The Parents We Barely Knew

	We called them Mom and Dad,
	  as if those names told the whole story.
	As though their lives began with our first breath
	  and ended with our needs.
	As if they had been born into those lives
	  already knowing how to soothe fevers
	  and mend broken toys.

	We watched them from the small stage of childhood,
	  seeing only the pieces they offered us,
	  the steady hands that tied our shoes,
	  the quiet voice that soothed us to sleep,
	  the lectures about being careful
	  when the world felt too wide,
	  the tired eyes after long days.

	We mistook those fragments for the entirety of who they were.
	We never saw
	  the lives they folded and placed neatly
	  in the corners of their days.

	We never asked
	  what dreams they once held close,
	  what hopes flickered in their youth,
	  what did they want to become
	  before they became ours.

	We never wondered how they first met.
	  If it was laughter under a borrowed umbrella,
	  a letter exchanged across months,
	  or a glance that lingered a moment too long.

	We never knew
	  what kind of child each of them had been,
	  what fears kept them awake in their own dark rooms,
	  what victories they quietly claimed
	  long before we spoke their names.

	There were whole chapters
	  we never thought to read.
	What heartbreaks they carried quietly.
	What triumphs they never named
	  or spoke of at the dinner table.
	The friends they lost,
	  the places they hoped to see but never did.

	We only saw the parts of them that served us.
	We mistook their constancy
	  for simplicity.
	And now in the stillness
	  after they are gone
	  do the unasked questions bloom—
	  questions we never thought to ask
	  when answers still lived and breathed.

	We try to piece them together
	  from photographs and fading memories.
	They were just parents we thought.
	But they were people,
	  entire worlds we barely visited. 

               The Freshman Edge

	 His first year now complete,
         he lies in wait in the corner,
	 self-promoted to join the adults,
	  presuming to grace us with his presence,
	  legs crossed, intellectualized
	  (indoctrinated, more precisely),
	  with the notches of
	  sanctimony, sarcasm, and superiority
	  proudly etched in his belt,
	  as he smugly rolls his eyes
	  at the collective, inebriated
          wisdom cavorting before him,
	  anxiously waiting for the chance
	  to regurgitate some pontification
	  on climate change or social justice
	  while I study him with a silent cynicism
	  as an ironic reminder resurfaces,
	  that I, too, was once that person
	  laying wait in a corner
	  poised with my new knowledge
	  like a villain holding a gun ready to shoot,
	  until my father handcuffed me
	  when he shrieked,
	  you think you know everything,
	  but you know nothing, nothing at all.
	  And he was right, of course.
	  So, for now, I’ll just wait 
	  for the boy in the corner
	  to become the mockery he cannot see,
	  to climb the stepping stone he must climb,
	  proving he, too, knows
	  nothing at all, at least not yet,
	  and there’s some satisfaction in that.

                                         26,155 Days and Counting

That is how long I have been roaming this planet. I just calculated it on my iPhone. Not sure why. Perhaps out of boredom, or perhaps to make an ordinary life seem a little more extraordinary. After all, there is a lot of time line in that span of days. To think it was only on day 2,190 when I entered elementary school. And it was probably around day 4,380 when I noticed the changes in my body as hair began to cluster in places where none existed before and untamed urges struck when least expected. It was somewhere between days 5,840 and 6,201 when I lost my virginity on a day unplanned. It was just around day 7,665 when I graduated from college before taking those first steps into the adult world—the real one, when you count the days between paychecks and you wish away days as you begin the countdown to retirement, if you can make it. It was on day 9,084 when my first son was born followed by his brother on day 9,709. It was on day 14,600, my fortieth birthday, when I buried my father. It was on day 18,250 when I rode on my first hot air balloon  to help me forget the day I buried my father. I could go on and on as my life has gone on and on, but the question ultimately becomes what kind of life it has been during those days that aren’t so numbered. How much meaning can be measured in the days in between? How many punctuated days, if any, does it take to make a life extraordinary?

