Home Again

you gave your body to the lonely

but you took everything from me

you were making plans about

making better plans about

taking life in your own hands

how'd that work out for you?

you gave your body to the lonely

you even gave it all to me

falling, failing, wondering

we cry ourselves to sleep

hoping for the bodies of the lonely

maybe that's all we need

Stevens says a man

gave his life to the lonely

He sounds like a better man than me.

Athena

Hello darling is the exclamation

when memory finds its way

to the writer's desk in your

head.

Growing old and retired is never the plot,

but I would pen my life away

if you would do the same.

We will wake to waking light with our

writers' desks pressed together

brush hair with my fingers

no fear of hurting you with

gentleness

there is a sea of paper rocks

surrounding me in need of cleaning

or burning. The kindling could

warm a home if it had a spark,

and I've yet to find

the fire man that carries matches

or a pen and paper to write down

the names of burn victims, just to watch

them blacken and become ash like everything

in the end.

There is no one absurd enough to marry itself

to the idea. I am the painting they couldn't

save when the White House burned down.

That's the fear locked away

so far from civilization

married to others because it

seems so frail and weak

but it's the most dangerous thing in my pocket

being forgotten, insignificant, lost to time,

never having mattered to anyone at all.

That's the sweat-stained, crying, writing,

painting, burning

absurd.

I'd hate to show you what I write in my head

because there are too many suicide notes,

but you know that because you wrote

the same thing, only you wrote it before.

As I die on the floor of a room that wasn't even mine,

you smile down at me.

I can't hold on.

Light me as the beacon to incoming

ships, though I only want one to be there when I'm

ready to leave.

I write as many wishes as notes, you know

play God when I wake fifty years hence

and you're next to me because you won't be a day

older than today, you're immortal

Athena, wisdom, victory

I'll whisper to you all the secrets

a man can learn if you'll put

me in my place with all of the cabinets, drawers,

and cupboards your craftsman made before I knew

what type of creature you were.

Yes the bedroom floor is fine for me

I'd sleep anywhere to be near you even

on the end of a sword, spitting up

the last cardinals that tweet in the

breeze of my breath.

That would be find with me, because the last thought

taking the stage

will be a white and glowing, naked

form of the most precious immortal.

My eyes, they won't leave that sight

even after the quieting of the

earth-quaking applause.

Cranes

Their mouths whisper close to each other

Two cranes wrap their legs around

It's summer, always summer

For the cranes

Winter is the other man, yet

there is but one mouth

Moving, never speaking

Fatal scent in the air

Destruction is a putrid word

And hope is not in my lexicon

The other man was Napoleon

Never conquering cranes

Sacrificial lambs to the forces that

Haven't begun to speak

This is no complaint

It's about cranes that cannot migrate

Because they don't know how.

Hope - Not Really

I need it

the trumpet blast of hope

like the overpass addicts

eyes rolling into their heads

to stare at the graffitied walls

supporting their crooked spines

while the shiny car-ed obliviates

pass by thinking the convulsing

hobo is about to sprout wings

and bring back the Christ-child

Blind,

caves of urban walls, slums shanties

piling people in to the cattle car

I'm scared of the dark to come

it's the fear and revulsion

from the thought of a razor

pressing down down down

into goose bump-painted flesh

I don't know what you do

anymore.

Not anymore, with

diamonds and gold

worth more than faith in something

everything to nothing is all you've ever

asked for. A shame I won't give it

as many wouldn't condemn another

to piss themselves warm

and eat others for sustenance

but that happened already

there's hope for your dreams yet.

The Shed

The pebbles dance along the strings like her feet

along the worn wooden floor. At once it was

apparent on an awestruck summer's eve

that Molly and Mary would never be found

hiding in Grandpa's old tool shed. Pebbles

plucking the heart strings of a girl as they tap

lightly on the window pane, one could

mistake it for rain but for her hopeful imagination

The air is filled with the buzz of yellow

fireflies, winking on and off then on and off.

They are the prancing pebbles along cricket

orchestras. She used to dance quite often.

And Molly and Mary kissed for the first time,

hoping never to be found. But she stopped dancing

for us when Grandpa opened the shed.

Then again, still, when she left the curtains

blowing in the wind.

Red Dress Alone

glancing 'round I see a full moon

pale against the dark suits of others

you are wrapped in red as if to tell me

all at once of love, of fire, and of a wound.

But my wife-to-be is cloaked in white

like your face, so pure, but there is

no hurt in this one's virgin dress

those craters lie somewhere

behind your eyes, she has none.

If not for pride, you would not set foot

in this quaint, little chapel. They would

burn you for the witch you are, licentious

and cold. Cold as the void that you filled once

now bled dry. "Because power is more than

any poor politician or capitalist could ever

dream up," you said. I can hear you

whispering that through eyes, black

with deepest hidden hate. I laughed

nervously at that then.

Now you are just a ghost of a ghost. You

haunt yourself. And I know because of

the late night calls that are silent

but for the almost concealed tear,

forming the diamond on her finger.

There is nothing left to say now.

The vows are read and I look into whole

eyes of the most warm, lacquered wood

and sigh such relief that I was right, "power

is the satisfaction I get from walking away."

She and I kiss to cheers and clapping

but it's silent to me because someone's hands

are still as death. They think this is

a funeral. Turning to look, I realize

you were never there at all.