The Family Meeting

Your eyes, pleasantly cloudy,

Idly indifferent

When the case worker

Brings the child into the room.

You pull out your phone

Browse through the latest

Slander on Facebook

While your child

Lays placidly

In a lively pink car seat,

Oblivious to your estrangement.    

We all watch you from our seats

And with impeccable determination

Refuse to criticize

What we don’t understand.   

What you Want to Read

There are some I write for you

And some I write for me

The ones that hurt me most

Are the ones you’ll never see. 

We write to express oceans

Our turbulent, tender seas

But the wounds that truly rift our hearts

Is our unseen poetry. 

We write what we imagine

Others want to hear

But sores that ache too long or deep

Our readers cannot bear.  

Mistress

Your lady perches

On a rusty throne

Broken and ugly

Her vigilant, swollen eyes always

Watching me…every move

Waiting for one more

Moment of disparity,

The edgy scepter of doubt,

So she can move in

Be your savvy she devil

With the razor studded whip

Her grip

Brutally stitched

To your marrow

Your central nervous system

Your mangled spine.

I imagine one day

I’ll open the door

And she’ll be there

With a glass of whiskey

And a barrel of bullets

She’ll pull the trigger

Because she loves you...

Without causing a tremor or ripple

In her glass

Of Windsor Canadian North American Whiskey.  

There was a pile of dirty towels

At the bottom of the stairs,

That I had to step over

Find you in the dim lit basement

Sleeping on a dirty couch

Heavy in despair

I lay down on top of you

Wind my fingers through your

Auburn hair,

Oily from neglect,

Trace your damp skin

Your crepe thin eyelids

Skim your tender lips

With feathery fingertips

While you pretend I’m not here.

I press my heart into yours,

Cautious arousal,

Mutual affinity,  

That shouldn’t be

Indignant cruelty

From indulgent deities

That for eternity

Bound your soul to mine

The little cement block beneath
The roses, glistening pinks and whites,  
A sentimental thank you to the donors plate,  
Looking more like a gravestone,
And I had to for a moment
Work hard to remove
Your bones from my thoughts
Because there you were
In your coffin
That I try not to think about
Too much.
I kept walking, keep walking,
Past the roses
Past the gravestone
And really should work harder
On seeing you as a furious beam of light
Rather than a body in a coffin
Forever decaying a little each day
Because the air will never
Fully reach you
And properly dissipate
Into the earthy breaths that
Created you.  
It’s a little too much
To think about
For a bright summer morning.

The Rehab Group

The women are heavy and doleful

Still curling their bangs

And wearing pleated jeans.

Or the skinny ones with tight,

Unforgiving buns piled high and austere,

You’re not fooling anyone, sweetheart,

Squeezed into acid washed pants

Leering at everyone under several

Coats of midnight mascara.   

The men slumped in their chairs

Gripping their hands together

Slouching in defeat,

Outwitted, dimwitted,

Checkmate,

Mother fucker,

You’re done. 

But I try not to judge them.

On the Richter scale of trauma   

They score 7.5 on their good days.

I listen to their stories

And in my gut

I know

That this is life’s meanest

Selection

The thwarted cogs in humanity

Caught between the fucks

Of kin and fucks

Of sin.