metonymy4u

the inarticulate lives of all my world friends
told me a story about how
rules are meant to bind you
throw them off and quickly live
so one by one i divested myself
of all that i’d learned
stepped out into a freezing rain
and watched as your face melted
into the leaves of yester-year
floating on a gush of narrow waters
chanted by a song of memory
trading behind our backs
for a joke we never wanted

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whatever a life has been
or not
is there beauty

in its completion?

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even in the middle
of the battlefield
still the daisy blooms
you sleep for a moment

and wake the next morning

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what single thing
are you so passionate about
that it would make you willing
to be late for work,
just to say: i lived a life
that had something

extra in it?

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cold is the cold of the lover who’s gone
cold is the cold of the parent just died
cold is the cold of the grave in the mist
cold is the cold of the sweetheart you miss

cold is the grief of a chest in a knot—
empty your gut, empty your cot
of all that warmed the very human heart
of all you loved, of all that you sought

when winter’s cold held me in my bed
i thought of you, i held it in your stead
a frown of frost seeded long ago
a cold of a cold that settled

and would not let me go

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I used to think being single was the worst thing.
I used to think: not even the opposite ends of the planet
are aware of pain like I am. Once I went there and found
that all the world’s anger and remorse
was shunted past them through a crawl space
in the ice. Arriving home,

I lit my own birthday cake and let the burning wax run
over the icing while I drank port and smoked a cigar.

I am grateful for the beginnings of love and the ends of war,
where-ever they are right now.

I’ve been down this road many times. Everything
here turns upon a stone of verse,
over which I vault with ease.

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the following is a list of people who may be present for one’s death:

            a nurse
            a doctor
            a police officer
            your math teacher
            a priest
            a friend
            a spouse
            a lover
            your child
            a grandchild
            your editor
            a parent
            the janitor
            a volunteer
            another patient
            a journalist
            a stranger
            your broker
            your pimp
            a crossing guard
            a shepherd
            a barista
            a bar-tender
            the mayor
            a messenger
            your attorney
            a waiter
            a bank teller
            your sky diving instructor
            a bus driver
            your therapist
            a gardener
            a baker
            your piano tuner

do you really think you have a choice?

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I never met the daughter I never had.
I hope she would have been smart and successful.
And no doubt a little angry and sensitive.
                                    Most around me are.
In my life I’ve only met several kind of people.
Those who care and those who pretend to.
What’s to love? My life began slowly,
and picked up steam only in the last 5 minutes.
Prior to that memory kept me going.
To the daughter I never had I always wished I’d said
may you be strong and may you be happy.
May you have the courage to live the life you need.

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ryokan: i want to drink up his words forever
so the fountain of a river stream
runs through me and all of time.
his is the food of an unmet life.
his, pines in a crisp cool wind
far from any city.

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