An eye for an eye

He closes his eyes and
tries to forget
all the times it was someone
else's eyes closed
forever in front of him


--

April PAD Day 30 - calling it a day

Fool's gold

Sometimes I see her
at the corner of
those deep brown eyes

in the flecks of
gold flashing like ore
in a miner's pan

beckoning you back into
the arms of a
love as cold and

dangerous as those High
Sierra rivers and as
fleeting as the boomtowns

left in the wake
of men's search for
their happily ever after

--

April PAD Day 27 - monster

The settlement

Before we settled
into our own corners
of the house

walking past each
other in the hallways
and politely chewing

our dinners at
the table each night
we filled this

place with so
much laughter that we
thought it might

just lift us
away from the lives
we have now


--

April PAD Day 28 - settled

The science of magic

Anyone who's seen
the universe unfold
beneath the lens
of a microscope
knows there is
magic all around


--

April PAD Day 29 - realistic or magical

Waterworks

I've never been one
to dip my toe
into the shallow end

I'd rather feel the
cool rush of slick
on skin as I

sink into a weightless
world buzzing in my
ears with quiet wonder

--

April PAD Day 26 - water

Longitude

I'm not sure
where I am
on the map

as if life
could ever be
navigated that way

the only latitude
I need is
to be freed

from my own
expectations of where
I ought to

be by now


--

April PAD Day 23 - location

Full glass

It's hard to see the
glass as half
full or empty when it's
filled with the
blood of those you've loved

--

April PAD Day 22 - optimistic or pessimistic

Ink blot

There are nights

when I look up to

see the sky

dripping black and blue

like an ink pen

that's exploded in 

a shirt pocket ...

which makes me think

of those NASA nerds, 

whose job it is 

to stare at the

sky, and who poorly they're 

portrayed in every movie

--

April PAD Day 19 - color

 

Socks don't suck

Lay in bed
Consider getting up
Cry if you feel like it
Acknowledge the anger
Stare at the ceiling
Remember what it was like
when she was still in bed next to you
Remember that she is now in
bed with someone else
Fight the numbness
Try to feel anything
Close your eyes
Consider staying here all day
Instead sit up and put on your socks
Walk down the hall
glad for the cushion against
the cold hardwoods in the morning

--

April PAD Day 21 - back to basics

Thicker than blood

You say you don't know
who your family is
that you were
given away
or
taken by
those afraid your
mother was unfit to
love you like we could


---

April PAD Day 20 - family

Whether vain

She liked to think that
she went wherever
the wind happened to take her

blowing like a leaf into
bars and bathroom
stalls with any man who

glanced her way and made
her feel like
she might actually be beautiful


---

April PAD Day 18 - weather

Culture clash

We clash like
the mixed pattern trend that's
all the rage right now

plaids and stripes
and polka dots just don't
make any more sense than

our desire to
idolize human beings whose sole
job is to deceive us


--

April PAD Day 17 - pop culture

Forget me not

Some would say it was
yours to give.

You probably would have said
the same thing.

But I would give anything
to forget you,

to un-remember your life slipping
through my hands

in a place so damn
far from home.



--

April PAD Day 16 - elegy

To the rescue

The castle walls
of fairy tales and fantasy
have no place

in the bedrooms
of little girls who will
one day wonder

why no one
is coming to save them.

She'll build her
own walls for lovers to
climb when she

learns that no
one is coming to her
rescue and one

day she must
learn to save herself.


--

April PAD Day 15 - love or anti-love

The hunting

We teach them to hunt
packs of brothers
praying they won't have to

use what they've learned, but
knowing full well
that one day they will

kill without hesitation
and hope they
never hunger for that power


--

April PAD Day 13 - animal

If I Were Your Heart

For Ryan ... I found your blog, reading the a heartbreaking ending just as the blood moon crept through the sky

If I were your heart
I'd be crushed
by the weight of those memories,

brothers bleeding before my eyes,
faces flushed red
like tonight's moon, eclipsed by the

darkness of my own shadow

--

April PAD Day 14 - If I were (blank)

I will survive

Nothing you can
do will ever stop me
from becoming more


--

April PAD Day 11 - statement

City of Angels

navigating the mazes
of one-way streets and skyscrapers
we are the heartbeat

--

April PAD Day 12 - city

Building a stable life

My grandpa died still broken-hearted from the betrayal he felt by his country. He was born in California, fought in WWII, and sent to the Midwest with the rest of the dirty Japs American had come to despise and fear. He met Grandma there, and they came back to California to make a pretty great future for themselves and their five kids. But he never forgot his time in those camps.


Grandma stroked my hair
as I lay in her lap,
running her fingers through
the thick black
courseness passed down
from our ancient samurai ancestors.

She smiled and gazed
off into the sky,
staring at some long-forgotten
landscape of her
youth, murmuring more
to herself than to me,
"It will all be OK, child."

She had seen the stables
of the camps, finely
dressed women corralled like
common livestock, chins
held high, stubborn
as mules clinging to their dignity.

"It will all be OK, child,"
her mama whispered
into her ear under the gaze of guards
who saw them as mere
animals cluttering the barren landscape,
forgetting their hearts still
beat with samurai blood.

--

April PAD Day 10 - future

The perfect storm

The hardest thing to learn
as a parent
is when to be the
umbrella
and when to
walk behind and let them
fall into that puddle
alone


--

April PAD Day 9 - shelter 

The brewery

My dad drank too much.
He shot bourbon at bars
and barbed insults at home.

The anger brewed inside him,
a biting mash of memories
aging in rows of barrels

running from breast to bowel,
pickling his insides as he
forced us each to drink

the poison of his past.

--

April PAD Day 8 - peaceful or violent

War ... what is it good for?

I will never understand why
people think that
violence can bring about peace

--

April PAD Day 8 - violent or peaceful

Frozen in time

You say that
she's ancient history
but here I
am chipping away
at the rock
hard sediment encasing
your fossilized heart

--
April PAD Day 5 - discovery

Mirror, mirror

Searching to find myself
reflected in the eyes
of strangers

unwilling to stare at
the stranger behind my
own eyes

--

April PAD Day 7 - self-portrait

Night life

Six stars are
shining through the inky blue
ether of evening

battling the buzzing,
happy haze of city life,
where the lights

never go out,
and downtown domestics always do;
where screens glow

from every wall
and in every pocket as
we search for

meaning at the
speed of 4G two inches
from our faces

and forget that
all the answers are always
right above us

if we'd just
take a moment to breathe
and look up

--

April PAD Day 6 - night

Since we both like fruit

We ran into each other
at the market
poking and prodding the pears,

assessing them like the men
in our lives,
drawn in by the promise

of sweetness while tenderly pressing
to uncover the
hidden bruises that always seem

to spoil the moments we
long to savor
 

--

April PAD Day 4 - since (blank)

In the beginning

I was god
basking in your nakedness

molding the man
I wanted you to be

as I breathed life
into a dying love


--

PAD Day 1 - beginning or ending

Treading water

I carried you
held your head above water
when you were
drowning in misery

I drowned with you
unable to float us both
when the burden
you carried sunk
us both


--

April PAD Day 2 - voyage

When smoke gets in your eyes

How could I
see the smoke signals you
were sending me

when I didn't
even notice that our home
was on fire

--

April PAD Day 3 - message