POEM OF THE MONTH ~ JANUARY 2020

(sonnet)  
   
Cherished as only broken things can be,    
Fallen to earth, with shattered pieces tossed.    
An angel heart, once whole, shattered holy,    
In black abandoned hope, eternal, lost.    
   
No way in stolen time to reconnect.    
No way to harvest fractured lines again.    
No way these ruined walls can reerect'.    
No way to cleanse this unintended sin.    
   
But in this darkness willing hands embrace.    
With studied calm all puzzled parts put right,    
All jagged curves align and move in place,    
And set with fire, with burning, golden light.    
   
  And so a life with all its scars adorn,    
  In glowing wounds, more lovely than was born.    
   
Kintsugi (also called Kintsukuroi) is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery using gold and silver lacquers with the idea that by emphasizing the repaired damage, the piece is made more beautiful by the uniqueness of the break.(Explanation added after the comment sequence below).

Two demons found each other  
parasites upon our auras  
 
Yours found the worst in me
or was it - a conspiracy?
 
I'd never hurt you
never!
 
Despite this truth  
when we're together  
 
we bleed these days  
as much as ever
 
It's not you that triggers me
I'm sure I'm not attacking you...
Yet funny little words like bees
sting our souls with great malease
 
Worst of all the two of us
will never see it coming  
 
Yet I insist we take the risk
 
Come here
 
sit
 
and bleed with me

Today, I am greeted  by  
a moss covered path, my vision  
of profound joy fallen from a  
neutral sky leaves me mute  
Vintage film has lost its shape,  
cracking like the face of love  
without you.  
 
Your delicate touch,  like
fingerless wings sweeping  
across my flesh, leaving tiny
bits of down as soft as powdered
talc.  
 
Parts of me harden by the overpowering sensation I feel,  
as I lose myself in the patchwork  
of your  fragrance.  
 
 The world, broken by fault has  
placed us in a twisted box with  
a crooked ballerina dancer  
The music has stopped playing  
it's sweet chorus of she loves  
him, he loves her.
 
Wait in the secret compartment  
at the bottom of this box empty without a navel.  
Cries run between clouds that submerge themselves into  
unfinished rainbows that dictate  
who we must be.  
They deny my claim to move  
like fluid in neutral shades of  
my choosing  
 
Mountains of granite graphically crumble, as their symbols arrange themselves in the ravine where countless tears are bottled.
 Quench the scorched embers of  
 a lovesick fruited fig dropping  
 her seeds of wanton love.  
Sterile ground sucked dry of understanding.  
 
Let me mother those in need,  
let me father those who want,  
without your sticky label of  
masculine,  feminine it's  
residue has stained my shirt.

I’m sorry for the times I screamed,
For the times I didn’t understand our genes,
Because in the beginning I didn’t know there something was wrong,
When you kept repeating everything you heard and went along,
Echoing every word I said,
Echoing every word I said.
 
Oh, your face.
 
I remember that time we sat in the restaurant,
When the band started playing right up front,
And even though I knew the music was loud,
You started crying so hard in the crowd,
I didn’t know what was wrong,
I didn’t know what was wrong.
 
Oh, your tears.
 
I recall the times I had to take time off work,
Because in kindergarten class they thought you were a jerk,
You just wouldn’t listen to the teacher,
But we didn’t know the features,
It was like you were trapped inside a prison,
You had the classic signs of autism.
 
Oh, your eyes.
 
I thought “No, not my son, how can this happen to me”,
But it wasn’t about me, it was about solving the puzzling mystery,
It was about seeing the world through your eyes,
Because in discovering you I would be able to sympathize,
And then understand you more,
And then understand you more.
 
Oh, your smile.
 
I know that your mom and I couldn’t work it out,
But I had to heal to deal someway or somehow,
Because I looked back and I thought,
There were many reasons why we fought,
I too was on the spectrum,
I too was on the spectrum.
 
Oh, my reflection.
 
Forgive me for not being a better father in those days,
I made my choices and that took me farther away,
But the short time we spend together fulfills my heart,
Even though we so spend so much time apart,
And that what gets me inside,
And that what gets me inside.
 
Oh, my tears.
 
I’m sorry I pulled away as the years flew by,
But there we many nights when I’d cry,
Thinking I should’ve been better, written you more letters,
Calling you or texting you saying “Son I’ll love you forever.”
But then I hear you say the same words,
But this time you’re using your own words.
 
Oh your smile.

I'm in love with a ghost
But it's never there when I need it most
Shadows left in my memory
Forgetting how things used to be

It haunts my dreams from time to time
With shivers running up my spine
When I awaken with a gasp
Tear-soaked pillow in my grasp

A shadow figure to my right
I turn to look but its out of sight
Unsure if you were ever real
The piece that fits this void I feel

if trees could see their
reflections across a still pond
sky blue light drifting through  
empty branches  
 
colorful leaves strewn
across the shoreline
drowning on the edge  
 
trunks and twisting branches
reaching to the shore  
longing for the foliage that
no longer belongs to them
weeping for what once was  
 
i imagine