When a bone is taken out, we grieve.
Nothing belongs in a casket.
Or as medical waste.
Where do you bury something that has marrow but no eyes?
That bone grew roots.
Nothing belongs.
The amputation.
It feels like I still have an arm.
Bones don’t die easily.
They talk to their old owners.
Get treated like medical waste.
When a bone is taken out, the bone grieves.
Sentience.
The summer of 1961 stays with me in small, steady ways. Bare feet on hot Texas sidewalks, jump-rope songs drifting between houses, mothers calling from screen doors—all of it part of the quiet world I grew up with. The box fan's low hum, the sharp crack of ice trays, the porch light warming the dusk—ordinary things that felt like the neighborhood holding itself together.
Rock ’n’ roll floated out of transistor radios, bicycles waited in the yard as if they knew we’d be back, and fireflies stitched their brief gold through the evening. I didn’t realize then how memory was already gathering these moments, saving them without asking. I only knew the slow stillness of night settling in and something larger than childhood holding me close.
dusk in my bones~
old summers rise like prayer,
soft and unbidden
The roll of paper white now thin,
Grows threadbare, tattered and quite lean,
A silent signal, soft and low,
The final sheets starting to show.
Each tear a whisper, a slight grace,
As emptiness soon fills its place,
No more a buffer, soft and kind,
To replenish one can just find.
Like paper thinning, life recedes,
Fulfilling all its earthly deeds,
The gentle turning, day by day,
Leads to a quiet, waning ray.
With the bones slim, a fragile shroud,
Above the whispers of the crowd,
Each subtle shift stamps a sign,
Along the path of one`s lifeline
The roll will soon be spent and gone,
Beneath the supple shining sun,
A quiet sigh, a letting go,
As softer currents start to flow.
It is stitched into my bones, this disease,
call it shame if you need a smaller word.
What it does to me is uglier than that name.
It festers in the soft dark of my soul,
rotting everything my hands reach for.
And still, I love it.
The way you love a scar you keep reopening.
The way you love a fire for the warmth,
even as it eats the house down around you.
I know it will kill me.
I know, and I stay.
So tell me,
how does anyone let go
of the thing that has learned
the exact shape of their hands?
A life jacket set between two people who are near drowning.
The answer is always both.
It’s just about who drowns worse.
As they both swam around their own burnt bridges for two hours.
But the ocean is stronger than arms, legs, and secret anger.
They say they could have made it if…
They simply waited for the rescue boat…
But it’s as if they burnt a bridge between them and fate.
Caused a little worm hole in the wrong ocean.
Mary’s necklace was found by a scuba diver five years later.
The bones were last.
trying to keep sinking relations afloat
is like patching an old boat with stones
for certain It'll go under
sharks will move in to plunder
then crap out your miserable bones
The earth shakes, mimicking my weary bones,
And the ground is wet with tears left behind.
The cage of whiteness, locked tightly inside,
Upholds the heavy weight of every day's design.
Secrets and memories are ghosts we keep,
Bound tightly within the walls of the chest—
Forgiven, forgotten, or just cast aside,
The architecture of a heart aching for rest.
My steps falter on the unpaved ground,
Stumbling under the weight of a calcified spine.
Yet all this physical aching scarcely compares
To the quiet, structural cage of skeletal frame—
That has, until today,
Only answered to the marrow of your name.
I cant carry your bones and my own
But I will because it hurts more to be alone
What you think of me is my view of myself
You design my skeleton not me or anyone else
Now that I no longer carry your bones
I hate myself wherever I go
When I look in the mirror I am haunted by my own skeleton
Disgusted by the bones you depicted that I am forced to live in
You discarded all the parts of my skeleton worth keeping
Now I understand my well being was not what you were seeking
I am now living with a crafted skeleton and chiseled bones
And your words will never leave me alone
All year long it's iced coffee season,
in that hot tub or during a blizzard.
Filled to the brim bare bones bitter,
invigorated I am FINALLY awake.
You don't want to see me without it.
The temperature matches my mood,
hard and cold and utterly relentless.
Caffeine won't ever be the side piece.
Hot air never did too much for me.
I'll let warmth dissipate into action,
snowflakes make a strong brew swirl.
Caught up in the art of the freezing,
during the heat of an atomic summer
that drop dead shiver fires you up.
Twenty below or during a heatwave,
Iced coffee season is all year long.
Inspired by Issa Kabayski haiku poem "a bath when you`re born"
***********************************************************************************************************
warm hands hold new-born
first breath greets the humid air
water cleans the skin
last gasp turns to mist
cold water soothes the tired bones
heavy hearts find rest
in lifetime no heed
when deceased why wash the skin
can it cleanse the soul
dud
sloth like
lazy bones
couch potato
static and stagnant
lackadaisical
inactive
work-shy
slug
corruption in the cradle
...
bourgeois contradiction:
not just a matter of being lied to,
not just a matter of obfuscation,
or of folly, but, rather, one of being enslaved.
They must be plain not flavor
for my Sassy girl to favor
Medium size will do
and she wants to eat two
Milk Bones, Milk Bones, an old dog treat
favorite snack for Sassy to eat.
She likes to chew them with a crunch
tail wagging yummies to munch
And if she can she will
from Cosmo his she steals
But Cozzie will snap at her
and make her run and cry
I have to calm her down
a hug and milk bone erases her frown.
Now Cozziemoboy don't be crude
you steal from Sassy her food
So let her have a milk bone or two
for all you stolen least you can do
Cosmo a bit of a pig
for a dog he is really big
Sassy now seems so small
next to Cosmo he stands so tall.
Sassy is a funny girl
though older she is my baby
She tries to stare me down for a treat
No more milk bones girl, well maybe
Those big sad eyes win every time
Cosmo understands and begins to whine
Treat for her and treat for him
the happy tail wagging never ends.
I'm
sunken
bones
Buried
treasures
Hidden
Coves
Come with me
sail away
For the rest
of our lives
I keep you
safe
Like a secret
Sworn
Only to be
passed on
at
death
I just saw you bike on by
Wondering why
I just felt your ghost
turn me
into nothing
but bones.
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