Opening Day

From where I sit it doesn’t feel much like baseball,
but its opening anthems play
while the slushy remains of a dark cold season
seep into storm drains.
This soaking rain, when will it ever end?
Meanwhile, in distant stadiums
hope has been born again.
Somewhere where the sun is mocking us,
people are basking in its warmth,
gathered in grandstands in short-sleeves and caps,
cradling popcorn, pretzels, hot dogs, and beer
while scratching the itch
that’s nagged them all winter long.
Finally, a thunder crack in the glove, and it’s on…
That first white hot pitch!

The Threshold

As you approach the threshold
of letting go,
you hear the faintest of whispers
from somewhere in the back row
of your minds little theater
while the projection room above
reels out another cold memory
through the flickering dusty light
onto the screen.
It’s a scene you’ve forced yourself
to sit through countless times before.
And like many old films,
there is a moral to this story.
You know it all too well and yet
this time when you hear that whisper
you choose to defy the safe logic
that has kept you planted here all your life.
You open your eyes, rise from your chair,
and step out of the dark
into the sharp white light of day. 


Your Letter

If it wasn’t for that letter you wrote,
typewritten with a purple cat sticker on the front of the envelope,
I might have lost hope in small miracles,
might have forgotten the feeling of receiving
something other than sales flyers or bills.
Of course, you could’ve sent a plain old email instead,
but that wouldn’t do because it wouldn’t be you.
Then there was that poem you enclosed,
four sharp two line stanzas about pain and grace and hope.
Daughter of mine, I love these lines. Keep writing, keep sending letters,
keep fighting to make your corner of the world just a little bit better.

Ode To The Plastic World

This one’s for all the plastic cups that have parted my lips,
the plastic forks I used to stab the pasta salad with.
For all the plastic buds I’ve jammed in my ears just so I could hear
those countless playlists that have sustained me throughout the years.
For the little plastic card in my wallet.
What’s in yours? Don’t leave home without it.
For the hordes of plastic bottles inundating the oceans, decimating the fish.
Someday we will understand. Won’t we? Why am I questioning this?
And how about a shout out to all of the microplastics
collecting in my body with no earthly right to be there,
but such is the price we pay for the brief sweet privilege of being here.

What Will Never Be

What would I be doing today if I’d stopped,
just once, all those years ago
to glance back at my burning city?
Where would I have been yesterday?
Where would I be tomorrow?
Whose story would I be writing now?
Whose life might I be living?
Would I still be living at all?
I’m powerless to stop these questions
from sparking up and raging through my mind,
even though I know they are each as inconsequential
as floating flakes of ash or fine grains of salt
scattered on the wind.

Stained Glass

Where as once a child
now sits the old man, lifting his head
from a Sunday morning doze,
heavy-lidded eyes cracking open
to a kaleidoscope of bleeding colors
slowly swimming into focus.

Now as then, the old familiar longing
to launch himself up and out of his seat
to join the rising dust moats
as they sail high above the choir
into the streaming sunburst,
spiraling toward the rafters,
endlessly spinning in that spectral light,
never to return to earth.

Where Loneliness Gathers

I’ll bet there’s a little karaoke bar
on some remote corner
of some godforsaken one stop light town
that looks a lot like the edge of the world,
and that there are desperate people gathered there
at this very moment, some sitting alone,
quietly sipping their foamy beers,
contemplating why they are there.
Perhaps it’s because they are tired of feeling so tired,
tired of feeling so feckless, or so old,
or that the silence at home
this time was a bit too much to bear,
or was it just the shimmering lights
of a night outside
that was still so very young?

Bullets For Breakfast

Bullets are flying. Again. Early and everywhere.
Bullets in your ear at seven a.m. as you turn on the television.
Bullets on the screen while you make your coffee.
Bullets in the news. Bullets in your social media feed.
Bullets in America. Bullets in Darfur. Bullets in Kyiv.
More than enough bullets are produced in a single year to kill us all.
Bullets in every city and small town across the world,
stocked, loaded, cocked, and ready to be fired! Fired!! Fired!!!
All before the toast and coffee have gone cold.

Subzero

There’s an old red bicycle frozen in the snow
in front of a little clapboard bungalow
at the far end of my street.
There’s a thick wool cap on this silly ass head,
thermal socks, and heavy boots on these crunching feet.
Why, oh why in hell, I ask, did I venture out here
on a morning when I could’ve just stayed asleep?