memo left on yellow notepads

the resonance of tides in the sighs of an old man

with a demented back, empty beer can

and crooked disposition sinking,

in a dysfunction of a life

evaporating from the surface of his face

glazed with the disgust of Saigon’s Mondays

hearing blindness and seeing rolling thunders

in a hiatus of his criminal tendencies and faultless blunders

to be left, as the stone that the builder rejected

only to capsize his new ark in Newark’s mess

trenched in subjective thrones, echoing bells of distant funeral homes

to tell both sides of a story, one of a patriot and malcontent

written in unspoken words

guilty lullabies sickly putting him to rest

through the sleepless evenings

mind’s wounds wrapped in dying naïveté and faltered reasoning

when August breeze released, between breaths, to space out his steps, bad habits, grace, and old ways

lines of his palms wrinkled into lines of psalms

and at last he regretted in never seeking covenant with fragmented traces of joy

he had once found in the blackest abyss

and in his demise, with his failing eyes, he realized

that which he had never claimed moments before his put to peace

had been there from his start to finish

depicting an unnamed soldier on a painting without a frame

she reflected, on the fruition of her dreams

she stayed dry-hearted but relinquished her tears in a stream

in a revelation of what seemed

reminiscent, seeking the diamonds of her youth

that was devoted to conflicts of the restless and tumultuous truths

innocent heart in a written page of her honest prose still unfazed, came alive to her sentimental old age

memories, suddenly inundating her mind,

reminding her of her past in one final moment of atonement

she had realized what her husband’s words meant

conceiving one’s beauty and regret in sharp images of a passionate mask above a generational task

flashed back to a time she simply couldn’t grasp

in a mere slumber,

far beyond the stars of her somber, yet prideful countenance that longed to endure amongst her children

only to have spoken of the distance between her unspoken words that she’d let

into the depths of her brilliant resilience

to echo through many caves and undisturbed provinces

naked eyes and silent skies, whose moons she yearned to have had whispered back

and would have felt the warmth

as one feels in the naïveté of a dove

as one feels in of death and its love

one that’s undead only between a thoughtless boy and a girl.

And to think, she breathed for his last to have told the bravest story ever known, one of an ordinary love growing old.