Dad wasn’t an affectionate man, while I know Mom craved his touch and sweet words. Dad always signed off on phone calls and letters by saying “We love you.” Mom always signed off saying “I love you.” I should have mentioned this in Part 1, Dad’s story: His father was a cruel man not above humiliating his children in front of others. He once ridiculed … Continue reading Saying Goodbye to My Dying Parents, Part 2, Mom
She outlived herself but seemed to die younger than her fifty-eight years. Which seems strange since she chased the worm from her teen years on. I’ve heard that drunks grow hard and worn before their livers give up, but she never looked that way; I guess I didn’t know her the way I thought. My second sister and the closest of four to my heart … Continue reading Marianne, Part I
My first attempt at a video ad. Thoughts? Continue reading Honey Ko Video Ad
Briefly here, my love, then gone, I’m left with hollow, aching heart; eleven years are not enough, though every second count; but the bitter wind is cruel that grays us, and preys upon regrets; so many miles we walked together, Yoshi, you and I, I with my head in the clouds and you, running ahead then pausing to look back as … Continue reading Love Poem for Yoshi
Love arrives breathing, warming love that develops, pulses from your heart, love beating keeping time, love’s symphony surrounds us, Love. Love before death, soothing love that envelops, light dimming in your eyes, love cherished and remembered, love’s eyes closed forever, Love. Continue reading Love, Ten Times Over
You left me in darkness when you went away. Even now, light dims when I think of you. I’m left with the nearly eternal absence of light because my thoughts are of you between the dawn and dusk of day. I am most alive when I dream of you for dreams are of what we were and what we should have been. The sun rises and shares … Continue reading One
Thank you so much for reading along and supporting my effort. This novel is thirty years in the making and has been a journey of remembrance, blood, sweat, and tears. Most of the characters are based on real people. Tom’s and Sam’s Susanna was my girlfriend when I was stationed in Spain; yes, she died. Aida was a girlfriend in the Philippines. Lek was an acquaintance in … Continue reading Status: A Wished-For Love
Your fragrance often wafts into my head guided by the metaphysical pinings of two souls and the bond between spirits not tethered to temporal moorings. Mortal boundaries span six feet of earthly separation but the heavenly plane exists within our senses. Comforting, that thought, and breathing your scent brings thoughts of your heaven wafting through my mind. For heaven is where you took me taking … Continue reading Of Love and Fragrance
I wondered for a moment if she were kneeling, perhaps stocking the shelves, she barely peeked over the bar, but her Spanish green eyes were bright when she smiled and she told me she didn’t live far; she reached to my shoulders in her bare feet, not much higher in heels, and from my towering perch I never mentioned the few stray, white hairs she couldn’t … Continue reading My Spanish Love
What I fear most when I appear at the gates of Heaven is a question: “My son, why did you kill the sparrow?” I raised my BB gun and aimed; At the end of the cold steel barrel sat the sparrow singing its song of joy, and happiness, and innocence; I pulled the trigger and let fly the BB; The golden pellet raced through the … Continue reading The Question
In the middle of the beginning of the days of my youth I found you In the moments of the hours of my days when time didn’t matter You took me In the space between the time when caught breath was a whisper I came alive Just a sigh Just a cry Just a why Is all I have of you Nothing mattered then for … Continue reading When Breath Was a Whisper
Playfully, we spoke the words, “until death do us part,” She laughed, and her smile tugged at my heart, Will you love me in sickness and in health, she asked, Yes, my love, will you love me in poverty and in wealth? Of course, she said, her head tilted to one side, I’ll love you, you know, beyond the end of time; She turned her … Continue reading Susanna XI
