Alone, Sonata no. 1

Although the day has been
wonderfully full of the suns touch
the flapping and scurrying
of life all around me outside
gives me joy yet I’m anguished
of the humans around me
seemingly not Caring for each other

Tonight my sleep is restless
seems darker, absent of space
I look around and witness
that I’m in my domicile
yet I feel empty of presence
unrecognized by that which
surrounds me

My chest, not a ‘Tell Tale Heart‘,
feels a dull constant ache
my left kidney a sharp stabbing
the ticking of the clock above
my recliner where I sleep
is relentlessly reminding me of time

Music is present in my ears
Ah, Ludwig and Amadeus
sprinkle into my ears, piano sonata no.1
so soothing, calming my angst
in the absence of self
the soft tickling keys a reminder
of self cognition in this realm
of lonely recognition

The Smile of Spring Rain

the rain that falls from the sky
it can not change it’s mind
once it begins it’s dissent
it must reach it’s destination
whether it falls atop a mountain
or on leaves of trees
or back in the mother sea
these rain drops do not speak
of what ocean they come from
nor where their spirit goes
once they cleanse all that they touch
if only they could whisper their secrets
of how their journey began
and how it feels when riding the wind
while in the world of Spring where upon
the pedals of daisies and daffodils
roses and lilies they put glistening smiles
for all to see

No Laughter in Houla

Laughter what is it worth
if it does not ride the eternal tide of joy

What is calm and contentment worth
if they are not sated by the taste
of universal peace

In Houla, tiny toads cannot be heard croaking
after a refreshing early morning rain
by the tiny ears of buried carcasses

Avian songs cannot be heard
from the raining of hell bombs falling
on Syrian streets by Bashar Asaad’s regime

This morning, here, we will watch
tiny earth worms crawling out
after a much needed rain

hearing a choir of our friends
in joyous song in our early morning rise,
morph voices, the children of Houla

Love Me When I'm Gone

Run run
Walk walk
Stop and stare
Wonder how will I end
Where shall I be
When my time ends
But will those that knew me
Hold me still


If I love enough
Shall my memory live on
In the eyes, in the ears, in the heart
Where shall I sit
Whose ears shall hear my song
When I’m gone
Whose eyes shall read my words
Will I someday make someone’s heart cry

Love love that’s all I can do
This is all I can give
Will you remember me
Sometime
Somewhere
Will you hear my whispers
Wipe away my tears
Spread your arms
Spread your legs for me
Love me when I’m gone

Dia de Mamasita

The other day I read a heartfelt story
about a mother who’s struggle
rendered her to the pandering
of a society who diminishes
her gender let alone her ethnicity

She held her own through the days
of toil searching for sustenance
for herself and her children
and the tear filled nights
that the day had sustained
yet the fear of tomorrows comings

They took away her pride
they took away her beauty
that a young woman holds dear
but they could not take away
the love she had for her children

as she fought the haunting of aging
though sacrificing her time of her
heralded youth for the sake of her children
the tiny wrinkle webs in her face
began to harbor the days of yore
and her youthful days sent asunder

Her days were long
and her nights even longer
but throughout she can be proud
she will always be beautiful
in my eyes my heart
she will always be loved

Te amo, mi Mamasita

Destitude Eyes

There’s a destitute in mine eyes,
I’ve felt in my heart
The days of yore have come
to haunt me
The emptiness, the unfulfilled
Loved the fun
As a child not understanding
the angst or depression,
not knowing love
only capturing the moment's
journey and its effects of
temporary joy or the pain
of falling scraping my hands
on the concrete pavement while playing
I recall, so poignantly, laying in bed
with the lights off, crying
I didn’t know why my tears
incessantly flowed but I
cried and cried and cried
I wanted so much to be loved but
I didn’t know if I had or have been
or I have loved. The days and years
have gone by so quickly without
enough embraces, enough hugs
I'm thinking it’s from my childhood
wishes, now in reflection, for how
I felt so much emptiness when
others always seem to have so much
Then as I grew older and more
was made available to me
I squandered the riches provided only
because all I now wanted was to have fun
Fun that I didn’t have when younger
I squandered my moments with family,
moments with friends just so
I could go and have fun
Never though did this fun fill that
emptiness, that loneliness,
that feeling of being alone
As time pressed on, money, sex, cars
drink, food, all these things couldn’t fill the void
and still, they don’t. I'm still trying to learn to love
to find value in my life wanting to find
something, something that’s been missing
since my childhood. Our biological father leaving
'mamasita' and us all alone. Alone before I knew
if  I would be, or could be loved

