News of an accident

The father is alive, alert. 
The mother—doctors say—is too. 
But not the Skylark: it is wrecked. 
A nameless something else was killed.    
"The children," we regret, "are dead." 
And grandpa?  Grandma?  "Too," they said. 
But flowers, pastries, hats...intact.
The onyx colored dress, untorn.

The causes here remain unknown. 

Although the bones are red,
and smoke has spread,
beyond the dark I see
that serrated skyline, 
with same array of peaks—
but now to me they seem
exact and bleak.

But life ignores our pleas. 
So sway, the willow trees;
go on, the roads, as laid;
the Earth, as cold and gray.
While it spins and revolves,
creatures evolve and learn,
and skies around it burn
and spit, the Earth's no more
a pit. But still portend,
spoken words, and express;
observed are facts, they're named
and claimed; machines are made;
money produced and paid;
memories form then fade;
poems are measured and penned; 
Yet life‒my own‒can't be,
ever again the same.

Feel the Solitude

Whimper, holler, weep; and let burn  
your eyes and turn blood-red. You sob 
at night alone inside your room.... 
There's no moon.  It's long departed 
to watch the lovers nuzzle, kiss, 
by sonorous curves of Fraser. 
Breeze on their skin: a glacier soon 
melting, like their whispers—lover  
to lover, lips to ticklish ears. 

You must feel the solitude's weight:
The haughty air, the empty chair...
Listen!  The walls are crumbling, hushed, 
akin to bones that bound the heart. 
Rotting bones inside the concrete,
marrows of room within a room. 
Sound of your labored panting breath,
the only sign that here resides, 
a living corpse inside this tomb.

Let your shoulders shake and quiver. 
Holding your breath you shiver—There
you hope to keep the throbbing walled
(Oh the illusion of control!)
Loneliness aches; and aching's so 
lonely.  Ache that keeps you closely
dead-awake, and clings to your soul;  
ache and journeys through your body‒
but you it never ever leaves.

Release your breath, forgive your sin,
ease the form, undress the ego,
clear the walls without and within— 
to and from your heart.  Let tears
cleanse you of old and vicious pains, 
polish your senses‒scent of  bread,
taste of coffee, comfort of bed‒   
Let cry, this self, I softly pled: 
I'm drowning in your tears—unshed.

Successful Evasion

Simply this: Successfully!  This,   
the word they wrote—from news we heard— 
of how we dodged the damned police.  
But we too evaded sadness,
regret (for who we'd now become),
dread, disgust at weakness within, 
and fury at a world unfair—
those, they never printed or said,
but were torments still that we fled;
and past and future too (enough, 
to only think of cash and cops):  
No homespun Spider-Man pillows, 
Batman blankets, Zorro flipflops....
shopping for hoodies, gloves, and hats 
(for winter), with our moms and dads,
under the summer's hottest star,   
for second-hands in old bazaar. 
Evading who we were, could be, 
we fixed our eyes on dazzling rocks—
sleek fragmented mirrors, tokens  
of commitment, happiness, love— 
that could for us on black market,
bring in (fingers crossed) crazy bucks.

This Time

Sometimes I am angry. 
And unaware I leave,
but reenter later,
come closer, take a look, 
at the tormented me. 
This time I see.
That's when I cry.