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Sean Critchfield Jun 2013
My Father used to buy cars. A lot of cars. Broken down, busted up, P.O.S. cars. Usually VW's. Always on the door of the great rusting field in the sky. He'd park them on the side of the house in a long row. This area was technically off limits, but rest assured that many battles were fought against mythical beasts and imagined armies.

It was a fort, a hideout, a giant clubhouse, and where I saw the inside of my first ***** magazine.

But the landscape was always changing. Evolving. This time line of rust and oxidized paint.

The cars would move forward one by one into the future like plate tectonics and more cars would be added to the past. And each one would make it's way into the garage. The land of curse words and flying tools. It was in the gladiator arena that smelled less like sand and more like grease,  that I learned to be a man.

Busted knuckles and loud music. And these cars would raise up on stands, and my father, like a surgeon would open their insides and make them whole again. Slowly. With the time that he had. And the cars would heal and eventually purr to life. And then, one day, they'd be gone.

Some would stay longer than others. Some would be displayed like show ponies. But eventually, they all left. And all the while, I would watch from my graveyard of cars on the side of the house.

It wasn't until I was older that we talked about it. Those cars. I always thought that this was just my dads hobby. Fixing things. It made sense. Anytime I needed something fixed from a toy to an angry heart, I'd take it to my father. And, I suppose, in a way it was.

I asked him about those cars once. Why he did it? Did he miss it? Why didn't he keep them?

He told me that he never intended to keep them. That in his eyes, they were not cars. They were insurance policies. Rent. Food. Emergency house repairs. Peace of mind for my mother.

And it all became clear. My family struggled in my youth. A young couple. A hairdresser and an airforce airplane mechanic. With two kids. Trying to make ends meet.

It was this line of rusted cars that made those ends meet.

It was ****** knuckles, loud music, curse words, and air heavy with sweat and grease that made those ends meet.

And any time the ends would not... quite.. touch...

One of the cars would go.

My father doesn't work on cars anymore. He doesn't have to. He and my mom are successful. Comfortable. They worked hard to become so.

And I am proud of them.

He has traded in his wrenches for other hobbies. Traveling. Collecting military memorabilia on ebay. Watching movies.

But that row of cars will always live in my heart as the example of what it means to be a good man.

My father loves his wife. He loves his family. His knuckles have healed. And the cars have gone.

And he is still my hero.

My dad is a husband, a fighter, a survivor, a mountain man, a war hero, a father and grandfather to dozens who didn't have one of their own, a firefighter, a medic, a collector, a wicked good shot, a teacher, and a friend.

He is also a mechanic.

And he is a good man.
Sean Critchfield May 2013
Written as a wedding gift for two dear friends, Gregg and Lisa.*

This is a love poem.

This is a clashing skylines over mountain tops love poem.

This is a desert wind kicking dust clouds off of the earthen floor like time love poem.

It's a phoenix rising from the ashes again and again, smoothing every rough edge to make them beautiful, burning faults like paper lanterns love poem.
It's giant monument cascading down in a rainstorm of embers as the lone giant tumbles to the earth in a offering of solidarity.

This is a love poem.

It's wind and water and trees bowing limbs in genuflect out of respect for the hearts combined.
It's wild and fierce, like great beasts and flashing storms that match the primal song of the passion of two souls aligning.
It's hanging by a single chord from the tallest of ancient brothers. It's laughter echoing off of canyon walls and echoed back like majesty.

This is a love poem.

This is an urban jungle alive with life and color love poem.
This is a chain link fence and beat pounding to vibrate two heart strings into a single rhythm, striking a beautiful chord love poem.
This poem is spinning lights and a body of hundreds. Legion, moving as one, rich with the scent of joy and effort.
It's late nights and early mornings, adorned in affection and whispers. It's music and dance and holding tight and holding on.

This is a love poem.
This is a timeless love moving at the speed of thought, pushing clocks to keep pace in futility love poem.
This is a hand touching skin, like ink touching paper to record the poems of your past, present, and future, to only be recited with a kiss love poem.
It's a forever has too few letters for how long this love has been destined and how long it will continue on love poem.

This poem is learning the other like morning prayer. It's tasting each goodnight kiss like Eucharist.
This poem is sound and fury and steadfast through every storm and letting the wind of your whirling dance fill the sails of the wooden ship you build together.

This poem is aging. Building monoliths of your past. Tearing them down and using the stones to build the cobbled path of your future. It's a new laugh. An innocent laugh. Fresh eyes glimpsing a future made from the hearts of two that will carry the love forward so that it can remain forever a wave giving back to the shore. Rich. Tidal. Steady.

This is a love poem.

This is a wrinkles and cracks forming like cuneiform. Making the sculpture more beautiful with time love poem. A lines spreading out across the cover of the book, wrinkled to resemble a road map of the winding path of the journey of two, circling one and other like a binary star. Bright and radiant.

