Too Late the Echo

When the Echoes Die

For months I clung to that hope: “No such thing
as too late . . .” Its echo the gravity
holding me close to that old orbit. Now
its echoes die away if not into
impossibility, then into slim
probability. Lost outside her light,
I listen for hints of hope, search shadows
within shadows without knowing not what
these distances hold outside love’s orbit.
“No such thing as too late . . .” echoes far
off, trailing into the past—such thing as
too late . . . these echoes die . . . and now spinning
into outer darkness, swallowed by these
shadows of my own making, I hear, “. . . too late . . .”

Daivd M Pitchford
18 November 2009

Broken of Promise

Carefree & Pathological

I’m bankrupt. Financial, spiritual,
and moral destitution imprison
me to a new freedom born of pathos
and desperation. Ease? I don’t feel it
facing the fire of burnt bridges, choking
on the smoke, buried in the wreckage I
have turned to face, to own, to make amends
where possible. Not a softer path, nor
an easier way . . . but a better way
of living day to day, the past behind,
future undetermined. And now, sober,
I stand before you—rail away if it
helps you. No defense. No denial. Truth,
honesty—these my only crutches now. 

David M Pitchford
12 October 2009

Abating

Madness Abating

These past few hours, peaceful
how long since I’ve been at peace
tumults of my own making
plagued me more days than I recall

Now, I’m learning again
to believe in miracles
watching one hour at a time
sober and accepting

as life unfolds with new meaning
and though old ghosts may haunt
I walk paths of serenity
heart open to the wide world
mind open to solutions
spirit open to hope and miracle.

28 October 2009
David M Pitchford

Swimming through Stone

Swimming Through Stone

“The drowned cannot swim” and yet drowning comes

harder than once thought. That whiskey river

flowed deep and fast—twenty years swimming drunk

through three marriages and more affairs than

any man should curse himself with, and you

were my rock, my respite buoy and lifeline—

I tried to drown to protect you from me,

but courage failed. Living that way—dead end—

thinking you’re drowned only to find yourself

swimming through stone, heart and mind in the grave

while your stubborn soul clings to earthly life . . .

longing for death, sinking in denial

and swimming against granite grain, we strain

toward life, striving to sober up and live. 

19 October 2009
David M Pitchford

Grounding

Grounded

I still feel your gravity
          and I want to be
                    grounded to the world that is YOU

David M Pitchford
12 October 2009

Runs-with-Sticks (for Sevannah)

Runs-with-sticks and the Broken Man

Sunlight glints off burnished copper curls
she runs with sticks
Mother laughing, secure in her safety
Grandma scolds, “you could put an eye out!”
And I, a broken man
watch in silent delight laden
with a thousand speculations:
how can a broken man
be trusted to love your mother?
 
All summer I’ve watched, adoring
though too tightly wound within myself
—within my own head—
to do much but watch
and flinch when your voice
pierces my ears with pain
while my heart leaps with joy
seeing you joyful
running with sticks
jumping barefoot onto rocks
scraping a knee and leaping back up
to run over rocks again
finding new and bigger sticks
collecting the smooth stones
and cicada shells, though they
bring shivers to your beautiful mother
 
But now summer is gone
and too late, your mother having moved on
to be with another,
I realize that a broken man’s love
is no less safe than running with sticks
the greater danger is falling—
now, fallen and broken more,
I know that the loving was
inevitable; the falling was not,
but born of fear and tripping
on tethers from the past
terrors of future failure imagined
now become self-fulfilled prophecy.
 
Like you, runs-with-sticks,
I’m jumping up, brushing off the dust
and running into the sun.

David M Pitchford
28 September 2009

Love Song for Aimee

Love Song For Aimee

I wanted to write you a love song
pitched to your sweet voice, perfectly
sitting out on the stoop, reading poetry
practicing lyrics while you fell
further out of love waiting
for me to find my voice
for me to interview my heart
and learn the truth, what was there . . .
 
But the rhymes came out imperfect
voice caught in my throat
constricted by fear and the flotsam
of old loves, of broken dreams,
of betrayals and desertions
 
I wanted to write you a love song
pitched the precise blue of your eyes
—why haven’t I told you the beauty I see there?
Now I sit on this black metal love seat
glider too rusted through to seat two
the lyrics come too late for love
new abandonment & new love lost
constrict my throat further
and I can’t sing you a love song
over the wooing words of your new joy
and the cries of my heart over new loss.

One not given to clinging to bitterness,
I find in the flotsam these true words:
I love you
I wish you well.

David M Pitchford
26 September 2009

After Anne Sexton

The Dead Know (After Anne Sexton)

We live merely by grace of pulse, soft throb
of heart pumping, squeaking gallows of our lungs
sucking one breath after another, rungs
of some prophet’s ladder—angel tries to rob
our feet of purchase each step—for all we sob
and gasp and cry and cheer, our songs are sung
for the living (even the dirge is sung
to comfort these). Yet living hearts will throb
 
and strive and lust for life until the grave
reaches from beneath the Earth to capture
its bounty back and pull all down, swallow
life in Death’s inimical gravity . . .
What do the Dead know of life’s sweet rapture
but memoried rot in which they wallow?

David M Pitchford
18 September 2009