Here, and over here -
The fortunate sons

Those who made it home
To fields and hills of native tongue
In the soil their people toiled
- They listen quietly when we come


There, and over there -
Beneath crossed lines too many

Still - they man the trenches
Along the Marne and Somme
Below the woods of Belleau
And the forest of Argonne

No sonnets in a foreign language
Rendered where they languish -
The distant rest far and away
In a cold November grave


We should remember
Here and there
The old lie -

And the young.

r ~ 11/11/14

Dying slow in the mountains seemed much easier than simply breathing at sea level.

I've been thinking that maybe I was happier when I was still drinking.

I tried to write a poem called Pointless and never made it beyond the title.

Dying seems easier than breathing at sea level.

r ~ 11/7/14

Ice blue, fluorite lights
Brisk and windy Autumn nights
Trees silhouetted against beautiful sights
Lights reaching fantastic UFO heights
A shiver away from icicle, frozen
Buoys float on water in space wide open
Life letting leave on those things broken
Water lapping shores like lava molten
Whispers in rocks surrounding each path
Knowing tales of days-passed and aftermath
A spindly tree feathered with its repeated bath
Moonlight washing away all that's wrath
Not trading here for a million or two gold
You could offer a mansion with no sign of sold
Each passing boat of enlivening cold
Remembers stories of today that were never told

Eyes wet to the brim,
then relieved by birthing
tears; one chasing
another down
skin that's as smoothe as
running one's palm carefully
across the surface of a
forest pond so silent it's
warmed by even the
moonlight.

First I think she's moved by
loving me; saying I'm more
than she ever dared dream of.
then I realize she's speaking
of nightmares she has about
losing me; waking up to my
things and I not
being there,
and those tears stop as I
hide her face against my neck,

listening to the fearful ripples
in their body of salt and
sadness inside a heart that
doesn't know that it needs
not be half empty
any more.

Willow tree, billows—
Long leaves falling as water,
.  .  .  falls into water.

we see the smoke
and hear the drums -

it gets old - the news
of war - no more glory

-  the dead are dying
old and young

- we see the smoke
and hear the drums -

living in our rooms
above the fray -

we turn away
like yesterday -

we see the smoke
and hear the drums -

another day.

r ~ 10/17/14

poems for breadcrumbs
I danced into the forest
the deeper I ventured
the more poetry I scattered
the darkness lit up
a trail of tears and laughter
with words of homecoming

A catamaran whooshes past
Epilogued by the propeller with which it steers
Marking each and every ripple
Without hesitation, without fear
I'll take the next wave