Tag Archives: Death

Introduction

26 Sunday Oct 2025

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What is love,

But an unanswered question?

I do love the way

You listened to that note—

It hung in our mutual air

A moment we shared.

As if a matter of life

And death

Because it was that matter

Which consumed us.

And then gone.

I do love the way

You go

Missing.

——

I know love comes broken,

But it took breaking

To teach me.

——

Perhaps, my first love was longing.

And in that desperate hope

Came everything.

—-

And then there was love.

—

And then there was loneliness.

—

And then there was complete despair.

—

And then there was you.

—

Still breaking me.

Because such intensity can only consume.

Thirst and drink, but the glass is always leaking.

Reach and reach, but the hands seem empty.

—

And then there were your arms.

—

And then there was loneliness.

—

My time is winding down to tell you

About being human.

Such a world!

Born into a desperate flesh

And nascent blood.

Will we learn too late

How precious it was to suffer?

—

I would like to introduce myself:

Even as I mourn myself.

Confessions

27 Friday Jun 2025

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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?

AI Will Not Replace Me

31 Saturday May 2025

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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.

Missed Opportunities With Her

05 Friday Jan 2024

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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.

Ashes to Ashes (Song)

01 Wednesday Mar 2023

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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.

Second Winter

22 Wednesday Feb 2023

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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.

Fallen Orchid

18 Saturday Feb 2023

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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.

On Love and a Prayer

24 Tuesday Jan 2023

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I see him in every empty stare

A zombified generation

Of once beautiful souls

How did we get it so wrong

Sacrifice a generation

And how do we save them?

Love isn’t enough

When it has gone this bad,

So far from our empty promises

Is he beyond prayers, too

Because that’s all I have left

I see him in every empty stare

And send up this poem

On the fragile wings of love,

and a whispered prayer.

Winter Blind

24 Thursday Nov 2022

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A white blanket was pulled over

Our homes, the earth, our heads,

As effortless as sliding on ice,

As uncontrollable as dying.

And, it was hard to see beginnings

Of fields, or endings of hilltops;

In that way, it was a blur of (also white) fog.

Who’s to say what lay behind it?

The infinite forever of lost souls–?

Just there, and there, look where

My finger is pointing, beyond the trees.

I see myself only as far as the fence-line.

All else sparkles back, a vision

Of what is here, and what has been here,

Always within the margin

Of what we can so easily see.

Her Arms

14 Monday Nov 2022

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I will take a *Pound out of this poem everyday until it is three lines: a title, and 2 lines.

I envy the Aspen,

With her sleek, white body,

She stands unmoved,

While her leaves shake,

Turn color, fall,

And she is left,

Naked and alone,

In wind, rain, snow,

Enduring all,

Judging none,

No complaining.

In spring, I remember

Her limbs rejoiced

In buds, then leaves,

And birds.

They gathered

In her arms:

Robin, magpie,

Sparrow, finch, falcon.

This autumn was summer,

Then winter,

She is bare again.

The chickadees bounce

From perch to perch,

Fully happy in her embrace.

During this too early winter,

When we lose faith,

Fall to our knees,

Barely endure

dark day after dark day;

She stands reaching,

Arms outstretched to the sun

Beyond the clouds.

You must see now,

Why I envy the Aspen,

How she will survive,

And thrive, beyond me.

Let Me Be Like Water

19 Wednesday Oct 2022

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The way water comes

In many forms,

Lapping here, at my feet,

Or droplets, from a dark sky;

Let me be like water.

My father told me

God is like water:

Ice, steam, and ocean,

The way it evaporates

Then moves in clouds

To mountaintops,

Over and over.

Let me be eternal,

Like water.

Last night, I cried,

Tears of salt, and water,

They spilled out of my body

In waves, and clouds,

Emptying my grief

Into the great God

Of the helpless-lost.

I was poured out

Into some common,

Wet universe–universe–yes,

Let me be that vast,

Powerful transformation;

Let me be like water.

Love Letters

04 Thursday Aug 2022

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Whisper me a tale of lovers,

Through limbs of trees and years,

Rattle a leaf, turn a page,

Rifle through an abandoned dresser.

You will find them there among socks,

With no feet left to cover.

The body is taken away,

Yet, rises again in pen.

She recognizes the scrawl,

It is as much him as him,

And hymn to her hurting heart.

You realize love too late,

She thinks, beyond the day-to-day

Bicker and fuss, we lost us-–

She sees her lover now,

In what is left undone–

The many things he touched

And with his touch, flourished,

They wilt now that he’s gone.

Yet, in her hands,

She holds his scribbled words:

Nineteen sixty three, nineteen sixty four–

And, it all comes back to her.

Knowing : the Other Side of Losing

30 Saturday Jul 2022

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oh, they are right

with their cliches and memes

about how you will regret

when they’re gone

the missed opportunities

to hold them

to ask them

to listen

yes, it is obvious

isn’t it

but you are doomed

like I was

to never fully understand

the precious lives

so goddam important

to your own

so ubiquitous of shared moments

it is impossible to appreciate

their value

yes, it’s true

you’ll only know on the other side

of losing

welcome to being human

you will find it is full

of regrets