A Funeral on Wednesday

Yeah, I look good in suit
and you don't own one.
What else does everybody know? 
It's early and I have too much to do
before I have to sit on the survivor's bench
and watch a parade of daughters,
still shocked and too young to know,
and nothing I can tell them, 
even though I know it all 
and know how long it will be 
before it is real again
and how real it will be. 

It's too many times
and every time is harder,
and holds less reason.
Is it anger or denial that comes first?
What's third and tomorrow is pitching today. 
It doesn't have to make sense
and I don't have to explain.
I don't have to do anything
but pay taxes and die
and I've seen how to die,
so get out of my way 
and let me get this done.
I've got some grief to process
and I don't need your fucking help.

Blueprints

Blueprints

On blueprints drafted before birth

you were planned and crafted

to be my compliment.

The silhouette of my profile,

the mend for my every flaw,

the finished form of this ragged prototype.

On blueprints drafted before birth,

you were created to complete me.

Carefully measured and laid on the cutting table,

every hair on your head

and thought in your mind..

Such perfection in execution

could never be left to fortune.

The Lamentation of Katrina

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for all we lost,
the precious and unique.
Wept for all we gained,
the bitter and unending.
When black night blind, minion of the storm,
stole the sky, wiped light from the world
and left us not in the dark, but under it.

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the harsh detergent 
that scrubbed all color from our world
and left everything brown and gray.
Stripped and scoured the thin paint of civilization
off the wooden skeleton of the city,
unbleached and unbleachable,

never to shine again. 

By the waters of Pontchartrain,

we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.

Wept for our city by the river,

wept for our city by the lake

wept for our city by the sea.

Wept for our faith in walls of mud,

Wept for our faith in machines,

wept for our lost faith

in what we should have done,

could have done, would have done

with our moment of failure,

frozen in time.

By the waters of Pontchartrain,

we lay down and wept for thee, Easy

wept for the our Mother Water,

wept for days when she filled our plates

and held the cool cup to our mouths.

Wept for the nights when we slept between her breasts.

For what can the child do when the Mother says,

“I don’t know you,”

but lie down and weep.

We lay down and wept and knew

nothing would ever again be Easy.