An acrid wind swirls
with scattered hope and broken dreams;
confetti raining on freshly scorched earth.
Another womb is rent in unbearable grief
at the loss of its precious fruit.
In that very moment, across the sea,
a Haitian waif reflects:
a flock of seagulls angrily position
above the ghetto garbage heap,
next to crumbling shanty
where her newborn triplets scream with hunger.
Bewilderment mixed with horror and beauty,
the waste beneath her feet glistens
with the flood of her tears.
The stench of rotting wind swirls
with scattered hope and broken dreams;
flies rising up from quaked earth.
Another womb is rent in unbearable grief
at the bounty of its damnable fruit.
I had lived one life with my face turned from the sun,
breathing icy winds and my father’s sin.
He is gone now but his fingerprints
remain a stain upon my broken bones.
My sister traded his midnight hugs for an opium exit;
her ashes instead of his lashes.
I took my refuge in dark shadows and withered.
I told…once.
Was rewarded with a year sabbatical in a red brick asylum,
bought and paid for with my mother’s silence.
She collected her ransom daily/offered up her womb’s fruit
to feed him like grapes to Caesar’s gaping maw.
She furnished her home with lost innocence
and found comfort in our cries.
She is buried now and I am robbed of my mourning.
Unearth me when tomorrow comes.
Set my broken feet upon polished stones;
let ascending steps carry me home.
My screams no longer echo from the mountaintops
My dreams no longer tether my pain.
I am not healed, but I feel, and my words anoint
my open wounds.
And they will say, “At least he’s not in pain anymore.”
Really?
I have left this world just as I was beginning
to understand my role in it. I will never experience
the wonder of new lands, nor will I ever listen to the
crashing of a wave against the shore. I will never again
hike the wooded forests, or climb a lush green mountain.
I have widowed my wife and whisked away her best friend.
I will never feel the softness of her lips; hear the laughter in her voice.
I will never share with her my deepest secrets, nor will I receive hers.
I will never love again as I have loved.
I have taken my children’s father away
before they were even halfway home.
They will grow, and marry, and have children of their
own, children who will never be gathered into their
grandfather’s arms. In time, they will forget me
altogether.
I have ceased to be a friend, forever,
to those I held dearest. When my name is called, I will
not come. When I’m needed most, I will not come. I have
taken so much, and will never be there to return the favor.
I will never feel the warmth of the sun
upon my face, or smell another fall as it rustles in. I shall
never shower in a spring rainstorm, nor will I taste another
snowflake in winter.
In what alternate universe does any of this mean I am free of pain?
To spend eternity in certain knowledge that I have failed everybody
and everything that I hold close in this life? I would rather live racked
with the physical pain of cancer for the remainder of my life than to
steal away a single day from those I treasure most.
Do not say, “At least he is not in pain anymore.”
My pain is infinite. My sorrow will bleed through the ages.
My shadow falls away.
No sun will touch this truth.
Wandering, cold and revealed
almost naked in my sin.
I have squandered the best of me,
descending now with the rest of me.
Secrets eat at my guts
and I am consumed completely.
Would that my lips could part
and exorcise that which I dare not speak.
I am taunted by courage beyond my reach.
My body is cleaved in two;
one side dead, the other living in fear of living.
My own hand betrays me,
and I cannot sleep eternal.
The truth is an acid
eating away any hope of resurrection.
I am undone, yet left standing.
Delusions scattered like dying embers,
How shall I then progress?
The world revolves on a shaky spindle;
The heart barely beats in my chest.
Having given so much to this life,
I fear I’ve gone insane -
I awake at night with a sudden fright
And a fever in my brain.
I reach into the night descending;
A trembling hand extends.
My fingers white, with no insight
I grip the writer’s pen.
Words drip onto a page uncurled;
A scattering of thoughts still burning.
My soul calls out, “God, let me out!”
And speaks of desperate yearning.
Like splattered pools of fallen rain
That swallow my reflection,
I’m lost again and deep within
The fog of introspection.
And still no words to rise within
My consciousness this day;
Expressions of this tortured scribe
Must find another way.
Go into the house of pain,
and dwell there one full, dark night;
say nothing which would reveal
your despair and look to no man
with aching desperation.
Sit there, alone
and consider how this anguish
causes the gentle evolution of
your weak and pitiful human spirit.
Note how little by little
time eats away at you like
razor-toothed slum rats,
feasting upon the sinew of
your pitiful soul.
One full dark and lonely night.
Reflect and know the meaning
of being banished to this
accursed piece of hell
we so lovingly call earth.
Wrap your arms around your
feeble and trembling knees;
rock to and fro, gently, while
the knowledge of what it truly means
to be separated from God
comes washing over you
like molten lava;
burning past flesh to thought.
Just one cold and empty,
dark and dreadful night.
If you then have either the desire
or the strength remaining
rise to your pathetic ape-like stance
and step forward once more
into another day of this
charade we call life.
