The Seeds of Grievance

Bitter seeds appear in the spring soil:

The askew look, the late arrival,

Or the icy response to a question.

You allow them to germinate.

Ignored, they yield more seeds
That scatter in the the wind.

Days, weeks, years pile up.

Kids, dogs, bills, jobs, car repairs,

Bathroom renovations silt in.

The weeds keep taking root,

Birds come, eat the seeds, fly away,

Shit them out around the yard.

Soon, weeds poke up everywhere,

Choking the flower beds,

Denying their inherent elegance.

No need to pull and cultivate.

You have too much pride and hurt

To do that — until one day everywhere

Flourish weeds, weeds, weeds!

And the flower beds vanish, memories

Lost under Time’s soil, forever.

This Poem Sucks

I know, I know,

The title gives it away,

But I felt like writing it anyway.

It is just that I like to type sometimes

And forget about the internal rhymes,

Or the meaning of the words,

Or the futile stabs at the ineffable.

Forget about all that,

And just let me write

A poem that sucks.

Let me simply add adverbs

And adjectives willy-nilly,

And abandon the grounded nouns

And verbs with verve that vivify.

It's hot outside. It's summertime.

Let it suck, and suck badly, and let me

Cop out and see what happens.

Let me lower my standards,

Not that I had any to begin with.

Blah, blah, blah.

This poem really, really sucks.

And here’s the three-line kicker 

(which in and of itself also sucks):

I enjoyed writing this poem.

Dead Brother in a Dream

You visited me again last night

In a dream — still suffering and dying,
But not yet gone, the way it always feels.

You told me how Jesus himself

Had pressed his body to your
Chest and whispered in you ear:

“Kindness, love, and understanding are

The highest forms of human consciousness.”

I knew precisely what you meant.

When I reached out to hug you,

It was like air grasping at air: You were there

And you were gone, the way it always feels.