For a sister.

For even as the flower petals fall,
the sky darkens,
and the sun grows cold,
know that your heart will break,
but because of my love,
it will mend whole.

To the young ones, the old ones, the ones in between, beauty isn't just skin deep, with age, in time, beauty nor wisdom mature, for in life, with death, we bore and die of clay, ash, and star dust. For some in life, youth will always remain, it will fit them like their own person's skin, but many more of us, youth will fall to the way side, as we grow older and change.

Beauty, in reality, is as truthful as the body of this poem.

Hotel Room Requiems

Close your Soul,
breathe slower now,
close your eyes,
let time around you slow.

The pain of letting go,
roots torn up and ripped,
the realization of
"I should be used
to this"
only hurts evermore,
a puddle of despair,
full of an oceanic abyss.

The last undodged rain drops
against a drooped
dead
flower in the windowsill,
the over-reaching
story-arc of tearful
philosophicless window-gazings.

Unclench your gnarly knotted fists,
the veins of stone no longer
flesh,
exhalation of last wisps of soul-smoke,
a blankeless persistence of
existence.

First Impressions

The invading peaceful silence
rolls over the flat land as
quick as the fog -
a Belgian monastery, a military base
so similar in solitude and order
only a barbed wire seperates them.

Country lane
gives way to pines and oak
quiet lives whilst leafing through
the album of nature -

Lush flat grass lands
with a fog oh so dense,
saturation of history seeping
out of the ground to mix with
the early morning dew -
souls and bones of lost soldiers
gives way to fields of
corn and harvest.

Oh how quiet life has become
and will be -
no longer the McDonalds
or 24/7 German kwiki-mart -
so replaced by farms,
fields,
fog,
rich history of
chocolate
wars
a people.

This is not my home,
only where my house sits,
but when the cyan eyes close,
and who we are no longer matters,
then I will call it my home.

From Germany to Belgium - It's time to move again.

After a quiet lonely walk through the streets on the base, 

I said my own goodbyes to this place,

off to new and fantastic adventures,

to a tomorrow full of hope and wonder, 

new foods and new cultures,

through a homely door, I now enter.

Photo credit to:
John Batdorff Photography
http://johnbatdorff.com/blog/2014-belgium-photo-workshop/

The Chronological Destiny of one Sexy S.O.B.

Dear Newborn Me:
You've got your whole life cut out for you. You've been born to some pretty bitchin' parents, so just thank them for that when you can. You're going to get to go see far away lands, try different cuisines, do things that most people won't get to do - take every advantage of it. You'll make new friends, and you'll lose friends, just remember to smile. Also, eating crayons leads to Technicolor-poopie, cute at first but it isn't pretty after the first go around. Also, stay as close to the titties as you can, because it's going to be a LONG winter before you see those spring buds again.

Dear 5-year-old Me:
Well, yeah, that little pile of flesh and blood called your brother won't be able to play baseball - he's fresh-mint out of Mom. Also, it's ok to admit that you liked the color pink - sure you'll get teased, but you'll be thankful that you did in the future. Yes, you're a military brat, yes you love to hear the sound of your own voice, and no, don't listen to the others because Santa is real. I'm really sorry, but for the next fifteen years or so, life will get kinda rocky, and pimply, and your voice will crack - but you'll have an h-e-double-hocky-sticks of a time. Also, puberty, it's going to do wonders for you...just kidding, it's going to suck but the cloud will pass against the sun, and then everything will be better. Also, did you not take my warning about the titties? Oh well, brace yourself, the winter is coming.

Dear 10-year-old Me:
Let me make this perfectly clear; it is not ok to pick on that boy because he was wearing pink, even though you're scared that you'll be found out for wearing pink. Just be open. Yeah, you'll get made fun of, but that doesn't make it ok to pick on the boy. Also, when you get made fun of later, you'll realize how that boy felt.
Another thing, you know how you are starting to have these weird emotions and urges? Go to that computer, don't delete the small cute fairy-story you were writing, and just write what you're feeling. Trust me, you'll be so glad you did. When that girl kissed you while you were on the playground and you felt like you could fly, and you jumped from the jungle gym and you landed in the wood-chips and knocked yourself out for a few seconds - that's the best.
Also, you're going to meet one of your best friends in the whole world soon, and when you do, you two will be thick as thieves. You'll laugh and cry together, you'll write together, you'll love Jane Austen together - don't ask who Jane is, that's another question for a later date and time.
So much rests on your shoulders now you don't even understand. Write, continue to write, and have fun.

