3: Poetry

A note from the dead.
I am not.


I am watching them over my newspaper.
They slide into their driver's seats,
Balancing cell phones and grande non-fat lattes
While I sit here at a scratched oak table
Able to build and repair
To better my children, my country, and myself,
Instead
Watching stocks,
Typing drivel.

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On January 10th, 2010, I was released from a job I had performed, by any and all accounting, swimmingly. I was not downsized. I was not reorganized. I was killed by voices.

The decision was made by a fearful man who is haunted by ghosts of ambition and self doubt. He says he waited a long as he could. But the voices in his head grew too loud. And I have been counseled by those who care about me to project to him only continued love.

Instead I wish with all my heart
That frightened man a seat beside me
Here at the marred oak table
Watching them drive into the rush hour.

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There are miracles
In the midst of anguish
In a crowd of six billion souls
Against all laws of physics
And the law of large numbers
I found my wife
And I say to her

---------

Let's burn down the house.
You can pick the song,
And I will set the titanium
Tailings alight.
We can stand before the children
In our Carhartts and scorched sneakers
To provide example we declare,
"Yes.
This is it.
I love you."

---------

To those who gawk I say

A man has friends and sometimes enemies,
Often it's hard to tell between the two.
Maybe happiness lies in saving the energy
One would use trying to distinguish.

---------

I told them I was robbed by coworkers
Beaten and left for dead
Stepped over by paper-reading commuters
Averting eyes as they
Sip coffee from paper cups.
Yes they hurt me as hard as they could.
Don't look,
It could be catching.


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Then upon the writhing crowd some light,
As sunshine mottled through white cumulus,
Illuminates those faces -
The souls whom friendship renders unafraid,
To remind me life is brief and precious
And shared.

---------

Remember dear wife
I dreamt you in a catnap
Distant, vague and unreal.
You taunted me,
And hid at the end of the world,
When I woke I wondered,
Was it real?
Had you been born?


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This feels like love in wartime

---------

I once wrote a story
You wished was for you
I think it was
As are the words I wrote
For story him to tell story her.
Now you stand beside me
This most difficult time
They could be for no one but you

I would love you if you had never been born.