A cold wind blew through the vestibule,
tussling the tongues of flame
on the candles powering parishioners’ prayers.
Would one ill-timed entrant extinguish all those vows and well-wishes?
The flames did a shimmy dance,
but remained lit —
save one.
In the graveyard kneel so many mourning, wailing widows and widowers — weak-kneed and hanging off tombstones.
Carved of marble or cast of bronze, and meant to last an eon.
How odd to imagine a permanent mourner.
In the time marble can be carved, I’d prefer any subject on my gravestone to be captured leaning back in a boisterous belly-laugh with a beer can in hand.
In my dream, I stood upon a bridge,
but not upon the suicide ledge.
Mesmerized by sparkles on still water,
I toppled over the railing all the same.
What’s the age at which dancing on a grave switches from an adorable bubbling over of life
to a
deplorable act of petty vindictiveness?
I saw a boy — clearly in the former category — pull it off,
but I knew that if I joined in the best I could hope for was an evil eye. And the worst would be to be slapped, kicked, or spat upon.
For I long ago crossed the river of innocence beyond which lie presumptions of foul intent.
An ever-watchful Orphean world keeps me from crossing back over that Stygian river.
Oh, to live life on the other bank.
High enough to glimpse the tail of the serpentine river that snakes through town.
I thought about the marriage of possibilities created by that ceaseless flow.
And all seemed possible under heaven and on earth.
a crow caws
standing on a stout post
black eye watching
a child wonders,
beyond this rainy valley,
is it white?
nothing scurries
but mushrooms sprout
wet forest floor
lonely bus stop
one man waits for a nearly
empty bus
streaks of blue
viewed through cloudy skies
a bird hops
At the sight of I know not what,
something — or, maybe, someone —pointed out by his grinning granny,
I saw a boy run in place,
overcome by enthusiasm from the waist down —
like a cherubic Michael Flatley sans the coordination, but with exuberance to spare.
At the sight of the boy,
I couldn’t help but ask myself when my idle setting got turned down so low.
Surely, once upon a time, there was something that so excited me that my limbs bypassed central control and spastically did their own thing…
but I can’t remember when.
geometry of gunfire
ricochet went that way
the spray of spall tells all
some silent medium
will gauge the victim’s run
with
visions of a smoking gun
… and you thought you hated Euclid in High School
Precognition?
I barely have post-cognition —
which is to say, memory.
I have memories of memories of a world that never was.
Cobbled together hopes, dreams, and fears made into a montage of me.
One could chip away at what never was, but I’m not sure reality could support it’s own weight.
What was might end up a toxic rubble, steaming away into nothingness.
bitter winds
slice down from the north
so bone cold
damp air sinks
hangs as a cloak of cold
a straitjacket
starry skies
viewed through tent flap crescent
arctic outhouse
cold awakens
each moment, a moment lived
satori by ice
brisk joy
the skater’s frisson
feels electric
