whelve

 

i’m just your average handyman…

 

‘whelve’ 

my father kept many tools i never knew how to use. little boy hands still feel little boy in adult bones. remarkably he transferred his sins into the soil of all my pores but to this day i can’t fix a thing. when he moved on i took his toolbox heavy as all the burdens he never spoke a word of and just as cool. in a side room off from my basement he waits to be mended but i’ve closed him to the dark. i can smell his curses mushrooming like smoke from diesel stacks and his words linger longer than summer did when i was six. loose screws require the perfect twist but all falls apart when stripped. he’d call me useless in those bursts of deflection and dutifully my eyes fell to the dirt under my nails. i’m sorely scrubbed now and the irony is i no longer feel under my fingertips. the apple falls no farther from the tree nor does a bent angle lean from its foundation. i pound with fury all that no longer fits foregoing his wrenches. round holes don’t accept five knuckles but i’ve the flayed skin to prove that’s not fucking true at all.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

pernoctation

 

there is no still, even in dark…

 

‘pernoctation’

 

another then another more. so much time elapsed yet you’re home in all my minutes spent. there’s no keeping glass from lips the way i can’t alter your cells from my bones. another dark eve of legs’ serenade and what can i say i’m rubbed the wrong way by my angel’s promise of our dissolution of silence. i’ll wear this floor thin, your voice and the songs i loop for you commanding my head. the house nor the crickets rearrange their patterning to my noise and that’s when i suffer in plain sight and no one knows. how can i sleep hoping this night might be the one, how can i collapse within myself when i have never stopped collapsing into you. my phone a tombstone yet i believe the dead can rise again. another then another more. these pours measure the distance between reality and a lie. i suppose that’s why so much of what i drink lingers under my tongue. upon death it is said we repeat into which we expended our energy most. so i am destined an eternity of blurred vision and vesper’s chafing across skin, uneven footing dragging the chains of devotion. fear the haunting ghost but most disregard the damned cupping a flame with conceptionless hands.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

‘see you later’

 

I am beyond crushed to have said ‘see you later’ to a dear soul and friend last week.

Remy was not my dog but he was family. For years, I had the pleasure of walking him to help my neighbors out when they couldn’t get home in time, and he would often stay weekends at my house while they were away. At one point, Remy lived here nearly 5 months while their place underwent construction. He instantly made my house his…the way he made all of us his own. My daughter loved him dearly, as he did in turn. The bestest of friends, he always brought to her the gentlest, purest of hearts.

Channeling into Remy’s energy, I assisted in his crossing over from the comfort of his home, in the comfort of all those he loved and who loved him. Despite what you might see and read, there’s nothing glamorous about being a true healer. You do what you do because you are called to do it. Being a healer doesn’t always mean you make something, or someone, whole again. Being a healer sometimes means channeling unconditional love to ease the letting go.

Aside from bringing my own dog to rest many years ago, it was the most humbling, heart wrenching, beautiful of experiences.

Remy was a 125 pound giant who carried a noble, elegant knowing within that frame. I am blessed to carry him forward now in my heart.

I love you, big boy.

 

pneumatophany

 

i am to be cleaned up after…

 

‘pneumatophany’

there are five stages to grief and i’ve got two hands, ten fingers. wiggle them fast enough and it’s goodbye. i told my mother i had died. she said that’s nice and went about vacuuming the living from the room. from that point i didn’t trouble her to share the news. you have all scraped the value from my existence like burnt edges from toast anyway. pass something through flame and it’s either transformed or destroyed. why then do you pity the ashes while the new chassis denied? i didn’t ask for this deliverance into the light i was thrust any more than i’d begged to be heard over her old electrolux. decades later and those floors are no cleaner. now here we are. mother won’t answer my call from the other side so on the rare instance i visit i am mindful to keep my charred appearance as not to scare her.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

 

sciamachy

something’s trailing and it’s always me…

‘sciamachy’

 and will we be? and will we be? and will we be? and what will we be, aside the nothing we are. round and round slaughtering the sheep and perhaps i’d sleep had not blood steeped this bed. sliver of moon about the only thing cutting this head open to rationale. settle in, and down, and dream, guides say from beyond the veil and i would had they left instruction. instead crickets rub their legs with a scratch above more than i can bear and punches thrown across the wall go ducked. i want you cast from head to heart and wondering when will we be us leaves me fucked beyond recognition. i never asked to meet you but you came thundering in and like lightning flashed out. so how do i go on when every step illuminates another path you’re not found? why the weight worn when my soul holds your love in a state of buoyancy? punch the bully first and don’t stop i was taught and yet have i kept my brain from spinning. constellations perforate ruminations and for a slow moment something so far away falls down across my fingertips.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

