Before the pain,
there was laughter
sharing of wits
the morning after
before the pain
there were smiles
all night conversations
lingering for a while
before the pain
she felt safe to know
he was there
they would grow
before the pain
all was everything
no needs
before the pain
Copyrighted: 2017 CMM
I enter into today with the celebration of loss and love —
I cherish your bedside as we said good bye and
All I could do is cry
It has been five years and your sweet desperation breathed between two places
Your eyes closed as some said the “Our Father” and others’ dark faces
Posturing, some told lies and some truths; you listened.
Reaching into the depths of the last moments, you closed your eyes
For the last time you pulled from a place we all know only once in time
You called out ” I love you.” The room quieted
copyrighted: CMM 2016
I walk upon the canvas
the gray and green elephants
walk around me.
Always in dimensional lights
of bright and then dim
the gathering of familiar faces
was all that I could see.
I look to see upstairs to find
and you were not there.
I continued down the stairs
the face of your adversary
standing fatter and pompous.
A distant call was hung into space
I heard the gritty sound of ignorance,
I heard the sound of disgrace.
I never saw but knew.
I asked this fatter one where,
where were you?
He turned to another and gave directions
I could no longer contain the pain,
as I beat upon his chest and
cried with years of disdain…
Copyrighted: CMM 2016
I tried to cry but the pain was there
I felt the hour of our shared despair
Sisters bleed as time turned gray
Mingled tears from another day
A mother gone so much not said
A wilted memory and sadness shed
A soft word in a written note
A longing shared our grasps remote
Sisters bleed as time turned gray
Mingled tears for another day .
Copyrighted: 2016 CMM
If I wrote among the willows would the earth receive my tears ?
Would the roots gather moisture and return the pain of years ?
If I dry my tears with ashes and wipe my anguish with moss,
would the day seem less melancholy and the passing less a loss ?
Be with me a moment and I will gather in the rain
All the earth of my humanity and the lightening of my pain …
copyrighted: CMM 2014
(RIP Jan. 2011)
I have started to cry
causing tears up over my eyes,
but few come out.
A silence spreads
a bit of waiting for new breath,
my face looks up again.
It passes,
tears wiped away,
it passes.
© July 17, 2009
I picked up your book,
left behind as a gift.
I thought how nice.
Now you have left,
and I think so nice I have the book .
I have the letter you wrote with such eloquent words,
full of philosophy and reason.
Now you are gone and the reason seems mute,
and the philosophy unfulfilled.
Combing my fingers over the checkmarks,
bringing me to attention to the tributes
you made to me, and us, and our friendship.
I feel you presence pour inside of me
and I know.
There is no book, no letter of reason,
no quote of philosophical works
that replace your having died without reason.
© CMM 2013
Voices came in sizes and inflections
telling their lives in all directions.
Stories of anger, mothers and life,
sexual encounters and academic strife.
Nationalities were all represented,
each as they stood an presented.
Works of art in a smoke filled room,
coffee ordered and quickly consumed.
Listeners listened and interpreted the verse
some as a blessing, some as a curse.
Emotions were heightened as one gesticulation
stood on the edge of suicide or elation.
Others subdued in memories of war,
while others recalled the evenings they scored.
Readers and audience like me were all strange,
as we take words and life and uniquely arrange.
Then step to the mic, they gave up their soul,
from the very young to the seasoned and old.
My hair caught the smell of smoke in the air
while I listened and captured the love and despair.
I turned in the end and stood to see
they all were a fraction of reflection of me.
Copyrighted: CMM 2004
