11 Friday Jul 2025
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Dying, Hope, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, sentience, Spirit, Survival
Sentient and savant
Invisible wings
We dream of wild horses
The freedom they bring
What it means to survive
And fight, love,
and protect love
The simplicity of
water and grass
The simplicity of
life and death
27 Friday Jun 2025
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Forgiveness, Life, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Secrets, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Survival, Truth, Yearning
Would you like to hear a secret,
No obfuscation, no vagary,
A secret, that cuts so deep
It wounds you,
It unwinds you,
Because it is you,
But you want to know,
Yes, know,
It is also in me,
That we carry it together,
In shame, and in sorrow, sure–
But let’s be honest,
There is also pride–
I mean,
We have done what we had to do,
You and me,
Have we not,
And what blame is there
In surviving?
31 Saturday May 2025
Posted in Poetry
Tags
AI, Authenticity, Death, Death Poems, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Yearning
I cannot be imitated,
Nor improved.
AI will not replace me.
I will speak my suffering
Into this world,
As only humans can suffer.
To know death
Is to fear it.
I cannot be reprogrammed,
Nor replaced.
To be human is to end.
We cannot see them again,
Nor touch them.
You cannot imitate
Feeling that alone,
That frightened
Someone else will die.
17 Saturday May 2025
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Alone, Hope, Kwanzan Cherry, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Silence, Souls, Strength, Survival, Yearning
Brave little tree,
So far away,
Make friends
With the peonies,
Snowdrops,
Crocus,
And sky;
Let it be
Enough to be
Practically alone
And silent,
Standing against
Wind,
Snow,
The neglect of this world.
Brave little tree,
Please,
Don’t feel lonely.
25 Tuesday Mar 2025
Posted in Poetry
13 Monday Jan 2025
Posted in Poetry
My dear,
Are we beyond healing?
Or, is there yet
a latent spark
of forgiveness?
Remember when
we so easily embraced:
bone against bone,
a crushing lust,
our mutual love.
But now it’s dust.
10 Sunday Nov 2024
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Belief, Eternity, Fear, Forgiveness, Freedom, God, Gratitude, Healing, Infinite, Longing, Mercy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Saguaro National Forest, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Spirits, Strength, Survival, Yearning
I thought, If all paths lead to God,
why should I care
about a right, or wrong, path?
I picked up a stone
and carried it four miles
through the desert to lay it down
at the broken, stone house.
But I took a wrong path, and laid it down
in an unmarked ravine, instead.
02 Wednesday Oct 2024
Posted in Poetry
05 Friday Jan 2024
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Death, Death Poems, decisions, Dying, Hard Decisions, Heartache, Loss, Love, Memory, Now, Piper, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Spirit, Time
The nows you missed with her are real,
But yesterday and tomorrow are not.
What’s done is done, at least,
In this world. What do you want
To take with you to the other side?
Or, be there waiting for you, beyond time?
Tick, tick, tick, then it stops,
What do we find beyond the ticking?
Everything is a choice, even sitting here
Now, click, click, clicking this poem.
Are all poems messages to the great unknown?
Future me, which does not exist,
Might read one, many years from now,
And wonder if she adequately loved
What was sent to her as a gift to be loved.
The real moments: tick tick and click clicking,
That come, come, come to us–
Then disappear,
Like she has.
15 Friday Sep 2023
Posted in Poetry
doesn’t mean
you have no pain
it doesn’t mean
you aren’t broken.
it means they hit you,
they went for the knockout–
punch, left you for dead,
but you were still breathing.
now we all wait
for the final round,
(we see you are bleeding),
rise again
walk towards your demon–
(god help the demon)
hey, they’re cheering for you
can you hear them cheering?
16 Wednesday Aug 2023
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Courage, Divorce, Family, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Strength, Survival, Women's Poems
To talk of the good things
That came of your leaving?
The way it opened up hearts,
And quieted our breathing?
Perhaps, you were too right
For our wrong little world.
Too bright and shiny,
Too unwrinkled.
She leaves the child behind
Is it too soon to say–
(You killed it) and that’s good, too?
Better to be a woman astray
Than a woman living in a fantasy.
Is it too soon to say
she will be stronger,
More beautiful, without you?
05 Saturday Aug 2023
Posted in Poetry
Can you handle the wild birds
Leaving their nests, turbulent
In their need, free and fleeing?
Or the wild keys, dissonant chords,
She plays in the dark hours,
While you are sleeping?
Come out into the storm
And stand with me.
Lightning rarely strikes,
But stand away from the trees.
Can you handle the wilds,
No smile to guide you?
Fragile, wet steps,
Into the dark night.
Can you handle the wilds?
