My dad had a Toyota Catharsis and it was a terrible ride, so I write for the simple reason that writing is easy, writing is a bumpless road paved with good inflections… once you don’t concern yourself with quality… or critique… or self-awareness… manage that, and writing is easy, honestly, so simple that even I can do it. Plays are hard though, as in technically, as in remembering who said what and to whom, that sort of thing, and poems, poems are hard, not just the rhyming, but the non-rhyming ones as well, and novels, they are sooooooo long and you have to be careful you don’t forget what they are about, and short stories are really hard, harder than novels because you have to say as much but not write as much… yeah, writing is really easy, really, really easy.

CRANBERRY….

Sometimes in the soft darkness,
he nudges her, gently,
hoping to hear her sleepy treacle voice,
that murmur full of innocence and childish botheration.
She is all to him,
a bounty,
a gift he must have earned, somehow.
She resettles beneath the covers,
and he smells her, her velvetness,
her steel and her grit,
her importance.
He gently moves a leg and touches her,
just because he can.
She allows him, she is so still now, and
still asleep.
Its these little things that catch him out,
even now,
he smiles to stop the tear forming,
thinks of bigger things,
but its the little things that pulls something tight inside,
like her tiny scar on her left knee,
her insistence that they have cranberry on Thanksgiving,
because it doesn't matter if no one likes it,
it goes ....like us, she had said once, like us,
and he nearly wept with joy.
And her guilty laugh,
her sexy laugh, any laugh,
any laugh.
She is his life,
He tells her he loves her,
that he always has,
that he always will,
and he knows she knows,
even if he cannot reach her where she sleeps.
Its getting light outside...
another day beginning....
he carefully gets up, kisses her cheek, and rearranges her best dress,
and climbs down from the makeshift stand,
and gently, oh so gently,
puts back the coffin lid.

HOPECHEST

She stands in the snow and catches a snowflake on her tongue,
not realising
she will die beneath its weight.
There are pretty things,
and sad things,
and things that are just the things she catches in the corner of her eye,
like lopsided smiles,
and empty windows.
What do I miss, she thinks, when they look back.
She smells the petrichor and and did not realise it had a name,
'til mother told her,
as she had washed the stale hops off bedsheets,
and dried the clean slate of dirty laundry,
singing songs about the summers one hopes never to forget.
There are still those moments,
that she has to catch her breath,
when a boy she likes turns his head,
and says hello,
but only with his eyes,
throwing his shoulders back,
as he carries his share from off the truckbed,
those moments still,
where she imagines no one is watching,
and so allows herself to skip,
before such things are left behind,
in those summer songs,
in the folds of wool that rest within the cedar.
She likes the winter,
and stands in the snow and lets a snowflake land upon her tongue,
hoping,
she will not die beneath the wait.

COME TO ME, MY BROTHER

Come to me, my brother,
let us talk about ourselves,
about the boys who stand in photographs,
about the trophies on the shelves.

We will reminisce about snow on Christmas mornings,
hear once more the crunch beneath our boots,
for winters now are so hard to swallow,
when all you can taste are summer fruits.

Come to me, my brother,
let us sit beside the fire,
where we will smoke us up a cloud,
and see who can float a little higher.

We can remind ourselves of scars and scrapes,
and laugh away the blame,
for though you were the younger one,
all brothers bleed the same.

Come to me, my brother,
let us talk into the light,
I seek an answer to your name,
instead of echoes in the night.

We can tell our tales as if they're new,
and make those shadows tall,
for I still feel the blinding sun,
from the day I let you fall.

Come to me, my brother,
and I will fill a glass for you,
and if you cough, I will pat your back,
because that's what brothers do.

Please come to me, my brother,
its not forgiveness that I seek,
but a chance to say I love you,
words that I always meant to speak.
so come to me my brother,
even though it is too late,
let us talk about the green green hills,
and the house beyond the gate,
let us go barefoot and our shirts untucked,
let us stomp in winter boots,
let us run through fallen leaves,
and spring up like yearning shoots,
Come to me, my brother,
come and hear the words I'd say to you,
and I will share my memories,
because that's what dead brothers do.