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The poems

• ordinary poets
  • ordinary poets
  • waitress
  • desk clerk
  • chaplain
  • cable guy
  • for sale
  • luck
  • to the rescue
  • personals ad
  • warrior
  • fashionista
  • valentine
  • normal
  • sean and teresa
  • fame
  • prepared
  • caste
  • soldier
  • PR girls do pepper jelly
  • chick place
  • in Hovland
• outrage
  • baja
  • priorities
  • illusion
  • mobile home
  • tour
  • mother
  • hair
  • hurricane
  • loser
  • Red Lake
  • privilege
  • poor
  • weapons of mass destruction
  • Lamborghini
  • fur
  • temple
  • American
  • Sedona
  • values
  • why they didn't leave
  • efficiency
  • shelter
  • lounge chair
• love
  • marriage
  • old marriage
  • vulnerable
  • terrarium
  • caretaker
  • material things
  • laundry
  • rose
  • that's all, folks
  • lost and found
  • daybreak
  • eHarmony
  • envy
  • love song
  • reunion
  • beds and ladders
  • prom
  • farewell
  • incurable
  • reset
  • vow
• family
  • mother's Hippocratic oath
  • bridge
  • shepherds
  • letting go
  • wedding
  • training wheels
  • first blessing
  • scales
  • Patta's car
  • psych ward
  • graduation
  • border collie
  • triage
• thinking too much
  • magic act
  • choices
  • logic
  • sorting
  • grudge
  • doubt
  • caste
  • film
  • aging
  • Shady Pines
  • alone
  • getting ready
  • hedgehog
  • clarity
  • lonesome
  • planes and anthrax
• hurting
  • paper cuts
  • collateral damage
  • conflict
  • forest fire
  • lights out
  • wounds
  • breakup
  • commitment
  • camouflage
  • knives
  • unfaithful
• hooked
  • hooked
  • adversary
  • monkey
  • addicts and angels
  • the First Step
  • serenity prayer
  • iceberg
  • sober
  • enabler
  • hope
• loss
  • grief
  • monsters
  • autopsy
  • ambush
  • bruise
  • giving back the daisies
  • checkout
  • bad check
  • talking with death
  • condolences
  • closure
  • full post
  • spring
  • jacket
  • resurrection
  • first year
  • passage
  • Michael
  • uncharted
  • lightness of being
• respite
  • carwash
  • September 11
  • Kauai
  • at the lake
  • muskrats
  • crisis intervention
  • balloons
  • star over Sedona
  • inspiration
  • pilot light
  • souvenirs
  • night of stars
  • balance
• reflections
  • politics
  • what Disney taught us
  • moon rabbit
  • Herzegovina
  • poetry games
  • autumn
  • envy and the snapshot
  • perfection
  • critters
  • prayer
  • Sodom and Gomorrah
  • otters
  • winter of the century
  • Louie
  • the zone
• the light side
  • home repairs
  • almost haiku
  • body parts
  • competition
  • typewriter vs...
  • style

© 2010-2013

forest fire

There are some things
That never should be said
Things untrue later
But not really
True as they were true
When they were spat out
Burning, scorching, scarring
Things you never say
Not even in a rage
Unspeakable, dangerous
They roar in the soul

Even when the fire is gone
The heart surveys the damage
Hears I love you, I love you
I hate you only once
And never quite forgets
Mends itself
With methodical precision
But cannot erase
The blackened scars
Criss-crossed, over and over
Even so, new growth appears
Among the scars
Both grow on, live on, like the forest
Life and death among