Some live their lives as if each act
were prelude to the fact.
As if each step were nothing more
than interim, and yet
to think this way casts everyday
as one prolonged delay.
What’s to be done, and what is won
with little left to say?

I must believe in something sure
in walking through each door.
No accidents comprise the trek.
Each part is consequence.
We may not see to first degree
how anything will be.
What comes to pass and what must last
has much to do with me.

A tolling bell is splendid; well-
Maintained, it resonates.
Each herb and tree, non-verbally
Resounds; reverberates.
I’ve never been the person in—
I’m not the extrovert.
Adjacent; ever patient…never.
It always fucking hurts.

Bells only ring, or chime, or sing,
When rapped or hit or shaken.
No pacifist, I aptly missed,
And thus, was never taken.
It bends around each forest found;
The river’s crooked creep.
It’s not a bell you’re hearing; Well,
I only hear a beep.

My other Father passed away
some seven years ago.
You’d think I’d come to grips
with all that’s past and all that’s passed.
We offer consolation to our
selves by saying things,
like, “He lived his life well!”
or “Yes, he made his peace with God.”

But something catches in my throat,
and more than that is trapped
in portions of my self-
assurance all of this is well?
So when the songs he loved
Come on the radio, I smile.
When those who sang the songs
he loved make passes of their own,
the swift eclipse of minutes stings.
and I reflect awhile.

No, Death may not be proud, I know,
and bells toll all the time,
yet knowing isn’t quite the same
as losing things to hold.

Yeah, I know the Wilder whispers
in your head take precedence,
especially when the walls are
closing in

in your head, where no one can see
them,

unless they look at your
busy fingers

and frantic eyes.

Life while we live
it

doesn’t talk to us
until

after the train has
left whatever station

we have pretended it idles at -
waiting for the porter

to help us board.

No poet either…

Nothing exists in a vacuum,

Except for eternity,

and yesterday,

And the seconds between

Diapering the mannequin

when you’re still peeking

Around the corner of adulthood,

and
the point where


So much depends

Upon plastic peaches

Dazed by quantum leaps

of faith that slingshot

Every breathable moment



from right now

to right then.



When and where the whole world whimpers.



You,
exasperated, and out of air,

Saw yourself living it all

Before
during
and
after
She first pedaled
on her own.
Oh,
by the way,
back.
There's no going