Passage Ways

In part of my heart is a hole
called regret. Nostalgic rhythms
remind me, take me back to 1984
when all was hope and song…

I regret not telling her I liked her,
wanted to spend time with her.

Third grade was hoping I’d see her,
sad when Summer came and I
had not said a thing.

Hope died completely by ’85,
when Ryan and I stole into
our parents’ cabinet and killed
ourselves slowly. If at first
you don’t succeed, try and try
to die over and over again—then
watch friends actually pass away,
be grateful that although you
missed the consummation of Spring,
you at least saw it dawn—

I shall be telling this with a sigh,
sometime like Frost, between
injury, peace and rhyme—at
least once before bed YELL it out!!

God, at least amends are there
to be made, reaching back with
band-aids and lemonades, quenching
the nostalgic curse of broken
dancefloor dreams, death, the
cycle led by devils of feeling, hiding,
dishonesty and beer.

Homeless I walk away, a shirt on
my back awaiting the honest ask.

The way back is there; Poverty
a friend when it teaches us what we
need, don’t, who’s our real friend,
and what Jesus meant when he
spoke of family being those
who do God’s will.

Regret: part of my heart, the dancefloor
old but for hot memory. I choose
a different path today, and what’s
more—

I bring roadblocks and signs to
warn youth away from my
mistakes.

Drop the act, wear a helmet
like the law says, and be a nice
person

The silver spoon rusts, and caring
departs the farther we find ourselves
away from life.

Poverty is our oldest friend, it is the
state infants find themselves in—
need to need, day to day, all five
senses supercharged and alive,
You used to care!!

To get that back you have to go back,
or forward march if in April you
find winter breezes alerting you
to change for the better.

Bill Murray in his Groundhog Day
learned to care, unlearned his stance
learned on the outside looking in,
resentments formed early in childhood,
defenses raised against abuse.

Our best defenses become our worst
defects as they sit and fester, or worse
yet grow and mold over and over
the petri dish that is Time.

The dust settles for a moment in
hospitals, jail cells, homeless shelters
or repeated groundhog days…

It becomes clear we must change. Not
to something new but to something old:

Back to our childhood selves, the infant
that with five senses cared! Was alive
with every movement, curious,
hopeful, asking—honest.

We learned to care, and then the day
turns and we can start over, begin
to live the adult life with childhood
spirit—Congrats, if you see this