 

corps

 

momma…just killed a man…

 

corps 

it’s never been about the good you have said but the supportive you haven’t. frayed on the inside, the diligence of tying ribbons round ribs like souls lost to war and never coming home. you wouldn’t know a thing of my patriotism in the teeth of your heavy fire. pockmarked soul the price of incoming shells and i’ll no longer be the outgoing saint i’d been. somewhere in those fields the mewl for momma while dulled surgeons and scissors fumble to cut the cord. you have failed me in such epic proportions future generations will hold my limbs and say here, the ancient man turned to slug. i drag this sack of meat before you desperate you’ll smell the rot but i am recipient only of that karmic reducing perfume of yours. ignorance never took such a fragrant path to my nose. so come holidays we’ll speak of imaginary storm fronts that threaten you worse than the notion your child wanders the front line geared in little more than dulled eyes. leave no man behind but quite obviously you forgot the boy.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

thermal

 

beware the lover who only wants a stooge…

 

thermal

between nest and sky you caught me at my weakest. advantageous you kept a suggestive mouth. cunning i filled it where the living no longer walk or speak and i despised the taste of myself whenever we kissed. you nourished my irresoluteness until fragility took to your words. i harbored resentment even as i worshipped your breasts. you never understood the rational that migratory and delusionary patterning would take me away. entertaining your flawed notion that all raised remains home, i sucked down your toting love and spat it back your way. never was i your baby boy. never i the sparkle in your eye. i flew the coop and you couldn’t cope. no longer one with your air, this chick you thought now a hawk. i circle and circle above while you believe me prey to the currents. i’ve a way to lull with outstretched wings as the blue sky disguises my intentions.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

ya’aburnee

 

and thru my fingers only air…

 

ya’ aburnee 

over and over, forced into me. be. just be. know no hour. no day. slip moments over your head like a well-worn sweater. i stand with no comfort. passing seconds make me feel no better. so dug soil percolates through my nose and here i know i will rest. eventually. your face shimmers in a glass in a palm in a mouth and all i cannot speak repeats from my gut through my heart out my soul again. i am dying without you witness to my withering. i suppose it’s all well off. animals expire alone. bones married back to earth. maybe i’m speeding the process but if you’re not coming back what’s left to wait. i’ll forgo the streamers and banners should the almighty grade my papers before yours. only an open hand bringing you home should you be so inclined. a table for two made in unassuming fashion, origami as centerpiece and my whiskey glass replaced by a bowl of milk for your cat.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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ma’goa

in all phases i’ll be your light…

 

‘ ma’goa ‘

morning carries an inching mustiness from the eve before like a secreted child. hand in hand, i walk you to school. the cool dew has slicked the leaves and i’ve care where to step. merrily you chatter on and on, the waking blue jay only more resolute than you to be heard. a glaring bright the moon slipping from full and it seems so misplaced but your knowing palm becomes my sun. we cross the street together cause you’re so small the cars so fast and what needs slowing fled me when you were born. you’ve grown thinking you need assistance when it’s been the other way around. kiss and you’re gone, string bean legs the way of stalk and i pray the kingdom you find will stay yours forever. veins and complexions under foot and though strong of heart i fear my seasons near expiration. i turn so quickly. short walk to the door but i can move on. and on. eventually i’ll become a lunar ray and when you seek mysteries i’ll be the answer. illuminating your autumn with gentle notions.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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drumsticks

 

my rhythm of taps…

 

‘drumsticks’

clear-eyed from the distance but obviously you’ve not looked quite close enough. machine gun rat-a-tat-tat marring my whites like crows stealing ahead of october night. your words still catch my lungs and not even the waking wisps from neighbors’ chimneys can clear them out. slow or fast, my feet keep the rhythm of your pounding, a redundancy without regard to the resistance of massage from fingertips to sole once shoes kick away. and there they lay on the floor, my favorite pair and my bones, all untied and sideways and waiting for something more than space to fill them. my soles are tired from wandering and my soul aches from a redundancy without regard to the nuances of triage etiquettecies. hung like damocles your insistence you’ve known me all along. it’s not your song the same but the two beat you play. for now we keep windows wide before what warmth remains the chill takes. somewhere someone burns the foliage and that makes the score marks along my ribs hurt just a little bit more.

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© Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

‘From My Front Steps,’ ‘Scotch and Scars’ and ‘A Distilled Spirit’ in paperback and Kindle ebook at Amazon.

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