I miss those days
when you loved me
Unconditionally
When you stood
against the world
made sure I was safe
Loved and protected

Now you’re busy
No longer have time for me
So foolish of me
to think that
Love carves a path
through schedules
Just because mine did

He walked to the gate while the soft summer wind stirred the oak,
and the sun reflectively smiled in the ruts on the road,
to greet his brother Ted who’d languidly move across
so that Vic could companionably lean and look at their cattle
grazing under the Breckland pine, and reflect.

He drove his tractor and tended his fields,
enjoying the changing seasons but moaned about fen blows,
and unexpected showers which slowed the combine,
good naturedly grumbling with other farmers
about the price of fat cattle, the return on wheat,
and how many potatoes are in a packet of crisps,
when at Bury market on a Wednesday.

He’d sit to the left of the door of the Cricket Club
contentedly watching Lakenheath bat,
and readily smiled when they’d hit a six,
bringing his big brown hands together
to join in the ripple of applause.

He’d bring his prince of a Yorkshire to where
his grandchildren drooled ready for turkey
with all the trimmings, and fresh vegetables,
hearing the microwave hum, cooking the pudding
whose brandy sauce bit, before heading the evening games,
candidly laying a domino, announcing to all concerned
"Another fifteen."

He’d talk about the little black pony he drove as a youth
over top Maiden Cross Hill to Brandon,
with a cart full of produce, hating the finicky woman
who always made him eager for home.

He hoed his little bit of garden, and happily cut a lettuce for his tea,
another to pop round a neighbours' with a hand full of beans,
and a third to lay with the sack of spuds waiting for his children.

He watched the Weakest Link, and commented
on the stupidity of students, and foolish woman
wishing to spend a thousand on a handbag, and reckoned that:

“If there were more men like brother George,
who was straight and true, the world would be a better place.”

He laid in bed in the moonlight, listening
to golden oldies of yesteryear, and Victor Palmer,
the father of five, my dear Father, a gentle giant of a man,
a man of the soil, dreamed of his garden…

I stumbled upon Descanso gardens last December. Felt neck hairs stand at intention. Wishes of the past linger unfulfilled like paralyzed dreams never to be awakened into life.  Fear of replacing the one impossibly interchangeable part of the story I wish be left forgotten.

We met for early dinner. He’s holding out for better and I’m so turned on. We walk the street for ice cream, only to decide I shouldn’t.

I keep my left hand in my pocket. Distantly, I think of getting pizza by the slice with you and suddenly I’m not hungry. He doesn’t like pepperoni.

I love his paintings. He’s an artist, too. I can’t, I won’t take him to the Getty. I want to feel all of him but I don’t want to hold his hand.
Damp blankets call him home to dry. Turning away as the sun sets, I stare at the dirt in front of me, so I know where I stand, present.

You aren’t there. I glance up at the night sky and look away. No more wishing on scars. A shrouded memory of a daydream I once had haunts today I wanted to have just before I woke to the life you never were.

I’m going to the Getty in the morning. Maybe I’ll bring flowers just in case. Or maybe a camera to take photos I will never want to see. Maybe I should just stay in bed and dream a life you’re still there.

Yellow tulips and Rembrandt long your cold piercing stare. We have a date tomorrow at the Getty, it will be lovely so long not to bestir. Bring your favorite pen, as to draw the best of intentions quietly running the palate of my cheek splattered about a cold white marble floor of permeating bitterness. Peering through windows unto the imagination of immortals, bright white fades to nothing

****** be the light of dawn
Now, in step…
Symphonic daydreams tread a measure
Twisted ankles, we graciously fall.

His brotherly love

carries a knife, in my life --


nothing may go wrong.

Growing up i looked up
to you.
You showed me what it was like to be brave.
But that one day, you chose to mess it all up.
"Come to my room, lets watch a movie."
Little did I know , I was about to be violated in my own home.
"Give me a hug"
But oh this was no hug, i wish I would'e known.
How could i have been so DUMB.
"Oh its not my fault" I say, I was too young.
The feeling of your touch down there.
"This doesn't feel right.."
" i don't care"
Nena walked in, "What the hell are yall doing??"
"He said to give him a hug" I said
That night, we got a stern talking to.
"Don't ever do that again"
Was that it? All you had to say?
I had felt like my innocence had been taken away.
Years later, there's not a day that goes by
where i don't think of that traumatizing, long-lasting memory of mine.
Maybe I'm just overreacting.
Or maybe, you should've taken action.
I'll never feel the same again.

Sometimes I’m asked if I have siblings.
And I don’t mention you at all.
Inadvertently, I always tell a lie.
I don’t mention you with those still living,
because the hole you’ve left feels sore,
And I know I’m erasing you from life.

But you don’t exist.
I don’t speak your name,
who you are to me.
I don’t need their sorry, so pathetic.
What am I to say?
“I’m OK. You don’t need to worry.”

I don’t need their questions,
the “oh, no”s, “what happened?”
the regret that they had asked.
I don’t need a reminder of how different
it’s been since you’ve left
all so sudden, and so young.

You know you don’t belong here.
you’re a mismatched memory
amongst the living.
Like a puzzle piece
of an awkward family,
and now the piece is missing.

And now I speak ill of you.
And it makes me feel uneasy,
causing my head spin.
Because I do have siblings, I have a few.
And I don’t know them completely.
And you, Attila, I never will.

The house creaks, little

brother leans over me, says:


I'll never collapse!

I sit next to this girl
who plays the bass
like it owes her something,
head hung low
with chipped black fingernails
and untamed curls
that unfurl around her face.

I hear iron maiden playing
through her headphones
as she taps her fingers
to the beat.
She never seems to smile,
though she has the most beautiful
kohl rimmed brown eyes.

But back home,
she smiles at her little brother
and spins him around.
She takes song requests
on little sheets of paper
from sticky hands,
and she’ll play them all
just for him.

She writes him stories of
heroes and hope,
then tucks him in tight,
and disappears to her room
where she’ll write all night,
the things
she’ll never
say out loud.

Thanks for another day
Others curse their luck, stale breath
Eventually our enemy becomes our brother

Cancer checkup, another swinging **** who fears his death
To not necessarily sacrifice each and every day for another day
I’m going to go to my grave unsung like almost everyone

Numerous number systems beyond the real
Look one way, from another come the heart’s missed beats
One way out of the mind’s limitations is through another mind’s
      contemplations

Another autumn, another election, so aimless and sublime
The white egret ate fish after fish, one then another then another...
You get a limited number of long walks, so take your time

One gives up body and soul but that’s not what I came to talk about
Slug the world and the world slugs back
It was amusing in my youth that God’s finger could move me to another
      square

Another duality, a day in the woods, jet passing overhead
I am in favor of kindness and you prefer concentration camps
The slow death of one sometimes makes the sudden ****** of another

To survive only as many more years as there are petals on a randomly
      picked (ox-eye) daisy
Another winter passing its calling card in at the window
One day follows another until the last day and on that day there will be
      weather