A job loss
Can feel
Like someone died

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will you write for me?

If I say your words can save me

if I say your art can heal me

will you try?

Will you draw for me?

If I pull my arm apart for you

trim my fingernails, hand a brush to you

should I try?

Where’s your masterpiece?

Empty canvas, left my chest open to you

plunged a needle inside, drained my blood for you

is it dry?

Where’s the lif...

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A miracle?

Prevented, unplanned, unknown.

...

2020.

4 years later.

3 years old, I can’t imagine,

life;

what it would be like.

Love,

is what,

I thought it was.

Learned,

you can love and let go.

For a reason, everything happens, they say.

Believed, I believe it.

A miracle.

A lesson.

You were a lesson.

Today,

I would not be who,

I am,

wit...

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"I've never had to deal with someone like you," he said.

Deal. As if I'm another hand that is being shuffled.

I've been shuffled. The card with the crease. You know exactly which one. You pretend like you can't see it, so you keep on playin' it.

Do you benefit from continuing to use me? Not all the time. But when you need me? There it is.

You won.

When you don't need me? Just anothe...

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This is me
Trying to write about you
But there’s too much pain
Too much sadness
I still don’t understand.
The words don’t come
The sounds don’t flow
I just really miss you so.

Backdated 10/8/19

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Five years of cobwebs
decorate the hallway box
more dust at rest
fills the urn within it
that used to be your father...

Don’t look and it won’t hurt
don’t look and it won’t hurt

Your brother’s been drinking
on a fifteen year bender
so quick to lose his temper
if you ask too many questions
a snake prone upon his shoulder

Don’t look and it won’t hurt
don’t look and it won’t hurt

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As friends solemnly told him to call
On them if ever he needed anything,
Only his pastor was candid enough
To tell him Jesus alone would stay.

And so it was as it had always been,
Walking alone on the beach, in town,
Along the highway, and in the upstairs
Hallway with no memory of being carried.

He supposed Jesus was a faithful companion,
But a bit quiet, and not much help when
A fla...

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This poem will mean more if you are familiar with the work David Hume and Nelson Goodman.

We have such unfounded confidence that
The future will be like the past that
We are constantly disappointed in the
Present. The future betrays us daily.

So I can’t be blamed for thinking you’d
Be here still—as you always were.
Thousands of observations told me
You were a survivor and, besides,

...

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You were always object lesson,
Never role model, and I only knew
I should never be like you.
Your death was early and tragic,
As expected, your last conscious
Moments spent reaching for the door
Of a home engulfed in flame.

Through tear-filled eyes,
Those who had nothing but
Criticism for you when alive
Expressed their own shock and
Grief with a final tinge of judgment.
“If it had an...

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Elegy For A Ghost

Some say ghosts are chilling things

Ethereal and fleeting

But they’re not

They are the empty chair

The pint not bought in a round

The hiss at the end of a telephone line

The deleting of a mobile number

They are the sad spaces

That once held you

On the terraces

At the bar

In the conversation

Ghosts are sad things

They h...

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But for you

We would be one

But for you

The lack of feeling alone

But for you

The unknowing, not so cold

But for you

More joy in growing old

But for you

My mind might be at rest

But for you

Life, less of a test

But for you

A single race I have run

But for you

There are clouds above the son

But for you

The be...

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They never changed that room.
Dolls, teddy bears, trains,
And transformers all hold space,
Lock time in perpetual stasis.
When death comes life stops.

Family said they should pack
Things away. It’s too hard
To be reminded day after day
Of a future lost in the past,
But a room can be a memorial.

It’s a museum of childhood,
Until a child of a later
Generation discovers it with
Glee....

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In a previous century my grandfather died

Only weeks after my great uncle.

A few weeks later, my grandmother

Made a quick trip to the grocery store

And returned to find her house in flames.

Having lost her brother, husband, and home

In a matter of weeks, my uncle Skeet

(so known because as a child he was

No bigger than a mosquito or “skeeter")

Tried to comfort his s...

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I watch you silently

Tears sparkling in your eyes

I wonder if you want the comfort

When you won’t tell me why (you cry)

You go about the day

As normal as can be

I wonder how you smile

But I know the truth inside (you cry)

Your voice seldom wavers

And your friends never see

But alone you start to lose the mask

And I can see the cracks (you hide)

I ...

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I remember hearing my father's voice

      from beyond the grave.

      No dream—a single, scratchy vinyl

      had captured his characteristic

      lilting, homiletic style,

      that seemed,

       in and of itself,

       to be the message—

       no surprises there,

       nor flights,

       yet a resonance

       that touched

       and stays with me

...

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In Memoriam

The gravestones in this place are wet with tears

Of children, wives and husbands who have stood

Beside dark holes that swallow up their fears

Replacing ice water where once flowed blood.

November skies are grey and hold no lights,

The flowers flattened in a winter gale

That whips away dark thoughts the widow fights

To keep hidden behind her mourning veil.

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Player piano in the empty funeral parlor foyer cranks

out old standards with a Dixieland flourish. The old

wooden cross. How great thou art. Take my hand precious

Lord. No one hears it. No one is here to discuss pre-planning.

No one peruses coffins for his aunt who has been sick so long

the family forgot she would die. No one is scooped out

by grief at the accidental death o...

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You do not exist anymore 

Scientifically speaking, 

You are absolutely nothing 

Unconscious, intangible, not there. 

You exist in my mind, 

Poetically speaking, 

You live on through that funny anecdote

Or recipe, your legacy, our memory.  

You are my tragic backstory, 

Therapeutically speaking, 

The key to solving why I am the way I am 

What you made me w...

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it pulls back, tight,
a finger falls away
gone
flung through the air
till it hits
and falls
a heavy stone sunk at the bottom of my stomach
but you’ve left the slingshot on the bench outside
and I don’t know how to leave you on that bed
a cold hand still holds my heart
instead, you’ll stay
a heavy stone sunk in my stomach
I’ll never leave you behind
I swear
I’ll take you everywhere
b...

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