                When a Mother Becomes an Angel


	        When a mother becomes an angel,
		the man sons become young boys again,
		recalling their cries in the middle of the night,
		as her gentle touch
		soothed their pain
		or calmed their fears,
		like the time they were lost and aimless
		in a crowded wood that hovered over them,
		eclipsing the sun
		and devouring their hopes of ever being found again,
		the same way they feel now
		lost and rudderless,
		floating between the heights of gilded memories
		and the depths of despair,
		refusing to let go of the maternal bond,
		afraid it will someday disappear.


		When a young mother becomes an angel too soon,
		the boy sons
		try too hard and too fast 
		to become men who want to bury their grief
		and harden their souls
		to never be hurt again,
		and while they question the reason
		for feeling abandoned
		they cling to their few memories before they fade away.


		Whenever a mother becomes an angel,
		she never leaves her son,
		and he should not feel abandoned.
		Whether he is a man feeling like a boy,
		or a boy trying to be a man,
		one day he will see there is no difference,
		for her comforting arms will forever be open
		and never disappear.

                           Legacy

He walks the halls of future minds alone
and weighs his name on scales he cannot see.
His brain defies the coldness of old bones,
yet his tortured heart feels no longer free.

His thoughts lost on how he’ll be remembered,
he counts the good he’s scattered in his days.
His past and present are so dismembered,
he fears the louder echo of his ways.

Will he be admired or forgotten?
No crime to damn him, yet enough to stain.
Will they see the good that was begotten
or the missteps that linger bold and plain?

And so he labors, restless, torn between
the man he is and what the world will say;
till time reveals how little he has seen—
that legacy is shaped beyond his sway.

I wrote this poem very recently about our neighborhood cat. It’s a little light with a thoughtful twist while I experiment with rhyme and tercet patterns. I hope you enjoy it, especially the cat lovers out there.

      The Truth is Sometimes Hard to Wear

The truth is sometimes hard to wear.
It blisters the skin and scorches the soul
until all that remains is the burnt-out hollow of a man,
egoless and aimless,
struggling to shed the threads of pretense
that have kept the body safe and warm.

The truth is sometimes hard to wear.
It stings the eyes and singes the heart
until all that remains are the unmasked fears of a man,
proudless, then shameless,
thirsting to find the threads of solace
to keep the body honest and tall.

The truth is sometimes hard to wear.
It chisels disturbing patterns
until all that remains is the twisted image of a man,
powerless and pointless,
swirling to find the threads of courage
to keep the body free and sure.

The truth once was hard to wear.
It unearthed the voice and released the spirit
until all that exists are the unleashed passions of a man,
undaunted and turbulent,
splendid and glorious.

For those who follow my writing, you know I spend a lot of time near the ocean where I often write. Recently, I was sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean, and the situation described in this poem happened and inspired me to write this. Although I was not writing at the time, I could sense I was being written about in some shape or form—thus the title. However, I concluded the poem the way I did just to add a bit of irony.

        When the Shoe is on the Other Foot

We are perched on separate benches,
  not quite like bookends,
  both facing the ocean,
  a patient blue page forever being revised by the tide.

I sit with my notebook closed,
  pretending to study the horizon
  while sentences drift through my head
  like gulls deciding where to land.

He is seated at my right hand, two benches over,
  pen in hand, earbuds plugged in.
I catch him studying me from behind dark shades.
He stares and then writes.

Not casually—
  not the idle scratching of a grocery list—
  but the deliberate movement
  of someone pinning moments on paper before they escape.

He pauses, then studies me again,
  and while his pen moves in one long motion
  I feel the odd gravity of being observed
  not as a man, but as a sentence forming.

What is he writing?
I try to imagine the character I have become.
Am I a lonely figure, the solitary watcher of tides,
  or a tired man waiting for someone who will not come?

The questions arrive in waves making me feel slightly victimized.
I know the habit.
I know how Creativity works.
I know how to make the most of mundane things.

I have borrowed strangers before—their gestures, their silences,
  the way they hold their coffee cups
  as if warmth were a language.
Quiet theft, really—a life lifted and given a different ending.