It's a patina heart. Showing through with red and blue. Lines lit by fire that warms aching bones on even the coldest nights of our minds.

This is a love poem.
This is a celebration.

This is a gathering of witnesses who checked their wings at the door, that we may stand below and watch the dance above. Quaking parishioners glimpsing the face of God and beauty. Jaws agape eyes shining with tears like morning dew.

This is a love poem trying in vain to describe the beauty of soul mates finding their way back home. For sometimes home is not a destination, but a person.

This is a love poem.
This is a poem about love.
Sean Critchfield Sep 2012
“Don’t forget me. Okay? I want to be remembered. Just not this way. I will remember you as a dancer who could weave patterns through the rain. And you remember me in a sailors cap and dungarees.”

“The smell of this never seems to go away. I won’t forget you, though I may over look us sometimes, just the same. I meant it when I said it. But if you wouldn’t mind. Do your best to forget me if you please..”
Sean Critchfield Jun 2012
We are big.
Like mountains.
If I am the mountain side, you were the wild fire.
Hot. Piercing.
Rendering my solid flesh to molten liquid and then to dust.
But only that I might grow again.
And more beautiful than before.

We face our compulsion. Spinning like mad children, in a ring of rosies, dangling dolls in the infinite black of space.
My binary star. My coupled light spinning my opposite.
Twice as bright.
Twice as beautiful.
But from a distance, we seem as one.

Perhaps this soft light I imagine surrounding you are our gods. Mouths open. Shamed by your beauty, that they could not have created you. Only dreamed you into being. They seem like fate, don't they?

And I am consumed with the constant reminder
of your absence. It plays on my tongue like bitter wine.
Leaving me drunk with want and yearning.
And so much more.


And this madness. Like a force undefined. Hurling our bodies. Like freight trains destined to collide. We can be bigger than mountains. We can be the trees and the sky and the pulse and the moon. All lit by twin stars spinning.

Your lack of light is desperate. A quiet void.
If I were a black-hole. You would be the event horizon
of my unmaking.
A voiceless abyss.
Incomplete.
And slowly growing.



If my eyes were moons. You would be my eclipse.

And this pulse. This landscape caught by rhythm. This thump. Like beating bodies. In carnal rhythm. Remembering each caress like history.

You are my legend. Your touch has written confession on my body, that I read like litany. Cuneiform.
Your fingerprint, an ancient code, written on my eyelids. Spoken on the tip of my tongue that I eat like Eucharist. That I drink like communion.

And my morning prayer is a mourning dirge.
Sung like a sailor for your return.
That you might find the wind of my breathlessness
And return to me
once more.
For I am motionless without you.


Yet.
I am mighty. Like wild beasts. I am stronger then before. I grow wise. I expand my eyes to encompass the horizon, that I may see every curve of your landscape. That I may feel every burn of your wild fire.

My longing is armor, that I wear. To conceal my beast. Like desire. Hungry. Waiting.

Tame me.

I miss your mane.
I miss your smell.
I miss your pulse, beating opposite mine.
I miss your light.

My shadow was massive. Stretching to the corner of maps.
My arms, a wingspan, that crossed time. Waiting to encircle you to me.

I have no light to cast a shadow.
I have no reason to fly.
My heart is barren.
Kept vacant for your return.
If not for you then always.
A singular place that once held your step.
A precious palace that you once danced in.


Spin.
Spin, Wildfire.
Devour my skin again with your hungry touch with your wanting kiss.
I wish to be reborn as yours.
Again.

Circle me that we may light the sky again.
And grow our horizons to outstretch the corner of our eyes.
Until we are blind.

Give me sight.
Let me see.
Let me see you.


That we might see our own light.

As one.

As yours.

Burn brighter than before.
Sean Critchfield Nov 2011
There was no storm I couldn't weather.
Until you removed a single letter.
And yet again, you removed another.
And in the place of them, you see, you set the letter h and e.
And now that storm I couldn't weather,
became a game of whether or not that storm was me.
Sean Critchfield Nov 2011
I would inscribe her image on the front of my heart,

were her irises, ink.

And though my hands have wept and bled.

Though my tongue has sworn and stabbed.

Though my heart has hunted and prayed.

Though my lips have lied and kissed.

I haven't the knowledge to capture her.

My masterpiece, a failed rendition of  her countenance.

Put down your pen, poet.

No arrangement can rival the timelessness of her touch.

To try is folly.

Love simply.


Let my half of our kiss be the melody you harmonize to.

*“Hold me tight.”
Sean Critchfield Oct 2011
We make shapes with our hearts.
Concentric rings that ebb and flow like spice and mystery.
And though the rings are not eternal..
They will intersect from time to time like lighthouses.
Look to the shore.
The beacon is simply my eye
reflecting your light back to you.
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