the woman

she is a woman

I have known women

she looks at me

weighing the potential

I look

you turn away

I turn

you look at me

we both know these rules

you come close

very close

you bump into me

and say sorry

I speak

you listen

you take the voice

and you imagine tomorrow

but you can't know me

or my journey

nobody can

for there are elements in me

that will make nothing

in your science

where you see light

I feel only the dark

we all look

we all speak without words

we are all predictable

I will smile at you

and I will play by these rules

but you will never know my heart

the pool

I am standing

where a memory lives

I am holding onto a past

nobody but you and I can hold

but you have not been here

for so long

I can feel this

for a memory like ours

needs two to make it live

and very slowly

I know it slips from here

a father's advice

don't read the books
I read
and don't carry my values
as a blueprint for your own
times change
and maybe I wasn't right

don't wait for a god
to speak through you
you have a voice of your own

love is a word with
a hundred meanings
learn them all

as for money and wealth
always remember that
I loved buying for others
more than I did myself

death is inevitable
but know that I will go before you
and that if it is possible
I will wait for you

and finally always remember this
a simple truth that took me years to understand
we are worthless
if we are of no value to others



(As a parent I spend a great deal of time musing over my children's futures. But there comes a point when your advice just becomes your own template. They have to see their future through their own eyes or what is the point of being alive?)

broken

conversation surrounds me
like a moat
isolating me further
from the living world
but their words
are incomplete threads
jumbled and meaningless
when set against my thoughts

the heaviness in my heart
empties my eyes into space
I have been here before
I vowed never to return
but here I am again
alone
cold
lost
and broken

the loneliness of a heart

strong coffee poured
over sharp words
still find their mark
and the sadness pools
in forgotten smiles

the light that shone
on dreams of days
yet to be
goes out
denying tears
denying love
accepting what was always
meant to be

and within the loneliness of a heart
a man breaks beneath
the weight of a fate
and the gravity of a crime
that was always his