wood for the fire

The first year we loved-

we traded city lights for stars,

and even the tree’s stretched out

their branches to befriend us-

along those trails we stepped upon life anew.

Our cabin,

that one we bought out in the forest

(you remember, by the lake?)

the fireplace that sold it, rock laden chimney shooting

through the ceiling…

that baby grand you had restored

So I wouldn’t have to go without-

I’d spend most  every sunrise

chopping wood for the fire

so,

(hot chocolate shared on the rug)

 you could have your storybook nights

On those front porch mornings…

 crisp cold strumming the chimes

I‘d watch you glimmer

(fresh icicles in your eyes)

to the changes within the  maples, between the pines.

Your beauty; paramount

I was so grateful to call you mine.

five years now, I thumb my ring

Smile, and look to my right…

asleep across from my desk.

 my dream, my reality, that with which I have been blessed

that gratitude still holds its’ rhyme.

anchor n' flag

Quiet,

a military man.

a guardian to the sea.

an anchor n’ flag

tattoo under his jacket sleeve

you’d have never known,

he’d have never said

the lives he saved

or worse…

the ones he couldn’t

(memory: a helicopter pulling those faces away)

Whiskey and Water

 he’d have sat alone at the bar-

stoic; glazed into some place afar,

out off the coast of his old port town

where he’d settled himself down just to be closer to his old stomping grounds…

(a base not far off)

he would dream of the ocean,

wish to go back…

the days weren’t long behind

at twenty six there were still desk jobs to find

he fought the thought..

but hobbling up and along,

he murmured, looked down at his left leg

“You’re a seaman, but one sea leg is gone”

You’d have never known,

He’d have never said…

What happened the night he

lost his leg in one woman’s stead

more man than you

Hair a toe head tangle,

shoulders much too thin.

The other boys played football

I had a piano, paper, and a pen.

dressed all wrong,

too sensitive, effeminate

not at all masculine or strong.

I was a writer…

and I’d act as such with too much to prove

(intelligible, pretentious, ostentatious…fool)

and while the guys drank beer, and smoked the green

I’d steal their girls, and smash the scene

but eventually take the beating…

a year I hid alone

(cigarettes, and pills to make me sleep)

 Then growing up, I’d come to find

that my love for words, and rhyme

were thought by mankind

to be a total heterosexual crime.

So I tried. I tried

to suppress that natural love of mine

all the while reading the measures of man’s own mind…

according to a subjective view of what I saw right.

So I grew quite strong, and gained some size,

learned NFL stats, bought my old metal tank

drank my coffee black, and whiskey straight.

vowed no man would beat me

shot for shot, beer for beer, fist for fist.

and so it went on; this absurd list.

until a muse one day stirred the Cummings inside.

She was beautiful, fake, coy, and kind.

and when she left I was stuck,

still writing words I couldn’t help,

but wishing I could cease the whole sensitive senseless hell.

So yeah, I s’pose I am a poet at twenty two

but I’ll be damned if I’m not more man than you.