it has been said
that if you are praying when you die
you will go directly to heaven

it stalled Hamlet's hand
and it quickens mine

for i had seen you that day, i think
somewhere among the fries and soda
your loving eye looking out
and the phone rang

it was my grandmother
i had never cared much for her
and the way you lived,
it seemed you didn't either

my father was silent
listening to her weeping voice
and when he returned to our take-out meal
he didn't eat or speak
but only looked on us in sorrow
until we ventured to question
what had been said on the phone

that Sunday you had been praying
speaking for your church to God
a prayer that was never completed
in a Church that was never the same

i think perhaps you made it to the hospital
but there was nothing they could do
i hadn't known you were sick before
but they told me your fear
had stopped you
and not allowed the doctors
to do their job

if death is a choice
why do we choose it?
it doesn't seem fair that it should
strike a man that has tried so hard

we left the next day
to see you and wish you safe journey
to the place we're all going but have never been

i wept but quickly forgot
i was young, and you were not
i think of you rarely
but when i do
i love you...

Copyright 06/15/01

you reached your hand me
like friendship faded
in old days of laughter we have forgotten
no longer an entity
now tinged with bitterness
and i fled

your face before mine
forever can't forget
what we used to have
as ghosts of people pass by
fleeting, for i've forgotten reality

time is a mist
and i'm running from your memory
but there are storm clouds overhead
and chains on my ankles
i fall before you
in fury and tears
and your hand is reaching down

i'm remembering embraces
caring touches
old, vague memories
but it seems you have also forgotten
and drag me roughly to my feet
i fear you
for you are strong
as we gaze at each other over the vast expanse between our minds

it has been years
years of nothingness
years of reasoning
to tear down the monument we had
and i cringe
for what i had done
and for your anger

there is a tree in my backyard
that we used to climb
a tendril of memory touches my mind
in flashes of laughter
apples in the fall

i sometimes wonder what could have been
but wondering is useless
and i always ran
seeking a place to forget
a place where i wasn't me
and your memory would fade

vengence is patient
and there is no place to hide
from a memory that wishes to find

and so in defeat i follow you to your grave
the same place where you fell
and i chose anger over grief
and refused to cherish your memory

and standing here
beneath trees and storms of emotions
you forgive me
and i weep...

Copyright 06/15/01

so for the typos of the universe and a slant of rhymes unaltered i cry against the fathers to bring on home the crypts, and i try my best to know them and i work so hard to see, but i'm blinded by the sunlight and Truth makes it hard to be!

so i'll regulate the entity and run to make amends, but nothings try to see me and i don't know where to free the thingies in the background and i'm looking for the bait, watch the cradles baby for the thorns of life to be!

i'm not thinking of my Master when i read me from the veins, i'm looking for the answers in Truth unaltered cancers, and when the bloody image of my great celestial ball come running to my fingers when i answer on your call...

i work to see the nails in the boards of life alone and i don't think i'll find my answers in tones of red from Home. so hammer up the billboard and run on down the dock for fishes that go flying when the rains all come to be!

Copyright 01/26/01