Category: Poems

will it be the same

when you someday call my name

and believe in me

if I could steal tomorrow

would you hide away with me

I would still choose you
their disregard of our hearts

sounds of their madness   

I will still be standing here

and they will see how we loved

I sometimes wish I can control certain memories in a mind vault so I can only access them when I want to instead of re-living them at inopportune times when a different sensory gets involved.  There’s a certain smell that comes to mind and its undeniable in its origin and its lasting effects.

My father decided to take his family from city life in Cleveland to a more rural area in Ohio (completely against my mom’s wishes) and gave us 5 acres with horses, goats, rabbits and a menagerie of ducks and geese on a never ending dirt road.  It was at most times any child’s perfect dream. My father (who I may say was the smartest man I had ever known -2 Masters, a Lt. Col. in the US Army and and also all around Jedi Master of Duct Tape), was quite adept to learning how to deal with this way of life quickly but of course putting his own touches in most areas.  There was one fail, which leads me to the 1976 Ford Pinto.  Now if you remember anything about the 70’s and Ford Pinto’s, the news of that time was that they had a reputation for catching on fire.  Except ours didn’t, it was my father who caught on fire.  

In this rural area you didn’t have garbage pick up, you had to burn or bury your garbage and this house came with a fire pit of sorts about a 1000 ft. from the house which is where we burned what we couldn’t.  We actually did compost back then because we had all had gardens so it was more the glass, cans, etc.  Again, I’ll reiterate, this brilliant man thought to speed up the process, he would pour gasoline on the fire – for what purpose at the time he didn’t say.  My brother and I were watching Saturday morning cartoons when we heard a boom.   I went to look out the back window and saw my father running towards the house and as he ran closer, he yelled at me to turn the shower on cold water.  I did and ran back to the door and held it open as he ran passed me.  I can’t describe the smell of burning flesh but it is forever ingrained since that awful moment.  He calmly asked me to get my brother into clothes and to start the car.  We all got into the car and he drove himself to the hospital that was 30 minutes away.  He told us to crack the back windows slightly (later on finding out the the breeze hurt him even more but the smell of his skin was so jarring that he didn’t want to scare us more) and I tried my best to keep our crying to a muted level.  We held his belt loops and took him into the ER where he ended up having second and third degree burns on his entire upper body and literally looked like a mummy when he was done being bandaged up.

I remember trying to air out the Ford Pinto when we got it back home so, so many times.  I wanted to get rid of the smell that scarred that day for us all.  I scrubbed the interior down with different products hoping that something would work.  My parents would tell me that they couldn’t smell anything and it was okay, that I could stop.  But I couldn’t – I kept smelling the combination of my father from that day, along with a burning tar asphalt like smell that every time there is road repairs, brings me right back to that day in that Ford Pinto.  Still, to this day, 45* years later.

That car brought my dad to the hospital where he survived that day.  That car will never be that negative connotation that its associated with in its history.  Even though the don’t make Pintos anymore, I have (subconsciously I think) continued to drive Ford’s throughout my life – no matter what, that Ford Pinto was a chariot of sorts, safely transporting a burning man to the ER.  It will always be that hero in that horrible memory.

Cycles of time

weathered days and full moons
commands the craftsman of its homeland

trying to change this landscape
to nourish mankind

he watches over the passing of the days

knowing its worth

fog and mist

dust and earth

this fertile soil
these defiant roots

become brilliant clarity

and in the waking light

blossoming waves wash over emerald beds
mirroring summers last warmth

and under a harvest moon
fields of gold start to slumber

and the soil asks for its rest

the air sighs a cooling breeze

and with its last turns of the weather vane
asks the noble cultivator

to paint the canvas again

Musk scented memories,
the base notes of your voice
trailing………
the long corridors
checking out.

Were you muttering
something
in low notes?
Indiscernible,
yet,
cutting…

Was it the tune we used to dance to?
You always said that song could say
what you can’t…

Weren’t those white lilies
plumes of white petals
trumpeting their blooms
just a day before…now wilting?

A sobering awakening not requested
cruel and finite

The car in the driveway?

Those memories are like the gravel it traveled on to pull in
but will stay until it speaks no more

I haven’t pulled the drapes back.
Your footprints in the
perfect snowfall… I guess,
are still fresh?
Yet to be covered by more
falling snow…

I step in them to trace your path before you’re gone again
Trying desperately to fill the empty spaces
you left behind

And the car? Well…

The keys will stay in my pocket for now..

you’re beautiful and I’m damned
this happens when you fall for the wicked
my heart carved in pain
your knife with a crimson hilt
living with each others guilt
what are we without each others realities
do we own our own truths
can we leave this question untouched
there still is so much debris
i can feel the weight of it
this bleeding grief
I am your consequence

And I, your instigation
an insatiable lust for life
a feather drifting
amidst plumes of crystalline vapour
a quill inking revelations,
the feather of Maat.
What are with but, mirror images
reflecting our inner demons?
Crimson stained glass shards
capturing the glinting broken pieces
of us…
Our souls intermingling,
dancing…
I’m beautiful but you’re, divine

cosmic duality
invades this peaceful chaos
my yin and your yang
are endlessly transforming
in this dance of becoming

someday or one day

time takes away everything
a concrete angel
waits at the end of the line
in the memory of us

standing in this aisle

suffocating in ideology

reading words that aren’t mine

sentiments that can’t possibly express 

what I want to say

what I need to say

for just a few banknotes 

would a card suffice

all that has come to pass

in the story of us

can I put these tattered thoughts on papered ink

and make you understand

it was almost love for me

you were untouchable…beautifully untouchable

a captured heart and stolen glances

of this beggar and fool

all of this 

was from one kiss

maybe somewhere again in time

you said when you couldn’t stay

it was almost love

it was almost love for me

disco neon lights

fills the darkened sky above 

your bright satellites

shines a million miles away

floating in held helium