You have to let go and not hold on
When life's past has cut you to the bone
Cast away the anchors
grasp
Cut the ropes , drop sails on the mast
Check the weather that the sunrise casts
Let go , Let go ,
. . . the ugly past

So many colorful shards,
so many scattered books,
my Father left behind.

He connected the dots
with me, in space and time,
listening to the wind
when it was raining.

Absent and so close,
he used to say:
“Listen to what’s on the ground.
See what lifts us at night
when the birds go silent.”

He gave me more unrest,
he was the left hand
forced to write
with the right.

He believed in me
when the system
sent me away,
dismissed me.

He had hope
without medals,
standing steadfast
in the last row.

Now the body crumbles.
There is a memory
full of holes.
A counting echo—
he remembers,
he doesn’t,
it’s fine,
still hard
but his voice lives…

Time is blending
into a rusted chain
of events.
Tenderness,
resistance
to the falling apart
of departure.

He won’t come back.
He won’t recover.
The body is warm,
life doesn’t want to escape
the shrinking shell.

Sharp words cut helplessness.
Many nights still come
until the final return
to the embryonic state,
to point zero.

I am here,
into this deep night
being the witness to breath,
awake in the dark gentleness.

~
Tonight underneath debris
Family foreclosure
...
Heaven's legs dawn through window
Offer artificial hope
...
Employee to love
Dressed for escape
...
Pleasure town angel
A multi-colored pretty thing
...
Mom questions way
Daughter drives to parties
...
Empty lips talk
**** reflection patterns
...
Death inside mom and dad
Beautifully cold skin
...
War god kiss
Midnight blue people (at dinner table)
...
Young shadows flower
Final stars fire
...
Money born cloud
Raining on remnants of family
...
Is there nothing
Left to mortgage?
~

In the shadow of the Cairo
(yellow-bodied, stony-crowned,

its high and untroubled brow
gazing over our fleeting forms

as we scamper to small habits)
I think of you O love, though

(rain heads are drifting east
in humid fists of fat vapor,

air hangs in cloying squares)
the city is all alcoholic laughter.

Or maybe that's me projecting
(I grew up in a green country

with cornstalk and cow, my room
brimmed with book and song;

after that first divorce I collapsed
down into a city that teemed

with such friendly drink, helped me
forget a clever father who left me,

a lock-in mother who didn't care,
forget sweethearts waltzing away,

friends turning and fading, fires
I ate as they ate me in turn).

Now it's a hundred and change
in the Cairo's shade and I think

of you, sweet one. This yellow king
sweeps a wide view over the bake

of the block as I wander down
to finish your teal. (O, I'm alone,

always alone, but with you
I'm a little less aware of it).

Stay with me and touch me -
remind me why I'm still alive.

In between the words
Are the dreams we left behind
As floor boards creak under
Hesitant heavy steps.
Between the letters
The camphor tree
Roars in the wind
Like a river
Flowing over its banks and
Miro’s spider waits
In silence
On the wall.
In the refrain
A pause
And the heartbeat
Of loss.