a mouse and a man (4-27-18)

how quickly our
best intentions

di s a p  p   e   a     r

pluviophile (4-25-18)

I don't know how many times
I have written about rain

about the cool, quiet hush
the silence that fills

the way the world becomes
a Monet painting

and the distant rumble of thunder
a lullabye

I haven't gotten tired
of writing about rain

I don't suppose I will.

stain (4-24-18)

you are to me like
a wine
stain

on lips
chapped and dry
the red hue of a night
that held promise

the taste gone
the memories hazy

the regret thick.

after winter (4-24-18)

the sun is
rebirth, plants springing forth
out of long-forgotten flower beds
the hope of a hazy summer
of long days and warm nights

to me,
you are the sun.

coming back after a long trip (4-23-18)

the door cracks open like a bone
snapping
the floorboards creak
startled and unhappy to
be used again

I brush the cobwebs away and
try to find my room

up the winding staircase
if I can make it there
I will be home

if only I could remember
which room was mine

the door at the end of the hall
catches my eye
I don't know what it is but I
know it is mine

but when I slip through that
familiar doorway

it is a linen closet

the absence of sound (5-6-14)

"A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. [...] whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life."

-Ray Bradbury, "The Fog Horn"

how can so much be contained in a sound?
ten seconds of a song long forgotten,
bringing with it not just a melody,
but a menagerie of memories.
tied inextricably to that brief, happy autumn.
how does a song reminding me of
that brief, happy autumn
evoke not feelings of warm nostalgia,
but a sharp, stinging pain?
the presence of that autumn
a phantom limb; gone, but still felt--
all the more harshly for its absence.
each track of this album I loved
brings only more lonely thoughts.
no longer can I listen to the songs
without also listening to the last conversation we had
the one where everything finally broke
for the last time.
and I knew, this time, it was really over.
If this is how it's going to be now,
No song from the last two years
Untainted by memories of strained, pained
Conversations-- and the lack thereof--
I don't think I want to hear anymore.

i always smile when i see the rain (4-11-14)

because there's something about that
slow quiet melancholy hush
of delicate raindrops
softly hitting the ground in lonely droves
that makes me feel whole again

the redemptive power of the water
bringing new life to tired eyes and hands
and soft rounded edges to all that
is sharp and pointed.