Sora

You come to me
with tears in your heart
holes and rips in the shape
of all the orphaned stories
that are lost to you
a song that is scratched
in a skipping loop
jumbled poetics
searching for their meaning…

We sit, staggered
Words with edges
The pen-cut of written history
Dove-tailed justification
Exalted as legacy building.

While beneath the ground
Of this once prairire nursery
Lay the bones and rot
Of so many broken promises.

The system that raised…

I am the river dream of my ancestors
The downstream living of so many choices
So much circumstance

For what is it to dream but to envision
A future where you children's children
Never know the gnawing hunger of want…

Exhale. Time slows
to the pace of remembrance and anticipation. 
A circle around Kokum's scarf
of intersecting resonance.
Energy flows.
A stone gathering stories
warmed as it passes
hand to hand
heart to heart
The beating drum
of so many…

metoo, you whisper
all these years later
from beneath
the crushing weight
of a mythos
constructed
from the storm god
privilege
of boys will be boys
bad behaviour

You are so much
more than the
diminishing names
they call you…

floating weightless
on the smooth glide
of vacation days
I move to the edge
remnant heat radiating
from sun-soaked pavers
while I hold the warmth
of Spanish laughter
as a prayer
until the mango pulp sun
is swallowed into
the…

My son graduates today
And a classmate of his died yesterday
I am told it was a spot
The young went to test their mettle
Leaping, wild-armed off
To taste freedom in 
Their metal courage

This is not the rite…

The time of holding tight is over
This held breath, a cage
Of constricted ribs and stasis

Your secrets are your own
Hidden beneath old layers
Of childhood debris 
Suffocated and suffocating

I can no longer search for them
Dive…

A poem of prayer

So much of work 
Has been heads down
Focus
On all the minutia
Built up 
To mechanize
A routined output

I see this
Even as I know
It will all crumble
Into the dust 
Of obscurity…

dear friend
you have waited so long
for me to hear the call
of home.

a sweet singular note
steady low beneath
high-pitched tremolos of worth
beyond all those songs
not in my key
named “you don't belong”. 

yes, finally…