Summer's Embrace

The warm breath of a summers day
like a wet kiss embraced the day
the pedals of the flowers glistened
in prismatic joy as the sun
scurried across the veiled azure sky

Birds flocked to the bird baths
three in the back yard
two in the front wildly playing tag
from one to the other
the fountain towel hooks were full
of feathered towels as they bathed
in the fountain on my back patio

Four or five furry lucky tails tumbled
out from underneath the pine scampering
in a hop the smaller ones so much faster
then come a spray of chippies
chasing each other oh so quickly
across yards and streets as bikers
tried to avoid their array of play

and people walking their canine children
showing their new summer cuts
joggers trying to shed that winter coat
of fancied cookies and turkey sandwiches
young ladies and their pretty legs
men in cut-offs both shirts and shorts

Ah, the summer’s embrace has
wrapped its arms around the day

Space and Time

I reside in a space where
there are no walls no borders
a nebulous grey in this space
no end just the awareness
of it’s existence

in this space
reside also the colors
blue for the sky
the verdant foliage
red the blood that flows
through those that soar
and their land based cousins

We all breathe the air
and eat the berries
the sun hovers o’er
giving verve to all of us
none better than
the other

our species who reads and writes
believe that we know more
yet when we question
our knowledge relative to
the realm of the all
we realize we know little

knowledge is imagination
its the keeper of life
it creates rather than
destroys yet we're a
destructive species
so what do we know

all that exists is equal
relying on each other
our value is relative to
our co-existence
with all life

we all exist
amidst the nebulae
of black and grey
the sum of all colors
and the calculus of all

Love The One Your With

Soulful voices pervade the wind
a quiet solemnity, cogitating
the where we have been
and where we’ll soon be

Whispers hover like grey clouds,
like morning fog or the never dissipating
mist in the forest creating a sobering
portentousness, a disconcert

The morning arrives in yellow
gold horizons as a symphony of song
gives praise by an aviary choir
for one more day

Curious we wait for the fulfillment
of Proverbs, to new beginnings
of a new world by the awakening
of the old

In every voice I hear
there is an unspoken fear
that our world will end
with much regret

We didn’t care enough
we fought too much
we didn’t share enough
we didn’t love the way
we should have

If time is soon to cease
of how we know it
we still have a choice to make
of how to spend it

Will we embrace
our common good
or will we push away
the dream filled nights
the sunny days?

"eyes wide open"

Wide open, my eyes came to be
yesterday
my heart beat quickened
as if I had just ran a mile,
my breath stoking, choking
holding back 'man' tears

I noticed my friend's
long time biker gal sitting
next to a sparsely haired, frail
looking gentleman, thinking her dad,
approached her to say hi
this gentlemans's shaky hand with folds
of leathery jaundiced colored skin,
reached out and touched my arm
I  turned, I was looking into the eyes
of my friend

Just but a few months ago
he’d stand six feet three inches
two hundred and eighty pounds
he gingerly stands to hug me
he’s six foot at most while hunched
now only at one hundred and twenty and
his arms once the size of my thighs,
skeletal limbs of hanging yellow skin
embrace me, now

I was invited to support a Cancer fund raiser
unsuspecting it for my friend who but
two months ago he'd saddle a Harley ‘Fatboy’
which looked like a child’s bike strattled
between his large thighs,
a Budweiser in his hand miniturized
like a small concentrated juice can,
poignantly, a noticable slight brown stain drips
from his lip down his chin from his 'chew'
underneath his puffed lower lip

We smiled, knowingly one last hug, our eyes met
and I whispered " your God will smile on you"
I walked away, breathless, saddened,
my wife’s hand tightly in mine
knowing this donation was for him,
but the contribution of this moment
is a lasting one for so many more

Sadly Waiting

Spring arrived
with it’s glorious
sun dress

Winter became enraged
it had not packed
its vitriol reappeared

Its grey attire
veiled the sky
once again
breathing cold


My emotions
ride the sails on
high and low tides

The lovely pink
crab apple trees
cover their smiles

Until the winter grey
no longer cloud the day
we’ll sit sadly
in wait

Empty Eyes

When she sat alone
in that time and space
where only she filled,
was it empty, was it dark

