hey dad

hey dad
i hope you are well
i miss you
i love you
(and all of that jazz)

now that i live
so far across the country
(in a place filled with jazz)
it often seems so much farther
from the days
of your big white truck
and the pet fly that you named
a memory that should have been fleeting
as the lives of flies have been

but this fly kept coming back to me this week
as i hunted a fly around the house all week
reminding me of you
and everything of you
that i love
and miss

the silly sense of humor
that would make a six year old's day
like this joke
that spanned the lifetime
of a fly
that lived in your big white truck
for a few days
and had a name

though i guess it's still going
since i still smile at the thought
of naming a fly
so i often think of you
when i see a fly
without a name
or a truck
that's big and white
and as time flies
i hope you might remember
the fly
and that i miss you
and that i love you
and your silly sense of humor




wb

love letters to the moon

stone scrawlers, papyrus penners,
                    quill and inkwell dwellers,
type writers, hunt and peckers,
                     electronic mailers,

everyone has written love letters to the moon
the great pagan,
patron saint of poets

generations, stuffing messages
in bottle rockets
pushing off into the cosmos

it cannot make much sense to her
why we adore her plain round face so
or her sly and slivered smile

though she must have come to realize,
after all these years
she is often the only source of light
in a planet's darkest hours

no, she is no fool
our obsession, likely,
no accident at all

after all,
she's seen every human birth
every death, everything between
in silent observation
she has learned every spell
we will fall for
every trick to cast
on our fragile little bones

maybe she looks longingly back
at our whirling liquid-crust, hung high
against a black and star speckled infinity
our big blue eye wooing her
and she cannot suppress her desire
to add some of our color
to her pale cheeks
some salt water to her dusty tears

but here we are
stuck staring at each other
star-crossed lovers
for all eternity




wb

longing for longer naps

you gave me thirty minutes.
i held my breath for the first two
hoping to impress you.

a sigh overcame the feat
as the world took another turn
around a rusty axis,
along an ancient orbit,
and realized (again)
it had never been here before.

after this contemplation of mortality
it let out a sleepy yawn
and resumed swallowing
our time and space
engulfing the remainder of 28.

and we remained still
hoping they would forget our obligations
and we could hide there
under the covers
forever.

at least until our bodies
contemplated their mortality
and realized (again)
eventually we had to eat.




wb

you are my whetstone

how often it is uneasy
the sound of my inability
to let dull
the edges
along tongue, that pierce lip
then ear, then heart.
my shortcut
along your anatomical trails.

though, i have heard
more fingers are lost
under dull blades.

for you, i will remain
serrated for precisions sake.

since, i have heard
that liars lose fingers
under dull blades
in countries still bleeding
the rein of monarchy.

for you, my love
i will keep the cat at bay
she cannot have
what is in my mouth
that way
you will not need translation.




wb