Dear 15-year-old Me:
AHH! You've made it this far, puberty is high in gear, and the world is spinning and fast. You're mind is processing possible girlfriends faster than you can control, and more than once you're going to be thinking with your other head. Yes, it's ok to say damn and hell, but only when it is appropriate. Music is great, but I hate to break it to you - you won't be as great as you wish you were. You are so much better at writing. Also, Carthage is soon going to be just a memory. Keep in touch with your best friends, but don't be surprised when you lose touch with them. It happens, it sucks, but it happens. Also, you're about to go out with an amazing girl, and then you're going to say and do something entirely stupid, and it's going to haunt you for the rest of your young life. But don't get too toasty, you're about to move soon, and when you do, you'll get to drink. As much as you want (but the reality is that it's not as much as Animal House makes it out to be). Two more things;
one, keep writing. You're at your most vulnerable when you do, and that only makes your heart stronger with constant exposure to air. And secondly, delete your browser history, you dirty little teenage kid. Never spank the monkey in public - you won't do it, but if you do, things will only get worse. Also, remember it's time to do the Time Warp again.

Dear 20-year-old Me:
CONGRATULATIONS Numb-nuts! You made it through high school. You resisted all fetters of traditional life and went to a private catholic school - Lord how that didn't work out. You loved the friends and the teachers, but you just didn't fit in and that's ok. Also, you came home for summer and you stayed there - diabetes can do that to a person. But because of that door closing, the window of opportunity opened and guess what? That's right, you want to be a teacher, live overseas and work of DoDDs school. You will keep an eclectic sense of music - you'll also have something amazing happen to you.
You will get one of the world's best boyfriends. Mhm. Boyfriend. He makes you feel so warm and cuddly inside. Sure, he's on the other side of the Atlantic puddle, but you'll see him soon. Remember how you used to make fun of others in the past because they were different? Well guess what - you're on of the different ones! You're along in the club with the rejects and she-jects, the goths and emos and theater kids, the writers and anime-freaks, the Whovians and Potterheads. You aren't afraid to use some language when necessary, and you'll always toe the line of acceptability of social norms. You're a geek, a freak, a writer, pirate, cult-film connoisseur - but you're also who you were always meant to be.

So go on, let your freak flag fly, write that sonnet about underwear on flagpoles flapping in the mid-morning breeze, just remember one thing - no one makes it out of life alive - it does us in.

Moving...again!

A screech of the duct-tape gun
pulled across another seam,
another cardboard box,
labels written in Sharpie fumes,
kitchen, living room, bathroom.

Grunts of moving men
lifting weighty things,
dressers, china cabinets, kitchen-tables
flying
on the clouds of muscle-men.

Electronic cables tangled,
silver and black rat-kings with
multiple plugs and plug-ins,
frustration mounting till eventuality,
shoving and slamming cable pile into box,
sharpie-fumed label -
miscellaneous electronics.

Lunch break salvation,
pizza angels with chicken breasts and wings,
choirs of Coke fizz mixed
by hungry producers of strength.

Sighs as the lunch-break ends,
the sofa won't move itself
(we begged and it laughed),
boxes carried up and down flights,
stair-way landings become
international ports of call.

Final joy,
everything is good and gone,
congratulatory smoke break,
all's well that ends well,
until you forget a shelf
for the unit.

November 2nd: 2nd Day in the month of Thanks

I'm thankful for the spoken word, for the lyrics and the rhymes, for the poetry of the classics and the poetry of the contemporaries.

I'm thankful for every English teacher that pushed me harder and higher and farther - closer to the personal ephiphanous poetic Nirvana.

I'm thankful for the pen and the blue and black ink and the little notebooks and the editor's red pen.

I'm thankful for the personal trial, the personal journey through self-made heavens and self-made hells and self-made ERs.

I'm thankful for these because I know that with these I will make my mark on the world so then I can stand on the lonely single tree'd hill and look down and say,

"Yes. I was there."

I will sit against the tree and look down and smile and laugh as the ant-peoples pass by, with the young rejects and she-jects and the beautiful-mirror-girls and the bullied and the perfection-in-the-rough mixed in, bleeding their own blue and black ink-blood out of their creative personal veins, until they come to their own single tree'd hills, and smile down and say in their choir of personal 50 shades of humanity,

"Yes. I was there."