Romantic Scavenge

Scavenge the romance in your own marriage

Tell the truth about your feelings and your needs

If they are not heard and met, move on

Hurt no more those you claim to love

Or wait, love hasn’t been mentioned recently, has it?

Is that your relationship or mine we are discussing

The one of hurt and mistrust, unmet needs

Virtual affairs and tete a tetes

Why do you stay if not for love

Any other reason is not worthy

Love, devotion, honor, trust, faith, respect

Where are these in our relationships?

Is that why you and mine continue

While you and him and me and mine falter on the vine

Each day one closer to death?

Fire in the Distance

Fire in the distance

Genie from a bottle

A restless dark smoke

(excerpt from “Haiku Collage: Suburban July” by Andrew Hall, American River Review 2006)

I watch the fire crackling in the faux brick fireplace, listen to the storm swirling about outside the sliding glass, the wind howling in the chimney. I wonder where you are tonight, when you’ll be home, if you’ll reach out to me when you come to bed or if you’ll show your back to me once again.

Genie in the bottle, covering the gray, belies the stress of our hidden inner lives, lives we hide even from ourselves at times. You and I go through the motions, not seeing the death knell in the restless black smoke rising from the ashes.

Where do we go from here, as the chicks leave the nest, all but the cuckoo who refuses to fly, refuses to stretch his wings to the sky?

Will our eyes meet again or are we fated to fill our days talking to the table, the stove, the mirror instead of each other?

Can we turn the smoke from black to white, back to the first ignite?

I miss you, my dear. Please, come home.

You Knew

You knew

It was a lie

But you told it anyway

You knew

The importance of honesty

The value of openness

The need for candor

You knew

The pain of betrayal

The devastation of deceit

The agony of discovery

You knew

It would destroy us

But you did it anyway

Forbidden Dreams

forbidden dreams

taunt me, tease me

illuminate them

see their true from

lost children seeking love

Unsung Heroes

Unsung heroes there

Whilst we are bickering here

Who is right or wrong

Sing thee the hero’s song

For those in lands faraway

Who may not live to see another day

Unsung heroes every one

Someone’s daughter, someone’s son

Doing their job until day is done

Sing thee the hero’s song

No matter what side of the aisle you’re on

Or which religion you choose to don

Unsung heroes far and near

All to someone very dear

Ask not why are we here

Sing thee the hero’s song

Pray for peace and freedom from greed

Pray for relief from every need

Unsung heroes every one

Care for them as they cared for us

In our love they put their trust

Sing thee the hero’s song

And pray they all see another dawn

The dawn of coming home

Flow of Life

Come silently
or rage against release
you still flow for now
soon you will flow no more
and barren will I be