Ghazal

Why can’t we seem to keep it together?

Dear brother, we’ll find answers together.

Always there is something to keep us stale,

Until we find the next time together.

Until the next place we shall meet again,

Remember to keep it together.

Whenever I think of our varied past.

I think of all that we’ve done together.

What goals have we? We live to find an aim,

And we will do what it takes to get there.

Connected, we are yet we are so far,

Speak to others we do, not together.

My aim of past to live beyond your life,

Your life a recent chase meant to get her?

Dreams of the past, never of future times,

For we forge our futures together.

When shall we meet? The answer I know, yet

The times can never see us together.

We crash and burn, we stop and stare, we find

That never mind the distance, we’re together.

Sonnet

Where shall I find someone who cares for me?

My brother, none will ever be enough

To know and see what ‘tis in me you see:

Three-fourths score years of memory did rough

No one can say they have what I possess,

A guardian angel here watching over,

Someone I know that will myself assess

And be there still, leaving me here never

An angel you may be, for what am I?

One that never repaid a scrap o’ kindness

One that from you giving kindness did shy,

I will be one that shall this trend undress

On moving on, I will refrain from this,

To be a brother worth an empty list

Ode & Elegy

Ode to the Ace of Spades

To most, simply a card without a price,

The ace of spades, a card unequaled in

Authority, when used too much a vice,

A card of splendor, little like its kin

To me a sign, a representation

Of memories lost long ago within

A bond of brotherhood, revelation

To what our own relationship has been

Foremost a card, a symbol next, to us

A gateway to the ghost that is the past,

A van, a deck, a song, a face, a bus

A card that makes me calm and stand aghast

Elegy of Grandparents Lost

Not one, not two, not three, but four I lost

My grandparents gone to a better place

Kind souls now extinguished, peace at a cost

For us on earth, a part we can’t replace

Full to the brim with faith, unending strength

So wise, so calm, so filled with peace and grace,

The happiness I’ll never find, the strength

I’ll never have, now that they’re in their place

Although there’ll be some things I’ll never see,

I know there’ll be the peace I find today

A peace that only one above can bequeath

I’ll never have to wonder what will stay