The Tale of Ismay

Testament is given as critical faces scan the wooden room.

No one questions, it is in fact too late.

Who can blame him for his selfish impulse to live?

He is haunted enough it seems.

The shrieks of the drowning roll around in his ears

And his eyes force the sound down the throats of those he passes.

He is still standing, but his shoulders bend to the pavement.

Composure regained, papers take the time to call him “coward”

And courageous men in ties with Windsor knots sip tea in sunrooms

Appointing blame with boneless fingers.

But J. Bruce Ismay testified. Nothing more should be required.

We are eager for reproach rather than truth.

We scold and snarl to be justified, when we ought to be haunted.

Who stands as a hero in the paths he has never walked?

When woven moments cross our days, wear gentle ears and open eyes.

The dust on my shoes is not from your trail, but my own. 

Eraser

Quiet heart, what’s left to say?

You’ve been summed up, nothing remains to disclose.

Candid intentions fall, grace is called upon too frequently.

The Keeper of Time wears a knowing nod and grease stained fingers,

The only artist to have never reached for an eraser.

But I am captivated by word documents, floods, and fire

Which take back words and leave no traces.

Who can make straight lines through tainted eyes?

Listlessly, I crumple up another potential piece

Never to question what it may have been.

Each page will bring progress, something learned, something changed.

I can only hope to make something worthwhile before the paper runs out.

Congruency

I’ve used the phrase “I can’t” so many times

It has carved a ridge in my throat: a feat all other phrases must scale to reach my lips.

Thank God for Grandma, her scissors and whiteout. If only the rest were so simple.

I beg you to forgive me, my surrender to gravity.

I’m better now, teaching new words to glide from my tongue

Increasingly refusing to change my shoes to match the carpet.

This fault line will scar my horizon, but landmarks keep us oriented in unfamiliar places.

Grey Masquerade

In the still of snowfall, lovely shades of grey beckon me into the trees.

They reason, “The air is calm the ashes are yet warm from their journey behind the clouds.”

Indeed, the ground is softened by them, dimensions blurred together.

I admire the obscured familiar landscape, as if it were an old friend in costume.

Unable to resist the tempting glisten of frost bitten pine needles,

I layer myself into the pages of trees. Snow anxiously covers my tracks.

The thirsty wind guzzles the color from my cheeks and eyes.

I too, am made indescript.

Each snowflake whispers its name to me as it flutters to the ground in a cloak of commonality.

I murmur my own name into the swallowing silence.