We had conquistador ambitions.
Battle plans were made, but we had no troops.
Now we are aging generals, we still have no troops.
Maybe we were meant to do nothing but plot.
We had a cavalcade of ambitious, disruptive plans,
but none of them worked out.
The best one now
is to grow old together.
Let’s watch the sun go down
we’ll smoke and drink wine
move imaginary pieces
and comment on how things end.
Maybe that should have been the plan all along.
I write two kinds of poetry:
I started a new category called “Best Poems“, which is a collection of category #2 (I had time to think and edit).
I did this so that you can read the stuff I think is my best.
When she’s feeling her worst,
the only comfort she wants
is to be told everything will be OK.
I’ve learned to tell her this,
even though I know it’s a lie.
If I am ever beside her on her deathbed,
and I tell her that,
I fear she’ll leave this world with the realization
that the lifetime of comfort
that gave her a sacred sense of home,
was nothing but an illusion.
I’ve been to the bottom and back.
Sometimes I leave because they kick me out,
other times I get enough sense to leave on my own,
but mostly I can’t remember why or how I left.
Usually I have to take a cab home,
and get my car in the morning.
I’ve been to the bottom a lot
sometimes I spend days there.
I take smoke breaks outside the place
which is how I’ve met friends…good friends
though I never know when I’ll see them again.
I carved my name in the bar stool,
change has fallen out of my pockets and is still in the couch.
There is a lot of me there, at the bottom,
but I only leave pieces of me
I won’t need when it’s time
to go back up.
You can tell a true lover by the gifts they give.
When you only get them on occasions,
dutifully,
when millions of people probably got the same thing,
Love is coerced.
The true lover finds you gifts
randomly, accidentally;
the world is the gift shop
for a museum about you.
She brings them to you
in cupped hands,
like a child who has found a lightening bug.
The cuff-links you didn’t know you need,
the poet you love
who just wrote a new book,
a small notepad that fits in your pocket
because you love to write.
The occasion is always,
the reason is just because.
The gifts are the reflection of your presence
in your absence,
and you will never throw them away.
