This was not my dream job-
pricing cinder blocks daily.
.025, .0315, .0426 x 500,1200
or 825 for 8 hours cramped
in a tiny trailer with 3 others.

Renee, busty, baudy, and loud 
in accounts receivable an expert
at deception supposedly
working thru lunch had me
bring her take-out while making
personal calls never arriving late
as I got nixed for getting stuck
in traffic.  

Then there was old man Bob with
wrinkled jowls slick gray hair  
the sleazy salesman eyeing  my fresh
from college body with Xray vision
blocking the doorway
making me squeeze past
his protruding belly telling crude
jokes with that guttural laugh.

Virginia, the boss lady dressed
in her proper gray below the knee
suits with eagle eyes
watching the minute hand of the clock
for tardiness and rule infringement
making            My life
under the scope miserable.

After six months of this I flew the coop.
Went to lunch never looked back.

Hope springs eternal,
for that box of evils is
reopened each day
by those who do know better
but are simply uncaring.

How old is time today?
Or the clock that set me to grunt and moan?
Or how about an illustration of what 
distracted me from God

in my youth?  
                                A thin strand connected
to a kite flown by a freak,
so unsettled,
the poor dog couldn’t bury a bone.  Or find home.

It isn’t everyday we see apple leaves in a supermarket, 
is it? What we experience small is significant, 
and as they say—there are no big deals—
and it’s a curse to be fortunate. 

This is why I light candles for you. Only your face and eyes 
most black, are what I want most by my lonesome.

The train slices twilight, flying on steel ribbons, breathes black breath of iron.

I was twenty-one
Working three jobs 
Had two other roommates 
Neither of them could keep jobs
For whatever reason or other 
College courses were growing harder
The will in me to rearrange my schedule 
One more time, for one more person or thing
Became absolutely much too much for me 

At the time
I knew everything about 
Absolutely nothin’

One night when I had been
manic cleaning my apartment 
Knee deep in laundry 
Alone, and pouring shots
My Nokia phone rang 
It was my dad calling to chat
Things for him became 
As clear as my next shot of vodka 
That my life was as clear as mud
We decided that night 
Maybe I needed a break 
From more than just the bottle 
I moved back in with my parents 
For six months straight 
I followed rules that were not fun
There was nothing cool about it

At the time 
I knew everything 
About absolutely nothing.

He once said 

He made the claim once 
“When you become a parent, you look at your child and say this how much dad loved me.”

My house, my rules 
I remember at times 
Being so angry with him
To take my rage of the world 
Somehow place it all on him 
I didn’t realize at the time
That my dad had simply 
Created a lean to 
Took all my pain 
Gave it a place holder
A much needed curfew
Through it I survived 

I hope I teenagers see 
That sometimes 
The price of freedoms 
Might be really high 
But our love costs nothing and
Waits in the silence of home.

I don’t normally give credence

to stray comments loosed in meetings,

but the low point of the semester

coincided with my heightened attention

to produce the usual mess

that triangulates into a poem.

I wish I could say 

that I want to save everyone,

but I abandoned my youthful reveries

filled with gratified crowds

to give myself fully

towards making the bricks 

for future revolutions.

I may be a Leo, 

even after years of denial, 

but as a fellow Leo revealed to me today,

we share our stories

not because we relish ourselves

but because we use them as bridges

to communicate our understanding 

of your crises. 

Although this colleague 

may not have directed

this comment pointed as sharp as a nail at me,

it found a home in my flesh anyway.

No, I do not feel the need 

to sacrifice myself through my work,

but I wish that I could answer him

that I understand the bitterness that swells

as we realize what we have lost

even as we have saved ourselves. 

1. what is it called when
a grandmother sits on 
the front pew of
a church and watches
a casket shut with her
oldest child inside

2. who holds the pain
cast out from the wails
of sisters who don’t
yet know how they will
ever pick up
from here

3. where does a young
daughter go after her
greatest source of love
is rested into the cold
deep of the earth

&

4. what say death for all 
of the broken hearts found 
laying at its feet?

Baby I’m struggling right now
And if you had told me how hard this would be
I wouldn’t have believed how
So now
I’m sitting with a phone full of photos
And videos
With a trio of kids that would probably feel alone
So
I push on
No space left to save what memories I have left
Just wondering how much of myself
I gave up
To make sure that they felt loved 
To make sure that they had
And to make sure they remembered me as more
Than just their dad
I have to leave them more than what I got
(And don’t get me wrong, it was way more than I deserved)
But you all deserve to never experience a tenth
Of the life I began with
So all that I am I dedicate to making sure you never touch it
So much of this
That we seem to be in love with
But I’m struggling right now 
Just to explain all of this to you,
…wow.
I think I finally figured it out in real time
And last time it took five
But this took twice as long
Tonight
So I’ll continue this drill and hope that it produces something
Good tonight

look down
at my phone 

and see
the reflection

of a man
who’s wasted 

a lot
of his prime years 

on earth
appealing

to a four
cornered screen

for the approval
of people 

who don’t care

if i live or die

I am a time capsule
Buried deep inside of me
Are memories of who I was
Before cancer ravaged my body
Before two rear-end collisions scrambled my brain    TBIs
Before grief wrapped itself around me like a lead blanket
Before tumbling into a manhole   contusions tattooed on my body  

Fragments of my brain recall
The sun rising above
Turquoise waters       Indian Ocean
At a secluded villa in Zanzibar  

My body remembers the slight breeze
Of a September evening
As I photographed
A Night-Blooming Cereus     Queen of the Night

My tongue still tastes
The savory ragù     egg pasta    creamy béchamel
While feasting on a dish of lasagna
On a sidewalk café in Milan  

Whomever stumbles upon my time capsule
I hope they find the part of me that was not broken
Not shaped by woes  calamities   mishaps   scars
But the part that consistently showed up
The part that lived   laughed
When life offered nothing to smile about
The part that screamed
I existed  
I persevered
I survived
Despite