Poetry Corner

Happy New Year!
This is the last time I can
live at this house
as a consequence of my
shame.

When yet another man
climbs out of his foxhole,
weaves around incoming bombs,
crawls under my barbed wire fences
and approaches me,
I am still shocked when he takes aim.

I got my heart torn out,
choked on my own blood,
saw my twisted face in the mirror
and scowled.

When I was eight years old, there were moss green treetops and the hidden secrets of well-worn paths. There were dog walking trails and people walking trails, and there were trails that weren't trails at all. I'd cram my scrawny child body between thorns and spiderwebs for the chance to find something new. The fruits of my labor were always...

What's it like in your body?
Is it painful, is it peaceful,
do you look at it and wince?
How do you feel when
the color of your eyes is
reflected at you?

I miss that feeling of unlimited time when I
was a child and I would sit for as long as I
needed on the bathroom floor after my
shower, staring into space as I
drip-dried. My
skin was dirtier then but softer too, and there were no raised scars or mounds of broken flesh for the water droplets to stutter over as they ...

A little old man lives inside my head.
He curses at the wind,
calls cell phones the devil,
and only eats split-pea soup.
He has a lot to learn.