Silver Lining

The silver lining is
the closer we get
to wiping ourselves
from existence, the
more comfortable I
get with seeing us go.

Trees

You've been told broccoli
looks like little trees

But when you're hungry it may be
That trees look like giant broccolies 

Darn Cat

The cat wants to cuddle 

The cat wants to play

The cat needs their

litter box changed

No matter what that cat wishes to say

He expresses it all in exactly the same way

Bite 

Clouds

Frozen explosions

Violence in silent slow motion

Breaking waves that have escaped the ocean

Sin

If there is any kind of God
If there is a divine
I think the closest we get to it
is when we create
To honor a creator
and creation
create

And the biggest sin
ever committed by man
was using this drive
the desire and ability for creation
to infect our children with self hatred
in order to market 
false cures 

A Poem For Shane

When Shane Macgowan dies you write a poem 

What else is there to do? 

Listening to the Pogues and crying while driving 

I imagine the force that kept his heart pumping blood 

despite a lifetime of poisoning 

I imagine it as a star exploding 

It's shards lodging in the chests of poets the world over 

Infecting us 

Making us dance and sing 

driving us to put our tears and struggles and anger into rhythm and rhyme and verse 

to sing the pricks and pigs back into whatever hell they climbed out of 

and raise our voices 

as we raise our glasses 

and sing a song for Shane

Dead Friends

I unfriend my dead friends
on social media

Feels cold, but keeping 'em felt morbid.
Either way, I don't think they mind.

I smelled real wood smoke

Night isn't night enough, we've diluted the darkness
the fire in the fireplace is mostly decorative
An ever shrinking number of stars  are visible in the sky

but we're rarely eaten by wolves anymore

I wake up knowing most of my neighbors are waking too
We survive the nights for the most part
and die so very much more slowly sitting at a desk

an attack by wolves might be a better way to go

My Dads Been To War

Dad's been to war
And he doesn't talk about it
Not talking isn't exactly a family trait
not at all what we're known for
this silence about what he saw there
words couldn't possibly say more

When I was a young man
Watching the politicians on TV
my dad pointed at the most combative of them
screaming America was worth fighting for
Every one if these hawks, without exception, he explained
Were men who'd never been to war

Old Men Talking Politics at The Coffee Shop

I romanticize the idea of old men sitting 

at the coffee shop arguing politics

but this morning I sat next to exactly this scene

as I drank my morning cup

and a more boring conversation I can't imagine

delivered somehow with great passion

I put my headphones on

and turned my music up

My Rosary Beads

I was raised a Catholic
and still a rosary hangs from my headboard
bought for me by my father
who is an agnostic

I tease him that he's just
afraid of commitment
an atheist down deep
in his soul that don't exist

He gifted me them before
I visited a war zone
He said "It couldn't hurt"
Feeling helpless, he hedged his bets

I keep my prayer beads
there, by my godless head at night
Connecting me to my childhood
When I loved and feared the Christ