I have taken them quietly, line by line,
  until they belong to a story
  they may never read.
Now I feel the theft from the other side.

I sit a little straighter, wondering how he describes me,
  wondering which version of me his page will keep—
  the thoughtful man, the broken one,
  the fool gazing at an endless sea hoping it might answer something.

The stranger closes his journal.
I imagine what conclusion he has reached.
For a moment we look at each other,
  two fishermen of words casting our lines into the same afternoon.

He walks away, and I open my notebook.
Because now I have something to write.
I know what story I will tell
  with pen in hand and earbuds plugged in.

I wrote this poem earlier this year. Many of the lines were inspired during an evening walk in downtown San Diego where my thoughts rummaged through all the change that is occurring amidst the things that don’t seem to change at all. And while I walked through some of the squalor around me, I was reminded how fragile life can be and how quickly one’s circumstances can change. Just food for thought….

                        Market Street

	Fog lowers itself like a verdict,
	  floats deceptively like a cotton quilt,
	  a white hush pressed against storefront glass
	  as streetlights bruise the mist yellow.

	 I walk carefully
	  learning the geography of bodies by instinct,
	  cardboard islands, bundled silhouettes,
	  the soft rise and fall of borrowed sleep,
	  the empty hollows of humanity,
	  strewed ruins of lives just lingering.

	 I step wide,
	  as if avoiding cracks in the earth,
	  as if dignity were something fragile
	  that might shatter beneath my heel.

	The night speaks anyway.
	Moans leak out of blankets.
	Arguments with no opponent spiral forward,
	  voices shadowboxing with God, with ghosts,
	  with chemicals still burning their names
	  in the bloodstream.
	Coughs rattle like loose change.
	Laughter flares, then dies,
	  a match struck in the wrong wind.

	On the corner,
	  a portable toilet poses under a street light,
	  blue plastic, lit like a confession booth.
	This apparently is mercy.
	This is infrastructure
	  when planned in an ivory tower.
	This is what help looks like
	  when it’s been translated too many times.

	The smell hits first---
	  urine sharp as accusation,
	  excrement heavy, inescapable,
	  the honest stench of bodies
	  that were never allowed to disappear.
	I breathe through my mouth
	  and still taste it.

	I think of the billions---
	  numbers spoken clearly in chambers with carpets,
	  figures applauded, budgeted, promised.
	They must be here somewhere, I tell myself,
	  hiding behind boarded windows,
	  sleeping beneath press releases,
	  evaporating into fog
	  before they ever reach the ground.

	Nothing seems improved.
	Only rearranged.
	Only renamed.
	Market Street stretches on,
	  a corridor of commerce with nothing to buy.
	No rest.
	No shelter.
	Not a second chance
	  with a receipt attached.

	Nothing is for sale here,
	  not even lost dreams
	  because those were taken long ago,
	  quietly,
	  while everyone was still arguing
	  about the price.

	Nothing is for sale here,
	  only baggies filled with hope
	  of numbing the pain for just a while.
	Yet, the quiet moans and incoherent voices
	  remind me 
	  how a life
	  just hangs by threads,
	  and anyone can sometimes 
	  lose control of where he lands.

I wrote this poem several weeks ago as a contest challenge which was to respond to a current event that occurred during the prior week. I used the ice storms that blasted the eastern United States as a metaphor for pivotal decision(s) I have made in my life. Unfortunately, I missed the submission deadline, but I thought I would share it here. Enjoy!

Part of putting yourself “out there” as a writer or any artist for that matter involves submitting work to contests or various publications. Attempting to find appropriate outlets for your work can be a guessing game and emotionally risky. Mounting rejection letters are disappointing and challenge the fortitude to continue. I wrote this poem several weeks ago after being declined once again, but just writing it proved I was not about to give up. Enjoy!

                           declined

	My poems come back unopened,
	  or worse---
	  opened, weighed,
	  and returned with a polite bruise.

	Thank you for your submission but…
	As if gratitude were the point.