04 Friday Aug 2023
Posted in Poetry
04 Friday Aug 2023
Posted in Poetry
but in a good way
the way of being stronger
than they understand
no need for a smile of fear
they smell it
poke the cage hoping
you’ll fall to pieces
or attack and hit the bars
they mistake how far
you can lunge
when you’re free
they mistake your love
for weakness
no worries
they’ll come begging back
it will bore you
I didn’t say
we are a family of bitches
she did
I’m here to claim it
tame women are a lie
they tell you exist
ask yourself why
you believed it
04 Friday Aug 2023
Posted in Poetry
03 Thursday Aug 2023
Posted in Poetry
If I feel your pain through her.
I don’t.
I feel her pain.
I tell her not to be the victim
In someone’s story about victims.
I tell her we’re survivors
Who make sweet lemonade
From what’s meant to be sour, tart–
We make our hurters think
We planned our hearts hurting–
That’s how happy you will be, my love.
We are a family of bitches.
I mean it in a good way—
Like good witches. Women
Who carry mystery in our bones:
We delight in knowing life is delightfully dark,
And ugly, and exquisite, and essential.
My love, in time you will find love,
But does it matter?
It will come too late to save you
From the present hurt, the sting.
The scarring. It’s fucking beautiful.
You didn’t ask for it.
But it will be beautiful anyway,
How you’ll wear it.
Maybe it will be your own poem,
Someday, when someone else needs a poem
About how to survive being thrown away.
You might learn the words that will heal them.
20 Tuesday Jun 2023
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Children, Colton, Daughter, Divorce, Family, Fathers, Leaving, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Son
Loss after loss,
They seem seamless:
First you, then her, then him.
Or has time contracted,
Months, minutes;
Years, minutes.
How do I make them years again?
How do I release loss,
Accept it as part of the beauty
Of being alive and lost, too?
This last goodbye, ahhh–
Always out of my control.
Then, the wishing regrets.
They make me cry.
Generations, they never stop
Making their awful mistakes.
I deserve happiness, they say–
But do they ever find it?
It rained today, and it was cold, too.
June 20th. It has been eleven days,
Or eleven minutes, I forget.
01 Wednesday Mar 2023
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Addiction, Children, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Family, Fear, Loss, Love, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, song, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Souls
Ashes to ashes
She wrote with a brush,
A tattoo needle,
And dust to dust.
From this life to that
We pass,
We’re crushed,
Ashes to ashes,
And dust to dust
—
Heart to heart,
When we were young,
Living to music,
Song to song,
Love to love,
Our mutual need,
To cling together
And never leave.
—
Chorus:
Cuz we’re ashes to to ashes,
And dust to dust,
From this life to that
We pass, we’re crushed,
We burn, we rage,
We laugh, we trust,
Then we’re ashes to ashes,
And dust to dust.
—-
The limits of us
Were all too near;
The fire it burned,
But the end was clear.
The mistakes I made
Still bring me to tears:
The words unsaid,
And the realized fears—
—
Chorus:
Cuz we’re ashes to to ashes
And dust to dust,
From this life to that
We pass, we’re crushed,
We burn, we rage,
We laugh, we trust,
Then we’re ashes to ashes,
And dust to dust.
—
The needle it tore,
It bled, it ripped;
But the dye was cast,
And the words inscrib’d,
And my arm it burned
With the words I asked:
The dye, the needle,
All, mixed with his ash.
—
Chorus:
Yes, we’re ashes to to ashes,
And dust to dust,
From this life to that,
We pass, we’re crushed,
We burn, we rage,
We laugh, we trust,
Then we’re ashes to ashes,
And dust to dust.
22 Wednesday Feb 2023
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Ash Wednesday, Dad, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fathers, Infinite, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Winter, Winter poem
The Aspen shivers, a little,
Its barefeet are covered in snow again,
Its white body exposed to a white sky.
I wonder if it is finally going to cry,
But it’s silent again, so I do.
The road shimmers again,
Like a road in heaven,
And they both contain death.
Ash Wednesday twenty twenty-three,
The day we lost you to morphine,
I arrived too late, down the icy road,
To ever hear my name again
From your mouth.
We had thought winter gone
But that was only an illusion,
One we wanted to believe,
After waiting so long for Sun.
18 Saturday Feb 2023
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Ash Wednesday, Dad, Death, Dying, Eternity, Father, Love, orchid, Parents, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, symbols
A death, a flower, a funeral:
A flower the widow turned away,
An orchid, left to me,
Child, and killer of orchids.
The months passed, and passed,
Yet, its stubborn blossoms remained.
Yesterday, the last bloom
Spent itself, I could tell
It wanted to be clipped.
It was dull, a bit brown,
And it drooped,
As if, life well lived,
But now there are seven,
New blossoms, ready to open.
I think how appropriate,
A symbol of our mortality,
Four days before Ash Wednesday.
And me, not even Catholic,
Yet impressed–
With what it means to die,
And not die, to live forever,
Even as we’re gone.
Bits of Poetry 