F i v e

Some stuff I wrote in may of 2008. For Ian.


Apology for a missed call

I have disappointed you.
I know,
I haven't picked up the phone
When you called.
I have let the pause grow
In between 'I love you's'
And silence.
We are drifting on
a boat
And I keep trying to
Desperately anchor us
to land.
I pray for you to notice,
To understand,
To rage with me and take
my hand.
But I find you missing
More often then not.
The one thing I am always yearning for
Is someone who understands.
There are those that love me
But non I can go to, . . .
They don't understand me.
I think of way's I can
Put it into words
To make you realize
What I ache for.
To make you see my need.
And I do need you,
But I am afraid.




Drowning

There is a distance.
A wide precarious gap,
That I cannot cross alone.
Your silence has made a trench
And uncertainty a bigger hole
Til there is a cannon of quiet between us.
And I am sinking in a sea of Arctic doubt
The cold numbs my eyelids seducing me to let go.
I see the wavy lines of your face watching me from above . . .
Is the not understanding this bad?
I cry with my everything towards you
I stretch my soul through the eons of time
And space from where it was formed
Just to touch you,
Why won't you help me?
Why won't you speak?
Just one word.
Why do you look through me?
Look at me!
See me.
See my pain.
Am I nothing to you?

Do your hands hold me down still?





Hanging on the Other Line

I keep dreaming one of these cars will be you
Coming to pick me up.
I keep thinking every dark haired man with a Moscow accent is you.
But it's not true.
We left our hearts in hartland didn't we?
We forgot to pick up that very important thing.
I'm sure your heart got lost in the luggage
And is visiting London, Belfast, Brazil, and Nairobi . . .
Mines stuck in this bunker.
Did the barbed wire catch in my tongue that tried to speak with you?
Did my letters find their way into the paper shredder?
Telephone lines are faulty and don't go through . . .
We all know this is true.

Lives get buried in the laundry.
Souls are squandered in bills.
Yes, we know this is true.
Is that what happened to you?

Did life come down on you?
Mouths need food, backs need clothing,
Heads want a pillow . . .
Is that what happened to you?

How did you disappear?
Why was I ignored?
Did you think I wouldn't know
That something wasn't right?

Did you think I wouldn't notice
The day you ripped my heart in two?
How could I forget,
The day I murdered you.



Begging Again

Sun shines and it's shades are no more warmer
Then your apologetic smiles.
I didn't want attention
I was crying out for mercy
I didn't want you to see.
But how could you not notice
I was bleeding on the carpet?
Can pleasantries be battering rams?
Politeness artful distance?
Can cold goodnight kisses
Shut out a heart so earnest.
Can loyalty go unrewarded
And faithfulness unproved
Can sacrifice not merit
One moment of your love?



Bird Tamer

Kiss me again.
Let it be final, the last time.
Finish what you've done.
Why love me into submission?
Why persist to hold so frail a thing
Just to cruelly kill it?
Like when you held that baby bird in your hand.
It's soft feathers covering a body so weak
It could be seen through the snowy gray.
It's heart beating, it's delicate eyes
Looking up to you in trust.
With gentleness that moved my heart
You tenderly cradled that little promise in your hand
And closed your fingers over it.
With a loving sigh you crushed it's frailness
Til the blood wove thin tears through your fist.
Weeping with the last downy feathers
That floated through your fingertips.

You have no more love then stone.