All I could see
were her empty eyes
she’d stare my way
I didn’t know if I
was a tree or me

I’d touch her hand
she’d look to see
and left me wondering
if she could feel my pulse
coming from my heart

So careful was I not
to let her see my tears
while remembering all
our loving years
maybe I should have

When her incarnate shell
finally gave way to the earth
my thoughts wandered
and I questioned

When and how was the
last time she saw me
did she last know
how much I love her
did she remember
her son holding her hand

Fuck you Alzheimer's

Dream of Dreaming

Dreams; do they come to those that are homeless
in their card board boxes, in their tents
constantly rustling about in their sleep,
their overalls or trousers stiff and crested with
dried dampness from either self infliction
or the overnight dew that at one time
would have been a pleasurable waft
in the early morning rise

If they dream, do they dream
about childhood pleasures
like running and playing in back yards
parents smiles and siblings chasing,
swings and slides?

Do they dream about warmth
in beds under fresh with sheets and
blankets embroidered by mothers,
pleasant aromas coming from
kitchens, mama's pies, belly sated,
then sitting out in the patio or
taking for walks Ben or Ruffy or Lady

Do they dream of those things
we have so readily in hand,
embraced with comfort and love
and sometimes forget of these
small pleasures that to them
are dreams of dreamings?

Hug a Friend

She’s the quiet of the two
she could say many things with authority
because she's erudite with Masters of Law
Husband, Attorney at Law
is the gregarious one (surprise)
Her quiet was broken the other day
when told her one breast was harboring
the demon all women dread
She remains quiet but in that
silence, in that quiet stillness,
she screams in frazzled fear
I hug my friend

'good morning'

I step outside in the very early morn,
the moon is giving me a departing wink,
Venus and Mars are giving a sleepy yawn,
a diminishing glitter before they too
cover themselves under their daylight blanket

The still dark air gently pricks my skin
with a soothing cool, standing barefoot,
bare chest and in night time ‘skibbys’
awaiting to hear the morning rustling of
winged friends and their waking chorus,
the alarm for the 'sol'

My breath goes deep, as deep as I can,
making it a memory, a moment,
so when I depart this mundane nest
I shall recall this morning wake
giving praise for this gift

With this grateful beginning
I commit today to give
with thought and word,
open my hand to those that need it
with non-perishables, unused clothes

My means are nominal in earthen ware
but my spirit is nimble my heart does care
they embody health and willingness
to give, to share, it’s heartfelt beat
with whomever or whatever accepts
the selfless crumbs I lay
at their feet

skinned alive

blow on me wind
take away yesterday’s skin
and if you cannot blow hard enough
cool me a breeze
so that I may stare into the sun
until the moon offers me the night
and I shall walk into the dark

Being 'daddy'

If I would have had a daughter
could have learned to tie pigtails
wash her tiny feet, tuck her under
the warmth of her own bed blanket
given her that soft and gentle
daddy's kiss, ‘everything is going to be ok’

we might have found her some cockle shells
on the white sands of the beach
listened to the music that resides
inside the large snail shell
where angels store their songs

walk home her holding my finger, tiny hand
after a long arduous playful day
she waits for me on the porch swing
as I warm her milk and two cookies
we sit admiring the petrified stick she found
looks like a serpent from underneath the sea
and 'ooh, look at this sparkly stone, daddy'

I might have been a good daddy
to a daughter or son, sharing
the value of selflessness
Mother’s inspiration of love
who filled a void of an unknown father
showing me that their's great strength
in gentle smiles, in caring and giving,
in lieu of the male paradigm,
that gives credence to selfishness,
physical aggression, loud and domineering

thanks to maternal love
the influence of 'the gentle touch'
when a voice is spoken softly
and the soul is calm
the mind makes better choices
I think I could have been
a good 'daddy'

The Light

I gather in mind
towering personas, icons,
recalled in history,
their voice and song,
canvas and brush,
or writ of word,
they dissipate into
darken space until
memory serves
onto its appetite

Where do their
tunes and paintings,
where does their
poetry reside
when not in
the forefront of
the minds eye…
are they still riding
Life‘s waves into
the sea of darkness
upon that bending
light of spatial relativity
“where have all
the flowers gone,
long time passing?”