	The rejections and declinations
	  collect on my desk like headstones,
	  each one proof
	  I existed loudly enough
	  to be ignored.
	Just when I think my skin has toughened,
	  another knife of disappointment
	  slices into my core.

	They want heat, they say.
	They want skin.
	They want mouths doing unspeakable things
	  under the banner of honesty.
	How much should I compromise myself?
	Should I teach my metaphors to swear?
	Should I teach my lines to undress on command?
	Should I avoid the use of punctilious punctuation,
	  or insert atrophied alliterations
	  into a text formatted in the shape of an owl
	  cloaked in wisdom?
	Should I loosen my morals
	  like a tie at last call
	  and pretend its freedom?

	Or maybe I’m wrong in the opposite direction---
	  maybe my ideas aren’t liberal enough,
	  not angry enough,
	  not naked enough 
	  to pass for relevance.

	A poetess once said she waited fifteen years
	  before her first acceptance
	  in a niche anthology
	  that very few would ever read,
	  but she was proud, nonetheless.
	
	I don’t have fifteen years to wait.
	I imagine my name whispered later,
	  long after I’ve stopped correcting proofs,
	  long after my hands forget the shape of a pen.
	He was misunderstood, they’ll say.
	Ahead of his time, they’ll write
	  as if that’s a form of payment.

	Posthumous praise---
	  the slowest standing ovation.

	Some nights I consider quitting,
	  but then another line arrives,
	  uninvited,
	  stubborn as breath,
	  and I remember
	  I didn’t start writing to be accepted.
	I started because silence 
	  felt like a lie.

	So, I will continue---
	  not because I believe in acceptance,
	  but because refusal
	  has failed to kill me.

	And that, apparently,
	  is qualification enough.

         The Road to Ravello

We begin as just a few,
waiting our turn
at the bus stand
for the ride up to Ravello,
anxious to squirm along the narrow winding road
that leads to this little slice of heaven on earth.
Steeped in anticipation,
we are oblivious
as the small queue
bulges in size
spreading itself like an amoeba
over the cobbled street
of the sun-drenched piazza.
When the bus finally arrives,
the ugly mass surrounds it
as if to swallow it whole.
As I inch up to board,
pressed among strangers,
a young woman nudges me
hoping to push me aside.
Mi scusi, I say to the faceless stranger
in a polite tone.
She pushes me aside once more
with greater deliberation.
Mi scusi, I shout at the top of her head
that wants no awareness 
of the man she shows no respect.
Mi scusi, I snarl one last time
as disgust or disbelief
feeds my shoulders 
an attitude of their own
and my feet with complete disregard
of everything beneath them
as they capture the first steps onto the bus.
And in that space of ugliness
the yearning for the beauty of a special place
becomes a trying exercise
allowing this unpleasant side of humanity
to show its face
along with the hope
it can easily be erased
when our destination is reached.

      
        Stars Across the Span

Beneath an azure sky,
  you lie stretched in marveled majesty.
 Granite arched towers remain
  anchored in the currents below
  while snarled, steel cables lift you to the heavens.
Suspended,
  in wonderment, history, endurance,
  aged well for a century plus a half.

Your presence sparks the imagination
  of engineering admired,
  the sweat, stamina and sacrifice 
  of lives lost,
  a contribution to your fruition.
You stand in splendor for all the world to see.

Unlike those who now promenade along your spine,
  frequently stopping along the way,
  not to catch a glimpse of your glory,
  but with selfie sticks extended,
  recording the superficial smiles,
  of self-affirmed fashionistas,
  as if we should all stop to notice,
  only to see the emptiness they exude,
  while submerged in their own conceits,
  oblivious to the true persona around them.


I imagine the onlookers,
  the wives and children 
  watching in awe and worry so many years ago,
  from a place called Brooklyn
  as you were slowly raised and stretched,
  and feel dismayed by the subtle juxtaposition.
Your grandeur provides the backdrop for temporal vanity,
  while yours remains the shining magnificence.