Seen Through Their Eyes

Seen through their eyes
my father’s shame
a new disguise.
Their questions,
first responded to by lies,
then by compromise,
and finally by a summarize
of all the things I despise.

Somehow they are surprised
to find me so compromised,
so paralyzed,
So utterly debilitized
with my inability to
sit analyzed
and scrutinized
and demoralized
and so clearly despised.

Of course they’ve taken offence
at my dropping of the pretense.
How could I have been so dense
to think they could handle my defense,
to think they’d want me to get off the fence,
to think they’d want my two cents?
Yes I’m intense.
Yes my pain presents as a nuisance.
Yes my demons are immense.
It’s common sense
All they see is my father in me.
How’s that for a recompense?

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Unfortunately

How
Can I accept
Your offer to help
When that very offer
Is tainted?

By opening myself
To your love
I would also be reopening
The old wounds
Inflicted by you

Unfortunately
For both of us
Your love
Isn’t strong enough
To stop that pain

Unfortunately
For both of us
I am not
Strong enough
To move on

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Pretentious Words

Insert pretentious words here
To abstractly elucidate beauty
Ensure reader’s confusion
And thus embarrassed admiration
As they critique themselves
For not ‘getting it’
Then watch as they lose interest
Relegating all poetry
As something beyond their reach

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Mourning Song

a man
played a song
in my dreams last night
it was a eulogy
a homage to a life lost
it was a simple song
softy sung
but powerfully prosed
i woke weeping
mourning a man
that I never knew
mourning a song
that no longer exists

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

release

calm
within the eye
of the storm

joy
vicariously
obtained

warmth
besides
growing fire

clarity
from duty 
beyond self

peace
of a riptide’s
pull

focus
alongside
fear

awe
at primal
efficiency

pleasure
in
pain

release
through acceptance
of death

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Of Myself

If I could just
Monetize my pain
I’d be able
To exist
In this world
As myself

Until then
All I can offer you
Are these
Few
Words
Of myself

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Moment

There is a moment that comes
Just before a lightening strike
When I notice an ever so slight shift
A constriction
A dropping
A sense of dread mixed with wonder

In that brief moment
I feel truly connected to the world
No longer merely observing it
No longer apart from it
But a part of it

It’s feels as if time stops
As if there is an eternity between that moment
And the flash
And the rumble
And the rain

It’s just one moment
But that one moment
Is enough

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Panic Attack

You know what’s worse
Than feeling completely overwhelmed
By the mundanity of normal life?

The shame

The knowing
That I
Now must
Make plans to cope
With things most others thoughtlessly navigate

The knowing
That I
Now must
Choose between
The embarrassment of bailing
Or the embarrassment of failing

The knowing
That I
Now must
Accept
The fact that I am limited
That my desires will forever outstrip my capacity

All in order to survive
A crowd
A noise
A smell
A look
A word
A touch
A thought

Yes
Even a thought

My mind
In its infinite wisdom
Sometimes views the thoughts it itself creates
As so dangerous to its own existence
That it deems it appropriate
To shut itself down

The shame
The isolation
The confusion
The loneliness
The limitation
The fear
The inevitability
The holding back
The rumination
The depression

The shame

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Regret

From the first
I could see that you
Were wrong

Only now
Do I see
That I was too

How much
Would we have saved
If only we both knew?

Now I sit in regret
Wondering if you
Are sitting likewise too

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

remember

and then
you remember
the breath
and the silence
within

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Sad Zac is Sad

Sad Zac is sad
He’s feeling bad
He’s feeling like he’s been had
That the times he was glad
And feeling rad
Were in fact just a fad

As a wee lad
Sad Zac couldn’t relate to any comrade
He was bullied by Chad
Crying, he asked advice from his dad
‘Just punch his face a tad’
Lesson learnt, fists make a nomad
Add one tick to the notepad
No one approaches the battle clad
No one threatens the mad

Sad Zac is sad
Remembering his dad
Remembering him before he was mad
Rereading the notepad
Reminiscing of the success had
Ruminating on his advice to play mad
And embodying it as a personality pad

Sad Zac now fears the nomad
And trains daily for a fight he’s not yet had
Fear of the footpad wielding a doodad
Has grown into fear of every comrade
‘Where is the rest of the advice, dad?’
‘How can I avoid also going mad?’
‘What can I do to stay feeling glad?’
‘Who can I turn to now that you’re just a notepad?’

Sad Zac is still sad
But also a tad glad
Because putting these thoughts on this notepad
Has alleviated some of the mad
He still feels bad
But writing has healed some of his inner lad

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Life Is Just A Costume

Impending doom
Looms over the womb
Nothing can exhume
The gloom of the tomb
Life is just a costume
An heirloom
A temporary bloom
Before the darkness consumes

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Irony

Do I think it true
Because it is
Or because I want it to be?

I cannot see
The bonds that blind me
But I know they’re there

Death isn’t tragic
But how death occurs
Most often is

Fantasy
Can only exist
If I’m an active participant

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Impact

When I die
What will be left of me
Beyond these words
And
The impact I have had
On others?

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

I Struggle

I struggle to know
What I want to do
But I know
I want to do it with you

I struggle to know
What I want to be
But I know
I want you to be with me

I struggle to know
Who I am
But I know
Without you I’m a sham

I struggle to know
What I should think
But I know
Without you I’d shrink

I struggle to know
Where I want to go
But I know
I want you to show
I struggle to know
But you help me see
You show me
What it means to be me

You teach
And you guide
You let me confide

You help
And you heal
You let me conceal

You are
My everything
In my life
All hope you bring

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Inertia

I’m held
By the inertia
Of my own inaction

If
If only
If only I
If only I could
If only I could just
If only I could just take

One
Single
Step

I know
I’d be free
Forever

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

I Wonder

I wonder
If my role here
Is to sacrifice myself
For others

No one
Gets out alive
So why not give
What I have?

Perhaps
In doing so
I’d find
My purpose

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Flee

All it takes
For me to flee
Is a sharp look
From you
Directed at me

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

Dad

What thoughts
Are confined
In the vault
Of your mind?

Why
Don’t you speak
And share
What you think?

I don’t know
Who you are
Beyond what
I can see

And what I can see
Is that you
Clearly
Have no time for me

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken

escape their fate

souls entwined
with a desire
to escape their fate

ancestors
collectively mourning
lost childhoods

disparate people
drawn together
by shared suffering

stumbling
forward
into a new life

fleeing their pasts
unwittingly creating
their futures

they know
what not to do
but not what to do

attempting to avoid
the same mistakes
their parents made

desperately praying
for their children
to escape their fate

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This poem is from the book A Requiem For What Could Have Been: Poetry For The Broken