tiny hands

Do it for tiny hands.
Those fingers grip mine
when swinging the little person attached.
Those fingers hold mine
when pleading for the smile I have.
Those fingers stroke mine
when nothing's left to do but stand.
They're always in my hands.

Because my hands are strength.
Because my hands are love.
Because my hands can heal
the wanting from your little frame.
Because you trust your world through mine,
And see the start and end of time
in every moment just as kind
and full of hope as ones behind
the ones you're in.

You are the reasons I still am,
reminding me no reason can
give justice for my lingering soul,
so bent on hell from lost control;
But you--the reason part and whole
That I'm allowed new youth at all.

Then look at you and feel you mend
my damaging, weakening, reckless trend
of growing old.
Who could have told
me standing there, I'd be so bold
to live again?
--rebuilding soul with tiny hands
And making heart feel young again.

Don't Worry

Don't worry the man so distant.
He's only real that way.
Don't give of yourself unassisted.
Your guide, he's not, nor stay.
You'll only fall when resisted,
And feel your world something twisted.
He's worried sick that you've missed it--
his need to go away.

You can't think
But you want to.
You can't feel
But you need to.
You can't wish
But you seem to.
Not knowing anything,
remembering,
experiencing,
foreseeing,
anything.

She believes in fate,
He believes in will,
You believe in both,
Not making sense of it.

It's supposed to make sense--
You should feel reason.
Of course it doesn't make sense--
That's life.

Life is up to you.
No one will do it for you.
You aren't yours.
You didn't do it--He did.

Work like it's all up to you.
Pray like it's all up to Him.
Be glad to be totally confused your whole life,
Split between a straight and bent neck.

You shouldn't be confused.
Don't you read the Good Book?
Good people aren't confused.
Pretend for now,
I'm sure you'll be good someday,

When you don't think so much.

I want to be good,
but I want to think.
Why is good so unreasonable?

It wasn't right. Tom never healed completely after the surgery. A surgery he never should have had. Where's the nobility in giving up a part of you if the void kills you? Tom was perfectly healthy. It wasn't his accident--it was his brother's. And if it had happened before medicine considered itself advanced enough to transplant body organs, back when nature had more power to play its hand, Bill would have died and Tom would have watched helplessly. But nature was forced a different turn. Tom didn't even think about it. As soon as they told him Bill needed a kidney, he gave his. There was no question in his mind. If something was good and possible, Tom never thought about it. Good and possible always meant one thing: do it. But it wasn't Tom who would have to live a lifetime cursing the consequences of doing the possibly good. It was Bill. Tom's month-long deterioration after the surgery and eventual death drove deep the resentment Bill harbored for being alive. He knew he should have died. He was living with a dead man's kidney in place of his own--a dead man who had at least seventy healthy years left to live, had he not unwittingly given his kidney to his brother. And Tom was the better man anyway. Like Tom's unquestioning instinct to combine good and possible, Bill never questioned which one of the brothers was the better man. The world deserved Tom for longer, and it would have had him too, had nature not been crippled.

They said Tom would be just fine, that transplants of this sort happen all the time and both parties live out remarkably fine lives. Tom didn't live anything remarkable after that. And all anyone could tell Bill was that Tom's death should inspire him to live out a remarkable life for the both of them now. But Bill only felt like spooning Tom's kidney out of himself each day he awoke and remembered Tom should be alive and him dead.

Cupid

Those cupid trends...
gave me a girl who pens
my love in lines she bends
to compensate for ten-
-dencies of men
she wishes other.

Follows the cut that ends.
Not still at least just friends.
Love breaks, time mends,
but never sends
more sugar.

we part

The dark ages of our friendship begin.
And the repercussion of only a few words.
An ounce of closeness spoken
and now we pay with darkness.
Two may silently know it, never say it,
and thereby never leave it.
But one word out loud to the other
and a fine is required.
The debtor will never escape the debt
till paid in blackness--
the severance and destruction
of words' creation.
Word is bond.
And bonds must break
the man it is.
For bonds are not between two men,
but the men themselves,
so that breaking is the physical tear
of hearts,
not snapping of sticks between.
How then could two persons torn apart
ever heal together?
For one is the void in the other.
And both can never be the same again--
the same person.
They must be two.
Had we never spoken those words
we had never been closer to one than two.
But loosed our tongues we did
only to lose them now in silence.
We have no means to say,
nor where to say it,
But emptiness--our only balm.

the frozen chords

Abby plays her muted trumpet

to the soft piano patter.

Seth sits the baby blue grand

and James sits his armchair close.

Dad savors dark chocolate--

a by-product of caroling to

thankful neighbors.

Mom wishes he wouldn't.

She dreams of growing old.

Becky laughs with old friends

new with her mobile,

and old friends are the music

Seth is playing,

so chatter brings the warmth.

There is a book in Mary's hand,

or does she write to Joel?

She can not last each task alone

and loves them both in turn.

Now Abby plays the keys

and Seth, the strings with horsehair.

I listen to the rain outside,

but in my heart it's snowing.

Only the man packed firm of snowflakes

can match the warmth I feel.

He stands within the music

of the frozen chords--

the ones standing still in time.

Though time will move and pull and stretch

young faces 'till they're old,

stand bold

like frozen chords--stand cold

against time's bidding.

But older chords still young enough to play

are never cold,

nor ever without meaning.

The snowman is my frozen chord

of ageless warmth,

And as such warmth already,

never melts.

I am surrounded by the glow of

life in snowflakes.

twilight never night

This is the way to be.
With friends who are the friends
you know, now know again;
with motivation for your laughter--
not obligation;
with recollection of the past an aid--
not lifeline to your smiles;
the presence of your doing--
not wanting for past doing and past love.

Live in me now!
For the friend in me now!
But will you go away?
Not just as far as yesterday...?
Please live in me for longer past my leaving.
Then shall I want for little,
but the twilight never night.
So put in me the twilight
for when I fall from sight.

why words? people like pictures better anyway

for instance: do I need to tell you this is Russia? or that it's beautiful?

when it rains, it pours

Don't ever tell someone you are doing great, that you are 'back on your feet,' that you are finally in forward motion again. If you do, it will rain. And when it rains, it pours. And no amount of tread or grip will keep you from losing your footing again. You are the lie you thought was truth.

But see the lie as such and you'll begin to dry the land again 'till tread and grip convince you of the truth--that you can stand again. But don't say it. Don't tell a soul. Somehow the rain knows and waits the challenge. The floods will come, disolve the sand you thought was stone, and bury you with waves. The sand takes years to turn to stone. That's why you're choking helplessly; that's why you're floating out to sea.