Aida was the one all along, Susanna. Yes, Tomás. She has given me the half of my heart I buried with you. Yes, Tomás. I knew love would come to you again. I grieved so long for you, Susanna. Yes, Tomás. Too long. Aida makes me feel like you and I are together again. I know, Tomás. I can’t bring you back, Susanna, so I … Continue reading Susanna X
I’m pretty happy with this chapter 🙂 Ten minute read Tom grinned when Sasi waved and called to him from her balcony. He returned her wave and walked faster. When he looked again she had gone. He pushed through the revolving door and strode through the lobby to the elevator. The clerk called to him but the words didn’t register. The elevator doors opened and … Continue reading Sasi and Tom, A Wished-For Love, Chapter Twenty-One
Reposted in memory of my shipmates. The Navy Hymn connects the paragraphs. An orange fireball blots the sky, a mass of white-black cloud shot through with flame. The Navy P-3 Orion yaws as the #3 engine burns and trails an undulating line of black smoke. The starboard wing folds up and shears away; with lift gone the aircraft rolls to starboard. The Orion rolls and rolls, … Continue reading Lima Charlie 85
Chapter Twenty-two from “A Wished-For Love.” 2,929 words. Tom looked up to Sasi’s balcony on the top floor directly over the pool. He wasn’t surprised to see her waving and calling to him. He returned her wave and walked faster. When he looked again she had gone. He pushed through the revolving door and strode through the lobby. The clerk called out but Tom ignored … Continue reading Tom and Sasi
They bury their dead in vaults. Long rows of casket-sized holes stacked six bodies high. Mourners shuffle along behind the men struggling beneath the weight, the dead weight, inside the casket. Mostly, they do. Her casket was featherlight, the body inside so nearly weightless it seemed heartless to call it dead weight. The men carrying her body stood ramrod straight, as men are wont to do … Continue reading The Wedding Band
Is she the one, Susanna? I do not know, Tomás You must know, Susanna. Why, Tomás? She makes me think of you. She is not me. I want you back, Susanna. I’m dead, Tomás. You died too soon. Yes. Why? Why? Tell me. It was my time to die. It isn’t fair. Life is not always fair. Sasi makes me feel the way you did. … Continue reading Susanna IX
Exquisitely painful and beautiful. For a moment, echoes over the ocean sound your obituary — these jagged cliffs are your gravestones, and perhaps the algae the rolling waves offer to the shoreline is the water’s apology. For sending your casket deep into the corals. For seasoning the ocean salty with your panic. For surging your lifeless limbs away from […] via Elegy for a Drowned Girl … Continue reading Re-Blog: Elegy for a Drowned Girl
Why do you torture me, Susanna? It is not I, William. It must be. I feel you watching me. I feel you watching me. No, William, I’m not here. I’m dead. You know that. Yes. I killed you. I left you in the cold and the rain. No, my love. I died of pneumonia in the hospital after the car accident. I couldn’t find my way … Continue reading Susanna VIII
Funny that, how the heart bursts the same way in grief and love. Continue reading Heartbrache
When two hearts break, it’s a compound fracture with all the ugliness of a leg bone sticking out awkwardly from torn, bloodied flesh, a crippling injury that takes a lifetime to heal, if it ever really heals without leaving memory of an exquisitely harsh pain, a bruise of purple and black on the soul, and a reflex action against falling in love again. Continue reading Breaking Up
Like two red eyes, the imperfections in the ruby blinked in the sunlight. He pressed the jeweled medallion to his chest to keep it from swinging on the necklace. The sun burned his back as he walked along the rock-strewn beach hunched over looking for seashells. The best ones he placed in a red, plastic cup that smelled of San Miguel. “Look, Aida.” he called. … Continue reading Sam and Susanna & Tom and Aida
Whisper wisp, O Soft and lithe, so Fragile, frail, a Sense, a Sense; Fleet, fly, O Whither gone? But, Always away, a Day, a Day. Continue reading Whisper Wisp, O
I need to take her hand again, And ask her how she’s been; I need to gaze upon her face, And recall the beauty there. I need to ask her did she think of me. I need to hold her by her face, And feel her warm, soft skin; I need to touch her lips again, And kiss the tenderness there. I need to ask … Continue reading I Need To Take Her Hand Again
Writers Envy 