A flick of his baton,
And hate fills the room.
Wafting under the doors
Into bystanders,
And passersby,
Ears.

My father was our conductor.

A sweeping gesture,
So well rehearsed...
And love and admiration,
Make the room quiver with sound.

He held his audience in a grip as hard as a scared child's, he'd perfected every move he made.

The stage is set,
The orchestra is ready to play,
Not for the audience,
For the conductor.

He trained us, his family, as a traveling show
All to boost his needy ego.

He raises his hands,
And the pity raises it's volume.
You can taste the salty,
Bitter melody
On your tongue.
You could almost swallow the tune.

If he couldn't use you in some way, he'd leave you,
Whether you were a friend or his blood.
  
A sweet undertone of hate,
So easily made,
And so tempting.
Now a brief solo...
And the admiration blasts full,
And loud,
And bright.

He'd use those who loathed him in his orchestra,
Use them to make his admirers defend him.

The conductor,
And his orchestra.
Like the sun and the planets.
The music revolving around him,
His curled moustache,
And retreating hairline.

He was a puppet master, gaining something from any
Attention thrown his way.
  
Now a solo for the fear,
Clear,
And high.
His hands go down low,
For the base sound of anger.

He was a walking explosion, when he entered the room in our home, it silenced.

Bitterness fills the room,
It's strings
Singing.
And pity again,
Perhaps his favorite instrument.

I hated him for not loving me, and he used my bitterness to hold my sisters closer to him

The conductor,
The abuser,
Conducting all the attention,
Upon himself.
Not any type is unwanted,
All instruments have a place
On his stage.

The only way to escape, was to let him go.

I've dropped my instrument.
Left bitterness on the floor.
The last one I've played,
I've tried my hand at all the others,
But I could never find one
I wanted to keep.
The life of a musician,
Just isn't for me.

<>


(for patty m)

"always love hearing from you,
it's like a kiss in the wind"


we are intimate
though never ever close,
but faithful closer

familiar,
though our convivial roads
are uncrossed, except and accept
in the delicate pearl inlay
of our poesy path

our common way station,
where can we exchange private confidentialities
publicly, above and beyond,
the plain and ordinary everyday
intimacies

from the balcony of the sixteenth floor,
I can see the horizons holding
our shared land together.

the wind blows by,
from the Atlantic crossing,
continuing on its
westward ** way

wind comes inquiring as is its wont,
as a faithful and familiar evening-tide messenger,
desirous, needy for its wantings fufillment,
to be a deliverer of
deliverances and
all kind of tidings,
sent by the
in absentia

I post a poem

the letters scatter heavenward,
no worries,
the amorphous wind,
will Oz like
reassemble them
in holy order and
brush them
across your face,
tickle the lips and eyelashes,
still moist from
missing a man who was
intimate different,
in a lifetime way

and that kiss,
that postage paid,
the meager cost
the wind receives,
for a mission well accomplished,
is transferred to you and yours
to enable you to decode
this implausibly but-all-to
plausible,
devoted message

Tequila
Tears
And art
Passion flowers
ignite
Fierce surrender
Holding on tight
Taking hold of the darkening night
Turning Twisting
On a friend's vacant bed
Igniting
Finding
Kalidiscope colors
Exploding into sound

Peaceful sleep
Entangled in arms sweet embrace

Memorable nights
in life
in memory
are played out
more than twice

Revisited
from time to time
through out one's life.