Mantlepiece

"Mantlepiece"

A man is in a painting.
His eyes are swaths of black.
His face begins to crack.
A glass has been spilled.
The wine trickled down south.
Where the candlelight has filled.

Serving as a mantlepiece he has forever spilt his drink.

Want

I want them to see

The board on my mother's wall

That shows us the months

And how much we still owe

In my hand, check marks

For what we owe not 

Anymore.

I want them to hear

the creak my car groans

in cold frost breath

as to school I go

and hear me say

how we cannot pay

to have it fixed.

I want them to taste

the sweat tears and salt

of mine and mine own parents

who work and learn and try

just as i do

to succeed with what they still 

might have together.

I want them to see

the food not in my fridge

and cabinets empty of imagination.

I want them to see

my brother's past

and my possible future

and all that I have worked for.

I have come 

a distance greater than they

and proceeded to succeed

past their current point.

I want them to see me

for more than what

they think I am.

And I want to see

what they too 

have gone through.

Teacher

Oatmeal every morning

Clean up the floor if it's dirty

Laundry is a happy task

Remake the bed if it's misshapen

And leave for school

Forty-five minutes early

Like the pin ball in a machine

there's only so many options

of what to do, where to roll

the highest score recorded

how fast to accelerate 

from the starting point

but faced with mortality

and something that might come to an end

sea salt on my face

seems like a pleasant vacation

from pin ball machines and routines

look up at gulls and feel down into sand

And the beached jellyfish in Mexico

Or the tourist crowds of Hawai'i

Maybe with Mom, building castles with my brother

Or watching your cousin tan like a cookie

to golden brown?

a private place that would be hard 

for others to find and others to seek

where we could go and smell the wind

watch the crashing waves rock back and forth

without any danger of drowning.

Anomaly

By multiplying oneself
One can be so much more
as three squared is nine
and two squared is four.
But an anomaly that in fact
can never be undone
by multiplying one's self
is one squared is one.

Chairs

Chairs.

That sit under a table

unlike the scrounging dog

black comfortable leather

and now that I think of it

matching black

to the speckles in the marble

the microwave vent

the stove top

and the oven

where spilled pizza once was.

A wise choice

for a modern home.

Love

If love is so sacred

so special

so reserved for a single species

which

in itself

is an anomaly,

then why should there be

normal

acceptable and non acceptable

love?

Fire Head

I have a friend

with red headed hair

much darker though

than hair that is fair

I should say hi

and discuss the day

and perhaps, if it comes

how time's slipped away

And how I adore her

even only in thought

for she sets me on my feet

with the chaos I've wrought.

Dark Chocolate

Bittersweet brown

with changing tastes in every bite

most don't enjoy it

i don't know if i do

it's so much easier to eat

milk chocolate

white chocolate

double chocolate chocolate chip fudge brownies

until you get sick

and then eat dark chocolate

to counteract the sweet

with bitter health

and things you need to eat.

It all comes from

the same place

the same rough hands

of dark workers in the Americas

who see nothing but chocolate

but not the brown

they chop open the fruit

find the cacao

toss the flesh

and repeat until sunset

they don't see the sweet milk and sugar.

And there are those

who eat too much

who fill up on chocolate

but really just sugar

sweetness, kindness, fake sugar

and nothing else

and then they grow fat

or if they're lucky,

just on the inside.

The men who make the chocolate

and the women too

transform cacao

from the fields

from the trees

into goodness

in a varying spectrum

of percents and perception.

Perhaps they tried

to convince us all

that dark chocolate was good

but they found it easier to 

just

add

sugar.

Science has proven

with multiple tests

that dark chocolate helps

your beating heart

or at least it's a start.

So I'll eat my dark chocolate

it tastes fine anyway

and experience the bitterness

it won't drive me away

it's healthy for the heart

and at least that's a start.

Colleen

Black speckled white like clouds in the night

Surrounding her eyes, a mane of pearls

Resembling a woman with once beautiful curls

Winking at me as she smiles, content

Sitting home everyday while we're all away

Idle for hours and minutes between

Sometimes I fear for what I have seen

For gone forever her lost hours went

She comes to my side for she will abide

But I always hope for hills unseen

Where rabbits abound and the land is green

Instead of a dream, that real, sweet scent

She's good to us, and so it is thus

That I want to give her her instinctual needs

Instead of just empathy and internal pleads

Her last years to be bountifully spent

I love my doggy, and my doggy loves me

And that is how I want it to be.

Mortality

The only way

To beat the beast

Is to beat it back

Until you can

no longer.