poetry

That loss is common would not makeMy own less bitter, rather more:Too common! Never morning woreTo evening, but some heart did break.

The things you let go will someday teach you how to fly.

Tomorrow camewith the illusion of todayeven more fleeting than yesterdayit camelike it always comesand wentlike it__ always gonelike a favorite song in its final secondsTomorrow came and leftleaving nothingnothing...but a familiarlingeringsense of loss behind.

most of the timesit__ the hardest to saywhat I love moreyouor your memory.

No one else was as close and as open, No one else so boiled my blood, Even he, who consigned me to torment, Even he, who caressed and forgot.

There__ a lamentation in the flutter of your lash.

When you left you left behind a fieldof silent flowers under a sky full of unstirred clouds...you left a million butterfliesmid-silky flutters You left like midnight rain against my dreaming ears Oh and how you left leaving my coffee scentless and my couch comfortless leaving upon my fingers the melting snow of you you left behind a calendar full of empty days and seasons full of aimless wanders leaving me alone with an armful of sunsets your reflection behind in every puddle your whispersupon every curtain your fragranceinside every petal you left your echoes in between the silence of my eyes Oh and how you leftleaving my sands footless and my shores songless leaving me with windows full of moistened moonlight nights and nightsof only a half-warmed soul and when you left... you left behind a lifetime of moments untouched the light of a million starsunshed and when you left you somehowleft my poem...unfinished. (Published in Taj Mahal Review Vol.11Number 1 June 2012)

Even as I hold youI think of you as someone gonefar, far away. Your eyes the colorof pennies in a bowl of dark honeybringing sweet light to someone elseyour black hair slipping through my fingersis the flash of your head goingaround a corneryour smile, breaking before me,the flippant last turnof a revolving door,emptying you out, changed,away from me.Even as I hold youI am letting go.

love canembellish its beginningsing its blossomingand engrave its eternitiesbut can never explain its loss.

You kissed me that morning as if you__ never done it before and never would again and now I write another letter that I will never dare to send, collecting memories of loss like chains tight around my chest,and if you see a fire from the shore tonightit__ my chains going up in flames.

I__ passing the bar Where you first got in my car I__ not ashamed to admit That it__ you I won__ forget I saved your cigarettes andBad habits I regret But the hours flew by like cloudsWhenever I had you around Parachute loverTake me awayFrom the plane that went crashing And the earth that__ in flamesSaving you is saving me High above the redwood treesBut down below I see shadows And parachute debris We're drifting like children Along for the rideEach time we find love Another parachute arrivesOur madness will burn As bright as the sunAnd I__l keep finding lovers But you were the one

Now and then, I remember you in timesUnbelievable. And in places not made for memoryBut for the transient, the passing that does not remain.

What I want to know is how you go on when you look aroundand don__ see anywhere you want to go without the only personyou can__ have.

Had I known, I would not have left you,alone beneath those stars,on the night when I last saw you,not knowing it was the last.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,When other petty griefs have done their spite,But in the onset come: so shall I tasteAt first the very worst of fortune__ might;And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,Compar__ with loss of thee will not seem so.

I stood in your doorway this morningdreaming you__ turn aroundyou__ tilt your headyou__ softly whisper __tay__r that you__ grab my armsto shake me while askingwhat the hell are we doingwe loveeach otherand this is not rightso we will make this worknow stay!You poured your coffee. Stirred the spoon like a crystal manwith your back to me and not a sound. the fridge humming elegies while the clock ticked onand the streets are so clean here people rushing to workand maybe I should be tooby nowat this agethis stagethis town.I will stand in that doorway dreamingfor many nights to come.

There are pieces of you that will always be with me.

My mom__ smile is genuine,A lilac beamingIn the presence of her Sun.Indentions in the sand proveTime__ linear progression,Her hair yet unblighted,Carrying midnight__ consistency.Clear tracks fading as theMovement slips furtherIn the past.CheekbonesHigh, soft,In summer__ hue,Hopeful.Each step__ unknown impact,A future looking back.My father__ strength:One whoseLife is in his arms.Squinting past the camera,He rests upon a rockLike caramel corn half eaten,Just to the leftOf man-made concrete conventionDaylight__ eraserRemoving color to his right.Dustin sitsIn my father__ lap,Open mouth of a droolingBig mouth bass;Muscle toneOf a well exercisedJelly fish,He looks at meHalf aware;His wheelchairPerched at the edgeOf parking lot gravel graftedLike a scar on nature__ beach,Opening to the ironic splendorOf a bitter tasting lake.I took the picture.Age 11.Capturing the pinnacle arcOf a sonTo my lilacWhoOutlived him and weeps,Still.Their sky has staple holes __aybe that__ how theLightLeaked out.