The Book
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
Coffee Shop Poetry
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
Lost Letter
Cleaning my desk,
I opened an envelope stuffed
with keepsakes, cards, letters.
Crinkled against time, some tattered
with wear, I saw an old familiar address.
Pulling it from the pile was like pulling
a friend from the reservoirs of memories.
I opened it, the dust had settled on his words
as ashes and sand settled on his grave.
He had written to tell me that he was diagnosed
with cancer …
He reflected in ink, spilling his frozen moments
of time on the paper, as he waits for the rest of his treatments.
Slipped in the envelope was a picture he had taken
of a seagull taking flight.
It was this, the lost letter, I had looked for
from the past.
© CMM 2013
Sterile Winter’s Return
Cold the sun
which days now come,
a frozen still breath,
a summer now done.
Barren limbs
widows time,
to watch and listen
a quiet sublime.
Oh, but the promise
of summer’s youth,
is lost among dried
leaves now mute.
No wind, no breeze,
does not remain
as time has come,
winter’s season now reclaimed.
© CMM 2012
Eagle and Child Inkling 