Soon, this soul
temporarily encased and
that harbors music and poetry
having saddled through
days of storms and
ridden in a luminescent night,
shall ride the light
through outer space
amidst the stars
that once heard John Lennon’s
sing his ‘Yesterday’
Shakespeare reading his
prose and Ludwig charming
crowds with his finger tips
upon the ivory’s

My spirit calms
as it pushes aside
hanging vines swinging
from tops of descendent
arboreal growth where
also caws echo through
a paradisiacal brush
as I catch a glimpse
of a curvaceous
female form playfully
searching for a playmate,
a light follows her
with the same radiance
I witness as I close my eyes
the one and same
my soul now rides upon,
traversing the universe
seeking its destiny,
that ‘somewhere over the rainbow’
or that ‘wishing star’,
hoping to see my mother
embracing joy and that
Omniscient love we’ve
sought ‘forever more’

"it is what it is"

My heart is hurting today
it may be selfish, some is selfless
lamenting about my life
how day’s gone by so quickly
my losses deeply felt of those I love
the pains and angst, the toils
of Mother’s journey
in giving us life
bringing us to a country
that dismissed us so readily
and now selfishly, I dwell upon
my diminished accomplishments
and how wasteful of time,
I’ve been

At the same time I’m cognizant
of those children in a baron land,
alone, their parents taken from them
either by famine or shells of fire
raining down upon them, excoriating
any existence of life’s growth
in the ground of their harried home,
where they sit alone without love,
without warm embraces,
never to know about ‘having’ or
not ‘having’,
and their tears no longer flow,
their body deplete of water,
their heart broken, no one
seemingly cares

I see an ant scurrying aloofly,
can’t get myself to stomp on it,
also my wife derides my inability to
use a fly swatter and cringes when
I catch them in flight releasing
them outside along with the moths
that smile at me when I open my
screen door to go out and visit
the aviary I’ve created, an abundance
of bird feeders and perches accumulated
and placed logistically so that I can walk
bare foot across my yard in mornings
providing my winged and terestrial
friends daily sustenance while
my two mini-poodles, Jules and Jaz,
nibble at my heels for they, too, enjoy
our morning’s paradise walk

Juxataposed, this very moment, soldiers
traverse foreign terrain with daggered
eyes following their every step,
beeds sweated fear under their fatigues
while finger on the trigger of the m16
at ready, ready to deploy death upon
unknown faces of ‘big’ and ‘little’ people
age is of no consideration to consequence,
only knowing he, our soldier, is in their
homeland and they wish to extricate
him through fear and death so he walks
softly, carefully, not to break the
eggshells underneath his every step
that may send him to his God
or back home lying next
to a buddy sharing stories
of where they lost their arm,
their leg, their other buddy,
commiserating how their family
of wife and children no longer in tact,
nor brother and sister, mother and father,
friends who don't understand
and a government, surreptitiosly,
has sent them to this hell

The black and white chickadees
tilt their tiny heads at me with a wink,
a tweet, the dark winged and rusty
robins are back, male cardinals
flaunt bright crimson attire
battling for feeders with blue jays
and starlings, taking turns
at the bird baths while unabashedly
bathing in front of others and now
I feel like St. Francis of Assisi
as I stroll back inside to finish my
toast with marmalade to sit
on my comfort chair and once again
live vicariously through my thoughts,
my words and that damn picture box
with audio carrying my emotions into
the tyranny whose worlds vary in ideologies,
philosophies, religiosities, and all
believing their’s, to be the ’one’.

“it is what it is”

Applause, Applause

‘Death’
applauded so readily
while curtains still open
this act has not finished
still many lines yet to speak
projecting with my own theatrics
upon an audience living vicarious lives
they’re standing in anticipation
longing to applaud in ovation
for my last act to finish and
for the curtains to close

Some of my co-thespians
have acted their roles
they’ve spoken their lines
have walked behind the curtains
some have even left the stage
waiting in the dressing room,
and like the audience,
await my last act, my ending lines
then we can all remove our makeup,
our costumes, walk away
from the stage, the theater
awaiting the next script,
written by an omniscient author,
to perform our next roles