Wife,
When I find you, I want to take pictures
of your arms, both left and right,
and place them in my wallet.
I hope this is all right.
It is in case I die away from you.
At which time, they may serve as charms.
Both will be placed, one by each side,
So I can die within your arms.
God made whispers, songs, and rhyme,
to ease the pain of sordid news,
to force harsh words out of line,
and to a softer, fluid tune.
Well, my voice has been poor since a lad,
the pitch so often slips and falls -
and to whisper words, whether good, or bad,
makes no sense to me at all.
So if from these two, I am recused,
then the third is left, as by design.
So sit my friend, for I bear bad news.
I pray you hear a rhyme.
In these pages, I hope you hear,
a song of God’s love for you –
that this page, if pulled near,
would cause your feet to move.
For this is my cry, this is my cross:
(whether it be thought good or bad),
to show a world, so tired and lost,
the dancer isn’t mad.
I almost touched her hand last night,
while we were underneath the moon.
I almost touched her hand last night,
and she almost touched mine, too.
Oh, the pleasures God allows!
Oh, the gifts formed from the sand!
Please, I need a moment now…
I almost touched her hand.
Intelligence, Wisdom, Knowledge, and God
met in the first months of ninth grade.
Without much ado, a friendship was wrought,
over lunches spent in the sun and shade.
There, they’d debate some dense affair.
(It always seemed a bit precocious to me.) -
Knowledge would arise first and declare,
all the facts “that there could be”.
Intelligence would then shift his seat about,
and proffer scenarios with questions, deep.
While Wisdom would decide, without a spout,
then look at God, who had often fallen asleep.
In time, the four grew up and went their ways.
Though some say they still talk now and then.
But if truth be told, this sad truth I say:
only Wisdom and God remain good friends.
Dear Readers,
Freedom died last night,
at the age of three hundred, three.
He left his children and his wife,
with nothing but their dreams.
He was found near a glass of gin,
and books piled to the lights,
(It was a lady friend who found him -
at a quarter past midnight.)
Though details are still to come,
The facts, as they are, imply:
Freedom did not die by the gun.
He died by suicide.
On the day You made my wife,
on the banks of the far, glassy sea,
did she spring forth from the tide,
or from hope, or sky, or beach?
Did I know that day I’d marry her?
Did I know what’d just been won?
Or was this secret kept ‘til the earth?
And did her smile light the sun?
And what color was her hair -
did you paint it like Your walls?
with a brush of gold – soft and fair?
Because all of this, I can’t recall.
