The Single Strand

Most mornings my mind
is the detective
finding clues after sleep,

grimacing at the exhibition
of the exact ways
the night has undone me,
torn apart my confidence
like a bundle of tattered sheets
and forced the mandatory examination
of what was the past.

This endurance race
is a competition against
the time kept by the heart.

The heart sits silently
arms crossed in judgement
waiting for the thief
to give himself up
for good.

Finally, giving back
that precious gift
of light shining
on the single strand
of a delicate web thread
that was missing all along.

The Companion of a Man

This is the story
of how we were all
once the companion of a man
who mauled our soul
with corrosive emotion
and grief.

The hand was bound
as it always is
in a shield
over another silent mouth
where no singing
was aloud.

The man didn't love the warble of our days,
but only counted the abundance of others
who were not his to count.

We wriggled free of the confines
of that greed and cloying closet of untruths
and walked as if our kettle was fully of new wine
and not of bitter boiled and then cold tea.

"Be faithful,"
he said
"Why do you loveth me not?"

We are gone to the sea
and the light of another
where he will never find the lonely heart
or the wise mind of many again.

This is that story
of loss and so much
more than grief.

Bringing Back the Living

The supple curve of the mind
beseeches a distant thought
to venture out

into the open spaces
where I left you
like a shard
of a shattered clay pot,

admonished for an unknown sin
or some unspoken emotion forgotten,
slouching near a silent cradle,

lost in a dark cravasse
or a echoing tomb
waiting for prayers
and intercessions
to bring back
the living.