estranged raze landmark a million miles from home birthmark on powdered porous stone psychic apparatus hurtles through the homicidal wind leaving all it cannot carry fractional, sensational 150625 ... e_o_i (I like the verb hurtles. Verb hurdles. I like the spike of the ragged words.) Unrelated to poem, related to b_side if I put him there: I wish people didn't think not talking is a good way to break up. Tell me. Because I'm not good at making the first move and I'm a hypocrite. Tell you. I don't know what to do. 150625 ... ovenbird My father’s father was a mystery. He and my grandmother were divorced when dad was small, then alcoholism eroded any relationship they might have had. He communicated his existence in gifts–a huge fluffy stuffed cat, purple boots covered in flowers, a dress with a crinoline under the skirt. I didn’t understand the word estranged. How could your own father become a stranger? I know now that my dad withheld my brother and I to keep us safe. I know now what sacrifices that entailed, what hurt and torment it necessitated. My grandfather died when I was ten. His unquenchable thirst destroyed his insides and claimed him. At the funeral home there was only an urn of ashes on display so I didn’t get to see the evidence of his life laid out for the last time. While I was lost in fear and confusion, my grandfather’s second wife came to sit beside me. “I just want you to know,” she said softly, “that your grandfather loved you.” She paused, struggling, “He used to drive by your house around the time school was ending, to see if you might be there, to see if he could catch just a glimpse of you.” The accordion folds of the past all sprung open and, sometimes, I still flip the pages of that book–the story of a man who might have known me, but failed again and again to see it through. 250609 what's it to you? who go blather from