Do this in remembrance

I believe in truth
I believe in simplicity
I believe in absolutes
I believe that purity is a gift,
not an accomplishment
I believe in God
and his counterpart
I believe that music has power
to create and destroy
I believe that fiction is sometimes
more real than life
I believe in love
I believe in light
I believe in blackness
I believe in denial
I believe that all great men
are humble
I believe that size encompasses everything
I believe that a genuine smile encompasses heaven
and a cold shoulder, hell
I believe that three AM is the witching hour
I believe that a person can reveal more
through their eyes than through their mouth
I believe that friendship is a prize worth
fighting for
I believe in my potential
I believe in those who question my motives
I believe that I don't know everything
I believe I'll find out one of these day

Spring 2000

And counting

A decade past deciding
three hundred fifteen million seconds
and a lifetime away

Even now, that powerful wave of time at my back,
I know as much about my father as before
and he easily sums me in a plaque

Last night's telephone call tells me he is tired
as ever
I hear joy and hope in his voice
and wonder how many seconds
past hanging up that it will last

Three hundred fifteen million
little freeze-frame opportunities
and still not enough

I didn't even stop to think about
the seconds lost to my mother

I wonder how much of the day
my grandparents sit, silently, reverently
terrified
as they mark the seconds
each stroke the shuddering stiffness
of another lost friend
Each, for one second, the
tireless hand
moving around the face of an anachronism

Three hundred fifteen million-
how many left?
each moment (tick) I waste
at my desk reading (tick, tick)
each weekend (tick, tick, tick)
not spent
another one hundred seventy thousand gone

Three hundred fifteen million seconds
and that many more gone

Spring 2001

Poetry Posts

Since my old website has been defunct for some time, I have not had any place to archive my poetry in an easily-accessible place. Also, I have recently been inspired to write a little more frequently lately and have shared those here, so I thought perhaps that this could be my new archive, easily accessible through the label function (click here for my poetry).

It will take me awhile to migrate all of the poems over. I hope along the way some of you will discover new favorites, remember old ones, or have a good-natured (or not) chuckle at the expense of my sophomoric bluster and teenage angst.