devil dogs on the doorstep
iron eyes on coming guests
something sacred lies behind
the dual beasts do attest

but what could lie behind
a door so wonky and worn
perhaps someone long gone
whom the dogs refused to mourn

like Hachikō, they’ll never go
frozen by their immortal woe

a spoon rhythmically tinks against a porcelain cup

the cup rotates in digital jerks in the saucer divot, like the clockwork gears of a spastic universe

only the sugar packets are silent

well, not silent, but you’d have to turn down the volume on the tinking cup

not to mention the crumbling buildings — which sound like wheelbarrow loads of bricks being dumped onto piles of bricks– clapping against, and sliding over, each other

if you could turn off all that, plus the thrum of your own neck pulse

then you’d hear the faint maracas, granules against the paper tube

mossy Mary stands in the churchyard

seemingly having seen eons go by

an ancient watcher, still and silent

can’t you see searching  in her eye?

but what truths find light in old churchyards

what story can a pack of absences tell?

— the cold, quiet  of a forsaken church

a dumb bell, and a graveyard smell

“Miles to go,” so they say.

I’ve lost the light of future days.

All that remains is hour on hour —

strung along from tower to tower.

In the dark, by the screen’s glow,

and my charge is getting low.

When it zeroes, I’ll be shut out

of that which knows what it’s about.

In the dark, no shore in sight.

I glide, no hope of coming light.

They say there’s a fix of clarity,

if you can find Midnight Charity.

“Names are for the living.
“Names are for the loyal,”

So they told him,
when they swapped name to number.

He had too many questions
for a dictator’s lackey to tolerate,

“Is six alive? How about five?
“Is there an eight? How ’bout a nine?
“Do they live and die in ordered time?

“Or is each end a random call?
“Toss a coin, and let it fall?
“Let it roll, till it shows a face,
“Heads a bullet, tails for grace
“I’ll take the end that’s certain and dire,
“before letting chance choose when I’m retired.”

“But seven is such a lucky number.”

walking in the street
after the sun has set

No streetlights
No porch lights
No headlamps
No torch lights
No box-lit sign for the butcher
No neon sign for the barber
just the dim hypnotic flicker of screens

like swimming a benighted sea
knowing other life teems unseen
sometimes a face drifts into view
and you pivot to avoid collision
or maybe just drift vaguely past

one word rattles in you brain:

SHARKS

Are there sharks?
Where are the sharks?
Will I see the shark,
before I feel the shark?