May today overwhelm you with love. Let the sun in the sky shine with envy above. Let the birds in the trees sing and scatter their seeds Only sharp. Sometimes flat. Fit to accompany but not to lead, Subservient to your voice.
Every time you open your eyes, May you see the cleanest light. Let every purest winter morning still envelop you in warm sunshine. Let autumn leaves play hide-and-seek, Chase each other around your yard. Let any biting cold wind only whisper “Summer isn’t very far.” Let hope Spring eternally, no matter where you are.
The world is a square peg, And you’re shaped like a star. Let your voice ring out across humanity, So we remember who you are. Let history endlessly repeat, Chase its tail for all eternity In all of time and all reality There will never be another person like you.
May time be ever kind to you, Let life be always warm and true; Lay out the softest carpet beneath your feet And may you rest in eagles’ nests when sleep is all you need. Let every dream lull you gently back to actuality, And every night skew off the light to get you back to sleep.
Should you ever slumber eternally, May you have the greatest dreams. The world will have lost one of its most precious things, But a broken heart, once eons pass, often only stings.
From the poetry collection Aparting, available now.
In the wake of a series of losses, fantasies begin to overlap reality. Folksy, down-to-earth poems set in the modern day intersect with imaginative, absurdist images from the afterlife, as Aparting explores what it means to walk the avenues in between, and to go on living with a phantom heart.
Whether it’s the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, or the extinguishing of a spark of inspiration or passion, the characters in Aparting find themselves in the trenches of grief, trying to learn how to go on existing as a remaining part of a once-complete whole.
Aparting is a narrative poetry collection about living with loss, and dealing with topics ranging from cancer to politics to space exploration. The characters in Aparting face different struggles as they become separated from people or things dear to them, whether it’s by a could shoulder across the room, or a lost signal across the vacuum of space, or a soul slipped across the veil between this world and the next.
Aparting comes out December 8th, 2023, but you can read or download it here or from Smashwords right now.
The House You’re Building Life After Money Concurrents Only Ever From Time to Time Passing the Scene of an Emergency The Lonely Tavern Keeper I See You Glow Counting Sleeps Big and Strong My Battery is Low and it’s Getting Dark Into the Dirt When We Meet Again The View Through an Afterlife Window Sunrise Three Goodbyes Beats Per Minute Gardens and Guitars Something That Stays Make Like a Tree In Loving Memory Aparting
I wanted this one to be free of charge wherever possible. Amazon does not let authors do that. There’s a chance that enough people using Amazon’s “Report Incorrect Product Information” link on the book page and clicking “I have a problem with the price/ I found a lower price elsewhere” will get Amazon to price match it, but this doesn’t always work. In the meantime, you can download a hopefully Kindle-friendly .mobi file here. I also wanted the book to be available at other retailers by the time I made this post, but it seems the holiday rush has hit, and there is a backlog of books waiting to hit storefronts (on the bright side, maybe that means a lot of people are out there writing books?). So you can read and download the book in PDF format right here on my site.
I hope you enjoy this book. This one took a lot. Much love to everyone out there.
Here’s the second poem from the collection, “Life After Money.”
Life After Money
So now we’re living in the future It doesn’t look quite like we imagined it would Too much has changed, But some things haven’t changed enough And you’re not here And did you know?
I remember standing barefoot in the snow My memories are scraped like faded lines on VHS tapes We wanted to see who could last the longest, Then we’d run inside and put our feet by the heater vents
Now it’s the end of December, And outside it’s seventy degrees.
So I’ve been spending too much time in the past, Grasping at things I lost I swore to God would always last And in my heart it’s always summer But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t snow And you’ll always be there, But that doesn’t make it easy.
We memorized lines to remind us we’re free, Now I see they taught us how to lean on the bars of the cage And everything I ever thought that flag was waving for, And all my visions of our life after money died when you did
I used to dream of December We’d spend a few weeks in the Caribbean Just because it seemed like that’s what a family would do If they could be totally carefree
And I wanted to drink with you by the ocean But our ocean is made of plastic and oil And I wanted to sit with you in the grass of an alien world, But they’ll be bought by the wealthy and portioned out wholesale And you’re not here And do you know?
I’m so afraid of the future Every December we’ll remember what it was like To light a fire in the fireplace The way you did when I was a kid and Christmas seemed alive
Why would I want to live in the future? I couldn’t afford air worth breathing I’m looking back at the past and it’s all smiles and waves But the past can’t see that I’m screaming, And you’re not here.
I remember looking into your eyes
The way I couldn’t look into my father’s
I’ll owe him that forever,
But it was the least I could do for you.
For all the nights you lay beside me,
All those golden afternoons.
The winters when you kept me warm
The summers when you fed my youth
And now I look into her eyes,
Golden brown like yours were
Soft and only glad to see me
She speaks as softly, pondering.
I only smile, because there’s not much I can do,
But try to be some comfort for you.
So we said our goodbye, but I know we’ll both be okay
I’m pretty good at losing what I love, these days
Where once I felt a furnace burning in my chest,
Only embers softly murmur to the hope we’ll meet again.
But years from now, when I could have felt warm fur between my fingers,
I will find only the wind.
I think about you, from time to time.
Grainy streaks of color stretch and fade
Cracked like long-dried paint
In a dusty corner of my mind
Where a beam of light
Emanates from a hole in a sun-bleached paper shade
And echoes of memories are traced
Into the many years of dust that have always gathered in,
And waited there suspended,
Eventually started settling
And come to rest in this place.
There I see, for once so clearly
Someone who reached out to me.
Saw that I saw the world differently.
Could’ve laughed or ran or hid but so graciously,
Unexpectedly,
Became a friend to me.
Well, thank you for everything.
I hope you rest in peace.
Hey there. I’m back again, and I brought another friend with me.
Everyone knows about the afterglow: When someone dies, their spirit briefly visits the living soul who meant the most to them, before quickly fading from this world.
Jake and Emma were normal teens in high school, until a tragic accident claimed Emma’s life. Jake’s understanding of the world is fractured when Emma’s afterglow appears before him—but somehow doesn’t recognize him at all.
Confused, depressed, and in a daze, Jake turns to Emma’s sister Elise for answers, and instead finds a bond unlike any he’s ever felt before. But Elise knows what Jake doesn’t, and the secrets Elise swore to keep could tear the two of them apart.
The Afterglow is a young adult coming-of-age story about ghosts, railroad tracks, summer, and what it means to connect with each other on a spiritual level.
The Afterglow will be available in print and eBook formats July 26th, 2019. You can pre-order digital editions at the links below, which I’ll update as more editions become available.
Build Yourself Better is a narrative poetry collection, meaning the poems tell an overall story while also standing on their own. Pen and Paper, Wood and Nails is a collection of my narrative poetry collections, and includes Permanent Ink on Temporary Pages, A Means to an Ens, Build Yourself Better, and a collection of poems originally scrapped from the above three works, titled B-Sides and Rarities.
You’ll find both available in eBook and softcover, as well as a hardcover option for Pen and Paper, Wood and Nails. Those interested in checking the books out before buying will find samples by highlighting the “Samples” link on my site’s top menu.
Faded Pages 