Soon

Where were you when the fire went out?

Driving toward tumbleweed torture while

monstrous beings digest American badlands?

Shivering down memory lane with a former lover,

who now stabs you with ice picks. Rue the day

of your first kiss…

Wormwoods now rise from the gallows, consumes

little children walking American streets…whispers

in their tiny ears…then eat what’s left of their soul.

No light, all judgement done in deathly dark…Spirit,

flies away from the bones of your father.

What’s left is parlayed among the cronies who made

Deals with evil.

Spared to survive & laugh at this pathetic

Crown of Thornes.

So, I ask one more time—Where were you

when the fire went out?

Slaughtered?

Pardoned?

Whisked away by the menacing crowd?

Or, just hiding from the world, begging for

warmth—trying to be loved.

Poor Bernie

Bernie Slovin’s mother

insisted he go home with 

her instead of on the bus

with the rest of the players

Due to the fact his football

pants got too dirty during

the game.

His sharp insistence of

forever embarrassment was

ignored, as he cried in front of

the team after a close loss to

our opponent.

As the rest of the team filed

on to the bus, and Bernie’s 

screams of terror echoed out

of the Slovin Station Wagon.

I could not help but feel how

silently ineffectual this incident

would make him feel the

rest of his life.

As we dressed for practice

on Monday, we all noticed Bernie’s

locker was empty.  Equipment, helmet,

shoulder pads—all gone.

Leaving school, transferring to Salter’s Prep up the road

Hometown Sins

Thursday—Mid November.

Heavy coat needed to stay

warm—hands in pocket—failing

to steer clear mentally of any hometown 

regrets—losses, steep in time

within the Bellingham cold.

Overwhelming cries

of an aging man, as

he slowly strolls past adolescent

memories, many painful, obedient

stabs that still sting today.

Walking near the center

of town.  Snowing a bit, not

enough to raise that childhood

glee, established when thoughts 

of Santa and Christmas decorations 

echoed through a six-year-old mind

Tears of remembrance.

Shame at 63. 

Pangs of hurt still cut

unexplained gut-wrenches.

That, for some awful reason—

Still live.

17-I was a loner. 

Not a candidate…

A bag of unwanted

fruition—

63-look around as

those spasms, those

qualms of want.

Exist within the spittle of

precipitation that trembles

the ground, leading to 

years & years of disappointing

pain, anxiety, frustration

–lack of youthful happiness.

My hometown teenage angst 17,

late fall, football woes—God did

we suck. My wrinkled hand curls

in my pea coat…Platt, Armstrong, McKinnon.

Potential stars, gone to waste as I pass the old

High School football field.

Synthetic turf now.

Used to be beaten down grass.

Progress in a Pretenders Paradise?

Feelings of grit, regret, pureness,

not accepted—

17-fucking hated…

63-I untie a knot in my bootstrap, act achieved with strain

due to a bulging disc in my lower back.

17-has no clue what

masturbation was

63-now, prostate cancer

has taken that option away.

As I stroll by CVS, Joe’s Barbershop,

The Donut Hole Coffee Shop—Local commerce I visited 

growing up.

Now I dare not show my face.

Fear of bringing back those little cracks

of hurt, from a time when I felt so ineffectual 

in my supposed life.

Tessa, the girl I adored

in high school. She was too mature,

too much ahead of the game for

an awkward size 12 shoe or a

50-inch coat to fall in love with.

Realities were grim within my

landscape for choices of woman. 

Those who I could talk to on the

phone after homework.  Gossip

over games teenagers played.

When love was young—beautiful &

crushing at the same time.

63, The shudder of flakes now begins

as a potential storm. Snow begins to

cover my glasses…

Shades of an old man, looking for 

his cleaning hanky…

Important for his bifocals.

I’m sure Tessa is out there

somewhere with her own grandchildren.

Thoughts of me, lost long ago.

Apparent that

she glided smoothly from

Bellingham to the real world.

Tessa—how I loved you so.

Still bring tears to my teenage being.

My adult timbre has reached the 

realization that you have exiled 

my life forever, but somewhere—

17, bare-chested—experimental, strong, brute,

still yearns to hold your hand at the High School

Party, smoking a joint—in relevant conversation.

While at 63—My true love, Laura—fights for her

life, battling cancer, and looks beautiful doing it.

Never seizing opportunity to slay demons in her 

hometown.

Maybe she’s conquered all of them.

All the invisible blades that

pierced your spirit, leave you sad,

a bit broken, remain as a pounding

reminder of how cruel the world could be.

Me, now, late middle age—noticing how quickly the

Elm trees and bushes around the Walmart,

now completely whitened. 

I did not look for shelter or warmth.

Just kept walking, no answers available,

because there were none.

These were my twinges of

inner strife—persistent rough

patches as a man I must endure.

No hope of a hometown hero, as eyes squint,

nearing the town line. 

Leaving Bellingham. Massachusetts

Established 1719.

Thank you for making

this trudge in the snow

Necessary.