Amazing

It is amazing
How quickly distance
May be closed.

Ten thousand yards
May be reduced
In seconds.

A dozen years
May be resolved
In one embrace.

The mathematics of life
Are circumstantial.
Our arithmetic is porous.

Darling
You are far
From me.

Yet you might find
Lost intimacy
With the flash of your eye.

You may find me
Where you left me.
I never moved.

My arms
My heart
My love is near.

It is amazing
How quickly distance
May be closed.

Sometimes

Sometimes
The universe seems to pause
I the only one moving
Seeing
Thinking.

Sometimes
I am the only breathing
Soul
The only
Sentient being.

Sometimes
I weep
Not for the universe
Not for the world
Not for you.

Sometimes
I weep selfishly
And am afterward
Ashamed .
But I must be honest.

Sometimes
I weep for myself.

Right?

Powerful pain killers
Surge my bloodstream
Numbing me
Rescinding the intense burn
Searing every extremity.

I am a castaway
A fugitive
A survivor
A man doomed and destined.

Chambers of horror
Vivid in detail
Slam shut in my brain
And I achieve cruising altitude
That rare place
Where nothing matters.

That knife blade before my eyes
Was never there.
Those bullets inches from my brain
Never sang their tenor song.
Her nightly screams
Her incantations of
Go to hell
Never scalded me.
That gaping maw of the shotgun
Never centered on my heart.
The tip of that iron in my shoulder
Never felled me.
That Crown Vic never crushed my ribs.

Three Oxycontin
And everything lethal melts away
Like April snow.
Three little white pills
And life settles into cruising speed.
Then three more
To maintain altitude.

I am not an addict.
I have a prescription.
That makes it all legal.
All okay.
Right?

Besides
The pain is real.
The emotional release
Is just an incidental benefit.
Isn’t it?

Aw, hell.
It doesn’t matter.
That was another life
When I was a younger man.
Maybe it never
Really
Happened.

Right?

A bullet is a few grams weight.
A knife is silent and passive.
A shotgun shell is simply bird shot.
A Crown Vic is just a car.
An iron is merely a household instrument.
Go to hell is just an epitaph.

Nothing means nothing.
Right?

Not even little white pills.

The Children in Room 3

They are no longer human.
They are now things
Called “Remains.”

An hour earlier
They were children.
They laughed and joked
Talking of who would be at the dance.
They were in the moment
Fully alive
Happy
Filled with expectation.

Now they are zipped in body bags
In Room 3.
They are things.

In Room 2
A human sits on an examination table
Where a silent doctor stitches his forehead.
The human drunkenly complains
Of the sting in the procedure
Complains of the harsh light
Complains he cannot leave
Complains he cannot get a drink.

In minutes frantic parents will arrive
And be escorted
Into Room 1
Where I will tell them
A drunk driver murdered their children.
They will ask questions parents always ask.
Am I sure it’s their child?
Where are they now?
Am I sure?
Am I sure?

In Room 2 the human howls at the stitches.

Yes
I am sure their children died instantly upon impact.
I am sure their bodies were charred in the resulting fire.
I am sure because I forced myself to view their remains
Though I will not tell them that
For fear they will want to see, too.
They must not see that.
No parent must see that.
I know.
I am a parent.

The human in Room 2
Should have been the one to die.
But he did not.
He will have a future.

The children in Room 3
Only have a past.

There Be Dragons

Everything unknown
Occasion shudders.
Not just next year
Month
Week or day
But there is
A certain uncertainty
Pregnant in my next breath.

Please do not misunderstand.
I am not a “Scare-de-cat.”
I tend to run to the roar
And have requisite scars
As proof.

Those who gird up their loins
In anticipation of danger
Will testify.

Tomorrow is less mysterious
Than the next moment.

The stench and tang
Of a burning fuse
Is more frightful
Than the detonation to follow.

You must trust me on this.

The step into midair
From a lofty precipice
Is far more disturbing
Than the tumble to follow.

There must be science to this phenomena.

I track everything dangerous.
I make myself aware
Of probable pain
In any denomination.
But most things perilous
Remain hidden
Veiled
And cannot be marked
Or pegged as a hazard.

It has always been thus.

I warn you
Fellow traveler
I caution you
Fellow pilgrim.
Heed me.

Beyond here there be dragons.

Endure the Thunder

Thunder
When distant
Sounds like artillery.

Lightening
Within cloud tops
Is as detonation.

Reverberations echo
Not only roof to roof
Alley to alley
But cell to cell
Corpuscle to corpuscle.

The footfalls
Against concrete
Are those of playing teens
But they sound like Taliban.

I get it.

You sit across from me
Trembling
Hoping I not think you weak.
Eyes in your lap
Upon your folded hands
You pray there is some way
For you
To live
Away from the terror.

Of course there is none.

Son
The path you must forge
Is through the carnage
Not around it.
But I will go with you.

Together we will endure the thunder.

An Old Rebel

I am an old rebel
And recalcitrant at that.
I have no will
No compelling motive
To conform to your standard
To do it your way.

If I can find a path
Around you
I’ll take it.
If there is no way
I’ll forge one.
If I cannot bypass you
I will go through you.

Let me be clear:
I need no stated reason
To rebel.
Rebellion is not only
What I do
It is who I am.

I am the one
With clenched fist
Against the dawn.

I am he
Weeping bitterly
Who cries aloud in protest
Because I do not accept
Nor will bend my knee
To your reason
And carefully constructed
Explanations.

I am a rebel.
I was born a rebel.
I will die a rebel.
When I do
Do not bury me in your quiet
Little bone yard.

Cast my carcass in the tide
That every day
All night long
Until the very last
I may wash up on your shore
To ever remind you
I will never go away.

Last Night the Moon Rose

Last night the moon rose
Fair and pale
Delicate
Beautiful.
It fixed
Gazing silently
Serene.

I wonder
Did you see it?

Did its soft light
Fall upon you
And did your thoughts return
To our long ago embrace
Below its lunar marvel?

It was witness
To our kisses
And the bond of our union.
Every frozen mar
Upon its alabaster skin
Is now as then.
Nothing has changed.

But you have changed.

I wonder
Did you see the moon
When it rose last night?

The Grace in Her

She was patient.
No prodding.
No urgency.
No demand.
No tapping fingertips.
No exasperated sighs.

She was a Sunday morning.
Patient
Kind
Welcoming.

Her every expression exuded gentleness.
We gave time
To soft conversation
Our fingers entwined.

She never asked my trust
Although every moment with her
Chipped at my defenses
Until one day
I knew she had closed the distance
Between myself and her
Between myself and a woman.

I had been hurt
Deeply
Keenly
Vowing to never again trust
To never again love.

But I needed someone.
I needed her.

Trust was the massive barrier
Separating us.
Finally her kindness
Her patience
Won me.

My soul is healed
Able to continue
Because the grace in her
Was greater than the fear in me.

Apparently

We give those we love
Power to destroy us.
All others we protect against.
All others are kept distant.

Those we love
Know how weak
How vulnerable we are.

We show them our tender places
Where the blood is most near the surface.
We give the ones we love the poison
Most lethal
We put the knife
The gun
In their hands
The words
On their lips
The traitor’s caress
In their touch.

Strangers have never pained me.
But the ones I love
Have grievously wounded me
Again and again.

And I foolishly give them
Opportunity
To do it right next time.

Apparently
I would rather die
Than pretend I am not loved
As much as I love.